I've been playing off-and-on for about 2 years. I can't find a DM that will commit to running a game when it's convenient for our play group, so I'm thinking about doing it myself. I only own a PHB and I'm familiar with Roll20 and Discord.
I was thinking that maybe a few one-shots would be fun to introduce the group and also get me comfortable, before diving into a long campaign. Does that sound like a good or bad idea?
Are there resources for a DM that isn't ready/can't afford to run out and buy all the Dungeon Master's Guides, XGE, Monster Manual, etc?
The Basic Rules have monsters and some advice for GMs and are free on dndbeyond.
Under "Quarantine Resources" you'll find two free ine-shot adventures from Wildemount. "Frozen Sick" is a really nice adventure. I didn't play "Dark Star" yet, so I don't know if it is good.
The basic rules in dnd beyond are free to use. I've always considered the PHB to be the bare minimum of what you need. Monsters manual if you want to spice up encounters later, but not necessary. If your comfortable with roll 20 and discord then I think your all set. I would say utilize the encounter builder and player creation in dnd beyond for an easier time. Other than that all I can give are tips.
Do a session 0: Wether its for a campaign or a one shot talk to your players about what they want or don't want. What characters to make/making the characters. Plan around what they're saying.
Ex. Player A wants to go on a murder spree, Player B wants serious lord of the ring style play - it's up to you which you cater to or find middle ground
Plan everything: Plan encounters, scripted or accidental. Plan who they'll meet, who they could meet. Plan places they might go to or dungeons they could find.
Ex. Place/Market - People/Madam A or Lord B - Encounters/Pickpocket or guard patrol
Toss everything out the window: No matter how much you plan, your players will always find a loophole, third option, or backwards plan that throws a wrench into the mix. When that happens just take a breath and adapt to the new situation. Even ask for a minute to regroup if you get flustered.
Ex. Players murder pivotal Npc. The wizard counter spells big bads major spell. They were not as prepared for the dragon as you thought, etc.
I recently started DMing as well. I purchased the Lost Mines of Phandelver and ran my friends through it. It's juuuuuust big enough to make you feel like you're entering a larger world, but is small enough to keep from getting overwhelmed with details to keep track of. After running through Phandelver it made me feel confident enough to actually homebrew something. I don't know if there are any other modules that anyone else would recommend as a better intro, but I think doing something a bit more in-depth than, say... a dungeon delve one-shot that's focused just on combat and exploration.
I just finished my first campaign. I used the Order of Knights one-shot Matt Colville talks about in his "Intro: Running the Game" series. My players side-stepped some of the stuff, missed a lot, one-shot my guards but then walked into a mess of goblins and almost got TPK'd, so I had to revise the plan, then one-shot the hobgoblin and a shaman I had created, and ran away from the Skeletons. They missed all the good loot, even though I was trying to prompt them to check around the room.
They all said they had a good time and I had a pretty good time too. I realize I need to do a lot more research and reading before I slap together a whole Homebrew, and I need to come up with more balanced combat and plans for my bad guys because I was having a hard time not meta-gaming my players (although I said in my head that those dudes were under strict orders not to leave the temple - then my players were perplexed when the goblins didn't go chasing them out).
One player I don't know and found on Reddit is playing a Lawful Evil character and managed to capture a goblin, which he plans on beating into a submissive companion. Not sure how to handle that. He's also asking about a lot of magical items he can buy in the next city they come to, but I had to tell him that the rarity and availability is at the discretion of the DM and I hadn't gotten that far yet.
My other player said he read that WotC has revised the Ranger... ? He was telling me there was a revision made where some of the Ranger's subclass skills became class-wide because they were under-powered or something?
There is a revised ranger that was presented in UA, but it ended up being scrapped due to a lack of interest. More recently, there was a Class Feature Variants UA that was more well received, but it isn't official (at least, not yet) I'll post the links below:
One player I don't know and found on Reddit is playing a Lawful Evil character and managed to capture a goblin, which he plans on beating into a submissive companion. Not sure how to handle that. He's also asking about a lot of magical items he can buy in the next city they come to, but I had to tell him that the rarity and availability is at the discretion of the DM and I hadn't gotten that far yet.
I don't normally allow magic items to be purchased on the open market (like, in a shop), except for very minor things. In fact even a full Potion of Healing is not available in shops... I made a half-strength item called "Healing Salve" which heals 1d4+1, and that is the most powerful magic item generally available for sale. It is up to you how much of this you want to make available, but except for in a major capital city, magic items in my world are not usually for sale (and, selling them is hard because not many have the money to buy them). But that is all up to the DM.
As for beating a goblin into a submissive companion... Well remember Goblins are chaotic, not lawful, so this means (to me) not loyal, not likely to want to stick around. Fear might keep him in line but first chance he gets to escape, he's probably out of there.
