What Pre written do you recommend for a new dm? Ps I’m running the simplified Tomb of Horrors on Monday and that will be my first game.

Doctor Whos Kara with a tavern-tardis is interesting... I stealing her. Thank you! =)

hey wizard! i chalenge you to a wizards duel. meet your match here 2 days from now if you dare

@@guyvingelli9046 He did a video ranking the modules so you might wanna check that out

“You’re forging the power of gods into a spoon” The spoon: +2 acid damage -_-

I cast fireball at the empty feeling in the room. My character: "Ahh, much better. Now I don't feel the crippling loneliness."

It's completely black and void of everything!

BDW, do you prepare for your games by photocopying scrolls of fireball?

69th like lol

Why don’t you make videos?

Thats why I like the fact that my players didn't have prior knowledge of the game except maybe one or two games so they can have realistic expectations

His party is 90% of that game, not him

@@punishedwhispers1218 100% agree. I don't know why a lot of players have trouble understanding this

i am just happy if i find a game lol

id rather play with hardcore gygaxian people that started playin in the 70s or 80s than people that learned about D&D through critical role

Doesn't the air inside a bag of holding run out really quick? I seem to remember someone telling a tale of rescuing a hostage using a bag of holding, only to pull a corpse out after returning to the person who hired them.

@@WildBluntHickok furthermore the wizard could get the "Bagman Experience" :)

@@WildBluntHickok The problem with your logic is smol so don't need as much air plus HES A FUCKING WIZARD HE CAN MAKE AIR

Late response or he can be a warforged and not need to breathe

Sit at the opening looking out as it moves. lol

Too much power

@@matthewletexier Entropy is nothing but a poor comedian's joke for this spoon. BEHOLD! THE SPOON!

THAT'S the spoon The Tick was talking about

BBEG is using the spoon to terraform the entire world into a frozen pistachioed wasteland

You can filing the icecream in succesion as a fighter for 1 hp each hit. That can kill eventually. For too powerful.

Gods,dragons,immortals,elves: o.o

Kuo-Toa: °-°

Tieflings, Gnomes, Ghostwise Halfings, Dragonborn, Wizards, Cleircs, Bards, Warlocks: :/

@@phelps6205 the reason I said sorcerers and no other classes is because they usually don't need to do anything for their magic. All the other classes need to at least do something for it.

Also why did this comment get any traction

Most dms ban it because it’s too powerful

Banana stickers?

Anything that's free in DnD is overpowered

@@janelantestaverde2018 polymorph it

@@user-kx8pu6ys5i no you fools we must fireball! The most powerful spell!

one time my DM had us do a dream sequence with the end goal of a boss fight but with really compelling atmosphere design because that was her improv strength. all of the characters we had were totally out of their depth and didn't match the setting, but it was fun to roleplay that

Thats interesting, I might try that.

This works very well. My DM does it and it moves the turns well

Okay that's genious.

This is excellent advice, and can really help people get into the moment. I like hearing what my PC would be seeing as my turn comes up.

This is very interesting, but you also have to be careful with it in case anyone has bonus actions. In this case, the Gunslinger might want to use his Second Wind (or action surge) and transitioning to the next player in the description would imply that you're ending the Gunslinger's turn for them. If you want to use this style, I'd recommend letting a player take their entire turn, and then describe everything that happens followed by the transition.

That guy's totally right. I was here saying "nooo, nooo, you're wrong", but he's right, lol. I always thought the bag of holding was bigger because you can get inside of it, and have 10 minutes of air, and you can "store" multiple creatures that, but they'll have a minimum of 1 minute of air; so my brain goes "ok, I can store AT LEAST 10 people inside of it", but no, it's more like, 10 dogs, or 20 cats, which will get 1 min of air each.

You might be able to get a goliath in. One goliath. Humans can crouch down to less than half their height. Samus (Metroid) is an athletic 6,3 woman who can squeeze into a ball that's got a diameter of 2-3 feet.

@@matthewcox69 goliaths are on average much taller and of larger build than most races. 6’6 to 7’ is the average for their race, with some getting to 8’ or more. You could probably get a smaller than average Goliath in there, but not one that’s much above 7’.

