hey so i'm not a dm but it is something ive been intrested in i love world building, character creation ect though i struggle when it comes to applying the more technical stuff to those things so it has always put me off dming because i just don't think i could ever get a grasp on that more technical side also because i deal with anxiety too. so it just got me wondering:
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
As I think it's in everyone's interest for more players to become DM's, let me be the first to encourage you to try. The anxiety of it and the technical aspect of it is not any more or less of a thing than being a player, it just feels that when you first try. It will become second nature to you after a few sessions so you just have to sort of get over the hump.
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
It was I think 1986, I got the Red Box as a present from my dad and I wanted to play so I gathered my friends and we just started and I was the default DM because I owned the box essentially.
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
Initially, the concept of a campaign wasn't a thing. My friends and I got together, we would grab whatever module and they would just play in that module doing whatever they wanted.
After a while the concept of continuity (continuing adventures between game sessions) became a thing and slowly over time players started remember places and NPC characters, so I had to start remembering it too. Maps were forged and eventually we started realizing that the modules we were using were actually in the same game world, in our case back then it was "The Known World", which would later come to be called Mystara. I think the first official campaign book I got was The Grand Duchy of Karameikos which became our campaign world and our homebrew world kind of grew from that. Fast forward 30 some odd years later, essentially Mystara is my campaign world. It all happened very slowly over time and sort of grew out of gameplay.
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
I don't try. The books are rules reference guides, if you can't remember something look it up. Overtime you will just naturally remember stuff. But generally speaking my players know the actual game rules better than I do.
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
Best advice I can give is. Start small. You don't need to world-build to start DMing. Grab a module like something classic that has a town filled with NPC's and a few locations for players to explore. Don't bother with a story or anything, just drop them in the town and let them start exploring. Give them some rumors, maybe introduce them to some lore of the area and see what they do. D&d Stories emerge, they are born from interaction, not created by a storyteller. Trust me, you won't need to do anything, your players will do all the heavy lifting for you.
I can recommend something like Ghost of Saltmarshes for example. Great book. You start in a town, there are people there with various motivations, factions... there are rumors and stuff going on in the background. Your players will find their way, you just need to get them started.
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
What you will quickly discover is that every game of D&D ever run is homebrew. There are no other types of games. You can use the same module as I'm using and after 1 session these will be completely different games that have absolutely nothing in common. You don't however have to start from scratch. It's best to pick an adventure module and use it as a base for your game so that you have something to work from. But after that, it will just develop on its own even if you actively try to stop it from happening..
I've kinda always wanted to be since the 90's when my family members I produced me to the game. I skipped a bajillion editions though, going from AD&D to 5e and my play experience is more minimal than you'd think.
I love storytelling and in the in between years often thought of being a writer, but the truth is, I'd write about 5 pages of a story and quit, getting hung up on the editing that I'd never get any further. (I'm far better and editor than a writer).
Anyhow, when I started DM'ing a few months back, I kinda just elected to for an existing group, (remember, I always wanted to), bought physical copies of the books, and just threw myself into it, partially trying to make dragon heist my *****. I still hate the modules, but it helped me hit the ground running.
Overall D&D isn't hard or complicated, especially if you have prior knowledge of war games like it (and I have my family to thank for that), and a knack for improvisation. What it is though is a lot to remember, and you also need to be "get good" at making on the fly judgement calls. That only comes with experience.
ive never actually read a module what are they like? and how do you follow a module?
Well, there are different kinds of adventure modules, but generally the fall into some general categories.
Adventure Modules which are designed to be for shorter campaigns, meaning X amount of sessions, X varying from 2-3 to 5-8 roughly. These types of modules generally are setup for players to discover one core plot and follow it through to the end. The plot is usually made quite clear to the DM and there is a general sequence of expected events in a certain order. Good examples into the adventures in Ghost of Saltmarshes and Tales From The Yawning Portal. Often these can focus on some aspect of play, for example Ghost of Saltmarshes has some politics and opportunities for social interaction, while many of the adventures in Tales From The Yawning Portal focus on exploring locations (Dungeons and the like).
Included in this category are the starter sets for 5e which includes a great adventure called Lost Mine of Phandelver which I feel is top notch in particular for new DM's and I would say if your so new that you have never read an adventure module, this would be a really great place to start.
The second type are open world adventure modules. In open world modules the DM is given a lot of background information on an area, lots of micro-adventures, places to explore and various plots, some intertwined, some just side missions for the players to explore. This style of adventure is less commonly seen in official D&D content, but Dragon of Icespire Peak which is also a kind of starter box is a great example. You also have stuff from a company called Goodman Games that remakes classic (old D&D modules) into 5e adventures, one of the premier open-world modules there is called The Isle of Dread which has the players exploring a lost world (island).. think King Kong.
Generally this style of module is nice for new DM's because you don't have a holistic story to track, rather its just up to the players to discover the adventure on their own and you sort of lay back and let them do their thing.
The third category is "story campaign". This covers most 5e adventure books from the early stuff like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Curse of Strahd and well, really most of the adventure books for 5e.
These are laid out campaigns with a big story build around a core plot with tons of intervening plots which is slowly uncovered by the players. I don't recommend you run anything like that for your first go, this takes quite a bit of work and experience to get right and it can be a complete disaster when done wrong.
