So to help with my story writing I have been looking at sections in modules like ToA or LMoP to get a better idea of what I'm looking for. I heard you shouldn't write an ending to you story cause players often make the game and there own paths as they play. Does that also go for encounters? Should I have encounter set up but the outcome is not set in stone? And what about names for sections in a city? I find it hard to come up with really good names for each district. Any advice?
Im sure you will get a ton of responses to your post. As a DM for a very long time (30+ years of playing most of it being as a DM). I personally dont run pre-written stuff and never have. I have read through quite a few of them though. They can offer some great ideas. I run my games with an Idea and just build on it based on what the players do making adjustments as the game progresses. You would be surprised at all the ideas that you can come up with based on what your players do. Ill have an ending idea however that can change drastically depending on what the players do. And again this can spark new ideas for the DM to work with. As far as encounters I will have them ready to go for the game session and I try to make sure I have more then needed and then some just in case the group goes off from what you had came up with for that session. It will happen and it will happen often. As a DM it will keep you thinking. The players dont know what you have going on so if they stray to far you can just wing it and then make adjustments for the next session later. If your good at it you can keep them busy for some time. I used to run games without doing any work before hand and just go with the flow. I would just sit there and flip through the monster manuals as we played. Making shit up as you play for full sessions is something I think every DM should do if they have not. Really though I think every DM has done this to some degree. With that said I would not recommend doing this all the time. I feel that its just a skill that will keep you on your toes when the players go wondering off of what you worked so hard preparing for the session. As far as names... there are all kinds of name generators out there. Use them. I could go on and on but I wont. Im sure others will bring up some great advice.
I expect you'll receive a lot of different responses as most of us have different styles. Find the style that is right for your table and the enjoyment of you and your friends.
My $.02 is avoid "writing the story". Instead write some of the world, create interesting situations and some villains with motivations and then let the players find the "story" that works for them in your world. If you write the story, you may become annoyed when the players go off-script (and of course, they don't know the script). Players exploring, asking questions, doing things their way are some of what get them invested in the game and in your world. Enjoy the ride and create a shared fun experience.
For encounters, if you know the motivations of the "enemy" in the encounter, it helps you decide what they will do. For example, if you know the goblins only recently took over this outpost, they may not be that invested in defending it and could flee more quickly. If they know they have a scouting party returning, they would then try to stall/delay some instead.
In almost all cases, your players are going to be more creative than you, give them the framework so they can be creative and do crazy things that sometimes succeed.
Also, try a bit of Lost Mines (you said you had read some of it), once you run a bit you'll begin forming your own opinions for things you like and don't like , as well as what your players like. Personally, I use those as a reference then take it and make modifications so that it becomes my universe. I can then grab interesting ideas from other modules that then help me create a more dynamic world.
Hope the above helps some!
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"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I prefer to write my own rather than use pre-written stuff. It makes it easier for me to adapt on the fly because I know I'm not going to ruin what the book has written for the party.
As for an ending, no, I don't write endings. I do organize stories with a conclusion to a specific story, but the adventure is bigger than one story in my approach. So the next story is there for the players to find. For example, my level 1-3 approach is to give the party a way to secure some money so they can finance their careers as adventurers. While obtaining the money, they also obtain some magical treasure generally tailored to each of the players. Something in the treasure is a story hook to one of the next ideas I am giving the party. If that doesn't hook them, something else will when they get back to town to "cash in."
As for district names, there are several generic names that should be easy to fill up parts of your towns. The Slums, or poor district, or Tenements will give you one district. The Guild homes, middle class district, Merchant's homes, the low stories (for multiple story homes of 2-3 stories max) district, the Frames and Floors district (for wooden framed homes with floors) will give you generic names for middle class housing. The High Stories, the Balconies, The Estates, The Yards and Gardens, the Aristocrats, the Nobles district, the gated district are all possible examples of the upper crust. Then there are economic sections of town including the Guilds, the Merchants, the Craftsmen, the tailors, cobblers and grocers, the bazaar, the forum, the Market(s), the Makers (a general term for the folks that make things like smiths, leatherworkers, tailors, cabinet makers, harness shops …), the Trade District and such. Then there are churches, so you may have the church district or shrine district or something of that sort. You should also have a central government group of buildings with a name for that district. You may also have a soldier's district with a cluster of training and living facilities away from the main government buildings. This could also have your jail / prison, armory, watch tower and other things. You may even have a district where farm animals are available for purchase.
You may have districts with general geographical names like the river district, the docks, the hills, the oaks, the gateway, or possibly the mines. Finally you could have districts named after clans that dominate that part of town or an ethnicity or something more specific to your world. Clan Greymane, the Orc District, the German district are examples of these types.
I hope some of this helps you fill in the details. Good luck.
