"Before you know, you've got like 19 pieces of paper taped together and you're trying to tell your mom why this matters" Honestly, this is still relevant even 15 years later

"...and i'm drinking beer out of a jar again... haaaa... something about drinking beer out of a jar just makes you feel like drinking right out of the DAMN JAR..." pure gold there hank... pure gold xD

I had absolutely no idea that other children drew cave systems

“Somthin’ about drinkin’ out of a jar just makes ya feel like you’re drinkin’ right out of the damn jar.”

Less than a minute in, and I already love this guy's style/personality.

"You gotta have Skull Mountain somewhere" Pretty much sums it up right there! Great video mr Drunken!

When he said “drinking beer out of a jar, makes you feel like you’re drinking it from the jar” I instantly subscribed, ofc

I did the prisoner encounter as you suggested from the other video as a prelude/introduction to Phandelver. My players said that the prison sequence is a lot more tense, fast-paced and interesting than Phandelver's Goblin ambush or the Bugbear hideout sequences. So thanks heaps!

My advice as a DM with over 15 years of experience is: Don't over-prepare but also don't go unprepared. The side-view world is an AWESOME idea - for you, the DM, to control your game and to make everything nice and concise. It's kind of a diagram of your thought process, and it's waaay easier to branch and create a lot of alternatives and chalanges for your players. But keep in mind (specially if you play with lots of different people) that there _will_ be players that are more visual, that like to see maps and where they are and where can they go, and how can they get there. So of course you don't want to build a huge, intricate Tolkien-esque world for a campaign that you just started because 1 - You don't know if the campaign is going to last beyond the first session, so there is a chance that all that effort will go to waste and 2 - You might overwhelm your players, specially newcomers. Instead, what you should do is trying to come with a contained but intriguing adventure, with _hints_ to the lore you're trying to achieve and give a little treat for the more visual players. A map of the starting town and surrounding region is just fine. If you're starting in a dungeon, let that visual player find a map for the first few rooms. Maybe the map is damaged in a few sections, that will also get his curiosity going.

I love the subtitles on the fireplace. They're deaf not stupid. :)

"All the beers are named," lol I've only managed to name one beverage in my world, and that is the house specialty, Dragon Piss! Served exclusively at the Busty Bastard Tavern!

"I got a day job." Preach!!!

This lad gets it right! And he saved me a gargantuan amount of time ahead of my first DM session ...

I don't know what level of crazy in reality Hank is vs. how much he is just messing around, but I'm sure the he is fun to hang around.

Oh man, i was one of those kids drawing Dungeons in my notebooks instead of taking actual notes. Spot on man!

"You gotta have Skull Mountain somewhere." Words to DM by.

I'm starting my first campaign as a DM on Sunday and this video helped me chill the fuck out a little. Much appreciated!

I totally agree. Normally when I start a campaign as a DM I never "build the world" - just design a simple village or town as a starting point, with one or 2 NPC and the first adventure. From there, will shape the world bit by bit based on the characters backgrounds and actions, so the players can be more involved and have fun. You're absolutely right mate, "THAT'S WHAT D&D IS ALL ABOUT" :-) Thumb up.

"You have got a rich world, all the beers are named." Thus sir, why have I been forgetting this.

I'm new to D&D and have been wanting to get into building worlds, and this video caught my eye. I don't care if I never touch D&D again, you earned yourself a subscriber!

My friend, I have woken up and fallen asleep to your voice. Thanks for sharing all this with me.

I drew massive stories with that exact cave system stick figure technique in second grade. it was wonderful.

I see that copy of Ghost Rider by famous drummer Neil Peart back there on that bookshelf, my guy. Nice.

If I ever find myself at a point wher I just need some straight talk about my favorite hobby, I get me a cold one, and turn on some Drunkens and Dragons.

"And you're trying to tell your mom why this matters" lmao lost it, that's my childhood right there

This is the exact problem I'm having. I've got this friggin map in front of me and I'm trying to make it cohesive and I don't even have an encounter laid out yet. I needed this. Just back to basics D&D.

