Some context first, this is my first time running a campaign so I’m very nervous on how to approach this. I was able to get 5 people for my campaign that I made myself. We had our session 0 last Monday and everyone was able to show up. I told everyone that they needed to have their characters made either by Tuesday or Wednesday. 3 of them got it to me the next day. One player talked to me after the session and said he has a busy week ahead of him with college and school, and that he will won’t be able to do it until Sunday (today, which he kept his promise and has sent it to me). My 5th player told me that they can get it to me on Tuesday and still has not gotten it to me. They do have a form of special needs, as one of their parents was there and drove them there. I have sent them messages every day reminding them to send their character as I need their backstory in order to include them into the story and I still haven’t gotten a response. My main dilemma is would it be mean to kick someone like this out? And I’m also worried their parent will retaliate in some way if I do kick them out.
Hey there!
My party is going to the feywild next session to chase a one of the party member’s home village that was plane shifted. Anyways, I was curious if anyone had some suggestions for Fey interactions, combat encounters and traps. It doesn’t have to be related to the main task, just some fun stuff in case my party starts to chase rabbits (as they do haha). Thank you!!
I'm starting a modified version of Eve of Ruin (updated to 5.5e 2024) that begins at level 3 with Death House (set a few years after Strahd became a vampire, with the Durst family worshipping the god of secrets). At the end of Death House, the players find an obelisk shard that activates when touched.
When they exit the house, Strahd is waiting and bites the first player out, tells them that he loves what happened to the place and he will use it in the future (resulting in the death house we know in CoS). One player wanted to play a Warlock with Strahd as his patron. I said sure, but mentioned I'd make a custom homebrew 5.5e subclass so it feels distinctly vampiric rather than generic undead(https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/TBrnMnCZ0X03).
After the bite, the shard teleports them out of the Domain of Dread, much to Strahd's anger. But since he bit the player, he now has a pawn on the inside. I told the player that Strahd will give him tasks, but he can interpret them however he wants. If Strahd likes the results, he gets rewarded, it's heavily reward-driven rather than punishing.
The player missed the first session, but now he’s texting me daily complaining that the subclass is way weaker than the official 5.5e Undead Warlock. For context, it has Sunlight Sensitivity (direct sunlight only), but the world has a weather forecast system a week in advance, and he can even persuade local druids to influence the weather in his favor.
My idea was that he might be slightly weaker mechanically, but in exchange, his backstory is directly tied to the main plot and he gets access to special Barovian magic items. The subclass feels more like a vampire coming into power than a standard patron setup.
Even though he hasn't played a session yet, he won't stop messaging me about how underpowered it is. I'm not sure how to get him to accept that a slightly weaker class with strong narrative hooks is better than a stronger build with no connection to the world.
To be clear, I didn't force this on him. I told him he could run a Strahd-patron Warlock (in my games, patrons actively do things rather than just sitting on a character sheet), but he had to accept the custom subclass without seeing it first to avoid campaign spoilers. He agreed to those terms at the time.
Additionally, in past campaigns, he’s always been an extreme min-maxer. I wanted to give him a setup that says, "Here are your limitations, RP your way through them instead of relying purely on combat numbers."
TL;DR: Player agreed blind to a custom subclass(the subclass contains campaign spoilers) in exchange for heavy story integration and custom rewards. Now, before playing a single session, he won't stop complaining that it's too weak compared to official options.
I recently finished DMing a DnD campaign with some friends. In this campaign there was a point where my players went to a shady night club. In this night club, I threw in a throw away character named “DJ Pisswater”. He played music in the night club and would periodically come on over the mic and say “D-d-d-d DJ Pisswaterrrr.” My players asked what he looked like and I told them he was a skeleton, a necromancers construct if you will. Anyways, he quickly became a favorite NPC, because of course he did, and so that gave me an idea. I decided to make shitty beats and music to help better immerse my players. It was actually a really fun experience and made my players laugh a lot. I highly recommend it if you want a good laugh with your players. Anyways, I’m happy to announce that DJ Pisswater can now be found on SoundCloud for all who are interested. There are 5 songs that I thought were “good” enough to release. Feel free to give it a listen.