I'm fairly new when it comes to DM'ing but I've found that you can throw a bunch of different hooks at the party for various quests but push them towards what you want to do/have planned by implying the rewards or playing the parties attitudes. For example my current group is running through Curse of Strahd before i pull them into a homebrew setup and I've used the characters traits as pulls to bring them to the areas i have planned (like the barbarian is an alcoholic so I gave him the hook to the winery because i knew he would push hard to ensure that the alcohol would flow). Naming is always rough in my experience but there's enough random generators out there that you can wing it if needed. As far as outcomes for encounters give the enemy a specific goal to accomplish or preset a max amount of turns for the combat. An example from my current Strahd campaign is i had the players fight a very strong vampire early on whos goal was to acquire hair/blood/skin from the party to boost Strahds scrying abilities, I gave it a 5 round limit of the vampire fighting/screwing with them to accomplish its goal before it would poof into mist form and leave. The only change in this campaign for success or failure would be rolls against Strahds scrying but you can obviously adjust to fit your current campaign.
Write about what you want the players to feel. Also pre-rolling can help a bit. having a list of 10 random names at hand also goes a long way. Having pocket encounters is nice; maybe spend an hour on making 10-20 encounters for your campaign you can use at a moments notice. There are many combats that monsters still have 30/100 health and die with the next 5-10 damage sword attack in my campaigns. If the combat has served its purpose just end it before it gets boring. If a monster has 34/34HP and gets hit from a level 5 barb for 25 damage JUST GIVE IT TO THE PLAYER! It'll make the player feel badass (don't do this all the time but makes combats fun and faster). Basically, when things have served their purpose discard them.
My advice for names is to use https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/ since that's how I get a majority of my names for my campaign and in terms of story hate to say it but prep whatever you don't want to improvised so if your find with improving a lot you can, in theory, get away with prepping just two bullet points
I start with the official adventures and add my own story to them.
I also jump around a lot in all the adventures that are in DD Beyond. It is why DD beyond is great tool. Pull up any part of an adventure and use your own story to tie it all together.
I even use older 3.5 content and create prestige classes, Items etc into Homebrew.
Never been easier to make you own story and play DD.
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So to help with my story writing I have been looking at sections in modules like ToA or LMoP to get a better idea of what I'm looking for. I heard you shouldn't write an ending to you story cause players often make the game and there own paths as they play. Does that also go for encounters? Should I have encounter set up but the outcome is not set in stone? And what about names for sections in a city? I find it hard to come up with really good names for each district. Any advice?
Im sure you will get a ton of responses to your post. As a DM for a very long time (30+ years of playing most of it being as a DM). I personally dont run pre-written stuff and never have. I have read through quite a few of them though. They can offer some great ideas. I run my games with an Idea and just build on it based on what the players do making adjustments as the game progresses. You would be surprised at all the ideas that you can come up with based on what your players do. Ill have an ending idea however that can change drastically depending on what the players do. And again this can spark new ideas for the DM to work with. As far as encounters I will have them ready to go for the game session and I try to make sure I have more then needed and then some just in case the group goes off from what you had came up with for that session. It will happen and it will happen often. As a DM it will keep you thinking. The players dont know what you have going on so if they stray to far you can just wing it and then make adjustments for the next session later. If your good at it you can keep them busy for some time. I used to run games without doing any work before hand and just go with the flow. I would just sit there and flip through the monster manuals as we played. Making shit up as you play for full sessions is something I think every DM should do if they have not. Really though I think every DM has done this to some degree. With that said I would not recommend doing this all the time. I feel that its just a skill that will keep you on your toes when the players go wondering off of what you worked so hard preparing for the session. As far as names... there are all kinds of name generators out there. Use them. I could go on and on but I wont. Im sure others will bring up some great advice.
I expect you'll receive a lot of different responses as most of us have different styles. Find the style that is right for your table and the enjoyment of you and your friends.
My $.02 is avoid "writing the story". Instead write some of the world, create interesting situations and some villains with motivations and then let the players find the "story" that works for them in your world. If you write the story, you may become annoyed when the players go off-script (and of course, they don't know the script). Players exploring, asking questions, doing things their way are some of what get them invested in the game and in your world. Enjoy the ride and create a shared fun experience.
For encounters, if you know the motivations of the "enemy" in the encounter, it helps you decide what they will do. For example, if you know the goblins only recently took over this outpost, they may not be that invested in defending it and could flee more quickly. If they know they have a scouting party returning, they would then try to stall/delay some instead.
In almost all cases, your players are going to be more creative than you, give them the framework so they can be creative and do crazy things that sometimes succeed.