@@AplesedjrI'm suggesting an 8 foot goliath can crouch themselves into 4 feet of space. It wouldnt be comfortable but bag of holding travel isnt supposed to be

You can fit about 1.8 average humans in a 4 foot cube. Don't ask me how I know.

We had a short mystery campaign. Our rogue investigator left the party on two seperate occasions to tail someone across town, avoid guards, hide as a trash bag, break into an estate, befriend and steal the guard dog, break I to the house, convince the butler he was the Lady's special company that evening, and escape back home and sleep on the lawn with nothing happening with a couple handfuls of nat 20s and 5-1(basically crits) percentile rolls for luck. It was amazing and really kept the plot moving while everyone else did other stuff to help uncover clues and set up the next mission.

Only a spoonful

@@gamingmaster6377 *pulls out godly large spoon*

I once workshopped an item called 'The Spoon That Is Everything' It is all weapons at once, and infinitely powerful

@@notoriousectotherm How did your DM allow THAT? 🤣

Forkgiveme

NOT THE SOFA! I JUST BOUGHT THAT!

Even a chaotic-evil character should want to stop that!

I have a self loathing cleric with somewhat of a deathwish. Might not be applicable.

Havoc 13 "I'm going to blow up the after life!" Your cleric: "But I want to go there!"

F I N A L F L A S H

Very cool!

Could he know if your party was lying? like saying if they said about this cosmic power existed? Would he know or would they still roll deception checks?

Oh I'm so stealing that the next time I DM a longform campaign

I love this

Could I use this for my campaign and are there any tips on how to properly give credit for different types of stories?

Its actually really hard to make an Aussie accent when you live there isn't it its hard to realise that you HAVE an Aussie accent

Oi mate

Shout out to the Aussie DM's in here!

@@yzbyname cheers mate

Oi, a dire dingo eeez coming to eat yur baby. Wat do you do?

Personally, that would've been my signal to piss off and never play with that person again. It's a huge red flag and I have neither the time nor the patience deal with such shenanigans. I'm sorry that was your introduction to this game...

yeah lol, something about being named "Matt" must make you a good dungeon master

I saw that and was wondering if that was trying to guide people to Colville's Running D&D series without just saying "HEY! This guy has a bunch of good videos that you will likely also find helpful!"

@@JacksonOwex I think he assumes that most new dms watch Matt Colville but I don't believe that to be the case

Braincain007 this isn’t only for new dms. Every dm has weak points they can improve upon

Oh I'm really not sure about this. I rather do it my own way.

Ah yes, a DM Eternal. The ones that make the D&D community exist, but they get beaten into the ground every time someone doesn’t respect their rules. I am sorry.

I feel you brother fellow forever dm

Infinity DM GANG RISE UP

@@Blackgold185 Lol yes

Maybe one day we will get to play *holds back manly tears*

My first game on Wednesday and I’m a DM. Any tips?

@Xenodorian damn now I don't feel so bad about replacing Ireena with a different character I made lol (Thought it would be more interesting if souls don't have gender so this reincarnation is a man, and also a cleric to give tie back to Sergi and the good/evil motifs of the npcs)

dungeons and dragons BECMI has really excellent magic item creation rules I definitely recommend looking it up it even has a great pricing model

Honestly surprised to see Zedrin of all people here

The XGE does say special magic items should have attached quests but I get your meaning

Well if you have the components for crafting something require parts of creatures you will have to fight or farm.

I have a spellforge and mobile space station with minor shipyard, 4 R&D labs, and 2 of the biggest interstellar artillery guns ever made, which is currently the linchpin in holding the frontline of a war are losing. Granted, I didn't build any of that by hand, but it does let me order things to be built that are also important. Like a new type of FTL drive that circumvents all conventional FTL inhibitors at the cost of being slower (actual FTL compared to conventional space folding which is nearly instant and hyperspace/the warp which is still really fast, but are both restricted to certain paths). I'm so excited to get to use it in a while. The prototype finished completion two in game weeks ago, but I deemed it to be unsafe for manned testing until it goes through revisions and improvements (please no minimum 5% chance [nat 1] to have the ship destroyed whenever I use the FTL drive). The Fed navy wants to use it in a special operation, and I hope to get funding to finally fill that fourth laboratory. Space D&D is weird, but cool. I don't know if my GM uses anything like XGP though, since it's mostly homebrew stuff. I also need to clarify the scale of "Space D&D," for context. The players don't play just as single heroes on a shared ship, but each is a spec ops commander in a special task force who is in command of *multiple* capital starships, each crewed by hundreds or thousands of people. The scale of the setting is an entire galaxy and eventually the universe (module 2, if we win module 1), though things from other galaxies are entering ours. Also, HI ZEDRIN!

