Ok, so I have a few questions, but first I'll quickly explain where I'm at:
I'm DMing a little campaign for a couple of close friends, all three of us are quite new to the game, so we'll definitely be focusing more on RP than combat. I've played VERY little DnD but I have spent an unholy amount of time listening to a DnD podcast over the past year and feel like I have gained at the very least a working grasp of the rules from that (podcast is Just Roll With It by the way, highly recommend!). All three of us are writers and are pretty comfortable with world-building and RP in general. I'm writing my own campaign, but am going to try and borrow elements from some of the prewritten adventures out there to make my life easier. Still in the prep stages, so have a bit of time before the campaign begins.
I have a couple of specific questions in mind but I'd be grateful for any advice in general. You don't know what you don't know as they say :)
Are there any sites where people post their actual DM notes? I know, I've read all the blogs saying that how much prep you do is really up to you and all that, but it would be really helpful, I think, to see different examples of what DM notes actually look like. Not looking to steal anything, just trying to figure out how much would be enough for me :)
Any suggestions for free map-making tools? I'm not looking for anything super detailed or pretty, but I would like something that lets you shape the topography to a certain degree (I explain my campaign a bit below, but the players are going to spend most of their time in several valleys and possibly a few mountains)
Any tips on how to keep my players on-track while still letting them explore? I just don't want them wandering off and get killed by something they weren't supposed to find until later on lol.
I know that monster challenge ratings are meant to be roughly equal to the party level, but surely there's a difference between a party of 5 experienced PCs and my 2 inexperienced PCs? Maybe I'm overthinking it but I thought I'd ask anyway.
Very specific question: how crazy could I get with an archlich's phylactery? Could it be a living entity? Or possibly a structure or a location (like a tower or a fortress)? VERY specific question XD
Ok if you've hung in with me this long, I'd love to get a bit of feedback or suggestions for my campaign: the players start in a lush valley (like a huge bowl) where they are asked to help overthrow an incompetent ruler. A moral dilemma or two latter, and the problem is resolved and the little village is back on track. The PCs are suddenly plunged into a vision where they are confronted by the BBEG, an archlich who eventually will reveal that he'll aid the adventures, but only to gain their trust and servitude. After solving some problems and handling some quests, the players leave the valley, only to discover a hellish, barren landscape that covers the entire map, save for a few protected valleys and mountaintops. The archlich wants to protect the valleys from the beasts that roam the wasteland (which he has been doing), and has decided that ultimately the best way to do so would be to conquer the valleys and rule over them as a warrior-king. From there they players would go around to different valleys and mountains, exploring the unique environments in each. The endgame would force the players to decide to either ally with the archlich and essentially take over the world or to try and defeat him and kill the entity that's ruling over the wasteland beasts by themselves (I haven't decided exactly, but I'm thinking of a big monster/dragon sort of thing...). The Idea would be to make each valley a distinct theme so that the players can explore different environments. Any thoughts or ideas would be great for inspiration :)
Thanks again! I'm excited to get into the game and am very grateful for any help or advice!
As a fellow DM. I'll attempt to answer these questions.
1. If you're looking for examples of how to write up notes in prep for a session, I would advise looking over the Youtube channel the DM Lair, he has a lot of great videos abd does a weekly livestream that is archived where he goes through with chat how he plans an adventure. https://www.youtube.com/c/theDMLair/videos
2. The map making tool I use is Inkarnate. I personally pay the $5 subscription as that gives me full access to tokens, stamps and texures. But it can still be good to use for free.
3. It's hard to say exactly without knowing what type of campaign you're running, but what I can say is that players do enter into a social contract that when they play DnD they are playing what the DM has made. This doesn't mean you can railroad them, but you can set up side-quests and random encounters which can provide world-lore or hints and clues to help them dealing with the main campaign. Basically, if the players enter a town in which they need to speak with someone for information about their main quest, there might also be other problems happening within the town: a band of bandits have been bothering the locals who live on the outskirts, a hag has infiltrated the town and is causing people to be sick, the richest man in town has had something stolen from him and will handsomely reward whoever returns it to them with discretion. This allows your players to explore while maintaining them on the right track. If your players choose to ignore all the possibilities you've placed before them, and say "no, we want to steal a ship and sail as pirates", as the DM you are allowed, and encouraged, to say no, that's not the type of game I've planned.
4. Challenge ratings can be very broken at times, Shadows for example are only 1/2 CR but are LETHAL for any party. To start new players it is a good idea to have them encounter two types of creatures: pests, and intelligent tactic makers. The first can be swarms of rats the party fight in the sewers, this will introduce them to the basics of combat, and how they use their characters. The second, is traditionaly a band of goblins. Goblins have low health, but they are smart enough to utilize tactics and may attempt to flee once most of their comrades have fallen. Goblins can set up traps along the road and wait in ambush, they can use cover like flipping over a table or ducking behind a boulder. Perhaps a goblin has a potion of enlarge they will drink when the battle looks against them. This will introduce your players to battle tactics they themselves can learn to use.
5. An interesting question. In lore, and i might be wrong about this myself, but a phylactery has to be something made out of a solid material and cost thousands of gold. The idea of the phylactery is that if the body of the Lich dies, it can regenerate, or respawn, at the phylactery. For this reason Lichs usually make their phylactery something they can hide. All this aside, as a DM of a homebrew campaign you can decide the lore you want. It is your world, you decide what exists and what doesn't.
6. It's a good framework for a campaign. One idea I want to touch on is linking the beginning quest with the next over-arching campaign. Perhaps when the party confront the incompetent ruler, they discover that the king has been squandering money to build a tunnel under his castle to a sort of bunker. The players can find that the king has been extremely paranoid, and if the players investigate further, they can find that the cause of this paranoia is that the king has learnt through research about the Archlich who will soon return to its full strength and wish to claim the valley. For the outside world, I might suggest that instead of one entity that the Archlich needs to overthrow, it be a pantheon of entities with each controlling a very different biome. A frost giant that rules a frozen tundra, an Efreeti who governs over a desert wasteland, a hag who controls a court of fey, etc. Each village the players visit can be a little different with different customs and laws, some relating to the command of the entity ruling them. An example of this is Avatar the Last Airbender, but you can look to real-life cultures for inspiration.