After watching the rest of the video, the final line about Super Metroid strikes like a bolt of enlightenment.

3:00 AH! Those were the good times, each of my friends made a paper and then we taped them all together.

My mom got me old school printer paper that was connected with perforations side to side, so I drew my Mega Man bases like 4 or 5 feet long. It was great!

"Do your world building from your players.Their relationships and interactions in the opening encounters. Have those early encounters then build your world. And be a Cool DM." Brilliant!

thought that was a real fireplace lmao

Dont overdesign. think from the side. thats great advise. have enough detail to make it interesting and relevant to the players but not too much that is unnecesary

I have been watching A LOT of D&D videos, because I moved away from my friends and had a kid and don't really get to play anymore, and these are still the best damn D&D videos on. the. net.

"you can fight goblins for 10 levels" Breath of the wild is a testament to this.

A very interesting take on world building, I’m going to use it as soon as I have a place to

World-building from characters. Awesome advice, awesomely presented. Best world-building vid I’ve seen yet. Advice for any system

3:48-4:08 this is the exact kind of DM I play with, and it's completely amazing. He is able to just make up anything on the spot and it really feels like the world we are in is completely real and alive.

Found your channel through digging into an account's subs on a Web DM video with some really cool heartwarming situation where someone Jim and Pruitt talked to was a DM to a commenter and it was all good feels. Your channel name seemed cool while i was perusing the guy's subs, and i slapped it. Then this vid came on my feed after. Hahaha I love everything about your presentation and attitude, man. Good stuff.

I really enjoyed this perspective. You seem to put more focus on the day-today story of your characters, and not a thousand things outside of their influence that in the end isn''t needed. It seems so simple yet it's not done often enough.

Interesting way of playing! I personally still like to DM my worlds using a world map, however instead of planning out specific encounters or stories, I design key plot points and twists for my adventures that can easily be molded to wherever the PCs go. I plan out encounter sizes, difficulty, traps, etc. for an adventure and just re-skin and mold them where they can fit. The downside to this is def. like you said, it can lead to kind of awkward play at first till the PCs learn that they can literally do anything and try to solve the problems how you would in the real world. If they miss a key "clue," I just stick it somewhere else for them to find. I find this method really rewarding because my PCs typically feel really good when the solve a problem by doing something really crazy and clever.

Haha this is amazing and so laid back. You just got a new fan my friend!

I'm three years late, but damn it, your content is still great!

Even though I'm definitely guilty of doing the whole world building thing, including fleshing out things no one but me will ever ever know, this video is amazing.

This video has helped me chill out about DMing my session tomorrow and not having much to go off of. Thank you!

Stumbled across this video and you cracked me up- earned a solid subscribe- now to check out the rest of your content. Well done and keep the humor in! You combined smarts with some funny wit...thats hard to do

This is awesome. I actually did this before I even knew of this video. I had the party investigating a random occurrence. I gave loose details like, "You are in a province in the nation of ___, and there has been reports of orcs in a border town." They investigated, found orcs were trying to locate a magical artifact. I saw how they handled it, saw what direction they wanted to go, bam, they are now a commissioned force to investigate random occurrences in the name of their province in the hopes to secure magical artifacts and technology in a quasi arms race. The orcs are now a border nation that they have tenuous relationship with. Anyway, great vid!

I've never played Dungeons and Dragons before. I don't know much about it. I'm watching this because I felt it could be useful for other creative things (like writing) and world building sounds cool. Maybe I should try it sometime.

Great insights. Thanks for the tips, good reminder to not overplan and to kept creativity in the gameplay not just the prep!

As someone who's really new to DnD and wants to start writing his own campaign after finishing the 5e starter set - this was incredibly useful, thank you!

Recently discovered your channel and ICRPG and I have to say I'm so glad! You're entertaining and I'm happy that I'm not the only one that plans sessions differently. Learned of you from Professor DungeonMaster over at Dungeon Craft.