I just say, the head of the party is paid and shares evenly. Uneven shares like, 43g between 4 characters, everyone gets 10 but the head takes 13, why? He sponsors the party using HIS wagon for travel.

@@jonumine6250 great idea, but I prefer the Amulet of Communism

@@8-bitsarda747 Forged by Karlius Marximillion in the what could only be remembered as the "Red Mountains," where he used only two simple tools to forge an artefact that would finally bring about true equality among the greedy races of man.

@@spiceyicey sadly though, it's power was tainted by a man named Josephstine Stalinius. Also corrupting the Hammer of Fellowship and Sickle of Plenty, which were used to make the amulet, turning them into the Hammer of Servitude and Sickle of Famine. Wielding these three artifacts, Josephstine Stalinius brought entire empires under his thumb, ruling with an iron fist, and making sure everyone was equally poor. Since his fall, the Hammer, Sickle, and Amulet have been lost to time. One can only hope that they can one day shed their tainted and evil powers, and be restored to their former glory

I play a comrade class

i just like to make everything gold standard. it's not as realistic, but it's easier on our math impared monkey brains. especially mine.

This is very true. Most characrers at the mid levels should have enough money to jump-start a town's economy, or even build one of their own. A regular person measures their wages in silvers.

@@Amikas117 I'm watching campaign 1 in critical role and every time Vex asks for more money all i can think is "they are already paying you more than the average person can hope to see in their lifetime" or when she bargains against a fair price "you're party has enough money to create a small city, the least you can do is give this man his moneys worth and stimulate the economy"

@@brooksfaucette296 That bothered me a LOT when I first started watching too!

I think it also has to do with video games making currency "gold/gold looking" by default. Like Elder Scrolls or Fantasy Rogue-likes. Or heck, even Mario. So to many people they are very desensitized to gold coins in fiction.

But there is a difference between "humble backstory" (like being the son of a farmer, or the daughter of a boat captain) and "I have no backstory other than...I'm here".

What if you're a humble son of a god that wants nothing to do with that drama?

@@Shalakor been there, tried that. My DM (this was a oneshot btw) decided to make my brother the bbeg I played sorcerer that time

“Hi I’m a sailor that does magic sometimes”

Tbf I'm a DM who makes characters I never get to play, but one concept I got to play in a one-shot was a Scourge Aasimar Divine Sorcerer Acolyte who was literally raised to believe he was a messianic figure whole used Prestidigitation and Thaumaturgy to make a bunch of supernatural effects happen around him all the time and all the rest of his spells were like absolutely destructive (Lightning Bolt, Shatter, etc.). Whether or not he was literally the son of a god was tbd

necromancy or conjuring. That or the "Discord" spell

I had to deal with this. Once a month or every three weeks or so we all pick a day that we refuse to schedule anything else for. If people's work schedules are predictable that's easy, if they're unpredictable then everybody has to agree to specifically call off work or get someone else to cover their shift. It's hard to have everybody be able to commit to dnd once a week, but it's a lot more viable if the time-span is monthly. So it's not as unbearable to have to wait you can ask folks to play for a lot longer on that day. I now have a weekly game and we play for on average 3 hours, but back when we used to play monthly the games would be for like 6 hours.

Ask if they can have a game in "insert date here". They'll probably say no (at least some of them). See what players you want in your table. Ask what date is better for them. Reschedule. (if needed, redo that 'till you have that perfect date) PS: it may take months before you have that "perfect day" to play, so you could try to ask them if they really want to play, or if they "have" to do some other thing (maybe 5/6 players could play in that day, and the only guy that can't, will watch a movie, or something like that that can wait). PPS: srry for bad english :(

I use the holidays but then again, I am a DM who takes ages to come up with sessions.