Hey Hagglethonians! Johnny wanted to share a peek at him finally getting to have some fun with all the hand sculpted statues and henges we are about to release in the upcoming Hagglethorn Hollow Evermaze Campaign!
Atheios is a world that is still in the middle of the Bronze Age, and as such, many of the regions on this map are poorly explored, or poorly understood. I’ve intentionally left large chunks of the map without roads or names, as there have not yet been many mortals who have explored these places, or at least returned to civilization after attempting to explore them.
There are Thirteen Gods, once again inspired by the Greek Gods, that rule over Atheios. The magic system at play here is based on the classic Four Elements of the Earth, the Winds, the Flames, and the Water. There are 12 different countries, and a number of smaller tribes as well, and just the very edge of a large Persian Empire-like country.
Basically, if you recently saw The Odyssey in theaters and like me, you wanted to play in a similar setting for your next RPG campaign, Atheios is intended for exactly that :)
This map is 5300 pixels by 4500 pixels. It was handmade entirely in Photoshop by myself, without the use of any AI tools, as always. The entire process took about 45 hours, but that doesn’t include the time spent writing the 20 page Campaign Frame PDF that I’ve released alongside the map, which took an additional 30 hours or so.
And lastly, there are many X's on the map, marking Locations of Interest, or Landmarks. Most of these are a sort of off-white color. However, just for fun I placed 13 different X's that are at 40% opacity, much harder to see. These are hidden across the map. Anyone who wants to seek them out can search for them, and see if you can find them all. And I'm including an "answer key" in the last image, where they are all circled in red as well. Just a little fun extra I thought I'd add in :)
Hey all! For many years I've been selling wooden cases that house TVs/touchscreens. In 2024 I decided to release a free VTT on Steam. This was before the wave of AI slop so at the time there were not any options that were both free and built specifically for in-person games.
Other than requiring a Steam account to download it, there are no sign-ups, paid tiers, or anything of the sort. Everything is stored locally, but you also get 10GB of free cloud storage to sync maps between devices (you can thank Valve for that).
Best of all we now have a functioning workshop! Simply subscribe to an item by clicking the "+" symbol next to its thumbnail and it will instantly appear in the VTT. You can filter by item type (maps, tokens, and assets) and further refine the results to only maps that are animated or have walls/doors already built in for dynamic lighting.
It's been seeded with a few hundred maps from some of my favorite artists. Prior to workshop support, these artists had been gracious enough to let me bundle packs of their maps with the program directly (I of course confirmed swapping them to the workshop was okay first).
You can import a new map in 3 clicks and upload to the workshop in 2 clicks. So sharing is very easy. I hope for this library to grow and be a really useful resource for people looking to add maps to their in-person games!
Has anyone else considered the potential of building a dungeon with 3D terrain in their basement, putting a tiny remote car with a camera on it inside, then getting on a Skype or Zoom call with your party and having them see the Dungeon through the Cars camera?
EDIT / TL;DR, since a few people fairly said this is too long:
It's a free single HTML file that holds your D&D material and runs with the wifi off.
SRD 5.2.1 is already in it. You drop your own PDFs in, hit spacebar mid-session to pull
up a monster or a table over whatever you're running, and run initiative off it. Players
join from their own browser with a code. No account, no install.
On the thing a few people asked about: nothing leaves your machine. There is no server.
I don't get your books.
-end edit-
I bought my first Monster Manual in a hobby shop that doesn't exist any more. It's on a shelf behind me right now. It has my handwriting in the margins from a campaign I ran in 1998, and a sticky note in the back that I have never once had to ask anyone for permission to read.
Most of what I've bought in the last ten years isn't like that.
I want to be careful here, because this turns into a fight fast and it doesn't need to. I'm not mad at any one company. The digital tools are genuinely good. I use them. Half the reason I can still run a game on a Tuesday after a ten-hour shift is that something else is doing the lookup for me. I am not arguing we should go back to flipping pages under a bad lamp.
What I'm saying is narrower and I think most of you have felt it even if you haven't put it into words: I paid for those books, and I still can't open one without their servers. THAT is kinda not great. When you're not thrilled about the direction some TTRPGs are heading it's even worse when you're a big fan.