If you want to see how a good player does a Lawful Evil character, Anna Coulter does a great job with Judge, her Lawful Evil anti-Paladin, on Colville's Chain of Acheron stream. Careful as a new DM watching it though... Colville does a lot of non-standard things for starting a campaign, many of them pre-discussed and pre-planned between him and the individual players. The whole first 6 episodes are basically the prologue to the campaign, that he and the players like a year earlier decided they wanted to play out rather than just having as backstory, and it includes multiple character deaths, the destruction of a city, and so forth. Many people watching it live did not realize this and thought Colville was being a brutal DM, and he had to remind the audience, the players chose this type of start -- it's what they all wanted.
My point is, I wouldn't necessarily take pointers on campaign crafting from the Chain -- but if you watch how Anna plays Judge, the decisions she makes with him, etc, she does an excellent job (IMO) of playing a character who is both Lawful and Evil.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I also don't think beating a goblin into becoming a follower is a good plan. I'd simply tell him he can beat the goblin if he wants to, but the results are uncertain how that will come out. As the DM I'd roll for damage every time so if he kills the goblin, he has a dead goblin. I also agree that unless you decide the goblin would react to the beatings (or whatever) in a manner that could allow him to change his loyalty, he is most likely going to run off at best, and try to murder the party in their sleep at worst.
Bio, I like your idea of a healing salve or whatever. How often may it be used? Once per long rest? Once per hour? Is it good against ANY kind of damage? or just the big three or four, bludgeoning, piercing, slashing and fire? What about psychic, poison, necrotic, radiant, force and other types?
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My healing salve is just a healing potion at half strength. By description it is like modern ointment you'd get in a drug store - it's equivalent to a tube of Neosporin. You spread it on the wounds and it magically heals them. 1d4+1. I don't specify "kinds" of wounds that can be healed. It just heals up hit points.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
One player I don't know and found on Reddit is playing a Lawful Evil character and managed to capture a goblin, which he plans on beating into a submissive companion. Not sure how to handle that. He's also asking about a lot of magical items he can buy in the next city they come to, but I had to tell him that the rarity and availability is at the discretion of the DM and I hadn't gotten that far yet.
My other player said he read that WotC has revised the Ranger... ? He was telling me there was a revision made where some of the Ranger's subclass skills became class-wide because they were under-powered or something?
Oof. I wouldn't allow a PC to literally enslave an NPC, even if they are playing as an evil character. There's just... too much baggage with that concept. Although I have to admit I've also got an instinct to turn it around on them and have the goblin be just a little too "into it", but that's a whole other over-stepping someone's boundaries that probably isn't a healthy response...
As for the UA Ranger... I recall that it was basically the Beastmaster being rebalanced to be more viable long-term, but the additional subclasses in Xanathar's Guide addressed the weaknesses of the Ranger class a bit better.
I wouldn't allow a PC to literally enslave an NPC, even if they are playing as an evil character. There's just... too much baggage with that concept.
Actually I was going to point this out and forgot. If you have a player wanting to make an actual slave of another creature, you'd better make darn sure the rest of the gaming group does not find this objectionable to RP about. Some people just do not want to RP about certain things. And slavery could well be up there for many.
In fact although we haven't RPed about it at all yet, in my Roman Empire campaign, I warned the players about this pre-session 0, after they all said they wanted to do Rome. I said, "Romans have slaves," and talked about it a little. Now my Roman Empire's slavery is based on conquest, not race -- if they conquer a nation, they take some of its members as slaves), so you can have slaves of all sorts in the Empire. But I warned them how it works and that it exists and said if people are going to find that offensive, we can't do Rome. (What I was NOT going to do, was generate a Roman Empire that didn't have slaves -- slavery was too integral to how the Empire's society functioned for me to be interested in generating such a world.) They all said they were OK with it, so off we went. But my point is - I checked first.
And so should the OP.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
1. It used to be that each monster came with a typical amount of treasure that could be randomly rolled up after they were killed. Modules and adventures used to say this explicitly so you didn't have to roll it at all, but I don't know what the published adventures do these days. If you are making something up, you can either roll on the random tables in the DMG, or else you can just assign things yourself. As a result, I find it easier to roll up the treasure beforehand and have it prepped.
2 & 3. There is literally no way to prevent players from reading external sources. Any player can buy the adventure you are trying to run and read it -- and in fact there is a whole thread about players metagaming in which the players supposedly did this. The solution to this is, don't play with people who cheat. Alternatively, though it is a lot of work, homebrew everything. Then they can't metagame (at least not by looking things up). But to me, if you are doing homebrew not because (like me) you enjoy doing it or your players like it, but to "keep your players from cheating," you've got a lot more problems than simple "metagaming."
4. Using Roll 20 and Discord you should have a lot of tools already available. You might want to look into some map-making software but only if you are going to homebrew things. If you are going to buy adventures, do that through Roll20 (not here!) so that the maps and monsters are already imported into it (you should get those with purchase) and you don't have to do extra work.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I'm not going to let the slavery stand. I'll probably kill the goblin or have the goblin backstab the group before he becomes a willing servant.
I have a couple questions for y'all though:
1. How do you quickly decide loot after combat? Is there a website or something?
2. When choosing a pantheon for a campaign, how close do you follow lore? And how do you prevent players from meta-gaming via fandom wikis and such?
