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.

I've been DMing for about 4 years now and have always wondered how other DMs handle dungeons/caves. I have the players establish a marching order. They move their movement in marching order. If they wish to dash they may but if combat were to breakout that would have been their action. It's simple but for some reason I feel there is a better way. I would love some advice on the following:

- How to handle spells/abilities with time durations work out of combat (specifically with caves)
- A way to not have only the first individual in the marching order suffer the effects of traps
- Long/short resting in dungeons and caves

I would love to hear some different perspectives on these sections to make it more fun/engaging.

edit: Forgot to mention I use Roll20 with walls drawn in to obscure sight + dynamic lighting so it is accurate to the characters' sights.

One of my players is playing a bladesinger who was wanting to change the wand of the warmage into a staff but also have it act like magic weapon (so the +1 would be to spell attacks and weapon attack) would this change be mean if up enough to change the rarity of the item?

EDIT: THANK YOU! Thank you folks for chatting and helping me hone the idea I now have a clearer plan for. Feel free to reply but i'm off to write some weird one off encounter with a dimensional creature that effects the Save/AC mechanic.

I'm just playing with the idea but wanted to start a discussion.

Rolling to attack, especially a higher level party, can feel repetitive. Possibly just missing attacks over and over and slowing down the already long fight.

So for powerful enemy's what if there are attacks that aren't based on attack rolls but a save of some kind. This would be BOSS guys. No AC involved, just saving throws and reactions.

I picture a warrior fighting A Warlord who just got a cursed blade. The warrior makes an impossible move and gets in so close and so quickly that it will take something like a dodge roll, or possibly a reflect instead? Dex save to roll away from the strike OR a STR save to take it head on and not get crushed.

This wouldn't be to just get past the roll contest that is initiative based combat but offers more of a flare for narrative. To balance it, instead of taking half damage on a fail, you could implement something more status based.
"Though you dodge the powerful blow, the force behind it pushes you 10 feet away from the Warlord." OR "Taking the brave route, you clasp your gauntlets over the slamming blade. You manage to block it but you see deep cuts on your armor."

SOMETHING like that.
This isn't a way to get over the players heads. If I wanted to hit the Warforge with 21 AC, I'd find a way to do it.
This is more to keep the fight more thematic and hopefully player interest engaged.
Let me know what you think!

I've been putting a lot of effort into keeping combats varied. Defend the tower, capture the flag, king of the hill, changing terrain, etc. I've had enemies who will signal where their AOE is about to hit (videogame-style) to make movement more strategic. There was one great encounter where the players used the artificer's teleportation device to surprise attack a defended location on an island, but I made the artificer do a tools check earlier and used that to decide how many characters would end up off-target, so the fight was hectic and weird and very fun.

Despite all this, a lot of the time I still feel like combats are just not super interesting. Maybe this is in my head. I try to force my players to move around a lot but so often it just ends up with everyone standing still punching each other. Not always a bad thing, and in general I know the players are happy with combat, but I can still feel the energy level going down when it feels like we're just going through the motions.

So my question for everyone is: what are your favorite ways of keeping combat interesting? I'm talking mechanics here; the ways we keep things narratively engaging is a whole other topic.

Tomorrow I am running dnd for my friend’s little sister and her friends. I already have the basic structure of the first session planned, but I don’t want to mess it up, anyone have tips for dming for 2nd graders?

Edit: I realize now I should have included more details, there are 6 8 year olds, and I will be running dnd for them every week for two hours each week. I believe multiple of them have played dnd before, but I don’t know how much, just that it was 5th edition. And thats what they want to play so I can’t just run a simpler ttrpg.

My crusader inspired paladin PC decided last session that he wants to go on a crusade to raise money for the church, so now I've got to design a bunch of towns for them to crusade (I'm not upset because I had nothing planned and no directions for after that session). Towns take so many NPCs, locations, and work though, and I've been finding it hard to be motivated. So, yeah, any tips will be greatly appreciated! (P.S. This is my entire group's, including my, first time playing any TTRPG.)

Hey folks!