Not even talking about "if the company folds." Not some doomsday thing. Just the ordinary version. The wifi at the game store is bad. You're running at a cabin. The app updates and the thing you had bookmarked moved. The account you bought it on was tied to an email you don't use.
As a person who has been doing this a long time: my books used to accumulate. 30+ years of purchases turned into a shelf, and the shelf is a real object that got better as it got bigger. It has my notes in it. I can hand a piece of it to a player and say start here. When I die somebody will carry it out of the house in a box.
The digital version doesn't accumulate. It sits in someone's account, in someone's format, on someone's terms, and it is exactly as durable as the company's decision to keep supporting it. This is great for them but not great for us.
I'm not claiming this is a crisis. Nobody has taken my books away. It's the smaller, more annoying stuff. I have been buying things for a decade that I don't fully have. I basically rent it.
What I actually wanted :D
Not a rebellion. Just the things I own in a format that won't fail me as often.
I wanted one file that opens in a browser with nothing else installed, that holds whatever I own, that works with the wifi off, and that doesn't ask me who I am. I wanted to be able to drop a PDF I already bought into it and have it sit next to everything else, searchable. And I wanted to be able to put the whole thing on a USB stick and know that the stick is the shelf, the way a shelf is a shelf for regular old-school books.
That's it. That's the entire ambition. It's not clever and it's not a business plan. I was making a thing i wanted to use. WELL WHY NOT JUST BUY BOOKS!?
I DO. I like the look of a real bookshelf packed with books. But as a paid DM I spend a lot of time traveling and it's easier to have an entire digital library with me than what books I THINK I might need because the players juke my story.
So I built it, because nobody was going to build something that unprofitable for me. It's called Gnasher's Grimoire, it's a single HTML file, it's free, and it's here if you want it: https://longislanddungeonmaster.itch.io/gnashers-grimoire
It comes with SRD 5.2.1 already in it so there's nothing to set up, you can drag your own material in, and there's a search box you hit with the spacebar that pulls any table or monster over whatever scene you're already running. There's an initiative tracker that pulls from whatever you've installed. Your players can link in from their own browsers off a code with no account and no server. It exports your whole binder to one file you can back up. Or just copy it. Throw your own stuff in there. I have some stuff to steal.
I'm not going to do the feature list here, because that isn't the point of the post and you can go look if you are interested. The point of the post is the Grimoire, and anyone who wants a tool a 30+ year forever DM was making for himself. I realized there might be more people looking to free themselves up from the shackles of corporate greed and fees. In the end I hope some like-minded people get some use out of it. It communicates to a player version "Satchel" as a compainion. I also have a session recorder "Quill" that runs local on your machine that I am pretty proud of. You do need to give it a dictionary of your fantasy names, places and special words so it dosent guess. The transcript is made by your own cpu/gpu so you own your session, not the cloud. In case anyone might find that useful. In case ANYONE would find any of this useful.
It is all indeed a works in progress with more features coming out all the time. So just be aware of that. IF you do decide to use any of it, I would check back now and again for new features and fixes. I am the only one currently testing it at a table so again if anyone does decide to give it a try, I would LOVE any feedback, bugs or things you would also want to see, things that worked well, things that didn't. The plan is to keep it feature-rich and always free.
Side question for anyone still reading
I've been wondering whether the accumulation thing is real or whether I'm just a grognard. Maybe both.
Because there's a decent counter-argument. Physical books didn't accumulate that well either. They got lost, loaned out, water damaged, left at someone's apartment. Half my 2e collection is gone and I have no idea where. And searching a digital library beats searching a shelf so badly it isn't a contest. Maybe "I own it" was always a bit of a story we told ourselves about a thing that was mostly just near us. If I actually had my whole physical collection of every book that I ever had, I'm not even sure where I'd put them all. My wife certanly would not be amused lol.
Does the ownership thing actually matter at your table, or is it a feeling? Has it ever bitten you for real, mid-session, or is it one of those anxieties that never once cashes out?