As whole adventure modules outline information for the DM that describes the people and locations where the adventure will take place and the plot of the adventure and how to expose the players to it. Its essentially an instruction manual for running a D&D game.
hey so i'm not a dm but it is something ive been intrested in i love world building, character creation ect though i struggle when it comes to applying the more technical stuff to those things so it has always put me off dming because i just don't think i could ever get a grasp on that more technical side also because i deal with anxiety too. so it just got me wondering:
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
In very early 1980, i grabbed a group of 7 friends and took over a room in the local library and began running games for 8 hours a day for them, their friends, and (because of library rules) anyone who wanted to join. I had learned the game a few years before, but what really hooked me was the idea of people playing in the worlds I created (not so much stories, lol) and the complex dungeons i made.
back then, it wasn’t called homebrews, it was just “tweaked rules” because the DM could do that and people didn’t really have fits about it like they do now. And while I have run a lot of “straight rules” games (like the library, which I did for 3 years, or the military, where I ran several different games for another 3), most of the most fun and most interesting stuff comes because I do a LOT of homebrews. But I also consult on game design and mechanics on occasion, and I have a lot of experience.
So yes, I did a lot of homebrews, and I started off essentially “re-skinning” classes and races and changing little things as I learned about the way the game works — the mechanics of it. I am drawn to that stuff though and most folks find it boring, lol, because I don’t look at things like DPR and other combat only metrics. My last campaign finished in June, and while I ran that one and one before it, i started work on the next campaign I will be doing, which has taken 5 years so far.
I have no idea how I am able to remember it, but I also am a scientist who works in the area of “people”, and so I have a metric ton of crap floating around in my head and most of the time I set it down in some place or thing that allows me to not have to have it all there. Like books. Or statistical modeling programs. Or binders, lol. In practice, again, I have been doing this a really long time and so a lot of stuff is now almost habit because it comes up so frequently.
Start small. Grab the free Phandelver module and read it start to finish Print parts of it out, pour over them and make notes until you understand the story. Then, get a few folks together and run it. DMing is something best learned on the fly, because for the most part, you will stick with a few folks for a while.
Remember that the story you are telling is not *your story* or your *bad guys* story. It is the story of the player characters.
When describing something, uses 6 senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and “feel” — the vibe of the space. Describe left, right, forward, backward, up, and down.
Focus on fun, on role play, and not on “maximizing the abilities of a given class”. Remember that everything that isn’t the Player Characters is *your character*, and so they have thoughts,ideas, hopes, backstories and more. Don’t write them up unless you need, to, but it also means that they will fight for their life with all the sneaky dirty tricks and magic that players will.
My last campaign took place in a big ole valley: 5 miles wide, 25 miles long, lake int he center, a single town, five sets of ruins, a marsh, a forest, hills, and farms, fields, and more. It was one of the simplest “worlds” i have ever created, and I have created probably around 80 or so. One of the ruins led to a deep dungeon, because this was a return to a dungeon crawl, but they PCs would leave and go to town to restock and talk to people and it was all part of a larger adventure that lasted 3 years.
In the old days, we called a series of events that tell a story a Module. These days they call them adventures — like Lost mines of Phandelver. That’s a module. We would string a series of modules together and that would be a campaign.
We wrote our own modules, traded them, swapped them, used them. There are a lot of them available on sites like DMs Guild. Learn from them.
I am sure others will give you a lot of good advice as well.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I started with a highly improved, homebrewed campaign. It revolved around 13 Demons of Chaos, one of these demons had a Legendary Artifact bow that from a single hit, turned its victim into a zombie. The starting town the players were in, the Barbarian started some trouble, fought off some guards, used one of the guard's heads to cover up a hole he made. Some of the details are a little fuzzy, the rogue player was injured, had to go to the infirmary.. a gorgeous high elf nurse was tending to him and then one of those arrows struck her.. And the rouge thought he was going to get a kiss, but instead, the nurse was trying to bite him. LOL.
Then the town rapidly destabilized, another demon of Chaos showed up, a child named Mary and hero follower companion, a Death Knight. It was slaying the undead, while also being ignored by them. The party thought that was impressive and tried to follow them through the hordes of the undead. They ended up losing them through the crowd, fought for about a day, before what horde remained was cleared out, or left the town. Somehow, the mayor survived, discovered the barbarian was still alive and had him executed on the spot. Leaving the rest of the party alone, while the mayor was on full damage control.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Enjoy your slop. I'll be enjoying good products elsewhere.
For me, I started playing last fall with a friend at a local game shop. I played in HS, 40 years ago. The campaign was a blast and I deeply enjoyed. It ended last spring.
I have family/friends who wanted to try, so I became the DM. I am running dragon of icespire peak. It is basically all setup with roughly a dozen quests, stories, dialogues, monsters. I have printed most of the maps at a larger size. I downloaded .stl files and 3D printed MANY monsters and characters. I also added a bunch to the game. It is a blast and we laugh and have a great time. Currently we only meet once every 3 weeks due to busy schedules, but we meet for 7 - 8 hours with breaks. I tend to go overboard on some aspects. I have created several puzzles they have had to work through. My favorite was the fire dragon dance from avatar, the last airbender. The entire party had to perform the dance off a scroll I made to open a magical door. The scroll was yellow paper with the dance and instructions printed, then crinkled up, slightly torn, and edges burned and then wrapped and tied. There were other scrolls there too, but in languages they couldn't figure out so they kept them and will discover what they are down the road.
I have spent a ton of time reading on D&Dbeyond. I have created dozens upon dozens of characters and played them in some solo campaigns to get a feel for how they work. Rules - I try to remember and follow, but end up looking some up. I am also not adverse to making my own rules as only 1 person at the table has any experience, and that is very limited.
Jump in. It will be fun. I honestly have as much fun creating/preparing the quests and running them as I did playing.
I started playing in the mid 80s. My friends and I would take turns dming, each with their own worlds and combinations of purchased modules and custom world stuff. As one mentioned above, even the purchased adventures end up being more like 'homebrewed' once things get started. I stopped playing partway through high school and only picked it all back up again last year. I'm not the sole DM for a family group. Our son, our daughter and her new husband, one of our daughter's friends from work, my wife and her brother (who lives on the west coast and joins us via ZOOM). I'm the only one who has ever played before.
