I just DM'ed for the first time last Sunday and it went way better than i thought it would. I stumbled in the beginning because i did not really think of a good hook to start with but once that was out of the way and the players started on their journey it went quite well. The players all RP'ed really well (even the first time player) and i was able to put in moments of RP, Exploration and Combat and all within 4 hours.
However for the next session i want to be prepared for some out of the blue stuff. Especially one of the players was looking to talk to random people, wanted to visit temples and another wanted to go to random shops.
How do you guys handle this? Especially when it comes to NPC's out of the blue, do you have some plug and play scripts and names/races/types ready?
Hello! So it really depends on what you want to do and how much work you want to put in. I’ve been building my own homebrew campaign and world and, though it’s a blast and I’m personally having fun doing it, it’s a lot of work! If you want to put in a lot of work like what I am doing, you can build towns up from the ground, i.e. come up with names of shops, owners, temples with the residing deity, etc. There are a lot of good resources online, like random generators for stores, cities, NPCs... just start googling things like that and I’m sure you’ll come across some helpful stuff. It’s good to be at least a little planned for, like having a general idea of what this or that town offer. I know several people, for NPCs in particular, just ready a list of names ahead of time, I do this as well in the event that the players meet someone I didn’t account for. You can even just take the suggested names from the section each race has here on dnd beyond; this way you can just quickly look and pull out a fitting name. You can always maybe take a few of those names and add some quirks, minor personality traits, maneurisms, voice tone, etc, so you’re even more ready.
I also personally really like to use things from dmsguild.com. Tons of people have created so many great products and compendiums for exactly what you aren’t looking for and more. Most are also really cheap or even free.
Anyways, hope that helps you a bit. Anything more, feel free to reply and I can try to get more specific.
Yeah its really about fleshing out the world to help draw the players in, I've created several countries with a paragraph of backstory and put towns and cities together and have ideas of what they might contain. For the first session i just wanted to set them off on an adventure which they did follow without me having to railroad them beyond giving the first quest and i had the town and its people mostly fleshed out. But now for next session (which hopefully is in a month) they have some more agency in their decisions so i want to anticipate on those courses of actions.
The race suggested names are a good idea and ill probably look into that to have as a backup for Improv situations.
Do you keep track of this in just a general note sheet or do you use a specific method to organize all this information?
Haha, I could probably be a little more organized with how I keep track of things, that is for sure. Most of all my work is across multiple Microsoft word documents that are all clearly labeled, so like X Town, X part of the campaign, From X to X. I usually separate towns, story, side details etc in their own folders too. So far this works for me personally as it helps me compartmentalize where the group is at and what I need for that moment, and as long as I am prepared, I should be able to quickly pull up where ever they go. I have heard a lot of people use Microsoft One note. Some people like to keep it all hand written in a note book. So do note cards and do really simple planning. I think there are some specific programs out there as well that help organize it all, I am pretty sure I have seen a thread on here discussing organization as well.
You mentioned improv, and I wanted to touch on that originally, but I forgot. Being a good improver is like one of the best skills a DM could have. By just being able to quickly make stuff up to keep things going will really help keep your players engaged and you happy to see things progressing. As DM's there is literally no way we can account for even 70% of what the players could decide on doing.
You also talked about giving your players agency in their decisions to go do what they want. I don't know if you plan to already be doing it, but yeah, still provide them options of what to do next, i.e. a towns person saying this other village needs help, but also this other guy is saying that up north there is a giant terrorizing a trade route, oh and hey there is this force brewing in the west that is pretty concerning, etc... Simply giving the players a map can even be enough to have them make a decision on what to do, because they may just look at it and be like, oh snap, that little island town 40 days a way seems cool to visit! It sounds like you may be concerned about railroading, but as long as you leave option and choice in the players hands, you should not have that be a problem. I could be totally off mark, so my apologies here if I am suggesting things your already planning on doing.