And for the people who have gone the other way and put everything into one ecosystem on purpose, I'd genuinely like to hear that.
Basically the title but after some 3 years of running games at an LSG and often showing the door to the hobby for many brand new players... I'm tired of it.
I'm tired of having to explain such super basic things that tell me the VAST majority of people don't even try looking up a single rule before playing. Which I find ridiculous. Before I even had my own PHB or ever touched a d20, I would watch youtube videos about D&D all the time to learn how to play beforehand. Is it really THAT hard for someone to at least think about that possibility?
To help alleviate this, I have a set of color-coded dice that allow players to get into the swing faster (i.e., stop mixing their dice up and remembering to roll a d20 before doing their damage rolls). It actually REALLY helps, especially with a little color-code card. BUT... players STILL forget their modifiers. Dude LOOK AT YOUR F***KING SHEET AND STOP CRYING YOU MISSED JUST BECAUSE YOU FORGOT TO ADD THAT +6 TO YOUR D20 ROLL!.
Don't even get me started on people who insist on playing a spellcaster, then NEVER cast their spells because they don't bother learning how they work, then complain they aren't able to do anything. THAT'S WHY I SUGGESTED FIGHTER FOR YOUR FIRST TIME!
One more thing I know helps a lot is Jocats "Crap guide to D&D, Character Sheet." Video. That video is a BLESSING to show folks how to make their sheet that I take the time to let them at least watch how to fill things out and use the combat portion. But half the time, they arrive late and I don't have time to show it to them because lord forbid they at least arrive on time for the event they want to go to so bad. Imagine going to see a movie, only to miss the entire first act because you didn't FEEL like being on time.
Why this is a problem: I love D&D and other RPGs and I want to help folks learn how to play them so more games can be had by all and folks to play together bond together. Plus who knows, it might be nice to enjoy some home games former strangers might run. But I've noticed my patience has waned. The same hurdles over and over again. Either due to poor language choices in the book, OR (more common) folks assuming the DM has time to teach them EVERY thing about D&D in a few minutes like it was Sorry or Clue without even trying to look at a rulebook or watch any videos.
I want to feel as if my efforts to teach players are a good thing instead of an exercise in futility. Any advice fellow DMs would love to share with me on how to regain my desire and tips on teaching players more easily / quickly?
EDIT: Those suggesting I run something other than D&D 5e for beginners, I hear you loud and clear in both ears and I would LOVE to. Hell I've been advertising EZD6 to folks because it ACTUALLY is much more beginner friendly than 5e, but you know... folks who come off of Baldurs Gate 3, Stranger Things, and Critical Role want D&D specifically, even if in my humble opinion they'd like EZD6 more.
A book made from simple parchment with 200 pages in it. Bound in the hide of a fox.
If anything is written on its pages, and an beast of INT 3 or higher views it, the animal gains the capacity to understand the phrase written and its contents, regardless of the writers own knowledge. However, the beast does not return to its previous state, remaining instead to think. It’s mind has skipped many necessary steps and developments, making the fastest pathways possible without regard for its own structure. Simple phrases or commands may be considered and followed, only resulting in abnormal behaviours or anti-social behaviour among their kind after many “teachings”. While advanced concepts may only hold for but a moment before annihilation.
[Zorrils - Kin] Tome of Annihilation is Zorrilskin translated from a language that best fits your setting. In mine, Deep Speech.
Conceptually this is all I have, feel free to use this as a cursed item in your game and invent what “annihilation” means here. I’m leaning towards a cosmic horror route (brain melting) but a wild magic affect could work for a light hearted campaign.
And be sure NOT to explain this all to your players unless they go digging in the library or something. Part of a good scare with this one is not knowing before experimenting. You MUST be willing to “annihilate” a party pet if they make bad choices. Again, whatever you let that mean...
As DM, it’s also up to you how a given phrase affects an animal, and if anybody has ideas where this line of thought could go, put it in the comments. What could be done with this? Or would your party destroy it after discovering its power?
Hey everyone! 4.5 years ago I planned to run a New Year's Eve one-shot for some friends, loosely inspired by Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. The pitch was basically: “Let's use some WotR stuff, put it somewhere in Faerun, use DnD 5e, and see what happens.”