Hey I don't have answers for all your questions, but I'll try to answer a few for your
3 - Players always go off the reservation. How far off depends on the players, but they're real people, not characters in a book so they're not always going to go the way you want or expect (and that is honestly part of the fun). Part of DMing means being able to improvise - the more you prepare the less you'll have to do this and the easier it will be to do this when it happens. Having all said that:
A) Limit their routes - If you want to stop them wandering places you don't want them going then don't create those options in the first place.
B) Warn them - you can do this subtly through NPCs, rumours, signposts, lore, etc or you can just be explicit and tell them out of character, "guys I don't think you're at the level to handle this. If you go down this route, I'm worried you'll die." It is ok to be explicit with them, especially with new players and especially if they're your friends. Then it's on them if they decide to go ahead any way
*(Both you and your players will make mistakes; I'm coming to the end of my first campaign and the amount of mistakes I made in the early days are too many count. Heck it's been 2 and a half years and still making mistakes like the time I let a bunch of AoE enemies go on the same turn. Almost TPKed my party. That was just a couple of weeks back. I expressly apologised to them after that and now I roll separate initiatives for all enemies even if they're off the same type. However, the fact is you will make mistakes. That's ok. Make them. Apologise if necessary. Learn from them. And move on)*
C) Block off the routes - maybe the swamp of the evil dragon lies beyond a series of impassable mountains. It can only be reached by flight or teleportation. If you want options to be there that you don't want them to take, make it impossible.
D) You control their enemies. Just because the players decide to wander off into the deadly swamp of the evil dragon, doesn't the evil dragon will kill them. Maybe it's feeling lazy or maybe it has a use for the party. Just because they lose doesn't mean you have to kill them.
E) Protector NPC - in the early days of our campaign I created an NPC that became allies with the party and aided them until they became more experienced.
4 - Simple answer yes, in my opinion. Most of my players were and still are new and they make a lot of ... what I think are tactical errors. I have one experienced player in my campaign (the rest of us were all noobs when we started) and he's exceptionally good at building characters and playing tactically. The others aren't bad - I'd say their good in fact - but there's a clear difference in knowledge between them and the experienced player. So simple answer, yes.
Complicated answer: the CR from the DM's guide is very basic. It's made for a party of an average of 4 people (I think) and the further you get from that average, the more inaccurate it will become. Even if you have four, I hear you once get past like lv 5, it just doesn't calculate properly for player abilities. I've thrown apparently deadly encounters at my players (according to the numbers) and had them breeze right through them. For me at least, figuring out how to make encounters difficult but not too difficult and not too easy has been a lot of trial and error (case in the point the supposedly easy encounter where I almost TPKed my party because I underestimated the power of a group of AoEs, and didn't properly check my party's con saves).
You can do things like check what saving throws will the party most need for the fight (e.g. dex to avoid dragon breath) and then check how likely each player is to make the save or how much damage will the monster do vs how much damage will the players do, how likely is the monster to save against the players favourite effects/spells - all these will help, but only to an extent. For example, I set up an encounter with a demon sealed in a statue that limited its powers but gave it extra defences. I then calculated roughly how much damage I thought players would do and how long it would take them to break it out and how much damage it would inflict in that time. I turned out to be grossly wrong about how much damage they'd inflict because they did things I didn't predict.
At the end of the day, prepare what you can and then see how it goes. A lot of it is experience. I would personally say it is ok to adjust some things mid fight (so long as the players don't know) if you overestimated or underestimated your players abilities (give the enemy more HP or hold back those minions you were going to summon ...)
5 - you're the DM. Lore, rules, etc are under your control. Once you don't do ridiculously unfair things or annoy your players, you can do pretty much anything. The world is your Oyster. Re the living entity at least, I believe in the highest level Candlekeep quest, the phylactery is in fact a living entity (though you might want to confirm that; it's been a while since I read the book) so in that regard at least there is official precedent. However, generally speaking, you're the DM. It's your world. Once it''s fun/interesting for everyone it's probably fine (as a Lich personally I'm not sure I'd like a fortress as phylactery - I feel like it might be too easy to find, but maybe I'm hiding plain sight)
6 - One general point, there's nothing wrong with a story driven campaign (I personally love them), but do be careful not to railroad your players into going only the ways you want them to. Even in a story driven campaign, players should be free to make their choices, not be forced to follow the DM's story to the letter. So do try to be prepared for them not making the choices you want/expect them to.
Just to confirm, is the Lich revealing it's true form to the party from the get go? Also is this an evil Archlich or one of those 'trying to reach good ends, but their methods are wrong villains'? Lastly was creating the wasteland and filling it with monsters an accident?
You'll need a reason for why the players leave the valley - it sounds like you're saying no one knows what it's like beyond the valley which means no one even tries to leave (or perhaps some have and never have returned which is why others don't emulate them - people as a rule tend to be curious so it'd be good to have reason why they ignore that curiosity) so what makes things different for the players? Perhaps the Lich, assuming they have decided to work with it, sends them out or maybe an NPC close to the party has had a relative (probably a child) wander beyond the safety of the valley and their desperate for their safe return.
For the valleys - you sound like you're planning on making them unique biomes and such - a winter valley and a summer valley, a forest valley and a mountainous valley, etc. You could also make them different timezones (like one going back to the dinosaur period, assuming you haven't decided that dinosaurs aren't the monsters stalking the wastelands). Research different climates, biomes and also look at things like monsters (like maybe there's a grave valley haunted by the undead). If you can afford it, I would consider getting a copy of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and looking at the Domains of Ravenloft examples - I feel like you might find those inspiring.
I would avoid making them all lush havens - they seem to be meant to be sanctuaries, but if they're all the same, it would get a bit boring after a while.
What keeps the valleys safe - are they all protected by the magic of the Archlich? If so that's a lot of magical power - where does it come from? Is there a special plant which has a scent that drives monsters away or perhaps magical crystals/stones planted around the valley that create a protective barrier or make the valleys invisible? (Could these possibly be accidentally or deliberately destroyed allowing monsters to invade)
Or perhaps do the valleys have different protectors - Celestials or good-aligned dragons who watch over the valleys and hold back the monsters. Maybe evil monsters like Ithilid guard the valley but the people have to offer humanoid sacrifices as tribute.
Don't limit your endgame - depending on how your running the villain, maybe the characters don't slay or ally with the Archlich. Maybe instead they try to persuade him to see the error of their ways . You can leads things towards a certain conclusion, but don't rely on players doing exactly what you expect - they'll often surprise you.