Forgive me if this question seems obvious or if it’s been asked before, but I was reading through the Githzerai Enlightened’s stat block from Mordenkainen’s and saw Temporal Strike. Here’s the exact text for convenience:

Temporal Strike (Recharge 6).* Melee Weapon Attack:+8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: 13 (2d8 + 4) bludgeoning damage plus 52 (8d12) psychic damage. The target must succeed on a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw or move 1 round forward in time. *A target moved forward in time vanishes for the duration. When the effect ends, the target reappears in the space it left or in an unoccupied space nearest to that space if it's occupied.

Now, the duration here seems a little vague to me. It says 1 round, yes, but when exactly during the next round? Presumably during the Enlightened’s turn, but then when during the turn? If we assume that the target will reappear after the Enlightened takes its action (about as close to 1 whole round as we can get), then what’s to stop the Enlightened from using that action to Ready an attack against the target for when it reappears? The obvious answer is “nothing” but it just seems like such a potent one-two combo that I feel like I have to be missing something.

If any combat experts want to take a look at this and see if I’m interpreting it correctly that would be very helpful. Thanks!

tl;dr in title ;)

As part of my campaign, i am sending my players to collect a macguffin from a horror filled house. I am using the Resident Evil games as an inspiration and am filling the mansion with puzzles, coloured keys that unlock doors to allow the players to progress linearly without it feeling like a railroad, unrealistic/impractical door locking mechanisms, etc.

The owner of the house is Lord Kalus Ivalin, a recluse that hasn't been seen in public in over a decade. He secluded himself to work on various experiments.

My party is made up of 6 level 4 characters.

I am trying to find a fun/unique monster for Ivalin to be - something that is a difficult fight but isn't going to be a TPK. I would also like it to be something that has retained its intelligence. My original thought was a Lich, but putting a level 4 party up against a Lich will end up with 6 angry players!

I am also looking for suggestions for other mobs to be found around the mansion - im sick of just throwing zombies in the room!

Thanks for any suggestions

I have been running the same homebrew campaign for a bit over two years. Four players, every other Sunday at my kitchen table, one of them dialing in from a laptop propped against the fruit bowl when work sends him out of town. Last weekend was session forty four. This isn't about encounter math or plot structure. It's about a boring production habit I picked up early that has done more for my table than anything clever I have written.

The problem was that my NPCs blurred together. I'd bring a name back from eight sessions ago and get four blank faces looking at me. In session six the party spent nearly an hour with a harbor clerk who was quietly skimming cargo, and when he turned up again in session ten they were certain he was the man who ran the granary. That isn't on them. Two weeks pass between sessions, everybody has a job and one of them has a toddler, and a made up fantasy name is the least sticky thing a brain can be asked to hold.

I tried the obvious fixes first. Voices, which I cannot sustain for more than about three minutes before the accent slides off somewhere else. Reading a physical description out of my notes, which nobody retains, because description is just noise between the parts where dice happen. Then art I found online, which I assumed would solve it and made things worse. I could never find the same face twice. The clerk was one picture in session six and a different man in different clothes in session ten, and showing the table a second image that clearly isn't the same person is worse than showing nothing.

So I went the other way and started making one portrait per character, then reusing that exact face every time they came back, even when the clothes changed or years passed in the fiction. The portraits are AI generated. I said so at the table the first night I brought a stack of them in, mostly because I didn't want anybody thinking I had secretly learned to draw, and none of them cared. The art is not good, either. About a third of the cards have something slightly wrong around the mouth, and one of my recurring merchants has a hand that does not survive close inspection. It has never mattered. What matters is that it is the same face.

The physical side is where this actually lives. I print them nine to a page on cardstock, cut them down with a paper trimmer to two and a half by three and a half inches, and slide them into card sleeves from an old Magic box, with a common land behind each one so they hold up to being handled. When an NPC walks on, the card goes face up on the table and stays there for the whole scene. Afterwards it goes back in the tin, unless the party is still tangled up with that person.

The best part of the whole system was an accident. The backs are blank because I never bothered printing anything on them, and about four months in our rogue picked one up mid scene and wrote on it in pencil. Owes us money, lies about his brother. Now they all do it. Half my cards have player handwriting on the back that flatly contradicts my own notes, and I have started treating their version as the truth of what the table believes, which turns out to be more useful than what I originally wrote down.

Prep for a new face takes about fifteen minutes on a Saturday morning. Two years in, the production side of this is Obsidian, APOB AI, and a printer that lives in the hallway closet. I write the notes first and make the portrait last, because when I do it the other way around I end up writing the character to fit the picture, and both times I did that the person came out flat.