I just picked up the two starter sets, Lost Mines and Icespire Peak, mashed them together with some advice found online, and hit the ground running. I've found Sly Flouish's 'The Lazy Dungeon Master' and "Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master' both very helpful as well as online videos and Keith Ammann's "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" materials very helpful. Plus, like most have said, once the players get into the mix, they bring all their own backstories, and motivations which changes everything.
hey so i'm not a dm but it is something ive been intrested in i love world building, character creation ect though i struggle when it comes to applying the more technical stuff to those things so it has always put me off dming because i just don't think i could ever get a grasp on that more technical side also because i deal with anxiety too. so it just got me wondering:
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
Maybe you could try a more a narrative system sometime? Dnd is quite technical and I personally prefer more narrative systems. I do love DnD and I like running DnD games too, but it's not the best system for me to GM with.
I started GMing when I was like 11 years old. To other kids. 😄 We were basically just having fun ripping off all the fantasy movies/books we liked. We used a ridiculously simple and broken 1d6 homebrew rule system for years. I was like 20 before I learned my first proper rule system.
Of course now as a 34 year old, I need more than just a Legolas power fantasy. But the basic attitude of RPG:s being 95% about the people creating it together and 5% specific rules is still very much alive.
So whether you use a HB 1d6 ruleset or run official DnD 5e campaigns, just remember that it's all about you and your friends having a good time doing something creative together. The rules are there to help you, not to bring you down. 🙂
I'll end this on an honorary mention to Dread. The horror RP system that is quite literally just pulling a piece from a Jenga tower whenever you try something difficult. 😂
After 40+ years of playing and DMing it’s a bit hard to remember how I got started - basically bought the DMG and read it through several times then started arguing rules with the DM so he said “ ok next week you DM and I’ll play”. So I really had no option but to try and “wing it”. I’ve been “winging it” ever since. After reading thru the posts above they all have good advice. A key thing to refer is that in one way running a game is much like generating a war campaign- the military says “ no plan survives first contact with the enemy” in D&D no module/ campaign survives first contact with the players - so be prepared to “wing it”.
hey so i'm not a dm but it is something ive been intrested in i love world building, character creation ect though i struggle when it comes to applying the more technical stuff to those things so it has always put me off dming because i just don't think i could ever get a grasp on that more technical side also because i deal with anxiety too. so it just got me wondering:
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
How - I played a few small 2-3 man sessions with another person. We gave it a go decade later replacing one member with another, but the times just didn't work out. But i still had the itch. I then found it kinda difficult to find what i wanted on here as far as an online campaign goes, so i figured what the heck, i'll give it a go. I made a wishlist for those joining, i felt more comfortable with 'mostly' inexperienced because i didn't want to play by the exact rules, i wanted to modify them. I didn't want to make monster the same either, i wanted to change them to keep it fresh. So it just worked out for me i guess.
Homebrew - yup, 100%. I made an initial plot hook, a secondary quest, and then pieced together 3-4 other small plots that could go bigger scale if i needed them to, and outside of the point-to-point strategy of having things available, i mostly improvised encounters and a few NPC's. It's mostly barebones on NPC and flavor until they hit the major story (they did that 2 weeks ago, or 8 months into the mostly-weekly campaign). All 5 original members of the party are still in the campaign despite zero real voice acting from me and limited roleplaying outside of party interactions, though i am getting better as time goes on with preparing for the unexpected.
Tech - as a homebrew, it's your rules. my 2nd monitor has an excel spreadsheet with the basics, a few pages with monster guidelines that i use for reference for fights. I have a 2nd excel spreadsheet with names of NPC's, and i also have one player who really does a good job of documenting the entire campaign. I made the party aware from the word go that i was inexperienced as a DM, and that i wouldn't know every rule, so if they saw something amiss they could question it or respond with the book answer.
DM'ing - If you make the game free, make your position/experience known, and give people an accurate representation of what you want out of them and what they should expect out of you, it will work out just fine. Lots of players do it for love of the game. Most people who homebrew have their own ideas of what they want their world to be, so i think you probably are best just putting your idea on your on DM table and putting the advertisement out. Anxiety/nerves exist to some degree, but it's more to do with 'will they enjoy this?' moreso than 'how off the rails are we going to get' because that latter thought is just a forgone conclusion heh.
Anyways, just posting in here as someone who's picked up DM'ing recently enough to give you that perspective. Just be honest with the players and go for it, and you'll see that the anxiety on that part of things is misguided
Summer, 1983, a few weeks after school let out. My friend Nicky had a birthday and I was invited to the slumber party. The next morning, after breakfast, everyone gathered around a table and the World of Greyhawk map was spread out on it. I didn't know, but some of the guys there had a game going. I was enchanted but not invited to the campaign (I didn't realize I could be).
I saved up money to buy the Red Box and ran a game at home for my brother and neighbors. I've never looked back since.
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
I just did it, emulating what I saw. First I would write one off modules (AD&D adventures) and slowly learned to expand to world guidebooks, questlines that weren't location dependent, etc. One step at a time.
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
I read the books for fun. Then I read them if I anticipate needing their content. Then, if needed, at the table I look things up. Players don't expect you to know it all. Repetition helps. Also, the 5e game isn't too technical to DM. Pretty much any channelge can be "Roll d20, add a stat bonus that makes sense, and assign a difficulty class."
I also expect my players to know their characters and powers for me. I trust them to be honest and it lets me focus on the world and monsters.
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
Do it! Embrace the learning and fun! Come see us anytime you need help!
hey so i'm not a dm but it is something ive been intrested in i love world building, character creation ect though i struggle when it comes to applying the more technical stuff to those things so it has always put me off dming because i just don't think i could ever get a grasp on that more technical side also because i deal with anxiety too. so it just got me wondering:
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
1. Only way for me to get my friends to play was for me to DM, so I sat down, Buckled up, Read the rules, And ran lost mine.