No thoughts on a specific Wasteland boss yet, but an interesting question to consider would be are they same mindless beast of destruction or a dark mind focused on evil goals (like perhaps conquering the valleys or making the entire world a wasteland)
Are you planning on mixing the monsters in the Wasteland or going for one overarching theme. Both have different potentials:
1) Mixed monsters could mean there's fighting and competition between them as well as a desire to conquer/invade the valleys. Maybe one of the reasons the valleys can stay safe is the enemies are too focused on each other to allow them to invest their resources fully against the valleys. It allows variety, but requires more planning.
2) An overarching theme - the valleys are islands, surrounded by a sea that is constantly threatening to engulf them. An overarching theme is easier to plan, and might allow you to focus your story more easily. Check out David Eddings' Dreamer Series (not his best series but it might give you some ideas) - the Wasteland was full of a variety of bugs of controlled by a queen. You could also take a Mordor wasteland route. There's lots of good inspiration about monsters in wastelands with desires for conquest.
Without more knowledge about the campaign plan, that's all I got.
A few general pieces of advice: 1) Do have players check their abilities often and try to do the same yourself, especially for spells. It's impossible to remember all of it and I've seen people make a mistake, fix it, and then next session gone back to the old way ... there's a lot and we're all fallible 2) make sure you talk your players and that they're happy with the idea of a story-based campaign as opposed to a more free one 3) encourage your players to be free with their feedback 4) if you're playing online, it might not be bad idea to check the website and see if you can find some extra players or ask other friends if they'd be interested (if you're worried two by themselves might struggle) - most of my players are friends or friends of friends, but several I found here on dndbeyond. I didn't know them before, but now I consider them good friends (also found some people that we didn't mesh with and we went our separate ways - life be that way though. It's still worth checking it out, if you need people, I would say)
I hope some of this helps and good luck with the campaign. The last thing I would say is again don't be afraid of mistakes and have fun
1. If you want to see DM notes, the entirety of The Lost Mine of Phandelver is slowly being released for free here! The Wild Sheep Chase DM notes is also released for free too!
3. I find that printing out a map especially for a dungeon tends to keep my players on track. I hide parts of it with blanks pieces of paper and let them peel it off as they go. I don't know if it's a phycological thing with it in front of you and wanting to know what's next, but they would almost always be on track!
4. Challenge ratings are kind of trash. You'll learn as you go a long and will need to learn when to play tactically and when not to. You'll also learn how to play to your parties strengths and weaknesses over time
5. You're the DM technically you can do what you want. Just make it fun and fair!
6. Seems pretty fun, not gonna lie Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting could probably fit in pretty well(I am in no way affiliated I just love em) It has epic boss battles that could be the top of the food chain in each new location!
You're gonna have a blast, I did the same thing as you, listened to a ton of D&D podcasts and then just dove into DMing! Good Luck!!!
KivnaArthurite Thanks so much for the advice and thoughts! I've checked out Inkarnate a little bit and I can already tell that it's going to be SUPER helpful! I've also started thinking a lot more about the idea of leading the players with their own goals and simply giving them enough paths to explore - rather than worrying about twisting their arms to get them where they need to go :) I'll DEFINITELY use this pests/tactical encounter framework for the first session; and it already works perfectly with the direction the session will take (start things off by helping a farmer fend off a few giant rats). Honestly I wouldn't have thought of that myself, but it makes a lot of sense, really glad you mentioned it :) I do have a pretty clear idea of how the first quest links up with both the next quest and the overall campaign (at the risk of rambling, the ruler - who is now called the Duke of Loamlaw by the way :D - is overtaxing his people because he has to pay even heftier tributes to the bigger, steampunk city to the north that has been cutting down forests that belong to Silva nearby; overall, every quest will help the valleys flourish, and become better equipped to defend themselves if the surface hordes ever were to invade); however, the idea of a monster pantheon blew my mind XD I ABSOLUTELY love it! It fits so well with the idea of each valley being a different environment - it seems so obvious in hindsight but again, the suggestion blew my mind! Thanks so much! EXTREMELY helpful!
1: I created a document template which is available to download: https://ko-fi.com/s/b97f7ce17f There's a sample image below. It doesn't work for everyone but if it works for you I offer it for free to anyone who wants it. You get the docx template to basically copy and edit to your liking and an example PDF from two real sessions.
I also did a stream yesterday where I ran through my entire process for preparing a session. I showed how I prepped the notes, the virtual tabletop (Owlbear), and the encounters on D&D Beyond. It might not be of use but if it helps.... (3) DM Prep Stream - YouTube
2: Inkarnate is by far and a way my favourite tool. I'd give a huge recommendation to that too!
3: Honestly, keep the brief tight. If you want them to go and hunt an owlbear, have the quest giver/NPCs outright say that this particular place is where the owlbear nests. We know because anytime someone goes near they don't come back. The best way I've heard this phrased is to assume that your players won't always pick up on clues. Sometimes we just need to spell it all out for them. As you learn the way your group functions you can start dropping less obvious clues, but in the beginning, keep it simple. Learn what they pick up and what they don't pick up on then tailor the clues you leave to their playstyles.
Also make use of passive insight, investigation and investigation. Keep note of which character has the highest passive perception...if the party miss something, you can flag it up saying that out of the corner of player 3's eyes they notice this (and if questioned just point to passive perception).
4: Yes, there's a huge gulf between experienced and inexperienced players. My honest suggestion to many DMs has been to not allow any sourcebooks beyond Player's Handbook for the first time player. So, if someone has never player before you want them to stick to the vanilla races and classes. The reason for this is because it can very quickly get overwhelming. An example is that in one game I let someone play a race/class set up I never normally would and they got overwhelmed by all the different options on the character. I'd support this further by starting games at level one, maybe level two at a maximum if you have new players among you for the same reason. Players need the time to learn how their classes and races work. They need time to get to grips with all the features of the character they have created (or you've created for them). So, an experienced player might recognise the need for caution and focused fire when approaching a swarm of say skeletons. The new player might just let off an arrow and deny the party the chance to sneak by without combat. So, you do need to plan for that kind of eventuality. My advice on this often is stick with one or two monsters per encounter until the new players have started to understand how combat works.
5: Sorry, haven't really toyed too much with ArchLichs so not the best placed to offer help on this one.