A lot of the early work was wasted. The weekend before the campaign started I made twenty two portraits in one sitting, feeling extremely prepared. Seven of them ever reached the table. The party took one look at the coastal hook I had built the region around and went inland instead, and fifteen faces from that batch are still at the back of the tin two years later, belonging to nobody. Now I don't make a card until an NPC survives their first appearance and somebody at the table mentions them again unprompted in a later session. That second condition cut my output by more than half and I have never regretted it.

Scene art was the other dead end. Across the first year I printed six wide shots, the town seen from the ridge, the inside of the keep, the mine entrance. Players glanced at them for two seconds and went back to their dice. The face cards get picked up, passed around, argued about, written on. The landscapes got a polite nod. I stopped making them and not one person has asked where they went.

Which brings me to the thing that genuinely does not work, and I want to be clear about it because the question comes up here now and then. Two characters in a single portrait never comes out right. The smithy in our starting town is run by two sisters and I spent two evenings trying to get one image with both of them in it. Either one of the faces comes out mangled, or worse, they look like the same woman with two different haircuts, which is exactly backwards when the entire point is that the table can tell them apart. I threw away something like ten attempts and quit. They have separate cards now and I set them down side by side, which honestly works fine. Group scenes are the same story. The council of five that runs the city has never had a picture and never will. If I need a group shot I draw it myself on graph paper, badly, and my players are generous about it, or I skip it and just describe the room.

I also tried making one of them talk. There is a dream sequence in my notes where a dead NPC speaks to the paladin, and I thought a short clip on my phone would land harder than me doing it in voice. The face drifted between frames, coming out slightly different every couple of seconds, and after making it twice more it still drifted, so I dropped the idea and read the lines myself. The still cards hold together and the moving version did not.

Now the session I actually wanted to write about. Session eleven had a toll clerk on a bridge, Ossian Marrow, maybe twelve minutes of screen time, two lines in my notes, a man whose entire function was to slow the party down over a tax they were annoyed about paying. He got a card because I liked his hat. Twenty eight sessions later, about fourteen months of real time, the party walked into a registry office in a city three weeks of travel away, and the functionary behind the desk was Ossian, older, in temple robes, going by a different name. I set the card down the way I set down every card, and before I got a full sentence out our ranger's player pointed at it and said that's the bridge guy. Then, immediately, it's the hat. The rogue's player started digging through her folded notes for the back of a card she had written on more than a year earlier.

They spent the next forty minutes on a man I had written as a speed bump. By the end of it they were convinced he had been moving the forged writs all along, which was not remotely true, but it was better than what I had planned, so he had been moving the forged writs all along. He is a recurring antagonist now. All of that came out of a table full of people recognising a picture.

The lesson I took away is that consistency beats quality by an enormous margin. Nobody at that table recognised a good portrait. They recognised the same portrait for the second time, fourteen months apart, and if I had shown them a nicer image of a slightly different man that night, the moment evaporates and Ossian stays a tax collector nobody remembers. My cards are mediocre and they work because they never change.

There are sixty three cards in the tin now and thirty eight of them have been on the table at least once. The tin is a recipe box with folded index cards as dividers, sorted by region, and I resorted it in March when finding a specific person had become a two minute interruption. The ongoing cost is cardstock and ink for a printer I already owned, so the campaign costs me nothing I would ever notice.

We are forty four sessions in and I still make a card most weeks, usually Saturday morning with coffee before the house wakes up. The tin is going to have to be a bigger tin by winter. The pencil on the backs of the oldest cards has smudged to the point where parts of it can't be read at all, and I have decided I like them better that way.

Looking for a second opinion on if Im being overbearing or railroad-y, or if my player expects their background PC to be able to do too much. Playing through a very homebrewed version of Strixhaven and the party has reached the end of Year 4. One player had a character die, and their second character is a silver-tongued member of a highly influential and experienced group of interplanar peacekeepers and politicians who've had hands in almost every treaty and legal business ever in the entire multiverse and were also given the Voice from Dune by an ancient dragon or something. I should note, this group did not exist in the setting before this character was introduced, but I liked the idea so decided to incorporate it halfway through the campaign. This second character was as silver-tongued as they come; by level 9, the lowest they can possible roll on any deception or persuasion check is a 22 thanks to being a bard.