2. I'm bad at storytelling, so i mostly use prebuilt, but i can just tell you to start broad then get narrower ex: Main story > main story beats > towns and stuff > side quests > encounters.
3 IDK man that just the part that i'm good at and enjoy. It probably helps that i read a lot of LitRPGs. Awaken Online, Completionist Chronicles, Silver Fox and the Western Hero, Etc.
4. Just try your best! No one expects you to do great, so just try. Start off with lost mines or dragons of stormwreck Isle, and go from there.
I learned to play in 1979 at summer Scout Camp. During the summer, I had the DM get me a basic set in a blue box and a Players Handbook.
I fell in love with the game. After summer ended, I wanted to play, but no one I knew outside of camp had ever heard of it. I picked up the Monster Manual. The DM Guide would not be published for almost another year. I taught myself to DM based on what I had witnessed and from reading the available source material. I also spent countless hours at the public library brushing up on geography, history, warfare, armor, weapons, mythology and anything else that related to the game. I started devouring books by Tolkien, Moorcock, Lieber and others and watched every fantasy movie available.
I got in touch with two of the players from camp, who lived less than an hour away by bus, and had a few games. One became my best friend and we are friends still today. I taught my sisters, my cousins, my cousin’s friends, and even my grandmother how to play. Over the next three summers I would work at three different Scout Camps and DMed for staff at all three.
It was all will, and not a small amount of talent, having pursued writing and acting from a young age. I wanted to play and so I had to learn to DM. Having played in a handful of other peoples’ games and realizing I was a better DM than most of them, I now never play as a PC. I am a DM for life.
What I gather from this thread and also what I'd like to point out to OP.
We all DM very differently and for different reasons. Also, most likely all of us more or less suck at some things and excel at some things as DMs. Or maybe mediocre at all aspects. Some are bad with rules, some are bad with the story etc. And there is still room for all of us to run a good game.
Ye I honestly wanted to hear everyone's varying stories because Thier nice to read . But also gain a little more confidence I don't know if I ever will DM but I might give it a go as I have a small idea for a one shot. I'm not sure what I'm good at and I think that maybe while I might struggle with the more technical stuff with the numbers and actual dice part ( maybe combat) I might keep my stuff more narrative and story based than combat based since the story part is what I personally have more interest in. While yes the players do alot of the game themselves and write the story themselves I can still find players suitable for the gameplay I want to do. Also this is like an overall response for everything I've read here. I will of course accommodate to my players and what they want but as a DM it would be my responsibility to make sure the players selected know that it wouldn't be combat heavy and would be ok with that. Would be very wrong to just grab a bunch of players and toss them in and then have to accommodate to them entirely by adding heavy combat if that isn't what I'm good with. So I feel for me there's that balance of it's my story but it's the players story too and we got to work together to make it work. So I'm not entirely fond over the style of throwing your own story out the window entirely if the players never end up following it since your should still have your story you just have to work it around the players and sometimes that's gonna mean adjusting things here and there and giving the players motivations for wanting to persue the main story. It's the DMS web and the players are caught in it.
But yeah I'm just not for the advice that kinda sounds like you are just the DM and have no input or control over anything or any aspects and the players do everything. Like nah if I'm a DM it's my job to create a story the players can enjoy I'm not just going to sit beck because " the players do everything naturally anyway" the players play the game but you make the rules, the story, narrate the interactions create the characters you ultimately set the vibe you set the stage and run the show. You decide when the curtains are pulled back or when they fall and the story ends. You are a player yourself too have fun with things too.
Also again not directed at anyone specific this is just an overall response.
I started DMing because I thought it would be fun. I had my introductory game and thought it was amazing, and started having ideas.
So, I made a oneshot, which quickly spiralled into this crazy game filled with puns and wordplay and bizarre cheese-based monsters - The Steepfield Cheese Chase. My players loved it, and asked me to make more, and so I wrote a 3-shot sequel involving a dragon and a strange inventor. That sequel became the starting point for a now 27-session-long campaign which will hit its 1-year mark next month!
I then wrote the original oneshot adventure up as a module and put it on DM's Guild, where I have sold... 3. I sincerely hope those three people enjoyed it!
So yeah, a combination of having a good idea, and the sheer endorphine rush when you see your players reaction to it. I was hooked!
It's hard to remember exactly how I started DMing, which is funny because it was only 3 years ago. I know that the first serious campaign I ran was Dragon of Icespire Peak with a friend- but I may have ran Lost Mine of Phandelver with my old DM to practice beforehand.
I started running a homebrew campaign a while later. It was with a different friend, after running Dragon of Icespire Peak with them. (I've played/ran that module 3-4 times) I decided that I wanted to try homebrew because I found it easier. Modules, while taking care of the creativity bit, involve a lot of remembering or flipping through pages frantically while trying to do justice to someone else's story. It's easier for me to remember stuff I made up. Plus, I love the freedom that homebrewing gives you. Modules will always be sort of railroady- they have an outcome planned from the start. I love not knowing exactly where my story is going so that I can incorporate my players' desires and decisions. When homebrewing, I like to have a general idea of the bad guy, so I can include hints about their actions, but I only plan a few sessions in advance. That way, I have time to react to the players and incorporate pieces that they especially enjoy.
Honestly, I remember the technical stuff because I'm super obsessed with it. When I'm a player, I'm kind of a rules lawyer (I've been working on this). But I don't remember everything. I am constantly googling rules clarifications during the session. My players are fine with it, and they like to help me figure it out. (With one of my groups, its kind of a "who can find it first" competition). I also sometimes just make stuff up. Then, I can research the rules after the session, and send out a clarification about what we're going to do next time. Also, a lot of times, the rules can't handle it, and I just have to make a ruling. Spell interaction can get super complicated, and there's no perfect way to go about it. I just try my best to have things make some sort of sense.
hey so i'm not a dm but it is something ive been intrested in i love world building, character creation ect though i struggle when it comes to applying the more technical stuff to those things so it has always put me off dming because i just don't think i could ever get a grasp on that more technical side also because i deal with anxiety too. so it just got me wondering:
- how did yous go about becoming a dm?