6: Sounds like a great set up, but if I might suggest ensuring there is a town or village that can serve as a base of operations. Maybe, in lieu of that a campsite that the players spend some time building up in formerly abandoned ruins or hut. The reason is that I have found that players unless they are joining specifically for the adventure and exploration, can get fatigued by the constant movement. They move around so much that they just want a shopping session, or to get drunk in the tavern. I'm somewhat known for letting an adventure run some time before the players encounter a tavern by which time they are desperate for the respite it offers. So, I do seriously recommend somewhere that the players can retreat to for rest and recouperation. Otherwise, the setting sounds really strong for an adventure and exploration themed campaign.
Hope at least some of these thoughts help. Not all DMs have the same style so this is very much in my style. Feel free to ignore what I've suggested if it just doesn't work for you.
fiaraven Thanks for the advice! I'm definitely planning on having some protector NPCs hanging around, but you make a really good point with controlling the enemies' behaviour - I could even see the archlich choosing to intervene in a situation that really went wrong if it really came down to it. Thanks for the heads up about CR 5+, and also I didn't know that the CR ratings were based on a party of 4, I guess until I have a good feel for my players I'll just play it safe for awhile. Also, I totally feel you about that AoE thing, 100% sounds like something I would've done, so I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the heads up XD. I'll have to check out the Candlekeep quest - I'm pretty comfortable doing whatever the hell I want with the world, but it is nice to see how other people have done things, even if only from a purely mechanical standpoint. My archlich in particular has a vendetta against the surface hordes (his motivation for becoming a lich was to gain more power with which to defeat them), so I'm kind of toying with the idea of having his phylactery tie into that - if his goal is to kill the leader of the surface hordes or two destroy its fortress, then I think he would turn his enemy into his own phylactery to ensure that he could not die until his enemy died. Of course, I totally agree with you though, for a regular lich, a fortress is 100% a bad idea lol. As for the archlich, I didn't really go into a lot of detail about him in the first post, but suffice to say he's a very complex character. At the risk of rambling :) his ultimate goal has always been to protect the valleys, and over time he has come to believe that he is best equipped to do this, therefore he wants to eventually rule over the valleys so that he can have the resources to purge the surface once and for all; however, despite his best efforts, he has immense difficulty utilizing any spells or abilities pertaining to the School of DIvination. The only glimpse of the future he has ever had was an image of the Player characters rising up to challenge the "greatest threat to the safety of the valleys". So he is, in a sense, trying to groom the party to face the surface hordes, but he is also determined to ensure that they will ultimately obey him, voluntarily or by force. He values honesty and trust, so he is not trying to deceive the party per say, but he will reveal more of the truth to them as the story unfolds, believing that this gives him the best chance of earning their trust. As for the valleys, I agree, having them all the same would be boring. My goal is to make each one a unique biome or theme, each with a distinct society; because of this, knowledge of the true state of the surface varies by region, though I would say that in general it is not so widely known as to be common knowledge. I was initially thinking more along the lines of having the archlich protecting the valleys, but I really like the idea of having protectors. I think I'll try for a bit of a combination, some protected by the archlich, some protected by benevolent protectors, and some protected by malicious protectors (Ithilid etc). It would be interesting to see how a valley's protector influences the culture and society of the valley. Definitely leaning towards a wasteland theme, at least initially. As they explore it might change, but we'll see. Thanks again for all the advice and feedback, it's cool to see other people's thoughts on some of this stuff, gets me excited :) Thanks again!
Don't quote me on the average thing - it's something from the memory that I heard another dnd person say; I could have remembered incorrectly. Regardless, you can always make things more difficult, but making it easier always feels a bit forced (and hard to hide) so taking it easy is always a good way.
Just a thought - you could make divination generally a difficult thing; I don't mean the basic spells or whatever (since I'm guessing you might not want to restrict NPCs/PCs), but rather the powers of foretelling have been harmed by the whatever actions caused the Wasteland disaster. Also, just a suggestion, you could say that instead of getting that glimpse himself, he heard it from someone else - it fits with his divination issues and also allows you to have details that even he doesn't know which could be interesting.
Some general points on your Archlich. Firstly, it's a Lich which usually means it take souls to keep it alive (unless you're ruling that differently). Maybe it's using the souls of evil people, but that can still present an interesting moral problem - you could even make it enforce its own very strict laws which would result in death (and soul consumption) for crimes that we would feel are not deserving of such a punishment.
You could also use the older ideas of Archlich as beings of good, but they don’t have a phylactery apparently (see the Forgotten Realm Wiki)
More generally it seems like you're going for the moral villain. So questions I would want to know myself as a DM before I do this would be:
1) how did he cause this disaster? What was he trying to achieve?
2) what paths did he try to take first to solve the issue?
3) what eventually led him to take extreme the road of the end justify the means?
4) Does he have lines he won't cross?
5) Who works with him? What allies/forces does he have available to him?
6) What is it that makes him so powerful - he's more than just a lich, he's also demigodly with the powers to mess with the world, to inadvertently cause a disaster and create these biomes - was he using his own power or strange relics (either of his own creation or ancient from lost civilisations)
And once the players find out or begin to find out the truth about him (are you planning on concealing the fact that he's an Archlich in the beginning?), it might be a good idea to show him wrestling with the difficulties they might present to him - trying to find another way, working with people and negotiating rather than ruling. If you have the time and the inclination/interest, the Dnd Podcast High Rollers portray this kind of villain very well in their 2nd Campaign (Aerois). It is 100+ episodes each like 3 hours long, but it is pretty good, I think, and it does do this kind of villain very well - otherwise you could probably find clips.
Considering he's a less obvious villain, I would suggest being very careful in your planning of your interactions with the party (and since you can only control half of that, make sure you have him well-prepared as a character so you can respond to the curveballs they will almost certainly throw). That's all I've got on the Lich for now, but if I think of anything else I'll post it.
I mean he is only one Archlich - maybe he intended to protect all the valleys but was stretched too thin and control was wrestled away from him or he had to divest it amongst his followers or ...
Another question I'd consider about the valleys is how much of the history of the world from before can be found in them, if any. Or is it all out in the wasteland. Or did the disaster wipe it all out?
You could have some valleys racially exclusive or you could say forced cohabitation has generated certain racist feelings (depending on how many moral challenges and such you want to put before players)
Overall, it’s a really fascinating and fun idea, with lots of depth and potentially. I may steal some ideas for a campaign of my own some time in the future. Best of luck.