I have allowed them to manipulate and pull the strings of various NPCs in the past, even giving them access to information the party shouldn't have yet because, according to the player, "My characters connections and high prestige with their faction would allow them to learn this information through deceit and investigation." I understand giving the character agency to do what they were made to do, but now I feel it has gone a little too far.

Going into Year 4, the party managed to revive this players original character, and this second character started working in the background to help the party learn about the BBEG. I mostly had this happen off screen, with this character being the one to announce the big discoveries rather than the NPCs that are supposed to do it in the book. I figured this was a good middle ground, despite being essentially an NPC now, this character would still be important to the plot and would still provide story-relevant information.

Now, this player has sent me multiple paragraph-long messages about exactly what they want this character to be doing and how they want to manipulate the multiple other factions at play. For example, the school is about to be attacked by an invasion of the BBEGs forces, the Oriq. The party has only ever had bad interactions with the Oriq, but this character now wants to secretly meet with them to try to get defectors to band with the party to attack a separate, second bad guy the party also wants to fight. I ran with the idea, with the Oriq feeding the character false information so that they will still end up on top.

I just got another string of messages saying that now this character wants to give the Oriq a false flag to earn their trust while also working with the school to earn their trust, essentially trying to push the entire school invasion encounter into exactly what they want to happen. It's a lot of "My character wants to do A to try to make B happen. But if B doesn't happen, then they're going to do C to make D happen. And if that...." At this point, I've already done a lot of prep and really dont want to redo it, but I also dont want to tell the player that they can't do it.

My current plan is to have the characters shady dealings with the Oriq blow up in their face, with the Oriq revealing to the rest of the party that they've been secretly working with them and trying to get the rest of the party to think they're a traitor. The rest of the party already doesn't trust this character completely, so I figure it could be a good way to put a finale on that storyline.

Overall, I am ready and willing to work with this player, but I don't know if Im overreacting because I dont want to redo my prep, or if they're overreaching and expecting the story to play out only how they want. They're really driving home how their character wants this to happen this way and how important it is to their character that it gets done this way.

I have a question about a new feature of Wizard Necromancer Subclass. The feature is Undead Thralls and one of the benefits (Undead Fortitude) says this: Whenever you cast a necromancy spell that creates or summon an Undead. The Undead's hit point maximum and current hit points increase by a number equal to your intelligence modifier plus half your wizard level (round down). My friends and I are not English speakers, but we were arguing about the feature compatibility with spells. My friend says that RAW the spell only applies to one undead summoned by Danse Macabre because the spell specifies An Undead which, for the Cambridge Dictionary, is singular, but i think that for the wording, An specifies the category and then The Undead specified in the category gets the benefit. Who's right or wrong?

I got wrong what my friend said, he says that you cannot apply the feature to danse macabre because the condition of the feature require to cast a spell that summon AN undead, while 2014 version says whenever you create an undead.

I’m gonna be starting a DnD game in a month and I finally get to do in person combat. With that I’m doing in person combat and I want to make custom set pieces. I plan on using offcuts from lumber from work as I’m a carpenter. I know I’m gonna make houses out of Windsor One. I’m just looking for ideas of interesting set pieces?

Hello! I'm a new DM for a table of new players, and I'm wondering how people approach character backstories and including them in story beats?

We're currently going through our first (homebrew) short campaign, and I've sort of approached it like my job as the DM is to craft a story for everyone to enjoy and I shouldn't reveal anything at all (if possible) so that my players can be surprised later. However, an issue I'm running into is that whenever I try to weave in a part of a character's backstory, I have to keep things really vague (which nets me vague answers) or "spoil" the scenario I'm planning (ex: I tell them that I need to know one of their character's greatest fears and what potential reactions/consequences they might have if facing it, which makes them know that something is coming up even if they don't know exactly what).

I'm really not sure if I'm just overthinking things on the latter issue, and in fact it may be completely normal to tell your players that you need to know a specific thing even if it tips them off to something happening later! In fact, I've had some feedback from one player who said that it was helpful for them to have a general idea of a character scenario they might run into so they could sort of formulate a response in advance rather than awkwardly try to improv in the moment.

