One of the most difficult challenges facing a DM is how to keep the game fresh and exciting. There are always new monsters, new magic items, new villains, etc. - and these help, but one of the most useful tools I have discovered is planning our gaming sessions around one or two major combat engagements.
(It will help to note that our sessions are every week or two, online, for 6-7 hours of gameplay. My group has been close friends since high school - forty years ago - so a fair amount of our game time involves catching up, reminiscing, gossiping, and so on). This is our style of play.
I always have a longer-term campaign planned out, but I'll argue that it's just as critical to have multiple plans established out for every game session. Part of that is being inventive with the encounters I establish. It isn't necessary to employ overpowered brute creatures every encounter, and it gets terribly dull for players.
I have found that a well-thought-out encounter built around creatures and circumstances that play against the party's strengths and capitalize on the party's weaknesses are much more satisfying to my players. I'm including a few examples below. Hopefully you'll find some inspiration for your own games. I'd also enjoy hearing about any of these sorts of encounters you have used in the past.
1. The fight on the frozen river. I shamelessly steal ideas from movies and literature. This one came from the fantastic 1970s Three Musketeer films starring Michael York as D'Artagnan. The Musketeers cross paths with Count Richelieu and several Papal soldiers near a frozen river, and the ensuing fight spills out onto the ice. The fighting becomes much more difficult for all involved as they try to take advantage of the treacherous surface while also trying to employ their formidable fighting skills in an incredibly difficult environment.
2. Several of my encounters have involved combat in precarious places. Falling is always a great hazard to add to an encounter, especially if the involved monsters are better than the party at climbing. Mountains, castle spires, rope bridges, etc. have all served as settings for these challenges in films and video games.
3. Fighting in confined spaces can be a great way to level the field between smaller creatures (especially swarms) and a powerful party. It's also a useful tool for limiting the advantage of missile fire.
4. Venomous monsters always bring an extra challenge to any fight, but a similar challenge can be had by arranging the encounter so that combatants risk falling into a flaming pit, acid, disease infested water, and so on.
5. Fighting in a watery environment brings in a whole host of new challenges.
6. Ship-to-ship swashbuckling made my heart race when I watched pirate movies as a boy. It's even more fun to play out those fights on a VTT. One slip, and a key character can be out for the combat.
7. One of my favorite encounters that I ever ran was the party against two Oni. The Oni created darkness after taking missile fire from the party in a long hallway. The visual effect of the wall of darkness advancing down the hallway on the trapped adventurers was nerve-wracking (for them).
8. Possession is always a fun tool to turn on a talented group. Turning the beloved barbarian/killing machine against his cohorts presents two problems - surviving the fight and avoiding killing the possessed.
9. A carefully applied silence spell can quickly sour any spellcaster's day.
10. Well-planned illusions that leave characters questioning their senses can turn action to inaction and certainty to question.
As I mentioned earlier part of the success of these kinds of encounters rides on the use of great VTT maps. Certainly there are thousands of these maps available (many for free). I personally design my own maps, so I can set up exactly the situation I want, but a little improvisation will make most any VTT map do.
I would strongly suggest trying out other TTRPG systems like Blades in the Dark or FATE where theatre of the mind combat is much more prevalent. I genuinely found that going back to the theatre of the mind style made it far far easier to plan out D&D encounters. There are of course players who need the visual and claim they need it because of the tactical aspects, but as entertainment actual plays like Oxventure prove you don't need maps or VTTs to do combat.
Now granted, I am getting ever closer to my fourth decade, but I do feel like map and mini based combat encounters often limit us in our imagination and abilities. I will often for example run combat encounters without initiative rolls and without a battle map simply because it's a momentarily thing for which I wasn't prepared. Let's say that the party are in a tavern and a fight breaks out - I'm not digging out a tavern mini map. I'm going to just describe the room very basically (i.e. 40ftx20ft rectangular room, a bar along the north, narrow wall, and several booths running along the east wall. On the west wall are small tables, chairs, and a fireplace in the centre. In the south wall is a central door. The room is 10ft high.)
Being able to be this kind of flexible is actually just reducing things to their simplest point. The room is a simple shape (circle, square, rectangle, oval etc). The space has really only what is necessary to describe. Players are smart enough to know what types of objects they might find in a tavern, or in a shop, or in a dormitory. The DM just confirms that the items are there when a player character asks. Now the big challenge with this style of combat is that the GM and the players can often struggle to have a clear idea of where everyone is standing and how far away each character is from each enemy or NPC. Generally though, it really doesn't matter too much and is all easy enough to overcome.
What I'm trying to say is that you can be successful without maps. You can be successful without a VTT. It just requires a level of training and acclimatisation to theatre of the mind.
Don't misunderstand, I make up my own maps too. Largely because it indulges my creative side. However, they are a 'nice to have' not a necessity.