Advent Thanks for the tips! The Lost Mine notes were super helpful, the notes themselves as well as seeing how the built encounters fit into the DM notes if that makes sense. I like that idea of peeling back the sections of the map as you go - I was thinking of doing something similar for a maze-like dungeon where I give the players a parchment style decorative map that provides only the layout as-built, but I have a more detailed map that shows where walls have crumbled or passages have collapsed, so the players have to make perception/investigation checks and get to annotate the map they've been given. But now I'm thinking about combining the ideas like maybe I can give them sections of the more detailed map as they explore or remove walls etc from the map that they have. Also, it's really good to hear that I'm not totally insane for wanting to just jump into DMing straight from the podcasts lol xD Thanks a ton!
Glad the notes helped! The more interactive the game the more fun! Haha no not at all I think a lot of people jump in after hearing the podcasts, just don't think your games have to be a fully produced master piece to be fun though! Let us know how your games end up going, I would love to hear about it!
Ok, so I have a few questions, but first I'll quickly explain where I'm at:
I'm DMing a little campaign for a couple of close friends, all three of us are quite new to the game, so we'll definitely be focusing more on RP than combat. I've played VERY little DnD but I have spent an unholy amount of time listening to a DnD podcast over the past year and feel like I have gained at the very least a working grasp of the rules from that (podcast is Just Roll With It by the way, highly recommend!). All three of us are writers and are pretty comfortable with world-building and RP in general. I'm writing my own campaign, but am going to try and borrow elements from some of the prewritten adventures out there to make my life easier. Still in the prep stages, so have a bit of time before the campaign begins.
I have a couple of specific questions in mind but I'd be grateful for any advice in general. You don't know what you don't know as they say :)
Thanks again! I'm excited to get into the game and am very grateful for any help or advice!
As a fellow DM. I'll attempt to answer these questions.
1. If you're looking for examples of how to write up notes in prep for a session, I would advise looking over the Youtube channel the DM Lair, he has a lot of great videos abd does a weekly livestream that is archived where he goes through with chat how he plans an adventure. https://www.youtube.com/c/theDMLair/videos
2. The map making tool I use is Inkarnate. I personally pay the $5 subscription as that gives me full access to tokens, stamps and texures. But it can still be good to use for free.
3. It's hard to say exactly without knowing what type of campaign you're running, but what I can say is that players do enter into a social contract that when they play DnD they are playing what the DM has made. This doesn't mean you can railroad them, but you can set up side-quests and random encounters which can provide world-lore or hints and clues to help them dealing with the main campaign. Basically, if the players enter a town in which they need to speak with someone for information about their main quest, there might also be other problems happening within the town: a band of bandits have been bothering the locals who live on the outskirts, a hag has infiltrated the town and is causing people to be sick, the richest man in town has had something stolen from him and will handsomely reward whoever returns it to them with discretion. This allows your players to explore while maintaining them on the right track. If your players choose to ignore all the possibilities you've placed before them, and say "no, we want to steal a ship and sail as pirates", as the DM you are allowed, and encouraged, to say no, that's not the type of game I've planned.
4. Challenge ratings can be very broken at times, Shadows for example are only 1/2 CR but are LETHAL for any party. To start new players it is a good idea to have them encounter two types of creatures: pests, and intelligent tactic makers. The first can be swarms of rats the party fight in the sewers, this will introduce them to the basics of combat, and how they use their characters. The second, is traditionaly a band of goblins. Goblins have low health, but they are smart enough to utilize tactics and may attempt to flee once most of their comrades have fallen. Goblins can set up traps along the road and wait in ambush, they can use cover like flipping over a table or ducking behind a boulder. Perhaps a goblin has a potion of enlarge they will drink when the battle looks against them. This will introduce your players to battle tactics they themselves can learn to use.
5. An interesting question. In lore, and i might be wrong about this myself, but a phylactery has to be something made out of a solid material and cost thousands of gold. The idea of the phylactery is that if the body of the Lich dies, it can regenerate, or respawn, at the phylactery. For this reason Lichs usually make their phylactery something they can hide. All this aside, as a DM of a homebrew campaign you can decide the lore you want. It is your world, you decide what exists and what doesn't.
6. It's a good framework for a campaign. One idea I want to touch on is linking the beginning quest with the next over-arching campaign. Perhaps when the party confront the incompetent ruler, they discover that the king has been squandering money to build a tunnel under his castle to a sort of bunker. The players can find that the king has been extremely paranoid, and if the players investigate further, they can find that the cause of this paranoia is that the king has learnt through research about the Archlich who will soon return to its full strength and wish to claim the valley.
For the outside world, I might suggest that instead of one entity that the Archlich needs to overthrow, it be a pantheon of entities with each controlling a very different biome. A frost giant that rules a frozen tundra, an Efreeti who governs over a desert wasteland, a hag who controls a court of fey, etc. Each village the players visit can be a little different with different customs and laws, some relating to the command of the entity ruling them. An example of this is Avatar the Last Airbender, but you can look to real-life cultures for inspiration.
Hope that helps
Hey I don't have answers for all your questions, but I'll try to answer a few for your
3 - Players always go off the reservation. How far off depends on the players, but they're real people, not characters in a book so they're not always going to go the way you want or expect (and that is honestly part of the fun). Part of DMing means being able to improvise - the more you prepare the less you'll have to do this and the easier it will be to do this when it happens. Having all said that:
A) Limit their routes - If you want to stop them wandering places you don't want them going then don't create those options in the first place.
B) Warn them - you can do this subtly through NPCs, rumours, signposts, lore, etc or you can just be explicit and tell them out of character, "guys I don't think you're at the level to handle this. If you go down this route, I'm worried you'll die." It is ok to be explicit with them, especially with new players and especially if they're your friends. Then it's on them if they decide to go ahead any way
*(Both you and your players will make mistakes; I'm coming to the end of my first campaign and the amount of mistakes I made in the early days are too many count. Heck it's been 2 and a half years and still making mistakes like the time I let a bunch of AoE enemies go on the same turn. Almost TPKed my party. That was just a couple of weeks back. I expressly apologised to them after that and now I roll separate initiatives for all enemies even if they're off the same type. However, the fact is you will make mistakes. That's ok. Make them. Apologise if necessary. Learn from them. And move on)*
C) Block off the routes - maybe the swamp of the evil dragon lies beyond a series of impassable mountains. It can only be reached by flight or teleportation. If you want options to be there that you don't want them to take, make it impossible.