No No not off mark, all very helpful and it helps to confirm that the way i go about things are potentially effective. I am worried about railroading as I've been part of a campaign in which the DM just wanted to run combat the whole time with no RP or exploration beyond the prescripted pieces and it almost drove me out of the game. That's not what got me into playing DND so that's what prompted me to start my own campaign.
The way I went about it is in session one explaining that everyone has joined "The Guild" which provides them leads for quests and provides them room and board in large towns. As a charge for these leads the players need to hand off part of the rewards for their quests. It allows me to drum up essentially premade encounters that fit in the world and for them to find the quests. But of course players might have a mind of their own and prefer not to lose their hard earned gold and that's probably where the improv will come in.
I am totally right there with you, I've been in groups before where the DM puts such a strong focus on just combat, so we'd be sitting there for 2-3 hours per encounter at higher levels. Sometimes that's cool, but not all the time. You're also not alone in the fear of railroading. It is a tendency I battle with myself all the time. I design this super extravagant overarching campaign and add like way too much dialogue and scripted performances by villains and npcs; again, happening sometimes, totally cool, all the time its a big faux pas.
But I love how you started your campaign! The "Guild" idea seems great and opens up so many options. If you're looking for a few already made "quests", I'd recommend a title on Dmsguild called "100 monster hunts" by a Vail Syrene; it's a few bucks if I remember right. In my campaign, almost every town has a notice board, as monster threats have increased in the past two decades, so there is always that optional option for players to pick up a quick "let's go kill X and get rewards!". It may be what you're looking for in the "Guilds" to offer as well. I personally like this because it kind of allows you to limit how much combat you'd normally have to put in the major campaign arch, and it allows players to seek, or not seek out, combat when they want it.
I recommend to create small area and town where action is happening so characters can return to "homebase" after quest or dungeon. Shopkeepers are always easy quest hooks: Blacksmith needs shipment of iron and tavern owner needs more meat and ale for example.
I just DM'ed for the first time last Sunday and it went way better than i thought it would. I stumbled in the beginning because i did not really think of a good hook to start with but once that was out of the way and the players started on their journey it went quite well. The players all RP'ed really well (even the first time player) and i was able to put in moments of RP, Exploration and Combat and all within 4 hours.
However for the next session i want to be prepared for some out of the blue stuff. Especially one of the players was looking to talk to random people, wanted to visit temples and another wanted to go to random shops.
How do you guys handle this? Especially when it comes to NPC's out of the blue, do you have some plug and play scripts and names/races/types ready?
Hello! So it really depends on what you want to do and how much work you want to put in. I’ve been building my own homebrew campaign and world and, though it’s a blast and I’m personally having fun doing it, it’s a lot of work! If you want to put in a lot of work like what I am doing, you can build towns up from the ground, i.e. come up with names of shops, owners, temples with the residing deity, etc. There are a lot of good resources online, like random generators for stores, cities, NPCs... just start googling things like that and I’m sure you’ll come across some helpful stuff. It’s good to be at least a little planned for, like having a general idea of what this or that town offer. I know several people, for NPCs in particular, just ready a list of names ahead of time, I do this as well in the event that the players meet someone I didn’t account for. You can even just take the suggested names from the section each race has here on dnd beyond; this way you can just quickly look and pull out a fitting name. You can always maybe take a few of those names and add some quirks, minor personality traits, maneurisms, voice tone, etc, so you’re even more ready.
I also personally really like to use things from dmsguild.com. Tons of people have created so many great products and compendiums for exactly what you aren’t looking for and more. Most are also really cheap or even free.
Anyways, hope that helps you a bit. Anything more, feel free to reply and I can try to get more specific.
Yeah its really about fleshing out the world to help draw the players in, I've created several countries with a paragraph of backstory and put towns and cities together and have ideas of what they might contain. For the first session i just wanted to set them off on an adventure which they did follow without me having to railroad them beyond giving the first quest and i had the town and its people mostly fleshed out. But now for next session (which hopefully is in a month) they have some more agency in their decisions so i want to anticipate on those courses of actions.