What I have done is schedule the best I can around my availability. This may seem selfish, but the reality of it is as the DM, the game literally can not go on without you (unless you run a shared campaign). Typically working around work schedules first, who has what common day off, and if a day off can not be found, maybe a time during the day. After that, it's all about process of elimination as to actual dates and times. Sometimes you have to compromise or run a session without someone present.

I instantly fell in love with it, paused the video, imagined me explaining the encounter and my own different version of him, came back to watching the video 7 minutes after

Yeah! When I was watching that part, I immediately realized that I have a character just like that. I called him SWAOS always spelled with all caps, and yeah, he is kinda like that: Interdimensional being who’s super OP and is untouchable and can time travel and teleport. Also I used to kind of baby my party and still do to an extent so when I accidentally TPK my who party I’ll be like, “SWAOS doesn’t like this development so as he snaps his fingers he goes full BITES ZA DUSTO on the universe and your all outside the cave again.

Wow that was a bit long

he's not sure. hes playing e^5 to e^7 yrs

*GASP* HE is The Keeper

The Michelin Spoon: A spoon that, when attuned makes everything eaten with it at the perfect freshness, temperature, and seasoning for the dish and your preferences.

Simply you jest, clearly the power of god would only be imbued to the almighty spork

Ah yes, the superior consumption utensil

My Paladin actually has a god-spoon, it only deals 1d4 but he can smite with it by throwing it.

This is actually a reference to Solomon putting spells inside spoons in one of their earlier games

Oh yeah, that’s right, there’s a reason that that’s a thing

Love that idea! I will see about flashbacks in my campaign... Yes.. Gotta get them to see what happened.

I use milestone exp. So you won't be behind in levels. But only the participants get magic items and gold and loot

When in doubt ask your player what happen in the flash back or look below for inspiration. Flash back are probably the best thing to do if anyone is still down to play without other. To add onto the flashback, if you have one player, you can do an in-depth session of the motivation to why they join the adventure. Play as the abusive father that brooding dark elf have. Stuff that build on the character If you have two player, you could revisit an important event in the campaign making them play as a different NPC and how their reaction to it. This might not seem a major deal but it allow other to have a collaborative story telling experience. With two players, you can also do a side mission that tied with their backstory. Seeing the brooding elf and the cleric having to work together to take down their competitors is fun, or maybe they have a point in their life before where they interact and influence one another. Maybe this dark elf might be the one of the factor that influence the cleric past hatred for a certain type of enemy. Edit: Slightly better format

Hippity hoppity your idea is now my property

My group had the literal joke of, "Oh no, they fell through a plot hole!" and then when they would rejoin on a later session the characters would ask them what they saw in their time in the hole. It became a kind of shared storytelling joke of exactly what the plot hole was.

Gregor-Alright guys, let's go knock this dungeon out. *Portal opens up, Lich grabs Gregor* Lich-Come with me, there's petunias EVERYWHERE. Gregor-what? *Portal closes after Gregor is pulled through*

My simple fix for flying characters is to make the ability have a tradeoff that thematically fits. Like forcing them to remove armour, or not allowing them to use heavy weapons or carry a backpack. If the character dosnt immediately decide to pick their moments and use the ability at crucial moments, the limitations of the system at least make it so that combat isn't unbalanced.

Hadhod I mean the flyers aka ultimate monks, rangers, fighters really dont care about that limitation

Just knock them prone. They don't have magic hovering so they fall. Taking that 1d6 per 10 foot fall damage. There's a bird in the sky? Seems like an easy target for bow wielders. There's literally nothing to hide behind

@@hadhod5274 All fun and games until you've got a monk aarakockra

Oh, that’s why

Basically, I come up with a world or use one that exists already. Create a world shaking event, maybe combine two of them Create a plot hook to have the players solve this new problem. Pick a monster, powerful being, or group to act as a villain find out what the players need to do to solve it then make a bunch of encounters, like fight bad guys here, get McGuffin here, find an NPC here, etc. Put it all together, add stuff from the players backstories into the mix, make some maps and boom campaign.