D) You control their enemies. Just because the players decide to wander off into the deadly swamp of the evil dragon, doesn't the evil dragon will kill them. Maybe it's feeling lazy or maybe it has a use for the party. Just because they lose doesn't mean you have to kill them.
E) Protector NPC - in the early days of our campaign I created an NPC that became allies with the party and aided them until they became more experienced.
4 - Simple answer yes, in my opinion. Most of my players were and still are new and they make a lot of ... what I think are tactical errors. I have one experienced player in my campaign (the rest of us were all noobs when we started) and he's exceptionally good at building characters and playing tactically. The others aren't bad - I'd say their good in fact - but there's a clear difference in knowledge between them and the experienced player. So simple answer, yes.
Complicated answer: the CR from the DM's guide is very basic. It's made for a party of an average of 4 people (I think) and the further you get from that average, the more inaccurate it will become. Even if you have four, I hear you once get past like lv 5, it just doesn't calculate properly for player abilities. I've thrown apparently deadly encounters at my players (according to the numbers) and had them breeze right through them. For me at least, figuring out how to make encounters difficult but not too difficult and not too easy has been a lot of trial and error (case in the point the supposedly easy encounter where I almost TPKed my party because I underestimated the power of a group of AoEs, and didn't properly check my party's con saves).
You can do things like check what saving throws will the party most need for the fight (e.g. dex to avoid dragon breath) and then check how likely each player is to make the save or how much damage will the monster do vs how much damage will the players do, how likely is the monster to save against the players favourite effects/spells - all these will help, but only to an extent. For example, I set up an encounter with a demon sealed in a statue that limited its powers but gave it extra defences. I then calculated roughly how much damage I thought players would do and how long it would take them to break it out and how much damage it would inflict in that time. I turned out to be grossly wrong about how much damage they'd inflict because they did things I didn't predict.
At the end of the day, prepare what you can and then see how it goes. A lot of it is experience. I would personally say it is ok to adjust some things mid fight (so long as the players don't know) if you overestimated or underestimated your players abilities (give the enemy more HP or hold back those minions you were going to summon ...)
5 - you're the DM. Lore, rules, etc are under your control. Once you don't do ridiculously unfair things or annoy your players, you can do pretty much anything. The world is your Oyster. Re the living entity at least, I believe in the highest level Candlekeep quest, the phylactery is in fact a living entity (though you might want to confirm that; it's been a while since I read the book) so in that regard at least there is official precedent. However, generally speaking, you're the DM. It's your world. Once it''s fun/interesting for everyone it's probably fine (as a Lich personally I'm not sure I'd like a fortress as phylactery - I feel like it might be too easy to find, but maybe I'm hiding plain sight)
6 - One general point, there's nothing wrong with a story driven campaign (I personally love them), but do be careful not to railroad your players into going only the ways you want them to. Even in a story driven campaign, players should be free to make their choices, not be forced to follow the DM's story to the letter. So do try to be prepared for them not making the choices you want/expect them to.
Just to confirm, is the Lich revealing it's true form to the party from the get go? Also is this an evil Archlich or one of those 'trying to reach good ends, but their methods are wrong villains'? Lastly was creating the wasteland and filling it with monsters an accident?
You'll need a reason for why the players leave the valley - it sounds like you're saying no one knows what it's like beyond the valley which means no one even tries to leave (or perhaps some have and never have returned which is why others don't emulate them - people as a rule tend to be curious so it'd be good to have reason why they ignore that curiosity) so what makes things different for the players? Perhaps the Lich, assuming they have decided to work with it, sends them out or maybe an NPC close to the party has had a relative (probably a child) wander beyond the safety of the valley and their desperate for their safe return.
For the valleys - you sound like you're planning on making them unique biomes and such - a winter valley and a summer valley, a forest valley and a mountainous valley, etc. You could also make them different timezones (like one going back to the dinosaur period, assuming you haven't decided that dinosaurs aren't the monsters stalking the wastelands). Research different climates, biomes and also look at things like monsters (like maybe there's a grave valley haunted by the undead). If you can afford it, I would consider getting a copy of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft and looking at the Domains of Ravenloft examples - I feel like you might find those inspiring.
I would avoid making them all lush havens - they seem to be meant to be sanctuaries, but if they're all the same, it would get a bit boring after a while.
What keeps the valleys safe - are they all protected by the magic of the Archlich? If so that's a lot of magical power - where does it come from? Is there a special plant which has a scent that drives monsters away or perhaps magical crystals/stones planted around the valley that create a protective barrier or make the valleys invisible? (Could these possibly be accidentally or deliberately destroyed allowing monsters to invade)
Or perhaps do the valleys have different protectors - Celestials or good-aligned dragons who watch over the valleys and hold back the monsters. Maybe evil monsters like Ithilid guard the valley but the people have to offer humanoid sacrifices as tribute.
Don't limit your endgame - depending on how your running the villain, maybe the characters don't slay or ally with the Archlich. Maybe instead they try to persuade him to see the error of their ways . You can leads things towards a certain conclusion, but don't rely on players doing exactly what you expect - they'll often surprise you.
No thoughts on a specific Wasteland boss yet, but an interesting question to consider would be are they same mindless beast of destruction or a dark mind focused on evil goals (like perhaps conquering the valleys or making the entire world a wasteland)
Are you planning on mixing the monsters in the Wasteland or going for one overarching theme. Both have different potentials:
1) Mixed monsters could mean there's fighting and competition between them as well as a desire to conquer/invade the valleys. Maybe one of the reasons the valleys can stay safe is the enemies are too focused on each other to allow them to invest their resources fully against the valleys. It allows variety, but requires more planning.
2) An overarching theme - the valleys are islands, surrounded by a sea that is constantly threatening to engulf them. An overarching theme is easier to plan, and might allow you to focus your story more easily. Check out David Eddings' Dreamer Series (not his best series but it might give you some ideas) - the Wasteland was full of a variety of bugs of controlled by a queen. You could also take a Mordor wasteland route. There's lots of good inspiration about monsters in wastelands with desires for conquest.
Without more knowledge about the campaign plan, that's all I got.
