Looking for some advice on what kind of resources that you as a DM use to run games or grow your craft as a DM? Outside of the "standard" options - DMG, PHB, Monster Manual, what do you read to get the juices flowing? What tips/tricks have you found that help your players stay engaged and you excited about the campaign you are currently in?
I have found myself at a crossroads if I want to DM another cluster of a campaign or just stay a player or do both and wondered if any other DM's have found themselves in a similar situation. I did DM during the AD&D days and DM's a LMoP starter pack to jump back into DM'ing. This current campaign is Storm King's Thunder which didn't seem to all that bad starting off however has turned into a cluster of story lines and angry players cause they don't like how things are turning out, partly cause of me and partly cause of their lack of interest.
This is not a pity post or a post about I didn't so this and the players didn't do that. It really is more of a post of what resources are good to use, what resources help hone DM skills, and what resources help save the ship so to speak.
My first suggestion would be to have a sit down with your Players and find out what it is that they do like, and what kind of adventures they want to play. No matter how much creativity and novel story lines you come up with, if it's not something your group is going to enjoy, it's not of any use. If they can't give you solid answers, ask them each what their favorite television show, movie, video game, or book is, and why? What are their favorite characters and stories, regardless of the media.
My next suggestion is that you can learn a lot from real world History and Mythology. What kind of culture do the lands that your Party is currently in, have? What is the closest real-world equivalent? Do you picture your main trade port to be like Venice at the height of her maritime power? Are you set in frozen northern land where the culture might be like the Laplanders? Or is that frozen land on the coast, and you might leverage the Viking culture?
You can then dive into the History and Mythology of that culture and mine it for material. You don't need to make a clone of a real world culture, but you can absolutely steal parts for your fictional culture. Take the elements that your Players have already told you that they'll enjoy.
Wikipedia is pretty good for as shallow, or as deep, a dive as you want to make into real world cultures and history.
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The more familiar you are with the material you're using, the easier it will be to simply go with the flow. Modules are difficult to run if you're just picking up the book and playing it, it takes time to become familiar with the content so that you can handle whatever the players toss at you. Working on something homebrew gives you an intimate knowledge of what's going on so that no matter what happens you can work with it. So, you can either purchase a module and spend a few weeks pouring over it so you understand the flow, the narrative, and the interactions of the plots, or you can make your own adventure. In either case, the more you understand, the easier it will be to customize it to fit your players.
Second:
Steal, plagiarize, and borrow from every source of media that you find interesting. Use this to flesh out NPCs, you like the main character of a particular movie, make that the attitude and personality of a major NPC. You really enjoy the way the story played out in an anime, see if you can do something similar with the module/adventure you're playing. The setting of a book still remains vivid in your imagination, use it to influence how you describe the area the players are in. Just about anything can be integrated in to your games to help them feel more alive.
A few examples: Adventures of Loromir, my longest running game, has guild challenges for the players to participate in. These guild challenges are based off of the guild battles from the manga/anime Fairy Tail. The Gnomes in that world are a mix of the Gnomes from Dragonlance and the Asura from Guild Wars 2. The way magic works in this world is a mix of the Vlad Taltos series of books and photosynthesis. Heck one of the doctors that my players met was based off of Victor, Matt Mercer's black powder merchant. I stole a boss fight from World of Warcraft, Netherspite, and re-skinned it for a guild battle. Each of those bits come together to give natural and memorable situations that I was familiar enough with to integrate into the game.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
He had more of an old man's voice but just as senile and crotchety, unfortunately it was before I started streaming. With any luck I'll be able to bring him back, he was a fun NPC.
The biggest piece of advice I ever got was to remember that it's just a game. You and your players can do whatever you agree you want to do in order for fun to happen. So as a direct recommendation for your Storm Kings Thunder game I want to piggyback off what Vedexent said about talking to your players and take it to a crazy next step: just change your game on the spot. Remove plotlines, add stuff back in, change locations, change history...if y'all have a moment where you say "Gee, we were having fun until this happened." then remove that thing. Because it's just a game. And in the end plot continuity, deeply crafted storylines, and actual gameplay are all in service to having fun, and if y'all are not having fun then why not change everything to make fun happen?