The race suggested names are a good idea and ill probably look into that to have as a backup for Improv situations.
Do you keep track of this in just a general note sheet or do you use a specific method to organize all this information?
Haha, I could probably be a little more organized with how I keep track of things, that is for sure. Most of all my work is across multiple Microsoft word documents that are all clearly labeled, so like X Town, X part of the campaign, From X to X. I usually separate towns, story, side details etc in their own folders too. So far this works for me personally as it helps me compartmentalize where the group is at and what I need for that moment, and as long as I am prepared, I should be able to quickly pull up where ever they go. I have heard a lot of people use Microsoft One note. Some people like to keep it all hand written in a note book. So do note cards and do really simple planning. I think there are some specific programs out there as well that help organize it all, I am pretty sure I have seen a thread on here discussing organization as well.
You mentioned improv, and I wanted to touch on that originally, but I forgot. Being a good improver is like one of the best skills a DM could have. By just being able to quickly make stuff up to keep things going will really help keep your players engaged and you happy to see things progressing. As DM's there is literally no way we can account for even 70% of what the players could decide on doing.
You also talked about giving your players agency in their decisions to go do what they want. I don't know if you plan to already be doing it, but yeah, still provide them options of what to do next, i.e. a towns person saying this other village needs help, but also this other guy is saying that up north there is a giant terrorizing a trade route, oh and hey there is this force brewing in the west that is pretty concerning, etc... Simply giving the players a map can even be enough to have them make a decision on what to do, because they may just look at it and be like, oh snap, that little island town 40 days a way seems cool to visit! It sounds like you may be concerned about railroading, but as long as you leave option and choice in the players hands, you should not have that be a problem. I could be totally off mark, so my apologies here if I am suggesting things your already planning on doing.
No No not off mark, all very helpful and it helps to confirm that the way i go about things are potentially effective. I am worried about railroading as I've been part of a campaign in which the DM just wanted to run combat the whole time with no RP or exploration beyond the prescripted pieces and it almost drove me out of the game. That's not what got me into playing DND so that's what prompted me to start my own campaign.
The way I went about it is in session one explaining that everyone has joined "The Guild" which provides them leads for quests and provides them room and board in large towns. As a charge for these leads the players need to hand off part of the rewards for their quests. It allows me to drum up essentially premade encounters that fit in the world and for them to find the quests. But of course players might have a mind of their own and prefer not to lose their hard earned gold and that's probably where the improv will come in.
I am totally right there with you, I've been in groups before where the DM puts such a strong focus on just combat, so we'd be sitting there for 2-3 hours per encounter at higher levels. Sometimes that's cool, but not all the time. You're also not alone in the fear of railroading. It is a tendency I battle with myself all the time. I design this super extravagant overarching campaign and add like way too much dialogue and scripted performances by villains and npcs; again, happening sometimes, totally cool, all the time its a big faux pas.
But I love how you started your campaign! The "Guild" idea seems great and opens up so many options. If you're looking for a few already made "quests", I'd recommend a title on Dmsguild called "100 monster hunts" by a Vail Syrene; it's a few bucks if I remember right. In my campaign, almost every town has a notice board, as monster threats have increased in the past two decades, so there is always that optional option for players to pick up a quick "let's go kill X and get rewards!". It may be what you're looking for in the "Guilds" to offer as well. I personally like this because it kind of allows you to limit how much combat you'd normally have to put in the major campaign arch, and it allows players to seek, or not seek out, combat when they want it.
I recommend to create small area and town where action is happening so characters can return to "homebase" after quest or dungeon. Shopkeepers are always easy quest hooks: Blacksmith needs shipment of iron and tavern owner needs more meat and ale for example.
You can use my own project for inspiration: http://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/By3s5Uqqf
Thanks for the tip! I liked the way you organized everything in the link you shared. It's good to see other peoples tools of the trade.