A few general pieces of advice: 1) Do have players check their abilities often and try to do the same yourself, especially for spells. It's impossible to remember all of it and I've seen people make a mistake, fix it, and then next session gone back to the old way ... there's a lot and we're all fallible 2) make sure you talk your players and that they're happy with the idea of a story-based campaign as opposed to a more free one 3) encourage your players to be free with their feedback 4) if you're playing online, it might not be bad idea to check the website and see if you can find some extra players or ask other friends if they'd be interested (if you're worried two by themselves might struggle) - most of my players are friends or friends of friends, but several I found here on dndbeyond. I didn't know them before, but now I consider them good friends (also found some people that we didn't mesh with and we went our separate ways - life be that way though. It's still worth checking it out, if you need people, I would say)
I hope some of this helps and good luck with the campaign. The last thing I would say is again don't be afraid of mistakes and have fun
I can help you out with a few things here!
1. If you want to see DM notes, the entirety of The Lost Mine of Phandelver is slowly being released for free here! The Wild Sheep Chase DM notes is also released for free too!
3. I find that printing out a map especially for a dungeon tends to keep my players on track. I hide parts of it with blanks pieces of paper and let them peel it off as they go. I don't know if it's a phycological thing with it in front of you and wanting to know what's next, but they would almost always be on track!
4. Challenge ratings are kind of trash. You'll learn as you go a long and will need to learn when to play tactically and when not to. You'll also learn how to play to your parties strengths and weaknesses over time
5. You're the DM technically you can do what you want. Just make it fun and fair!
6. Seems pretty fun, not gonna lie Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting could probably fit in pretty well(I am in no way affiliated I just love em) It has epic boss battles that could be the top of the food chain in each new location!
You're gonna have a blast, I did the same thing as you, listened to a ton of D&D podcasts and then just dove into DMing! Good Luck!!!
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KivnaArthurite Thanks so much for the advice and thoughts! I've checked out Inkarnate a little bit and I can already tell that it's going to be SUPER helpful! I've also started thinking a lot more about the idea of leading the players with their own goals and simply giving them enough paths to explore - rather than worrying about twisting their arms to get them where they need to go :) I'll DEFINITELY use this pests/tactical encounter framework for the first session; and it already works perfectly with the direction the session will take (start things off by helping a farmer fend off a few giant rats). Honestly I wouldn't have thought of that myself, but it makes a lot of sense, really glad you mentioned it :) I do have a pretty clear idea of how the first quest links up with both the next quest and the overall campaign (at the risk of rambling, the ruler - who is now called the Duke of Loamlaw by the way :D - is overtaxing his people because he has to pay even heftier tributes to the bigger, steampunk city to the north that has been cutting down forests that belong to Silva nearby; overall, every quest will help the valleys flourish, and become better equipped to defend themselves if the surface hordes ever were to invade); however, the idea of a monster pantheon blew my mind XD I ABSOLUTELY love it! It fits so well with the idea of each valley being a different environment - it seems so obvious in hindsight but again, the suggestion blew my mind! Thanks so much! EXTREMELY helpful!
So, I have two things that may be useful on this.
1: I created a document template which is available to download: https://ko-fi.com/s/b97f7ce17f
There's a sample image below. It doesn't work for everyone but if it works for you I offer it for free to anyone who wants it. You get the docx template to basically copy and edit to your liking and an example PDF from two real sessions.
I also did a stream yesterday where I ran through my entire process for preparing a session. I showed how I prepped the notes, the virtual tabletop (Owlbear), and the encounters on D&D Beyond. It might not be of use but if it helps.... (3) DM Prep Stream - YouTube
2: Inkarnate is by far and a way my favourite tool. I'd give a huge recommendation to that too!
3: Honestly, keep the brief tight. If you want them to go and hunt an owlbear, have the quest giver/NPCs outright say that this particular place is where the owlbear nests. We know because anytime someone goes near they don't come back. The best way I've heard this phrased is to assume that your players won't always pick up on clues. Sometimes we just need to spell it all out for them. As you learn the way your group functions you can start dropping less obvious clues, but in the beginning, keep it simple. Learn what they pick up and what they don't pick up on then tailor the clues you leave to their playstyles.
Also make use of passive insight, investigation and investigation. Keep note of which character has the highest passive perception...if the party miss something, you can flag it up saying that out of the corner of player 3's eyes they notice this (and if questioned just point to passive perception).
4: Yes, there's a huge gulf between experienced and inexperienced players. My honest suggestion to many DMs has been to not allow any sourcebooks beyond Player's Handbook for the first time player. So, if someone has never player before you want them to stick to the vanilla races and classes. The reason for this is because it can very quickly get overwhelming. An example is that in one game I let someone play a race/class set up I never normally would and they got overwhelmed by all the different options on the character. I'd support this further by starting games at level one, maybe level two at a maximum if you have new players among you for the same reason. Players need the time to learn how their classes and races work. They need time to get to grips with all the features of the character they have created (or you've created for them). So, an experienced player might recognise the need for caution and focused fire when approaching a swarm of say skeletons. The new player might just let off an arrow and deny the party the chance to sneak by without combat. So, you do need to plan for that kind of eventuality. My advice on this often is stick with one or two monsters per encounter until the new players have started to understand how combat works.
5: Sorry, haven't really toyed too much with ArchLichs so not the best placed to offer help on this one.
6: Sounds like a great set up, but if I might suggest ensuring there is a town or village that can serve as a base of operations. Maybe, in lieu of that a campsite that the players spend some time building up in formerly abandoned ruins or hut. The reason is that I have found that players unless they are joining specifically for the adventure and exploration, can get fatigued by the constant movement. They move around so much that they just want a shopping session, or to get drunk in the tavern. I'm somewhat known for letting an adventure run some time before the players encounter a tavern by which time they are desperate for the respite it offers. So, I do seriously recommend somewhere that the players can retreat to for rest and recouperation. Otherwise, the setting sounds really strong for an adventure and exploration themed campaign.
Hope at least some of these thoughts help. Not all DMs have the same style so this is very much in my style. Feel free to ignore what I've suggested if it just doesn't work for you.
DM session planning template - My version of maps for 'Lost Mine of Phandelver' - Send your party to The Circus - Other DM Resources - Maps, Tokens, Quests - 'Better' Player Character Injury Tables?