- if you do homebrew campaigns how did yous go about doing that?
- how do yous remember all that technical stuff and are able to take in all that information?
- any general advice for somone in my position who is intrested in dming but deals with the issues i deal with?
also another part of me just likes the idea of creating a homebrew but having having somone else dm it i prefer working on things with other people than doing things alone. like i've had a couple of ideas for campaigns over the years and one i used to work on but haven't worked on it in a long time because it's not like it would see the light of day.
As I think it's in everyone's interest for more players to become DM's, let me be the first to encourage you to try. The anxiety of it and the technical aspect of it is not any more or less of a thing than being a player, it just feels that when you first try. It will become second nature to you after a few sessions so you just have to sort of get over the hump.
It was I think 1986, I got the Red Box as a present from my dad and I wanted to play so I gathered my friends and we just started and I was the default DM because I owned the box essentially.
Initially, the concept of a campaign wasn't a thing. My friends and I got together, we would grab whatever module and they would just play in that module doing whatever they wanted.
After a while the concept of continuity (continuing adventures between game sessions) became a thing and slowly over time players started remember places and NPC characters, so I had to start remembering it too. Maps were forged and eventually we started realizing that the modules we were using were actually in the same game world, in our case back then it was "The Known World", which would later come to be called Mystara. I think the first official campaign book I got was The Grand Duchy of Karameikos which became our campaign world and our homebrew world kind of grew from that. Fast forward 30 some odd years later, essentially Mystara is my campaign world. It all happened very slowly over time and sort of grew out of gameplay.
I don't try. The books are rules reference guides, if you can't remember something look it up. Overtime you will just naturally remember stuff. But generally speaking my players know the actual game rules better than I do.
Best advice I can give is. Start small. You don't need to world-build to start DMing. Grab a module like something classic that has a town filled with NPC's and a few locations for players to explore. Don't bother with a story or anything, just drop them in the town and let them start exploring. Give them some rumors, maybe introduce them to some lore of the area and see what they do. D&d Stories emerge, they are born from interaction, not created by a storyteller. Trust me, you won't need to do anything, your players will do all the heavy lifting for you.
I can recommend something like Ghost of Saltmarshes for example. Great book. You start in a town, there are people there with various motivations, factions... there are rumors and stuff going on in the background. Your players will find their way, you just need to get them started.
What you will quickly discover is that every game of D&D ever run is homebrew. There are no other types of games. You can use the same module as I'm using and after 1 session these will be completely different games that have absolutely nothing in common. You don't however have to start from scratch. It's best to pick an adventure module and use it as a base for your game so that you have something to work from. But after that, it will just develop on its own even if you actively try to stop it from happening..
ive never actually read a module what are they like? and how do you follow a module?
I've kinda always wanted to be since the 90's when my family members I produced me to the game. I skipped a bajillion editions though, going from AD&D to 5e and my play experience is more minimal than you'd think.
I love storytelling and in the in between years often thought of being a writer, but the truth is, I'd write about 5 pages of a story and quit, getting hung up on the editing that I'd never get any further. (I'm far better and editor than a writer).
Anyhow, when I started DM'ing a few months back, I kinda just elected to for an existing group, (remember, I always wanted to), bought physical copies of the books, and just threw myself into it, partially trying to make dragon heist my *****. I still hate the modules, but it helped me hit the ground running.
Overall D&D isn't hard or complicated, especially if you have prior knowledge of war games like it (and I have my family to thank for that), and a knack for improvisation. What it is though is a lot to remember, and you also need to be "get good" at making on the fly judgement calls. That only comes with experience.
Well, there are different kinds of adventure modules, but generally the fall into some general categories.
Adventure Modules which are designed to be for shorter campaigns, meaning X amount of sessions, X varying from 2-3 to 5-8 roughly. These types of modules generally are setup for players to discover one core plot and follow it through to the end. The plot is usually made quite clear to the DM and there is a general sequence of expected events in a certain order. Good examples into the adventures in Ghost of Saltmarshes and Tales From The Yawning Portal. Often these can focus on some aspect of play, for example Ghost of Saltmarshes has some politics and opportunities for social interaction, while many of the adventures in Tales From The Yawning Portal focus on exploring locations (Dungeons and the like).
Included in this category are the starter sets for 5e which includes a great adventure called Lost Mine of Phandelver which I feel is top notch in particular for new DM's and I would say if your so new that you have never read an adventure module, this would be a really great place to start.
The second type are open world adventure modules. In open world modules the DM is given a lot of background information on an area, lots of micro-adventures, places to explore and various plots, some intertwined, some just side missions for the players to explore. This style of adventure is less commonly seen in official D&D content, but Dragon of Icespire Peak which is also a kind of starter box is a great example. You also have stuff from a company called Goodman Games that remakes classic (old D&D modules) into 5e adventures, one of the premier open-world modules there is called The Isle of Dread which has the players exploring a lost world (island).. think King Kong.
Generally this style of module is nice for new DM's because you don't have a holistic story to track, rather its just up to the players to discover the adventure on their own and you sort of lay back and let them do their thing.
The third category is "story campaign". This covers most 5e adventure books from the early stuff like Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Curse of Strahd and well, really most of the adventure books for 5e.
These are laid out campaigns with a big story build around a core plot with tons of intervening plots which is slowly uncovered by the players. I don't recommend you run anything like that for your first go, this takes quite a bit of work and experience to get right and it can be a complete disaster when done wrong.