Community's Season 2 Episode 14 Advanced Dungeons and Dragons brought me here to learn more.

Ayy I'm loving these videos and that Iverson Jersey! Keep up the great work!

eyespliced 5e all the way!! Play some Dungeon World too, warm up and let the dice do the work!

Why is this dude still sitting on ONLY 43K subs. That's just criminal!

Just discovered this channel and OMG I'm in. Jar, FTW. Stoked to catch up. Thank you man!

Really good stuff. Can't wait to use it.

dude thanks so much for this. as a long time player wanting to run my own campien this makes me feel like i can give it a try

your opening statement is fucking METAL !

jeez, that video is still good

I’m making a new campaign about prisoners in a dwarf prison. So, they mine for the dwarves looking for a special ore, that’s only found near the center of the earth. I’m gonna make cave systems (like in the vid) as different rooms, and have puzzles and monsters. You can also mine random ore in different rooms. Sometimes, other prisoners might attack them to loot them. It’s not really that planned yet but it’s getting there. Also I’m kinda new to D&D so this isn’t going to be that good of a campaign. Wish me luck!

4:16, I did that, and I agree, without a job its much easier, it took me over a month to make, but honestly, my encounter generators I made got me through most of the encounters and gave players always a sense of freshness and wonder.(Thats a month of 4-6 hours a day)

Dude i love you i really do. I discovered your channel about a week ago and i'm watching all your videos (in no particular order). Me and my group are more in the theater of the mind style of play so apparently not all your videos are appealing to me but i really like your take, make things easy and simple and just have fun, keep it on !!! P.S. sry for my english.

or just make it a militaristic campaign "go to point alpha" >nope "court martial" roll initiative on the entire first platoon >ok we`ll go to the point

My brother, his friends, and I, are running a Thunder Hills (old west Warcraft meets Mary Shelley's Frankenstein) campaign. We've been doing an essentially O Brother Where Art Thou on the run campaign. We have an evil gnome who plays into it well. He isn't overly evil, but he does cause unnecessary amounts of destruction during combat to buildings and such. Also he usually shoots the lawmen knocked out. He has quite the bounty. But you're right, it really doesn't work in 90% of scenarios, the party has to basically do a full commitment with a campaign that is morally ambiguous.

I like this style, maybe a combination of both.... off to build my world some more

Just improvise the game and build the world as you play. Everything will have a meaning that way. Not like "there's all these boring stuff that don't have anything to do with you" and more like "this is where you fought that mind flayer and this is the city that you defended against the necromancer's herd of zombies".

WOW GREAT FIRE PLACE

dude these vids are awesommmeeee

Hankerin, son of Thurston! I beseech of thee a boon, or rather I have a question + comments of the non questiony variety. What edition of D&D do you typically play/ prefer? Watching your videos (starting with the cultmoo drink of destiny) has really made me want to pick up my dice again, but perhaps on the other side of the table. I had a run of terrible GM's, and I've been thinking I might be able to do better. Having you explain some of the thought which SHOULD go into worldbuilding/campaigns in general has helped me realize how much was lacking, and given me some killer ideas.

This is the first video I've seen from this channel and I'm subscribing. This is amazing. I have never ever seen a moderately big dungeons and dragons youtuber who basically says f*ck the book. Look at it your way! Great job dude 10/10!

Loved the video! Subscribed to the channel! Keep up the great work!

Thanks. Some useful info on building a campaign from scratch.

I love you. Thank you. You are awesome!

I personally begin with a single sheet of graph paper. I make a map by plotting down a couple of mountians, some dense forests, maybe a river and/or lake. I then put dots and connect them via lines. The dots are settlements, which I then name. That's ALL I do to begin with as far as world. I then make a dungeon and start the first adventure, fleshing out what each area on the map means as I go. If I need a new location, I just add it to the map right then and there.

popping and cracking fire!!! love it...you make me laugh Brother!! and your content is interesting too. thanks man for what you do.