Actor, Writer, Director & Teacher by day - GM/DM in my off hours.
fiaraven Thanks for the advice! I'm definitely planning on having some protector NPCs hanging around, but you make a really good point with controlling the enemies' behaviour - I could even see the archlich choosing to intervene in a situation that really went wrong if it really came down to it. Thanks for the heads up about CR 5+, and also I didn't know that the CR ratings were based on a party of 4, I guess until I have a good feel for my players I'll just play it safe for awhile. Also, I totally feel you about that AoE thing, 100% sounds like something I would've done, so I'll keep that in mind, thanks for the heads up XD. I'll have to check out the Candlekeep quest - I'm pretty comfortable doing whatever the hell I want with the world, but it is nice to see how other people have done things, even if only from a purely mechanical standpoint. My archlich in particular has a vendetta against the surface hordes (his motivation for becoming a lich was to gain more power with which to defeat them), so I'm kind of toying with the idea of having his phylactery tie into that - if his goal is to kill the leader of the surface hordes or two destroy its fortress, then I think he would turn his enemy into his own phylactery to ensure that he could not die until his enemy died. Of course, I totally agree with you though, for a regular lich, a fortress is 100% a bad idea lol. As for the archlich, I didn't really go into a lot of detail about him in the first post, but suffice to say he's a very complex character. At the risk of rambling :) his ultimate goal has always been to protect the valleys, and over time he has come to believe that he is best equipped to do this, therefore he wants to eventually rule over the valleys so that he can have the resources to purge the surface once and for all; however, despite his best efforts, he has immense difficulty utilizing any spells or abilities pertaining to the School of DIvination. The only glimpse of the future he has ever had was an image of the Player characters rising up to challenge the "greatest threat to the safety of the valleys". So he is, in a sense, trying to groom the party to face the surface hordes, but he is also determined to ensure that they will ultimately obey him, voluntarily or by force. He values honesty and trust, so he is not trying to deceive the party per say, but he will reveal more of the truth to them as the story unfolds, believing that this gives him the best chance of earning their trust. As for the valleys, I agree, having them all the same would be boring. My goal is to make each one a unique biome or theme, each with a distinct society; because of this, knowledge of the true state of the surface varies by region, though I would say that in general it is not so widely known as to be common knowledge. I was initially thinking more along the lines of having the archlich protecting the valleys, but I really like the idea of having protectors. I think I'll try for a bit of a combination, some protected by the archlich, some protected by benevolent protectors, and some protected by malicious protectors (Ithilid etc). It would be interesting to see how a valley's protector influences the culture and society of the valley. Definitely leaning towards a wasteland theme, at least initially. As they explore it might change, but we'll see. Thanks again for all the advice and feedback, it's cool to see other people's thoughts on some of this stuff, gets me excited :) Thanks again!
Don't quote me on the average thing - it's something from the memory that I heard another dnd person say; I could have remembered incorrectly. Regardless, you can always make things more difficult, but making it easier always feels a bit forced (and hard to hide) so taking it easy is always a good way.
Just a thought - you could make divination generally a difficult thing; I don't mean the basic spells or whatever (since I'm guessing you might not want to restrict NPCs/PCs), but rather the powers of foretelling have been harmed by the whatever actions caused the Wasteland disaster. Also, just a suggestion, you could say that instead of getting that glimpse himself, he heard it from someone else - it fits with his divination issues and also allows you to have details that even he doesn't know which could be interesting.
Some general points on your Archlich. Firstly, it's a Lich which usually means it take souls to keep it alive (unless you're ruling that differently). Maybe it's using the souls of evil people, but that can still present an interesting moral problem - you could even make it enforce its own very strict laws which would result in death (and soul consumption) for crimes that we would feel are not deserving of such a punishment.
You could also use the older ideas of Archlich as beings of good, but they don’t have a phylactery apparently (see the Forgotten Realm Wiki)
More generally it seems like you're going for the moral villain. So questions I would want to know myself as a DM before I do this would be:
1) how did he cause this disaster? What was he trying to achieve?
2) what paths did he try to take first to solve the issue?
3) what eventually led him to take extreme the road of the end justify the means?
4) Does he have lines he won't cross?
5) Who works with him? What allies/forces does he have available to him?
6) What is it that makes him so powerful - he's more than just a lich, he's also demigodly with the powers to mess with the world, to inadvertently cause a disaster and create these biomes - was he using his own power or strange relics (either of his own creation or ancient from lost civilisations)
And once the players find out or begin to find out the truth about him (are you planning on concealing the fact that he's an Archlich in the beginning?), it might be a good idea to show him wrestling with the difficulties they might present to him - trying to find another way, working with people and negotiating rather than ruling. If you have the time and the inclination/interest, the Dnd Podcast High Rollers portray this kind of villain very well in their 2nd Campaign (Aerois). It is 100+ episodes each like 3 hours long, but it is pretty good, I think, and it does do this kind of villain very well - otherwise you could probably find clips.
Considering he's a less obvious villain, I would suggest being very careful in your planning of your interactions with the party (and since you can only control half of that, make sure you have him well-prepared as a character so you can respond to the curveballs they will almost certainly throw). That's all I've got on the Lich for now, but if I think of anything else I'll post it.
I mean he is only one Archlich - maybe he intended to protect all the valleys but was stretched too thin and control was wrestled away from him or he had to divest it amongst his followers or ...
Another question I'd consider about the valleys is how much of the history of the world from before can be found in them, if any. Or is it all out in the wasteland. Or did the disaster wipe it all out?
You could have some valleys racially exclusive or you could say forced cohabitation has generated certain racist feelings (depending on how many moral challenges and such you want to put before players)
Overall, it’s a really fascinating and fun idea, with lots of depth and potentially. I may steal some ideas for a campaign of my own some time in the future. Best of luck.
Advent Thanks for the tips! The Lost Mine notes were super helpful, the notes themselves as well as seeing how the built encounters fit into the DM notes if that makes sense. I like that idea of peeling back the sections of the map as you go - I was thinking of doing something similar for a maze-like dungeon where I give the players a parchment style decorative map that provides only the layout as-built, but I have a more detailed map that shows where walls have crumbled or passages have collapsed, so the players have to make perception/investigation checks and get to annotate the map they've been given. But now I'm thinking about combining the ideas like maybe I can give them sections of the more detailed map as they explore or remove walls etc from the map that they have. Also, it's really good to hear that I'm not totally insane for wanting to just jump into DMing straight from the podcasts lol xD Thanks a ton!
Why would you pay $5/month for Inkarnate when you could pay $25/year? You'd save $35! Oof.
Glad the notes helped! The more interactive the game the more fun! Haha no not at all I think a lot of people jump in after hearing the podcasts, just don't think your games have to be a fully produced master piece to be fun though! Let us know how your games end up going, I would love to hear about it!
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