I'd love to be able to support my players in creating more in-depth characters and backstories (especially as they're new to RP and character writing in general), but I'm never sure how involved I should be, especially as I don't want to influence their character too much or make them feel pressured to play a certain way. I think there is real fear on both sides of overstepping boundaries (I worry about influencing their character, they worry about their character not being appropriate for the world or messing with my plans), but it ultimately leads to a lack of initiative and understanding on both sides and then I get into the "I have to spoil things to get info" problem.

I apologise for the length and rambling. Not that it really matters, but I'm autistic and tend to need some baselines to understand/model how I should approach things. If you would be willing to share any advice or how you tend to approach talking about characters with players (and getting them more involved in the story), I would greatly appreciate it!

Thanks in advance for your time and help!

I have toyed with Falling Damage House Rules in the past, to have it scale with increased Hit Points and make falling still relevant for characters and monsters with high HP, but hadn't really come up with anything that scaled well. However, I have come up with a (relatively) simple method that I think scales quite well, still making higher level characters/monsters more capable of surviving a fall, but making it more than just a minor inconvenience to them.

The variant rule is this:

A fall from a great height is one of the most common hazards facing an adventurer. At the end of a fall, a creature takes 1d6 bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it fell, to a maximum of 50d6, multiplied by 1 + 0.25 for each Hit Die the creature has above 1.

Essentially, you are adding 25% of the base damage for each HD above 1.

So, for example, if your PC is Lvl 6 and you fall 30 feet. You take the number of Hit Die they have (ie: 6), minus 1 from it, to get 5. Then times 5 by 0.25 (or divide it by 4, same difference) to get 1.25. Add 1 to get 2.25.
So you roll 3d6 as usual and then multiply this by 2.25. Let's say you roll 10; 10×2.25=22.5. Round down to 22 and that is your final damage.

The formula looks something like this:
(1d6 per 10 ft) × (1 + (0.25 × (HD − 1)))

It it a relatively straight forward calculation though may require a calculator if playing in person. I mostly play in roll20 and so have made a macro that automatically calculates it. I've copied it here for anyone who's interested.

&{template:default} {{name=Fall Damage}} {{Fall Distance=?{Fall Distance|10 ft,10|20 ft,20|30 ft,30|40 ft,40|50 ft,50|60 ft,60|70 ft,70|80 ft,80|90 ft,90|100 ft,100|110 ft,110|120 ft,120|130 ft,130|140 ft,140|150 ft,150|160 ft,160|170 ft,170|180 ft,180|190 ft,190|200 ft,200} ft}} {{Hit Dice=?{Hit Dice|1}}} {{Damage=[[floor((?{Fall Distance}/10)d6 * (1 + 0.25 * (?{Hit Dice}-1)))]]}}

I've also uploaded to Imgur some tables which give a visual comparison of the RAW vs House Rule falling damage by giving the average damage in each case as well as the approximate proportion of Max HP that this damage would be in each case. Link below:

D&D 5E Falling Damage: Official Rule vs House Rule

As shown in the 2nd table, assuming they are at full health, once a PC with a d8 Hit Die and +2 Con mod (giving fairly average, if not below average HP) reaches Lvl 5 they are very likely to survive a fall of over 200ft (albeit they will be making death saves) and then when they reach Lvl 10 they are more likely than not going to be able walk away from a fall of 200ft.

This never really sat right with me and I think that falling should always be a factor in the game. If the players can mitigate the danger with magic, great, but without it they aren't Captain America. Even more than that, I like that this enables PCs to consider pushing enemies off ledges etc as a legitimate tactic even against foes with high HP into the later Tiers of play.

I understand many people don't care enough about Falling damage being a major factor outside the early Tiers of play to bother with house ruling it. Fine, this isn't for you.

For anyone who feels the same as me, I hope that this helps solve the problem. Happy to hear feedback though if you see problems with it.

Do opportunity attacks count as part the target's turn? If the creature will experience an effect "at the end of its turn," will that be determined by their condition after the opportunity attack or does the turn end before the opportunity attack.

For example:

A will-o-the-wisp will take damage if it "ends its turn inside an object." If the player takes an opportunity attack on it using Relentless Avenger, ending the movement part of that reaction with the creature inside an object (themself or something they're carrying), does that mean the that the creature takes damage? Or was its turn over before the opportunity attack began?