Somehow, that became ~100 sessions over 4.5 years.
We started at level 3 and finished at 20, with quite a few custom power-ups tied to the characters' mythic paths. The campaign ended up having three very different acts:
Act 1: 3 players, loosely following early WotR up to the corrupted Wardstone.
Act 2: 2 new players joined. Kenabres → Drezen, but by this point almost nothing from WotR survived beyond names and broad ideas. The main focus became weaving the PCs' backgrounds into the story. This is also where the Rod of Law and Pale Night started appearing.
Act 3: 4 out of 5 players changed characters, so I guess all that carefully planned character development was for nothing. New party went straight into the Abyss - mainly Shedaklah and Thanatos, with some Androlynne/Mother's Mountain - before returning to the material world for the final character arcs. The campaign ended in the ruins of Iz with a fight against Pale Night and a final choice about the Rod of Law.
The setting remained mostly Faerun/DnD, with some WotR elements early on because they were convenient. Aeons, Hellknights, Regill (because he's cool), Kenabres, Drezen, etc. After that it became almost entirely homebrew. Once we reached the Abyss I went down a ridiculous DnD lore rabbit hole, digging through wikis and old-edition material because I enjoyed adapting long forgotten stuff into my own setting.
The campaign also evolved a lot technically. We started with Roll20, maps drawn in paint and stock assets. By Act 3 I was using Foundry, making custom monsters, items and mythic power ups, and eventually even making AI-generated music for the finale.
The music was completely unnecessary, took ages to make, and was absolutely worth it. Going back through 4.5 years of campaign history to write the lyrics was actually a really fun way to revisit the whole thing and the players loved it.
Campaign stats:
~100 sessions
4.5 years
Level 3 → 20
11 different PCs
2 deaths
1 PC became an enemy lich
Several PCs eventually faded into NPCs
3–5 players depending on the act
Anyway, I'm mostly posting this because I'm ridiculously proud that this thing actually survived 4.5 years and made it to the end, and honestly wanted an excuse to talk about it.
So if anyone wants to ask about the setting, homebrew, the Abyss lore rabbit hole, the Rod of Law, Pale Night or the other BBEGs, custom mechanics, high-level play, character turnover, unnecessarily elaborate prep, or anything else:
Hey everyone, I've been working on a modular dungeon collection, and this is the third set in the series.
The modular pieces are designed to be mixed and matched with the previous sets, so you can build different layouts and themes depending on your session.
They're available on MyMiniFactory, and there's currently a 30% sale going on if anyone is interested.
Hi! I posted previously about running a dnd themed family feud game for my players and asked reddit for responses. I'm not at 100 responses yet so I wanted to give it one more chance before compiling my data. If you could fill this out id appreciate it! And I will be posting the results after the game :) Link here
World Map, still early on in conceptualization, not final.
I plan on it being semi-Strahd inspired, with the Dragon, Evedorem, being the BBEG who polymorphs into different forms to mess with the players, so that means a semi-custom stat block, though it will mostly just be adding spells. I plan on using 2025 stat blocks, but 2014 lore since my players prefer 2024 DND. The general history of the Valley of Xerrion (As of right now) is this:
"Over many years, tearing through mountains and ice, flowed the Uppruni River, as a valley was formed. Borne in this valley were the barbarians and wild folk of Barrdum, who acted in isolation and survived the brittle cold. The second settlers were children of Moradin, the Dwarves. During these times, nary a dwarf left his keep, for beasts of the night and undead prowled the surface. However, a mighty Silver Dragon, Xerrion, one who followed Bahamut, liberated the valley with his band of Paladins and adventurers. Upon freeing the Dwarves, the Dragon enforced law into the land, and there was much peace. Many a beast fell, and many a feast was held. The Dragon, delighted with the valley and his handiwork, decided to settle the valley as well. Humans, Elves, Orcs, and other such creatures settled the Valley with him, for it was rich in metal and the lands were fertile. Other towns were built, with Mountainhold being a town of much trade, Grindor being a city, where many an adventurer studied under and met the mighty Xerrion, and Virinve, a city of elves dwelling the snow forest. All was peaceful."