As far as general recommendations for resources, there are a myriad! Follow people on social media who are doing D&D stuff that you like (DMs or players in online games, writers, editors, game designers, ect...) as they often post about what they are doing and are working on projects that you would enjoy. Watch some D&D live play shows or podcasts both for enjoyment and inspiration but also with a critical eye towards the craft being deployed, and emulate what you enjoy. If you have a few dollars to spend buy one of the books or adventures you haven't read yet, or go browse DMs Guild for something outside of official books that sparks your interest. Go be a fan of other awesome stuff to help inspire your own awesomeness.
When your players make characters, have each of them write up a character background--who are they, and how they got to where they are now. Importantly, make sure to tell them that changes might be made to their stories. The idea is that you'll take these stories, and try to use them to piece together the campaign. Fred writes that his clan was run off their ancestral lands by marauding servants of a greedy king. Susan writes that her character use to work for a king before she became disillusioned and quit. Hey...so maybe Susan used to be in the army that ran Fred's people off their land!
Ransack their stories for the plot of what will happen to them all next. Reserve the right to make changes--or to work with the player to make changes. For example, depending on what Susan writes, you might get back to Fred and ask "Does it work if we say that your village was destroyed, but that some of your people remain on their land?" Make as few changes as you can to make it all make sense. (Or leave some things contradictory--maybe Fred has his information wrong! Just make sure you know the truth.)
Then when you've built the campaign, they are automatically hooked. The bad guys are bad guys they know, the places are places they know, and they are invested in what's happening.
So, in short--your players are a fantastic resource for you :)
Hey fellow DM's,
Looking for some advice on what kind of resources that you as a DM use to run games or grow your craft as a DM? Outside of the "standard" options - DMG, PHB, Monster Manual, what do you read to get the juices flowing? What tips/tricks have you found that help your players stay engaged and you excited about the campaign you are currently in?
I have found myself at a crossroads if I want to DM another cluster of a campaign or just stay a player or do both and wondered if any other DM's have found themselves in a similar situation. I did DM during the AD&D days and DM's a LMoP starter pack to jump back into DM'ing. This current campaign is Storm King's Thunder which didn't seem to all that bad starting off however has turned into a cluster of story lines and angry players cause they don't like how things are turning out, partly cause of me and partly cause of their lack of interest.
This is not a pity post or a post about I didn't so this and the players didn't do that. It really is more of a post of what resources are good to use, what resources help hone DM skills, and what resources help save the ship so to speak.
My first suggestion would be to have a sit down with your Players and find out what it is that they do like, and what kind of adventures they want to play. No matter how much creativity and novel story lines you come up with, if it's not something your group is going to enjoy, it's not of any use. If they can't give you solid answers, ask them each what their favorite television show, movie, video game, or book is, and why? What are their favorite characters and stories, regardless of the media.
My next suggestion is that you can learn a lot from real world History and Mythology. What kind of culture do the lands that your Party is currently in, have? What is the closest real-world equivalent? Do you picture your main trade port to be like Venice at the height of her maritime power? Are you set in frozen northern land where the culture might be like the Laplanders? Or is that frozen land on the coast, and you might leverage the Viking culture?
You can then dive into the History and Mythology of that culture and mine it for material. You don't need to make a clone of a real world culture, but you can absolutely steal parts for your fictional culture. Take the elements that your Players have already told you that they'll enjoy.