Totally agree. You got to nail the game design and story first; those are the things that matter to the game the most. And only then you can fluff it up with world building lore along the way. It's much easier than confining yourself to a world and then try to create a good campaign from it.

took me 10 minutes to realize your fireplace was a TV/ Feel like theres some DM philosophy in that illusion

best dam advice on d&d ever! Ur badass dude! Big fan now 😂

This is great!

Good stuff, man. Whatchya drinking today?

DAMN IT! Who put captions on my fire place!

What an absolute fella

Saw the first second and instantly subscribed

I'm not here to kiss ass and I've never played DnD before. I'm just really into building worlds and have been since I was a kid. But what you're doing is genius! You're letting the narrative define the world and not The traditional vice versa. Well done!

Good video keep up the good work

I'm making my first campaign and you made me think to add on lots of cool shit.. Thanks for the advice bra. :)

Some good advice. Cheers.

When our primary DM is away I've been running a campaign I call 'The Ever Shift'. The premise is that, within the Temple of Leira, goddess of illusions, there is a portal to the Plane of Mist, a realm of illusion that is never the same on subsequent visits. The priests of Leira put together adventuring parties to challenge themselves within the often labyrinthine levels. No one is sure if the priests are responsible for the creatures and challenges that the Ever Shift presents, but they do know that the gold is real . . . I tried using the Random Dungeon Generator presented in the DMG, but it was a lot of work on my end as I felt rushed while rolling the next section of the hedge maze I dropped them into.

Improvisational and prepared DMing are both viable forms of playing the game. It all depends on the DM and the players and their preferences. I have two groups of players, one enjoys well-constructed unlazy pre-existing lore and worlds. The other group prefers a more laid-back approach where I simply allow them to run amok and use subtle story-telling techniques to make a gripping narrative from what they present. Either way both groups are having fun and I mix and match both techniques, because moderation is key. Having a well-constructed world doesn't mean you can't be a cool DM, it means you are more prepared for the direction a player wants to take the story. It doesn't mean you can't improvise and allow stories to build from your players, it means you can supplement their imaginations and immersion through your world. But creating an incredible world doesn't give you the right to railroad and force your players to do what you want, so they experience your story. Sure some players might prefer that, but it's their story too. Basically, balance. Just my 2 cents. Personally, when I am a player I prefer a well-built world with its own politics, factions, etc. I lose interest really fast when the world is just being pulled from someones ass.

Heck.. I grew up on Super Metroid and I'm still confused. ))): Just kidding. Your videos have been giving me a ton of insight and I'm feeling a hundred times more confident about DMing than I was before. *Raises jar* Cheers!

Fantastic!

Grid paper! AAHHHHHGGGG! Great advice! I don't play anymore but I remember overthinking my last campaign. Your tips would have really been a blessing.

You remember those old maps from history class? Most of the distances were guesses, as shown by the various places those cities were in conjunction from one another on different maps. Everything was a picture and the guy who drew the best pictures were the highest paid mapmakers. My world is the circle I control. As I can only control me, it is a very small circle.

Just found this. Thanks!

Fight goblins and then jump to beholders OK small jump there

"Woe upon adventurers in this land for all the beers have already been named there is no more conquest to be had."

Playing Super Metroid often solves my problems XD

In terms of maps, I'd probably have 4/5 main cities on a blank piece of paper, and use those as a general reference for distances and other locations, which upon encountering I'd mark upon the map. So you don't have any country/landmass shape, just 4/5 locations across a blank slate, and make it up as you go.

this is great advice i strated by just making a city where they found each other ( via loose circus animals) and from there on the dungeon /open planes revealed themself in the story because they wher heading thet way... i have a plan set up and the world builds itself... i write the story and places start to exist the only thing i need to to is to link the different places to each other and a lot of times my players do it for me by saying they head a particular direction, well then there is that ol' town i had made and it stays there ... i don't know if this will bring trouble in the future or not but for the moment its working...

That fire is pretty warm