This was originally in the video but I rambled for far too long and decided to refer you to the place where I explain it well.

@@XPtoLevel3 Ooooo, let me try it out. PS: I promise I came up with this on the fly to showcase your steps. _"Basically, I come up with a world or use one that exists already."_ Okay, um, Harry Potter, so schools of magic. Let's twist it around, make the main story centered in a single country filled to the brim with these schools, everyone is constantly trying to fuck with this country for obvious political reasons given the power of magic. _"Create a world shaking event, maybe combine two of them"_ Let's try magic entropy from shows like Little Witch Academia with a splash of Dungeons of Drakenheim (or whatever the source for that idea was, I heard it was from Warhammer) and the tree thing from Naruto. A meteor crashes into the not-Earth, not in a city but in a remote and dangerous part of magic-country, and it begins to drain the leylines from the planet, collecting it into strange crystal fruit that grows around and inside the roots of this living meteor. Maybe picture the devil fruit things from DMC5, that'd be cool. _"Create a plot hook to have the players solve this new problem."_ Magic-country enlists your help, either because of your renown as students in the country or as political figures from allied nations, to investigate the source of depleting magic, speculated to be connected to this meteor. _"Pick a monster, powerful being, or group to act as a villain"_ Let's say it's a sentient hive mind that lives in the meteor, generic BBEG, consume all magic in the multiverse, blah blah blah. Its roots can extend into weird places and when popping out, can spawn horrific magical creatures, or maybe do some False Hydra shenanigans. _"find out what the players need to do to solve it“_ The obvious one is "kill the BBEG", but let's side track it a bit. Wrath of the Lich King would have been boring if it was just a march into Icecrown Citadel to kill Arthas and that was it. Maybe a cult that worships this meteor-God had summoned it, so they're the key to learning how to stop a being that can just eat magic. Maybe this cult was tied to a political faction that wanted to bring down the magic-country, but didn't know what they were getting into with this cult, false promises and deception and all that. It starts with investigating the lost magic, followed by some scrying, a failed attempt to march on the meteor, a hint to explore the political landscape, discoveries of treachery, a decimation of the cult, the preparation to fight against the boss mechanics, and killing the BBEG. _"then make a bunch of encounters, like fight bad guys here, get McGuffin here, find an NPC here, etc. Put it all together, add stuff from the players backstories into the mix, make some maps and boom campaign."_ Throw in some mini bosses, generals, commanders, some world building related objectives and the impacts of the lost magic on this society... Maybe spells are limited to third level, so they need to craft awesome legendary gear to use stronger spells. It'd be done as level locking that is lifted once they wear the armor, so it'd affect physical classes too. Thanks for the wonderful flow chart :D

@@AnaseSkyrider Let's make this a chain: • Basically, I come up with a world or use one that exists already. I think I'll use Gaia from Final Fantasy VII. But let's mix things up and throw a bit of xmen in the setting by having people have genetic potentials for dangerous sorcery caused by the Planet's death throws. Let's set it in a midgar analogue but we'll mix it up by having the city float over a massive tunnel carved into the earth drilling for magic with multiple platforms that go deeper and deeper beneath the planet. • Create a world shaking event or combine two of them. A Genome(our mutant analogue) gang reportedly blew up a reactor in the platform the players live on, setting Anti-Genome sentiments to an all time high, while the power surge has eliminated the defenses that protect the city from the dangers that lurk beneath the ground. • Create a plot hook to have the players solve this new problem. While on a train between sectors the power goes out and and a man in a nice suit accidentally picks up the wrong bag by mistake. A player checks their bag and discovers files that suggest the power company might be guilty of foul play. • Pick a monster, powerful being, or group to act as a villain Buddy Synds, a powerful Artificer who has a childhood grudge against Genomes and has made it his life's mission to make the world a place where they are unneeded. If the players draw the wrong conclusions then they can find themselves set against the Genome gangs. (Thanks for the Syndrome reference) • find out what the players need to do to solve it The players probably need to gather evidence to discredit the power company or find a way to leave the city. Throw in lots of street level encounters and magitek because why not

you.. you.. you murdered him dude

you're welcome, thanks!

