For home brew -- try to create a homebrew world that can accommodate existing published adventures. This way, you have a large source of material (NPCs, monsters, boss monsters, areas, maps, dungeons, plots, etc.) to draw from. I did not do this and it was my biggest mistake. I made a homebrew world that 90% or more of the material just does not thematically fit into (my world is Roman and most D&D material is "faux middle age Europe" in style). So I can't (easily) use things like town maps (Romans laid out towns differently), inn/tavern maps (Roman "tabernae" were very different and Romans did not have standard "inns"), house maps (the Roman domus had a completely different floor plan from the typical generic fantasy houses), NPC names (Romans had very different sorts of names from the style of FR, etc.), and more. Even when trying to make my own maps, 99% of resources (tokens, background images, etc.) presume the "faux middle ages Europe" style and it is a massive pain to make my maps look "Roman." Yes, I can do it, but it is a huge hassle.
If I had just accepted the "faux middle ages" aesthetic, so as to accommodate the vast majority of both official and unofficial content out there, I could have saved myself hundreds of hours' work. So that is my advice... make up a world that can easily accommodate the style of Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Eberron so you can place the existing material, in part or in whole, as you see fit, into your world. It will save you tons and tons of work.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Rip off (I mean pay homage to) plots from movies, tv shows, and books you like. They don't really even need to be obscure. If you do it right, your players will enjoy trying to recognize where your inspirations are coming from. As an example, Curse of Strahd blatantly steals from various horror novels and books for each of its chapters and that's considered one of the best WOTC published adventures.
Rip off (I mean pay homage to) plots from movies, tv shows, and books you like. They don't really even need to be obscure. If you do it right, your players will enjoy trying to recognize where your inspirations are coming from. As an example, Curse of Strahd blatantly steals from various horror novels and books for each of its chapters and that's considered one of the best WOTC published adventures.
Use queues to slash down your prep time, and improve the quality of your game. The idea is when something is relevant to the players, it will show up out of your queue, and you can focus your prep time on simply keeping the queues refreshed and updated. It is a highly structured way to generate content for your world, and gives you focus and direction when prepping.
For instance, consider this hierarchal structure:
Now, I start by making an area. The "starting area". Lets call it, the Bloodsun Plains. Now I'll add another area to the queue- Trollmar Forest. That is the next "Area" the players will arrive at when they leave the Bloodsun Plains. Doesn't matter which way they go, I can put it where I need it. One thing to note though is it is a good idea to queue up two areas at a time, incase I point to Trollmar forest as part of a quest telling the players to go west and they suddenly go east, I have a failsafe.
Each area also comes with placeholders for Towns, Dungeons, and other interest points, which in turn come with placeholders for shops, encounters, etc. You can queue these up too, and use the next one on the list when they arrive at that location.
And don't think that that is the be-all-end-all, you can create your queue hierarchy however you want. Just remember the general rule: Content>(Placeholders)>More detailed content>(Placeholders)>Still increasingly detailed content>(placeholders).....etc etc.
The beauty of this is it works so well with the various random generators you can find online. Use them to take a lot of the legwork out of things.
Start small! No godlike wizard NPCs, no overcomplicated history, no world-saving quest. That stuff might be fun in a book or movie, but in a game, it just takes away focus from the players and their characters, especially at low levels.
So use your time on the stuff players actually care about: a starting town with fun NPCs and a few exciting quests to kick off the campaign. Don't try to flesh out your whole world or plan more than a few sessions ahead. Go with the flow and focus on the players, and not only will it be easier, but you'll all have more fun!
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Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
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I'm new at DMing and I'm looking for advice to make my adventures good and enjoyable. Any advice?
Best advice I can give you is go watch this series by Matt Coleville:
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Be a river unto your people.
That is the greatest DM advice.
What are you thinking of running, home brew or pre-written?
home brew.
thanks everyone! : )
For home brew -- try to create a homebrew world that can accommodate existing published adventures. This way, you have a large source of material (NPCs, monsters, boss monsters, areas, maps, dungeons, plots, etc.) to draw from. I did not do this and it was my biggest mistake. I made a homebrew world that 90% or more of the material just does not thematically fit into (my world is Roman and most D&D material is "faux middle age Europe" in style). So I can't (easily) use things like town maps (Romans laid out towns differently), inn/tavern maps (Roman "tabernae" were very different and Romans did not have standard "inns"), house maps (the Roman domus had a completely different floor plan from the typical generic fantasy houses), NPC names (Romans had very different sorts of names from the style of FR, etc.), and more. Even when trying to make my own maps, 99% of resources (tokens, background images, etc.) presume the "faux middle ages Europe" style and it is a massive pain to make my maps look "Roman." Yes, I can do it, but it is a huge hassle.
If I had just accepted the "faux middle ages" aesthetic, so as to accommodate the vast majority of both official and unofficial content out there, I could have saved myself hundreds of hours' work. So that is my advice... make up a world that can easily accommodate the style of Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or Eberron so you can place the existing material, in part or in whole, as you see fit, into your world. It will save you tons and tons of work.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Rip off (I mean pay homage to) plots from movies, tv shows, and books you like. They don't really even need to be obscure. If you do it right, your players will enjoy trying to recognize where your inspirations are coming from. As an example, Curse of Strahd blatantly steals from various horror novels and books for each of its chapters and that's considered one of the best WOTC published adventures.
thanks! thats extremly helpful!!!!! :)
Try to incorporate players backstories. It makes them feel important.
Use queues to slash down your prep time, and improve the quality of your game. The idea is when something is relevant to the players, it will show up out of your queue, and you can focus your prep time on simply keeping the queues refreshed and updated. It is a highly structured way to generate content for your world, and gives you focus and direction when prepping.
For instance, consider this hierarchal structure:
Now, I start by making an area. The "starting area". Lets call it, the Bloodsun Plains. Now I'll add another area to the queue- Trollmar Forest. That is the next "Area" the players will arrive at when they leave the Bloodsun Plains. Doesn't matter which way they go, I can put it where I need it. One thing to note though is it is a good idea to queue up two areas at a time, incase I point to Trollmar forest as part of a quest telling the players to go west and they suddenly go east, I have a failsafe.
Each area also comes with placeholders for Towns, Dungeons, and other interest points, which in turn come with placeholders for shops, encounters, etc. You can queue these up too, and use the next one on the list when they arrive at that location.
And don't think that that is the be-all-end-all, you can create your queue hierarchy however you want. Just remember the general rule: Content>(Placeholders)>More detailed content>(Placeholders)>Still increasingly detailed content>(placeholders).....etc etc.
The beauty of this is it works so well with the various random generators you can find online. Use them to take a lot of the legwork out of things.
Start small! No godlike wizard NPCs, no overcomplicated history, no world-saving quest. That stuff might be fun in a book or movie, but in a game, it just takes away focus from the players and their characters, especially at low levels.
So use your time on the stuff players actually care about: a starting town with fun NPCs and a few exciting quests to kick off the campaign. Don't try to flesh out your whole world or plan more than a few sessions ahead. Go with the flow and focus on the players, and not only will it be easier, but you'll all have more fun!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club