As whole adventure modules outline information for the DM that describes the people and locations where the adventure will take place and the plot of the adventure and how to expose the players to it. Its essentially an instruction manual for running a D&D game.
In very early 1980, i grabbed a group of 7 friends and took over a room in the local library and began running games for 8 hours a day for them, their friends, and (because of library rules) anyone who wanted to join. I had learned the game a few years before, but what really hooked me was the idea of people playing in the worlds I created (not so much stories, lol) and the complex dungeons i made.
back then, it wasn’t called homebrews, it was just “tweaked rules” because the DM could do that and people didn’t really have fits about it like they do now. And while I have run a lot of “straight rules” games (like the library, which I did for 3 years, or the military, where I ran several different games for another 3), most of the most fun and most interesting stuff comes because I do a LOT of homebrews. But I also consult on game design and mechanics on occasion, and I have a lot of experience.
So yes, I did a lot of homebrews, and I started off essentially “re-skinning” classes and races and changing little things as I learned about the way the game works — the mechanics of it. I am drawn to that stuff though and most folks find it boring, lol, because I don’t look at things like DPR and other combat only metrics. My last campaign finished in June, and while I ran that one and one before it, i started work on the next campaign I will be doing, which has taken 5 years so far.
I have no idea how I am able to remember it, but I also am a scientist who works in the area of “people”, and so I have a metric ton of crap floating around in my head and most of the time I set it down in some place or thing that allows me to not have to have it all there. Like books. Or statistical modeling programs. Or binders, lol. In practice, again, I have been doing this a really long time and so a lot of stuff is now almost habit because it comes up so frequently.
Start small. Grab the free Phandelver module and read it start to finish Print parts of it out, pour over them and make notes until you understand the story. Then, get a few folks together and run it. DMing is something best learned on the fly, because for the most part, you will stick with a few folks for a while.
Remember that the story you are telling is not *your story* or your *bad guys* story. It is the story of the player characters.
When describing something, uses 6 senses: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and “feel” — the vibe of the space. Describe left, right, forward, backward, up, and down.
Focus on fun, on role play, and not on “maximizing the abilities of a given class”. Remember that everything that isn’t the Player Characters is *your character*, and so they have thoughts,ideas, hopes, backstories and more. Don’t write them up unless you need, to, but it also means that they will fight for their life with all the sneaky dirty tricks and magic that players will.
My last campaign took place in a big ole valley: 5 miles wide, 25 miles long, lake int he center, a single town, five sets of ruins, a marsh, a forest, hills, and farms, fields, and more. It was one of the simplest “worlds” i have ever created, and I have created probably around 80 or so. One of the ruins led to a deep dungeon, because this was a return to a dungeon crawl, but they PCs would leave and go to town to restock and talk to people and it was all part of a larger adventure that lasted 3 years.
In the old days, we called a series of events that tell a story a Module. These days they call them adventures — like Lost mines of Phandelver. That’s a module. We would string a series of modules together and that would be a campaign.
We wrote our own modules, traded them, swapped them, used them. There are a lot of them available on sites like DMs Guild. Learn from them.
I am sure others will give you a lot of good advice as well.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I started with a highly improved, homebrewed campaign. It revolved around 13 Demons of Chaos, one of these demons had a Legendary Artifact bow that from a single hit, turned its victim into a zombie. The starting town the players were in, the Barbarian started some trouble, fought off some guards, used one of the guard's heads to cover up a hole he made. Some of the details are a little fuzzy, the rogue player was injured, had to go to the infirmary.. a gorgeous high elf nurse was tending to him and then one of those arrows struck her.. And the rouge thought he was going to get a kiss, but instead, the nurse was trying to bite him. LOL.
Then the town rapidly destabilized, another demon of Chaos showed up, a child named Mary and hero follower companion, a Death Knight. It was slaying the undead, while also being ignored by them. The party thought that was impressive and tried to follow them through the hordes of the undead. They ended up losing them through the crowd, fought for about a day, before what horde remained was cleared out, or left the town. Somehow, the mayor survived, discovered the barbarian was still alive and had him executed on the spot. Leaving the rest of the party alone, while the mayor was on full damage control.
Enjoy your slop. I'll be enjoying good products elsewhere.
hey its nice to hear from you again :3 i like hearing from you also i appreciate you sharing how you started and the tips
For me, I started playing last fall with a friend at a local game shop. I played in HS, 40 years ago. The campaign was a blast and I deeply enjoyed. It ended last spring.
I have family/friends who wanted to try, so I became the DM. I am running dragon of icespire peak. It is basically all setup with roughly a dozen quests, stories, dialogues, monsters. I have printed most of the maps at a larger size. I downloaded .stl files and 3D printed MANY monsters and characters. I also added a bunch to the game. It is a blast and we laugh and have a great time. Currently we only meet once every 3 weeks due to busy schedules, but we meet for 7 - 8 hours with breaks. I tend to go overboard on some aspects. I have created several puzzles they have had to work through. My favorite was the fire dragon dance from avatar, the last airbender. The entire party had to perform the dance off a scroll I made to open a magical door. The scroll was yellow paper with the dance and instructions printed, then crinkled up, slightly torn, and edges burned and then wrapped and tied. There were other scrolls there too, but in languages they couldn't figure out so they kept them and will discover what they are down the road.
I have spent a ton of time reading on D&Dbeyond. I have created dozens upon dozens of characters and played them in some solo campaigns to get a feel for how they work. Rules - I try to remember and follow, but end up looking some up. I am also not adverse to making my own rules as only 1 person at the table has any experience, and that is very limited.
Jump in. It will be fun. I honestly have as much fun creating/preparing the quests and running them as I did playing.