Is that THE Jack Bellinger from the video???

@@justabiscuit1794 Lol. Yes, I am him.

@@jackbellinger1216 finally

omg omg it’s jack bellinger

you and your friends are a lucky bunch welcome to the d&d world

I completely relate, I do the same exact thing. The way I've tried helping myself be better about prepping so I don't exert myself is to pick a time to do all the prep. I'll go into my schedule, carve out 4 to 5 hours, and clear that time. That is now my "DM prep time" It can be very relaxing and rewarding if you pull it off.

I also have an issue with ADHD, and after DMing for a little over a year now and I do alot of similar things. I always want to 3D print (and paint) minis for the game, cards for magic items, and I constantly draw maps after looking online for inspiration. Although I've learned it's easier to try and just write descriptions for areas and NPCs in the game, and exclusively write dialogue for important information (such as clues to a mystery a character would have, a monologue about how an NPC feels about an issue, exactly how a NPC reacts to drop hints to players about events going on, etc) and leave the rest to improvisation. As far as music goes, I am busy with school a lot and D&D will often times take up what it is I'm thinking about and I can't focus on school work without doing it first; so I will often have D&D music from youtube in the background and I will decide if that is what I want to use as background music.

I hope this doesn't come across condescending Try not to compare your games, and their level of complexity, t games you hear about or see on KZfaq. All of these KZfaqrs with D&D channels are living their lives this way. If your job is to make D&D content, you're going to focus most of your time around D&D, you'll have more time to focus on D&D related stuff. But most of us have jobs that have nothing to do being create or content creation in general like a KZfaqr does Therefore, we are not going to have these huge extravagant games and stories that D&D KZfaqrs will. At least not every game. I would even bet that most D&D Tubers don't play a huge extravagant mega prepped game everytime they sit down and play. You can absolutely still plan a massive game with a lot of prep. But please don't overexert yourself trying to keep up with people who play this game/talk about it for a living. Don't be afraid to simplify stuff, and cut out a lot of things that you had Big Dreams for. Because you have to prioritize time for yourself as well. Your mental health is important, you need to know when you're stretching yourself thin. You are not a D&D youtuber, that is not how you pay the bills, please dont destroy your mental health trying to play table tops games as if you were one.

Not to mention how frequently Mercer's monsters get hit in the shoulder, it's his go to place for a bad but not really bad hit.

Maybe try to make that backstory awesome? The more open, the more room you have to turn and twist it and surprise the player

He just used glibness with his charisma of 20

If you ae a new DM I really really recommend looking at Matt Colville on youtube. His running the game series made me 100x better at dming.

Braincain007 Thanks I will

your uncle is ruthlessly efficient, and also creative.

Baron Spatula sounds amazing

My players didn't haver the money and I suspect that they only followed the plot because of that

In our party, our bard and Sorcerer tried to get in to the Morgue by sweet talking the City guard only to be turned away becuase the cops were actually Lawful and they had no bussiness being there so they gave up right away. Meanwhile me a monk, our Rogue/Paladin (yes he is a fun character) and our super dumb Ranger bimbo spend all days riding carriage around the town with robot detector to find the clanker who ran of from the fireball scene. And it actually bloody worked. Btw we did renovate the pub, but then decided that we don't actually want other people in it, so it is just just a pub for us and only us. Basically hafl the party are now carrier alcoholics.

Dragon Hiest you say? More like Tavern simulator lol

As the DM I had the fireball kill one of the NPCs my players liked, that gave them incentive to go after the culprit and find out who did it. I also had Renaer show up to the crime scene while the players were still investigating, saying that he was meeting with Dalakhar. Que Renaer seeing Dalakhar and being shocked, asking the players what had happened, giving them even more incentive to actually find out what happened to help Renaer. But yes, I've seen a lot of DMs ask "My party didn't care, what do I do?"

So our party (in the game that is still going, bless our DM for putting up with our shenanigans for a whole year now) ended up going back to the tavern unexpectedly. So DM just rolled with it and as my rogue goes to meet [critical npc, no spoilers] and shake their hand I notice a small red object fly between the two of us. So we were somewhat invested. Also half of our party were Grey hands, we were the police XD