One of the most difficult challenges facing a DM is how to keep the game fresh and exciting. There are always new monsters, new magic items, new villains, etc. - and these help, but one of the most useful tools I have discovered is planning our gaming sessions around one or two major combat engagements.
(It will help to note that our sessions are every week or two, online, for 6-7 hours of gameplay. My group has been close friends since high school - forty years ago - so a fair amount of our game time involves catching up, reminiscing, gossiping, and so on). This is our style of play.
I always have a longer-term campaign planned out, but I'll argue that it's just as critical to have multiple plans established out for every game session. Part of that is being inventive with the encounters I establish. It isn't necessary to employ overpowered brute creatures every encounter, and it gets terribly dull for players.
I have found that a well-thought-out encounter built around creatures and circumstances that play against the party's strengths and capitalize on the party's weaknesses are much more satisfying to my players. I'm including a few examples below. Hopefully you'll find some inspiration for your own games. I'd also enjoy hearing about any of these sorts of encounters you have used in the past.
1. The fight on the frozen river. I shamelessly steal ideas from movies and literature. This one came from the fantastic 1970s Three Musketeer films starring Michael York as D'Artagnan. The Musketeers cross paths with Count Richelieu and several Papal soldiers near a frozen river, and the ensuing fight spills out onto the ice. The fighting becomes much more difficult for all involved as they try to take advantage of the treacherous surface while also trying to employ their formidable fighting skills in an incredibly difficult environment.
2. Several of my encounters have involved combat in precarious places. Falling is always a great hazard to add to an encounter, especially if the involved monsters are better than the party at climbing. Mountains, castle spires, rope bridges, etc. have all served as settings for these challenges in films and video games.
3. Fighting in confined spaces can be a great way to level the field between smaller creatures (especially swarms) and a powerful party. It's also a useful tool for limiting the advantage of missile fire.
4. Venomous monsters always bring an extra challenge to any fight, but a similar challenge can be had by arranging the encounter so that combatants risk falling into a flaming pit, acid, disease infested water, and so on.
5. Fighting in a watery environment brings in a whole host of new challenges.
6. Ship-to-ship swashbuckling made my heart race when I watched pirate movies as a boy. It's even more fun to play out those fights on a VTT. One slip, and a key character can be out for the combat.
7. One of my favorite encounters that I ever ran was the party against two Oni. The Oni created darkness after taking missile fire from the party in a long hallway. The visual effect of the wall of darkness advancing down the hallway on the trapped adventurers was nerve-wracking (for them).
8. Possession is always a fun tool to turn on a talented group. Turning the beloved barbarian/killing machine against his cohorts presents two problems - surviving the fight and avoiding killing the possessed.
9. A carefully applied silence spell can quickly sour any spellcaster's day.
10. Well-planned illusions that leave characters questioning their senses can turn action to inaction and certainty to question.
As I mentioned earlier part of the success of these kinds of encounters rides on the use of great VTT maps. Certainly there are thousands of these maps available (many for free). I personally design my own maps, so I can set up exactly the situation I want, but a little improvisation will make most any VTT map do.
I would strongly suggest trying out other TTRPG systems like Blades in the Dark or FATE where theatre of the mind combat is much more prevalent. I genuinely found that going back to the theatre of the mind style made it far far easier to plan out D&D encounters. There are of course players who need the visual and claim they need it because of the tactical aspects, but as entertainment actual plays like Oxventure prove you don't need maps or VTTs to do combat.
Now granted, I am getting ever closer to my fourth decade, but I do feel like map and mini based combat encounters often limit us in our imagination and abilities. I will often for example run combat encounters without initiative rolls and without a battle map simply because it's a momentarily thing for which I wasn't prepared. Let's say that the party are in a tavern and a fight breaks out - I'm not digging out a tavern mini map. I'm going to just describe the room very basically (i.e. 40ftx20ft rectangular room, a bar along the north, narrow wall, and several booths running along the east wall. On the west wall are small tables, chairs, and a fireplace in the centre. In the south wall is a central door. The room is 10ft high.)
Being able to be this kind of flexible is actually just reducing things to their simplest point. The room is a simple shape (circle, square, rectangle, oval etc). The space has really only what is necessary to describe. Players are smart enough to know what types of objects they might find in a tavern, or in a shop, or in a dormitory. The DM just confirms that the items are there when a player character asks. Now the big challenge with this style of combat is that the GM and the players can often struggle to have a clear idea of where everyone is standing and how far away each character is from each enemy or NPC. Generally though, it really doesn't matter too much and is all easy enough to overcome.
What I'm trying to say is that you can be successful without maps. You can be successful without a VTT. It just requires a level of training and acclimatisation to theatre of the mind.
Don't misunderstand, I make up my own maps too. Largely because it indulges my creative side. However, they are a 'nice to have' not a necessity.
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.