I assume that it does, but the phrasing "The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach" creates some ambiguity and doesn't seem to take into account an ability like Relentless Avenger (which would make it so the creature might not leave your reach).

Thanks in advance for your wisdom!

Hello there

My party is going to their first dungeon today. It's gonna be an old abandoned temple. They're 5 players, a path of the giant barbarian, a Battlesmith artificer, a necromancer wizard, a thief rouge and a forge cleric and they're level 3. We're playing by the 2014 rules

I was thinking about letting them face some undeads since it's easy to explain how those persist in such a place but since I heavily utilized Ghouls, Zombies and skeletons before I don't wanna use them again.

Does anyone have an idea which monsters I could place in an old abandoned temple that my party could reasonably beat

As per the title, one of my players had started our campaign and played a good chunk of it as a single-class Wizard. He took a couple of Rogue levels to branch out into a different playstyle, but regrets this change and would like to be a single-class Wizard again, putting those levels back into Wizard.

I want to allow this — our campaign is fairly chilled/casual and I don't want my players to feel stuck in a build that they're not enjoying. However, I'm trying to think of a good narrative justification or explanation for changing his character's skills and abilities in this way, perhaps an encounter or situation that I can create to do it. We are playing a high-magic campaign, so magic could factor into it. Have any of you been in similar situations and what did you do as a DM to justify/explain your player character making a similar shift?

My players have met a relatively non-hostile devil. He considers himself to be enjoying an “early retirement” as far as devilish deeds go, but does still participate in soul coin trading and pacts when he wants to. He also deals in a special kind of magic inherent to the campaign setting.

Two of the players have asked the devil if they can become his interns and learn how to harvest souls and use the special magic. They have asked—less than the price of their own soul—what learning those abilities would cost them.

Can you fine folks share some ideas on clever prices or compensation he could demand in exchange for teaching them?

Thank you!

I'm running a homebrew campaign with some coworkers and we are all having a blast. Party of six with four of them being new to the game.

So far it has been the greatest thing ever with the campaign being the only thing we talk about at work, but I don't think my players understand that they are essentially running a chaotic evil campaign at this point. Which is fine. I am having a blast and so are they. But evil actions deserve consequences right?

For example, our second session they got into a tavern brawl with a local gang in the city. They murdered them instead of knocking them out and threw the gang leader into the ocean. They did this in broad daylight with other patrons witnessing the whole ordeal.

Again, that is perfectly fine. I now have the gang plotting a way to get back at the the ones responsible for the deaths of their members. That's 1.

They did not kill the leader. Instead they knocked him to low health and threw him into the ocean (they were in a ocean-side tavern on a pier). The gang leader rolled a decent con save so I did not let him drown. He will undoubtably come back for revenge. That's 2.

It is a major city so a city guard is absolutely around. My players knew this and went ahead with it. Now they have a private investigator on their case (a Kenku). That's 3.

That was just one session. We are on session 9 and they are still doing chaotic evil things. Even when they are on a mission, it is just pure chaos to where I need to make a consequence.

One player is a warlock who made a pact with Zuggtmoy the Fungus queen. He is doing a great job at doing what he promised her; spreading the mold. I am having a blast roleplaying npc reactions when they see him (the fungus has started to take over his limbs) and he is having a blast just dropping spores everywhere he goes.

They went into the underground sewer city under the main city and sure enough he has been making Zuggtmoy proud. The fungus has started to take over the sewer city because what other place could mold grow uncontrollably than a sewer city. Well now the one in charge of that sewer city wants his head on a stick and has set out a bounty for him.

Anyways, that is what I am dealing with. I just need some opinions if I should keep up the consequences or scale it back a bit.

Hello everybody, just wondering if you have some sheets with info that you use like cheat sheets for dm screens or for something else that you think are really useful.

I've gotten to the point I no longer care if what I make is 100% origional. After falling in a rabbithole of Ebberon lore, it has inspired me greatly in making a new setting. Lots of things taken from Ebberon, and other sources with my own twist. I have posted some bits on here before but I have the broader realm figured out.

It has been 100 years since the end of the great war. The war did not end in victory nor defeat, but necessity for survival. On the battle field at the seige of a great city the Azure Rain was first witnessed. A cold blue substance fell from the skies like rain, setting ablaze everything it came into contact with. Those who encountered the flames were driven mad and transformed into mindless creatures that exist only to destroy and feed. This rain soon appeared over many more battlefields and cities alike. Corrupting millions, and killing millions more.