I started playing in the mid 80s. My friends and I would take turns dming, each with their own worlds and combinations of purchased modules and custom world stuff. As one mentioned above, even the purchased adventures end up being more like 'homebrewed' once things get started. I stopped playing partway through high school and only picked it all back up again last year. I'm not the sole DM for a family group. Our son, our daughter and her new husband, one of our daughter's friends from work, my wife and her brother (who lives on the west coast and joins us via ZOOM). I'm the only one who has ever played before.
I just picked up the two starter sets, Lost Mines and Icespire Peak, mashed them together with some advice found online, and hit the ground running. I've found Sly Flouish's 'The Lazy Dungeon Master' and "Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master' both very helpful as well as online videos and Keith Ammann's "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" materials very helpful. Plus, like most have said, once the players get into the mix, they bring all their own backstories, and motivations which changes everything.
I'd say jump in and do it!
Maybe you could try a more a narrative system sometime? Dnd is quite technical and I personally prefer more narrative systems. I do love DnD and I like running DnD games too, but it's not the best system for me to GM with.
I started GMing when I was like 11 years old. To other kids. 😄 We were basically just having fun ripping off all the fantasy movies/books we liked. We used a ridiculously simple and broken 1d6 homebrew rule system for years. I was like 20 before I learned my first proper rule system.
Of course now as a 34 year old, I need more than just a Legolas power fantasy. But the basic attitude of RPG:s being 95% about the people creating it together and 5% specific rules is still very much alive.
So whether you use a HB 1d6 ruleset or run official DnD 5e campaigns, just remember that it's all about you and your friends having a good time doing something creative together. The rules are there to help you, not to bring you down. 🙂
I'll end this on an honorary mention to Dread. The horror RP system that is quite literally just pulling a piece from a Jenga tower whenever you try something difficult. 😂
Finland GMT/UTC +2
After 40+ years of playing and DMing it’s a bit hard to remember how I got started - basically bought the DMG and read it through several times then started arguing rules with the DM so he said “ ok next week you DM and I’ll play”. So I really had no option but to try and “wing it”. I’ve been “winging it” ever since. After reading thru the posts above they all have good advice. A key thing to refer is that in one way running a game is much like generating a war campaign- the military says “ no plan survives first contact with the enemy” in D&D no module/ campaign survives first contact with the players - so be prepared to “wing it”.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
How - I played a few small 2-3 man sessions with another person. We gave it a go decade later replacing one member with another, but the times just didn't work out. But i still had the itch. I then found it kinda difficult to find what i wanted on here as far as an online campaign goes, so i figured what the heck, i'll give it a go. I made a wishlist for those joining, i felt more comfortable with 'mostly' inexperienced because i didn't want to play by the exact rules, i wanted to modify them. I didn't want to make monster the same either, i wanted to change them to keep it fresh. So it just worked out for me i guess.
Homebrew - yup, 100%. I made an initial plot hook, a secondary quest, and then pieced together 3-4 other small plots that could go bigger scale if i needed them to, and outside of the point-to-point strategy of having things available, i mostly improvised encounters and a few NPC's. It's mostly barebones on NPC and flavor until they hit the major story (they did that 2 weeks ago, or 8 months into the mostly-weekly campaign). All 5 original members of the party are still in the campaign despite zero real voice acting from me and limited roleplaying outside of party interactions, though i am getting better as time goes on with preparing for the unexpected.
Tech - as a homebrew, it's your rules. my 2nd monitor has an excel spreadsheet with the basics, a few pages with monster guidelines that i use for reference for fights. I have a 2nd excel spreadsheet with names of NPC's, and i also have one player who really does a good job of documenting the entire campaign. I made the party aware from the word go that i was inexperienced as a DM, and that i wouldn't know every rule, so if they saw something amiss they could question it or respond with the book answer.
DM'ing - If you make the game free, make your position/experience known, and give people an accurate representation of what you want out of them and what they should expect out of you, it will work out just fine. Lots of players do it for love of the game. Most people who homebrew have their own ideas of what they want their world to be, so i think you probably are best just putting your idea on your on DM table and putting the advertisement out. Anxiety/nerves exist to some degree, but it's more to do with 'will they enjoy this?' moreso than 'how off the rails are we going to get' because that latter thought is just a forgone conclusion heh.
Anyways, just posting in here as someone who's picked up DM'ing recently enough to give you that perspective. Just be honest with the players and go for it, and you'll see that the anxiety on that part of things is misguided
Summer, 1983, a few weeks after school let out. My friend Nicky had a birthday and I was invited to the slumber party. The next morning, after breakfast, everyone gathered around a table and the World of Greyhawk map was spread out on it. I didn't know, but some of the guys there had a game going. I was enchanted but not invited to the campaign (I didn't realize I could be).
I saved up money to buy the Red Box and ran a game at home for my brother and neighbors. I've never looked back since.
I just did it, emulating what I saw. First I would write one off modules (AD&D adventures) and slowly learned to expand to world guidebooks, questlines that weren't location dependent, etc. One step at a time.
I read the books for fun. Then I read them if I anticipate needing their content. Then, if needed, at the table I look things up. Players don't expect you to know it all. Repetition helps. Also, the 5e game isn't too technical to DM. Pretty much any channelge can be "Roll d20, add a stat bonus that makes sense, and assign a difficulty class."
I also expect my players to know their characters and powers for me. I trust them to be honest and it lets me focus on the world and monsters.
Do it! Embrace the learning and fun! Come see us anytime you need help!
1. Only way for me to get my friends to play was for me to DM, so I sat down, Buckled up, Read the rules, And ran lost mine.
2. I'm bad at storytelling, so i mostly use prebuilt, but i can just tell you to start broad then get narrower ex: Main story > main story beats > towns and stuff > side quests > encounters.
3 IDK man that just the part that i'm good at and enjoy. It probably helps that i read a lot of LitRPGs. Awaken Online, Completionist Chronicles, Silver Fox and the Western Hero, Etc.
4. Just try your best! No one expects you to do great, so just try. Start off with lost mines or dragons of stormwreck Isle, and go from there.