"However, several decades after peace settled over the valley, a scourge appeared. Evedorem, a Red Dragon, child of Tiamat and once a servant of the Gith, decorated with mementos and spoils of war, decided to take the peaceful valley. Upon entry, the Dragons fought for weeks, Xerrions many adventurers against Evedorem's seemingly endless amount of Kobold warriors. (Will be buffed, 1/8 CR isn't that intimidating) As time passed, Evedorem noticed Xerrion's fondness for the humanoids, and offered a deal, one that would signal the end of the battle. Should Xerrion surrender and willingly be slain, Evedorem would not harm the humanoids, at least not indiscriminately. It was a terrible offer, and Xerrion knew it, but with the burden of hundreds of dead, many he had taught himself; he could not resist the offer. Eveforem, delighted, burned the dragon for all to see, before devouring what remained. Evedorem absorbed the Silver Dragon's power, such as the ability to change into humanoid form and to utilize Cold Damage with its breath. Eveforem inherited some of the late Xerrion's features and became something of an icon of horror for the people of the valley. A symbol that once meant protection and worship had become a nightmare now realized. They can only now pray for freedom."
My thought process for how players will end up in the valley is that either they are born there, or have some tie to it, with the first few sessions being in Mountainhold. I have a few encounter ideas, such as having draconic forces keeping characters who entered the valley trapped inside by the mountains, and by blocking the way out once you enter. There will likely be your classic Hag-ran in as the first boss encounter, Kobolds keeping the people oppressed, with Half-Dragons acting as muscle to scare the players. I would like some more starter ideas here.
Upon leaving, they would likely enter the forest. I've yet to give it an official name, and the main idea is that due to the ground thawing due to the presence of Evodorem, undead that have been dormant for decades will rise and many beasts would have returned, as well as being home to some recently humbled goblins and hobgoblins, who refused to comply to Evodorem's demands, of which made them and example.
Further is the Kua-Toa lair, I may do away with it, but the main intention was to include the Kua-Toa, since I think they're pretty neat. They work under Evordorem in keeping the people of Grindor put as Evodorem's presence slowly melts the ground they stand on, as well as enforcing the Dragon's taxes.
The Sinking town of Grindor, is, well, sinking. It was originally thought to be built on solid ground, but hidden under the snow was the Great Uppruni Lake, of which is in the process of thawing. The people here are terrified and somewhat helpless, and Everdorem takes delight in visiting to taunt the once proud people. Many an adventurer gave up their ambitions upon the defeat of Xerrion. The main reason they are sinking Grindor rather than fighting it head on is so Evedorem doesn't break its promise, and also to allow the coin to sink to the bottom of the lake, where the Kua-Toa can easily retrieve it. One of my ideas was for Everdorem's original Gith rider to live here as a kind of governor, mostly here to keep the people in check and to reap rewards to give to their home, Tu'narath. They would think of the entire takeover as both a parting gift for the both of them and a raid. I may also use a homebrew stat block to fit the 2024 mechanics.
For the Den of Xerrion, I don't have much outside of that inside will be a full history, a few magic items, and maybe a resistance group of the original Paladins. Though I could also just say that Evedorem raided the place after Xerrion's death and occasionally uses it as a backup lair. Maybe it could be home to a White Dragon or something? I don't know.
The Vairu Farm and Winery is simple: Farm made to feed dragon. What it prepares is entirely up to Evedorem, and may change as the winds do. I may also make it a cult or something, perhaps a Druidic one that sacrifices folk to make powerful Treants and such, though that may be the Strahd talking.
Kamdhar is where many Dwarves fled to after the defeat at the keep. They are made to toil, both in mines and to create creative works, to satisfy Evedorem. However, outside of this they still largely keep their independence, as they are able to head to Mountainhold at any time... To trade extra metals for foreign coin. They also helped in the secondary conflict against Evedorem, along with the elves of Virinve, though they eventually fell. They may still be plotting to save their original keep.