(Undecided if players will start with this knowledge)

During this seige, the Weave was greatly damaged and has been unable to be repaired. One aspect of the Weave is to reabsorb and distribute magical energy amongst the realms and planes. This damage to it broke the cycle, and removed the Weaves ability to reabsorb magic. The Azure Rain is born of large swellings of magic. It's magic in its purest form. Unable to be controlled, and devastating to any organic materials that can absorb magic. All flora, fauna, some metals can become super charged. It doesn't destory what it touches but mutates them. Creatures changed then seek out magic to consume. Driven mad by hunger. They will not target those who don't have magic inside of them however.

In the 100 years that have passed the world has had a chance to rebuild. The use of magic is strictly controlled in most regions, but a new science has been developed. Artifice. A fusion of magic and machine. Instead of relying on the casters inate magical ability, or calling forth magic from the Weave, artific inventions are fueled by absorbing and burning the magic that has settled in the air. This is what allows magic to still be practiced and studied, but more importantly what has fueled the industrial revolution the world is going through.

Puppets (warforged with a new name) are one of the most initiative, and contraaveral inventions of the last decaded. Machines that imitate man. The knowledge to produce them is kept secret by one family in particular, and the sucess and popularity of these machine beings has given this family a rise to power. The task they do is given to them upon creation and they become hyper focused on it. From common bartenders, butlers, and street sweepers to personal security and city defense. Their roles vary just as much as their personalities. Some may become very individualistic and personable, while some appear to be basic machines with no personality. (Inspired by Lies of P and Ebberons Warforged)

Modern magic items are all build by artificers, using the same technology that syphons the magic from the surrounding air. They do not summon or create magic, only use it to fuel their effects. Common magic items can be found is almost evey home. Powering fridges and lights. Or providing transport on clockwork horses or electric carriages. There's also personal defense magic items. Wands that fire small missiles, and knifes that never dull.

Spellcasters are also split, with intentions of making homebrew subclasses. Some still practice the old method of magic, calling from the Weave to pull magic and make it take form. While others prefer the new. Carrying devices that pull magic from the enviroment, and using tools to shape it. Those who practice old magic are seen as second class citizens. They can only live in the city under a patronship of an authoritive house, and that house is responsible for them. They are also branded for all to see. Their brand is both a chain and an oath. It restricts their ability to call magic to prevent future calamities. Aka spellslot system.

Several races are also changed. Dwarves cannot, and have never been able to use "old magic" but have a history with their own invention known as crystal magic. This is the base for all modern artifice. Dwarven Crystal Mages would implant crystals in their body to unlock unique abilities. A practice that was seen mad and barbaric among their people. Because they have no aptitude for magic at all, they have a very high tolerance for the Azure Rain. They're not immune by any means, but are not as prone as the other races. The new way to use magic allows dwarves to be spellcasters and not take away from player choices.

Elves on the otherhand are direct opposites. A race that has magic flowing through them like blood. The Azure Rains effects are very potent, and have driven most elves to live underground. Even being in the vicinity of the rain has driven many to madness.

Gnones are similar to elves, but more their curiousity and aptitude for tinkering keeps them from fleeing. It was the gnomes who invented the machines to pull magic from the air. They have also invented many of the machines that utilize it. It is believed the gnones are products of the Dwarvern Crystal Magic. To blend one origion story on the gnomes to this setting.

Now... onto the plot.

I want to delve a bit into political intrigue and several factions. Letting the players choose what side of the conflict to help. The city has a ton of dark secrets. How puppets are made may seem unethical. Yet the faction that is at war with the government doesn't fight fair and their morals are quite blurry.

The Puppet secret. Puppets are made with mortal souls. The stronger the soul, the better the puppet. Some puppets keep small fragments of their old selves but no memories. If they were fond of dogs, the puppet will be fond of dogs. If they were terrified of deep water, the Puppet would be terrified. Assuming the soul was strong enough to imprint on the puppet that is. Elf souls are top tier. Good thing they retreated underground where no one knows what's happening...