Also, try a bit of Lost Mines (you said you had read some of it), once you run a bit you'll begin forming your own opinions for things you like and don't like , as well as what your players like. Personally, I use those as a reference then take it and make modifications so that it becomes my universe. I can then grab interesting ideas from other modules that then help me create a more dynamic world.
Hope the above helps some!
"An' things ha' come to a pretty pass, ye ken, if people are going to leave stuff like that aroound where innocent people could accidentally smash the door doon and lever the bars aside and take the big chain off'f the cupboard and pick the lock and drink it!"
I prefer to write my own rather than use pre-written stuff. It makes it easier for me to adapt on the fly because I know I'm not going to ruin what the book has written for the party.
As for an ending, no, I don't write endings. I do organize stories with a conclusion to a specific story, but the adventure is bigger than one story in my approach. So the next story is there for the players to find. For example, my level 1-3 approach is to give the party a way to secure some money so they can finance their careers as adventurers. While obtaining the money, they also obtain some magical treasure generally tailored to each of the players. Something in the treasure is a story hook to one of the next ideas I am giving the party. If that doesn't hook them, something else will when they get back to town to "cash in."
As for district names, there are several generic names that should be easy to fill up parts of your towns. The Slums, or poor district, or Tenements will give you one district. The Guild homes, middle class district, Merchant's homes, the low stories (for multiple story homes of 2-3 stories max) district, the Frames and Floors district (for wooden framed homes with floors) will give you generic names for middle class housing. The High Stories, the Balconies, The Estates, The Yards and Gardens, the Aristocrats, the Nobles district, the gated district are all possible examples of the upper crust. Then there are economic sections of town including the Guilds, the Merchants, the Craftsmen, the tailors, cobblers and grocers, the bazaar, the forum, the Market(s), the Makers (a general term for the folks that make things like smiths, leatherworkers, tailors, cabinet makers, harness shops …), the Trade District and such. Then there are churches, so you may have the church district or shrine district or something of that sort. You should also have a central government group of buildings with a name for that district. You may also have a soldier's district with a cluster of training and living facilities away from the main government buildings. This could also have your jail / prison, armory, watch tower and other things. You may even have a district where farm animals are available for purchase.
You may have districts with general geographical names like the river district, the docks, the hills, the oaks, the gateway, or possibly the mines. Finally you could have districts named after clans that dominate that part of town or an ethnicity or something more specific to your world. Clan Greymane, the Orc District, the German district are examples of these types.
I hope some of this helps you fill in the details. Good luck.
I'm fairly new when it comes to DM'ing but I've found that you can throw a bunch of different hooks at the party for various quests but push them towards what you want to do/have planned by implying the rewards or playing the parties attitudes. For example my current group is running through Curse of Strahd before i pull them into a homebrew setup and I've used the characters traits as pulls to bring them to the areas i have planned (like the barbarian is an alcoholic so I gave him the hook to the winery because i knew he would push hard to ensure that the alcohol would flow). Naming is always rough in my experience but there's enough random generators out there that you can wing it if needed. As far as outcomes for encounters give the enemy a specific goal to accomplish or preset a max amount of turns for the combat. An example from my current Strahd campaign is i had the players fight a very strong vampire early on whos goal was to acquire hair/blood/skin from the party to boost Strahds scrying abilities, I gave it a 5 round limit of the vampire fighting/screwing with them to accomplish its goal before it would poof into mist form and leave. The only change in this campaign for success or failure would be rolls against Strahds scrying but you can obviously adjust to fit your current campaign.
Write about what you want the players to feel. Also pre-rolling can help a bit. having a list of 10 random names at hand also goes a long way. Having pocket encounters is nice; maybe spend an hour on making 10-20 encounters for your campaign you can use at a moments notice. There are many combats that monsters still have 30/100 health and die with the next 5-10 damage sword attack in my campaigns. If the combat has served its purpose just end it before it gets boring. If a monster has 34/34HP and gets hit from a level 5 barb for 25 damage JUST GIVE IT TO THE PLAYER! It'll make the player feel badass (don't do this all the time but makes combats fun and faster). Basically, when things have served their purpose discard them.
Welcome to the hectic world of DMing.
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/
I'm liking this website more and more; currently playing a Blood Hunter! Roll20 is where I play DnD 5E.
My advice for names is to use https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/ since that's how I get a majority of my names for my campaign and in terms of story hate to say it but prep whatever you don't want to improvised so if your find with improving a lot you can, in theory, get away with prepping just two bullet points
I like using a combined approach.
I start with the official adventures and add my own story to them.
I also jump around a lot in all the adventures that are in DD Beyond. It is why DD beyond is great tool. Pull up any part of an adventure and use your own story to tie it all together.
I even use older 3.5 content and create prestige classes, Items etc into Homebrew.
Never been easier to make you own story and play DD.