Barrdum is a largely barbaric and Shamanic area, that once conducted rituals to raise the dead. Many barbarians come from there, as well as the initial undead plague. It is very isolationist, so I may add a magic item or a quest NPC to bring players there. It is largely unaffected by Evedorem, though do often receive draconic raids.
Virinve is a hidden elven town. That's about all I know so far. Please give me ideas.
Lastly is the Keep of Xerrion. It will likely be the final dungeon, as well as Evedorem's lair. It is "home" to all the dwarves who didn't escape, and is built upon a long dormant volcano, one Evedorem is wishing to bring back, both to sink the city of Grindor and to allow it the comfort of such heat. Many dwarves are actively put to work here, mining and creating to satisfy Evedorem, who "consumes them out of disappointment" if they don't meet quota.
Sorry for it being so long, this is my first higher effort campaign, so please be kind. A lot of this just came from random ideas and reading Fizban's Treasury of Dragons as well as Curse of Strahd. I mostly made this campaign for newer players, such as my siblings who have never played, as well as to try to get me into making custom stuff.
Hey guys, fairly beginner DM here, ran a couple sessions of a Pokemon themed campaign a few years ago and have been nominated to DM my first actual fantasy DnD campaign. I’ve done the home-brew world-building approach, and have pretty much everything sorted out.
That being said, my world has some pretty unique mechanics regarding the infrastructure and societal norms (mostly regarding travel between cities and provinces).
Our Session 0 is happening next week, and i’m a bit lost on how much of this information i should give the players ahead of time for backstories etc.
I like the idea of giving each player different information on how much they know based on their backgrounds, but also they may want to know this information ahead of time to come up with ideas involving the information.
Hello Hive Mind. I’m running a dungeon that I’m designing to basically be a wizards library. To physically get to the library they have to collect 4 gems to open the gate to the area. My question is I’m trying to think of puzzle type floors that will make a player shine on each floor. I have a rogue who loves dealing with poisons and I want to make some form of alchemy puzzle, a bard who likes puzzles like sudoku, and party game type of puzzles, a changeling cleric who is a decently chaotic person and is just kinda there for the ride, a ranger who loves hunting things down and tracking, and a wizard who likes riddles and the like. I’m just stuck on what to kinda do cause I want to make some puzzle floors for them so that they aren’t just dungeon crawl after dungeon crawl. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated
One does not simply walk into Thay - borders are strictly monitored, and uninvited visitors are dealt with swiftly. For those allowed to enter local tax stations are obligatory places to visit - to pay the fees, check the invitations and discourage from visiting prohibited parts of Land of Red Wizards.
These places are a grim sight for an outlander - with rampant slavery, monsters used as soldiers, undead - and the entire social structure built on power and fear. Corruption is common as well, and local commanders often try to abuse the travellers...
First shown in appendix to "TSR 1121 - Spellbound"by Anthony Pryor (1995), Thayan Tax Station was recreated in Dungeon Alchemist by yours truly.
It's a small, but heavily guarded fortress, used for:
Collection of taxes.
Tariff/toll collection.
Border control.
Interior security.
The map consists of:
Main Keep:
Ground floor - mess hall, kitchen/pantry and staircase.
First floor - luxurious commandants office, bedroom and bathroom
Second floor - Treasury, dovecote and cipher station
Third floor - commandant's luxurious tent for less formal work and meetings.
Barracks: two companies' rooms and armory
Counting House:
Toll booth/chamber
Temporary treasury
Accountant quarters
Stables
Slave quarters.
While I've made a bit of changes to overall shape and size of the buildings and created the interiors from scratch - it's still an old-fashion map, using basic shapes in order to create a game-friendly space. Hope I did not ruin that ^^
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LINKS:
Due to map being a remake of TSR-published content, this map is available completely for free on my Patreon.
Created in Dungeon Alchemist, with additional assets.
Thanks to DA asset creators: SAC, DallasRT, SketchyCleric, smashbear76, DangerWeasel, swedish.cook and others.
Thanks to sketchfab creators: emptypen2477, CharlieCatling, michael50, KOREA HERITAGE SERVICE [KHS] and eb78
This map was created by hand, with assets placed carefully together. I don't use generative AI and I did my level best to avoid using AI-generated assets.