Wikipedia is pretty good for as shallow, or as deep, a dive as you want to make into real world cultures and history.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Tacking on to what Vedexent said:
The more familiar you are with the material you're using, the easier it will be to simply go with the flow. Modules are difficult to run if you're just picking up the book and playing it, it takes time to become familiar with the content so that you can handle whatever the players toss at you. Working on something homebrew gives you an intimate knowledge of what's going on so that no matter what happens you can work with it. So, you can either purchase a module and spend a few weeks pouring over it so you understand the flow, the narrative, and the interactions of the plots, or you can make your own adventure. In either case, the more you understand, the easier it will be to customize it to fit your players.
Second:
Steal, plagiarize, and borrow from every source of media that you find interesting. Use this to flesh out NPCs, you like the main character of a particular movie, make that the attitude and personality of a major NPC. You really enjoy the way the story played out in an anime, see if you can do something similar with the module/adventure you're playing. The setting of a book still remains vivid in your imagination, use it to influence how you describe the area the players are in. Just about anything can be integrated in to your games to help them feel more alive.
A few examples:
Adventures of Loromir, my longest running game, has guild challenges for the players to participate in. These guild challenges are based off of the guild battles from the manga/anime Fairy Tail. The Gnomes in that world are a mix of the Gnomes from Dragonlance and the Asura from Guild Wars 2. The way magic works in this world is a mix of the Vlad Taltos series of books and photosynthesis. Heck one of the doctors that my players met was based off of Victor, Matt Mercer's black powder merchant. I stole a boss fight from World of Warcraft, Netherspite, and re-skinned it for a guild battle. Each of those bits come together to give natural and memorable situations that I was familiar enough with to integrate into the game.
Do you do the voice? Is that available on video-on-demand on your twitch channel? :D
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
He had more of an old man's voice but just as senile and crotchety, unfortunately it was before I started streaming. With any luck I'll be able to bring him back, he was a fun NPC.
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InsiderThe biggest piece of advice I ever got was to remember that it's just a game. You and your players can do whatever you agree you want to do in order for fun to happen. So as a direct recommendation for your Storm Kings Thunder game I want to piggyback off what Vedexent said about talking to your players and take it to a crazy next step: just change your game on the spot. Remove plotlines, add stuff back in, change locations, change history...if y'all have a moment where you say "Gee, we were having fun until this happened." then remove that thing. Because it's just a game. And in the end plot continuity, deeply crafted storylines, and actual gameplay are all in service to having fun, and if y'all are not having fun then why not change everything to make fun happen?
As far as general recommendations for resources, there are a myriad! Follow people on social media who are doing D&D stuff that you like (DMs or players in online games, writers, editors, game designers, ect...) as they often post about what they are doing and are working on projects that you would enjoy. Watch some D&D live play shows or podcasts both for enjoyment and inspiration but also with a critical eye towards the craft being deployed, and emulate what you enjoy. If you have a few dollars to spend buy one of the books or adventures you haven't read yet, or go browse DMs Guild for something outside of official books that sparks your interest. Go be a fan of other awesome stuff to help inspire your own awesomeness.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
When your players make characters, have each of them write up a character background--who are they, and how they got to where they are now. Importantly, make sure to tell them that changes might be made to their stories. The idea is that you'll take these stories, and try to use them to piece together the campaign. Fred writes that his clan was run off their ancestral lands by marauding servants of a greedy king. Susan writes that her character use to work for a king before she became disillusioned and quit. Hey...so maybe Susan used to be in the army that ran Fred's people off their land!
Ransack their stories for the plot of what will happen to them all next. Reserve the right to make changes--or to work with the player to make changes. For example, depending on what Susan writes, you might get back to Fred and ask "Does it work if we say that your village was destroyed, but that some of your people remain on their land?" Make as few changes as you can to make it all make sense. (Or leave some things contradictory--maybe Fred has his information wrong! Just make sure you know the truth.)
Then when you've built the campaign, they are automatically hooked. The bad guys are bad guys they know, the places are places they know, and they are invested in what's happening.
So, in short--your players are a fantastic resource for you :)
Looking for new subclasses, spells, magic items, feats, and races? Opinions welcome :)