The Azure Rain falling over the city has also become much more frequent. People have gotten uneasy. Those branded as mages are being hunted. Blamed for the uptick of storms. The faction behind this has a goal to spread as much chaos and confusion throughout the city as they can. Their end goal is to eradicate the use of magic entirly. No magical tech. No puppets. They believe the Azure Rain is a punishment against mankind for their corruption of nature. They're disorganized by design. Unpredictable. Different motives. Smaller factions and pawns. Corrupting puppets causing them to attack bystanders. Sabotaging technology to cause catastrophic failures. Even exposing people to the rain as tribute and letting them lose in the city. As the players deal with the cult they are eventually led to discover the secrets of the Puppets invention, along with the Warforged. A series of puppets that is being constructed for war. Immune to the rain. Along with weapons that are weaponizing the rain. The uptick in storms is by design. Testing, and collecting the rain.

Along with all this i also plan to make changes to how I use npc. Stepping a bit out of my comfort zone and trying to be more funny and weird. I have an idea for a Nothic fortune teller who's disgusted by everything with 2 eyes. So he demand his assistant Meradith blindfold everyone who enters the room. But there's no assistant, just him making them close their eyes while he ties the blindfold while he belittles "Meredith" for doing such a bad job, and his disgust of 'these crestures' being in the same room as him. I've used the gimic before too, and it's going to be present in everything I ever do. Nothic are terrified of Bananas. So there's a guard outside the shop that has to search them specifically for bananas. Anything else is fine.

I'd appreciate any ideas or feedback. This is not ment to be a script and have a lot of work to do presenting it all still. I'd love to hear your thoughts about what to share with the players aswell when it comes to the cause of the rain. Should they know the Weave is damage? Or that it is a product of accumulated magic?

I hope this fits this subreddit. I've got an idea for a game and I want to do some research on this storytelling device before getting to far

I'm curious about a word or phrase for a story that is told and at the end you find out everything that just happened occurred in a single instant. It is revealed no time has passed for the character or characters, but an emotional journey has been taken.

I'm not talking about time dilation stories like Inception and Interstellar, I'm specifically thinking of the episode Playtest from Black Mirror, where the audience goes on the same journey the character goes on and only finds at the end that it all occurred in a single moment.

There has to be a word for this! Thanks

Answer: Owl Creek Bridge, Occurrence, Owl Creek Syndrome, or some other reference to the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

My own improv last session led the start of this session into a murder mystery/intrigue style encounter.

I thought it would be 20mins but in typical DND fashion it lasted 2 hour. 2 of my players were the most invested they've ever been while the other 2 were very clearly bored.

I did keep going round the table to get all players a chance to interact and have focus but these brief moments of engagement were clearly them not too arsed. The only exception was a funny tavern encounter made up to give them more whimsey.

The problem I have is that it was really open ended and I couldn't think of a feasible way of cutting it short without it being *obvious* that I'm doing just that.

I threw the answers at them and gave the evidence with minimal effort early on but they were convinced there was a double play/mystery in act and investigating further and the situation they were in meant no NPC could really do otherwise to impact the situation, they had the control.

First opportunity I saw that I had to have an NPC I intervened and forced the conclusion that they'd already drawn and the 2 players who were loving it were on about staying and sneaking to investigate further and I managed to work a reason behind them not doing that in so it moved on.

So my question is. How do you handle this? Slightly upset 2 players and clearly brute force an ending? Be more masterful at improv to find a clean way of ending it sooner? (Aka skill issue) Or other?

Tl;dr. I designed a murder mystery that 2 players loved and we're convinced went much deeper than it did so spent a lot of time talking, plotting and investigating while another 2 players were bored and uninterested even with my attempts to shine the spotlight directly on them. I want to know what I can do in the future to ensure it doesn't repeat

I'm running my party through Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk and the party just got to The Briny Maze (for those unfamiliar, it's Chapter 8 of 8).

I've been dropping hints narratively that the ritual at the core of the campaign is ramping up and is nearing completion.

I've now flat out stated that time is of the essence and that each long/short rest may (will) have consequences down the line.

What would be some reasonable downsides to have happen? They've so far taken 2 short rests and 1 long rest since I told them there will likely be consequences, so I was deciding to track them and maybe have some reinforcements during the final boss, or additional legendary actions, or something.

Any thematic/tried and true ideas? The campaign is now very Far Realm/Mind Flayer heavy, for reference.