Nat 20? [roll]1d20[/roll]
I learned to play in 1979 at summer Scout Camp. During the summer, I had the DM get me a basic set in a blue box and a Players Handbook.
I fell in love with the game. After summer ended, I wanted to play, but no one I knew outside of camp had ever heard of it. I picked up the Monster Manual. The DM Guide would not be published for almost another year. I taught myself to DM based on what I had witnessed and from reading the available source material. I also spent countless hours at the public library brushing up on geography, history, warfare, armor, weapons, mythology and anything else that related to the game. I started devouring books by Tolkien, Moorcock, Lieber and others and watched every fantasy movie available.
I got in touch with two of the players from camp, who lived less than an hour away by bus, and had a few games. One became my best friend and we are friends still today. I taught my sisters, my cousins, my cousin’s friends, and even my grandmother how to play. Over the next three summers I would work at three different Scout Camps and DMed for staff at all three.
It was all will, and not a small amount of talent, having pursued writing and acting from a young age. I wanted to play and so I had to learn to DM. Having played in a handful of other peoples’ games and realizing I was a better DM than most of them, I now never play as a PC. I am a DM for life.
What I gather from this thread and also what I'd like to point out to OP.
We all DM very differently and for different reasons. Also, most likely all of us more or less suck at some things and excel at some things as DMs. Or maybe mediocre at all aspects. Some are bad with rules, some are bad with the story etc. And there is still room for all of us to run a good game.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Ye I honestly wanted to hear everyone's varying stories because Thier nice to read . But also gain a little more confidence I don't know if I ever will DM but I might give it a go as I have a small idea for a one shot. I'm not sure what I'm good at and I think that maybe while I might struggle with the more technical stuff with the numbers and actual dice part ( maybe combat) I might keep my stuff more narrative and story based than combat based since the story part is what I personally have more interest in. While yes the players do alot of the game themselves and write the story themselves I can still find players suitable for the gameplay I want to do. Also this is like an overall response for everything I've read here. I will of course accommodate to my players and what they want but as a DM it would be my responsibility to make sure the players selected know that it wouldn't be combat heavy and would be ok with that. Would be very wrong to just grab a bunch of players and toss them in and then have to accommodate to them entirely by adding heavy combat if that isn't what I'm good with. So I feel for me there's that balance of it's my story but it's the players story too and we got to work together to make it work. So I'm not entirely fond over the style of throwing your own story out the window entirely if the players never end up following it since your should still have your story you just have to work it around the players and sometimes that's gonna mean adjusting things here and there and giving the players motivations for wanting to persue the main story. It's the DMS web and the players are caught in it.
But yeah I'm just not for the advice that kinda sounds like you are just the DM and have no input or control over anything or any aspects and the players do everything. Like nah if I'm a DM it's my job to create a story the players can enjoy I'm not just going to sit beck because " the players do everything naturally anyway" the players play the game but you make the rules, the story, narrate the interactions create the characters you ultimately set the vibe you set the stage and run the show. You decide when the curtains are pulled back or when they fall and the story ends. You are a player yourself too have fun with things too.
Also again not directed at anyone specific this is just an overall response.
I started DMing because I thought it would be fun. I had my introductory game and thought it was amazing, and started having ideas.
So, I made a oneshot, which quickly spiralled into this crazy game filled with puns and wordplay and bizarre cheese-based monsters - The Steepfield Cheese Chase. My players loved it, and asked me to make more, and so I wrote a 3-shot sequel involving a dragon and a strange inventor. That sequel became the starting point for a now 27-session-long campaign which will hit its 1-year mark next month!
I then wrote the original oneshot adventure up as a module and put it on DM's Guild, where I have sold... 3. I sincerely hope those three people enjoyed it!
So yeah, a combination of having a good idea, and the sheer endorphine rush when you see your players reaction to it. I was hooked!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
It's hard to remember exactly how I started DMing, which is funny because it was only 3 years ago. I know that the first serious campaign I ran was Dragon of Icespire Peak with a friend- but I may have ran Lost Mine of Phandelver with my old DM to practice beforehand.
I started running a homebrew campaign a while later. It was with a different friend, after running Dragon of Icespire Peak with them. (I've played/ran that module 3-4 times) I decided that I wanted to try homebrew because I found it easier. Modules, while taking care of the creativity bit, involve a lot of remembering or flipping through pages frantically while trying to do justice to someone else's story. It's easier for me to remember stuff I made up. Plus, I love the freedom that homebrewing gives you. Modules will always be sort of railroady- they have an outcome planned from the start. I love not knowing exactly where my story is going so that I can incorporate my players' desires and decisions. When homebrewing, I like to have a general idea of the bad guy, so I can include hints about their actions, but I only plan a few sessions in advance. That way, I have time to react to the players and incorporate pieces that they especially enjoy.
Honestly, I remember the technical stuff because I'm super obsessed with it. When I'm a player, I'm kind of a rules lawyer (I've been working on this). But I don't remember everything. I am constantly googling rules clarifications during the session. My players are fine with it, and they like to help me figure it out. (With one of my groups, its kind of a "who can find it first" competition). I also sometimes just make stuff up. Then, I can research the rules after the session, and send out a clarification about what we're going to do next time. Also, a lot of times, the rules can't handle it, and I just have to make a ruling. Spell interaction can get super complicated, and there's no perfect way to go about it. I just try my best to have things make some sort of sense.
Only spilt the party if you see something shiny.
Ariendela Sneakerson, Half-elf Rogue (8); Harmony Wolfsbane, Tiefling Bard (10); Agnomally, Gnomish Sorcerer (3); Breeze, Tabaxi Monk (8); Grace, Dragonborn Barbarian (7); DM, Homebrew- The Sequestered Lands/Underwater Explorers; Candlekeep