3. How do you keep players from meta-gaming combat stats of creatures? Like, if a player googles the AC of a goblin?
4. Are there any other tools you think are essential?
0. Do it! DMing is a ton of fun and I think if your players are people you can trust to work with you and address things as they come up, you'll all have a great time. I personally think just the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master paid account so you can share the content is enough to start and give the players some options, and if you want more stuff down the line Xanathar's guide is great. I really enjoy the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual but I think they are way more of "coffee table books" and inspiration/lore than hard-hitting rules and content you need to refer to in the heat of battle. DnD already makes a ton of monsters searchable in the basic rules and once you get a feel for about what level of challeneg your players need, you can make up or adapt your own.
1. This is one of the elements of old-school RPG stuff that feels baffling to me, I can't really imagine having this be a random chart you reference quickly after battle without it disrupting the flow of things! Maybe if you have a specific cheat-sheet ahead of time this will work out. For me, I pretty much let them loot whatever the people they were fighting had, minus some wear and tear I narrate while fighting (ok, so it looks like that soldier's light crossbow is still in good shape, unfortunately since you ran him through with a longsword, that leather armor won't be salvageable...), then an appropriate amount of cash, maybe a snack or a trinket in their pocket like a set of dice or a flask. If it's a specific villain or the person is dropping something magical, I usually decide that ahead of time, although having your players roll in the moment to reveal the contents of a big treasure chest could be fun. In general though I consider that to be the 'filler' part of the Dungeon Master's Guide since you can make it up just as well on your own.
2. This should be a discussion before you play. Looking up the story or rules to cheat undermines the fun of the game, and is disrespectful to the DM and everyone else playing. While for some people this kind of metagaming (or cheating, really), is just them being juvenile and isn't something a single discussion can fix, I can see there also being some core assumptions/feelings that a somewhat-well-intentioned player would have that would tempt them to do this. Do they want to see what kind of monsters lay ahead? Cool – use roleplay and award their investigative efforts in game as opposed to looking up what room has a beholder in it. Are they scared that they're going to get killed? Assure them that as a DM you're going to take a tough but fair approach and not go out of your way to punish or hurt the players for your own amusement, but that there are in game resources like researching local stories, buying spellbooks and training with a fencing coach that could help them prepare for a fight if they're worried about it. Maybe this is too "friendly DM" for some people's liking, but I don't even mind my players saying things like "hey, we're level such-and-such, do you suppose we'll find any magic weapons soon" and I can make a note of that and go "well gosh, you do know that other adventurers have tried to delve the depths of this hydra's lair before, who knows what kind of things you might find lying around".
3. Even if your players aren't metagaming, say they're working their way through the goblin keep and after 3 combats they get pretty familiar with the goblins. Just tweak the enemies! Maybe the goblin shock-troopers wear better armor and have axes and javelins compared to bows? Maybe a leader to inspire them so they're less likely to run away? A goblin sorcerer or two that rains firebolts down on the players. Especially at low levels I think enemy variety is key to keeping the combat fresh, since your players will only have a couple of things they can do in combat themselves, and they will probably get bored of just chopping down goblins in hallways.
4. I think Biowizrd covered it, but I would also check out Patreon for some great maps and assets. It's usually only a couple bucks (literally $5 or less) for access to an artist's backlog of maps or something. I do one that nets to about $20 a month for layered photoshop maps, but many are less expensive.
You cannot prevent players from metagaming. But imo you really don't need to, either.
The players that are interested enough in the campaign to actually read through books and stat blocks are usually quite capable at separating their player knowledge from their characters because they want to enjoy the game as much as you do. ;-)
I've DMed D&D for the past four years or so and I know pretty much every monster in the manual. I've also read through most official adventures, mostly to prepare them for my players. But I'm also playing in a friend's Curse of Strahd campaign and as long as I remember that my Gnome Artificer has no idea the old granny is a Night Hag and her cupcakes are cursed drugs ground from the bones of children... well, she's totally going to buy that cupcake and eat it. :-)
It's a bit more challenging and sometimes I slip up when I don't remember last session ("did we figure out he's actually a Deva?"), but overall it works and is lots of fun. I am also DMing a Pathfinder:Kingmaker campaign and one of the players played the entire CRPG and knows the story. He still keeps his knowledge to himself and acts as if he didn't know anything. And I try to mix things up a bit so it keeps interesting for him.
So... unless metagaming actually becomes a problem, no reason to do anything about it. And when it does become troubling, just talk to the player and tell them you don't like it and would appreciate it if they stopped metagaming.
I'm not going to let the slavery stand. I'll probably kill the goblin or have the goblin backstab the group before he becomes a willing servant.
I have a couple questions for y'all though:
1. How do you quickly decide loot after combat? Is there a website or something?
2. When choosing a pantheon for a campaign, how close do you follow lore? And how do you prevent players from meta-gaming via fandom wikis and such?
3. How do you keep players from meta-gaming combat stats of creatures? Like, if a player googles the AC of a goblin?
4. Are there any other tools you think are essential?
1. Don't. The concept of "random loot after combat" is pretty outdated. Instead, just decide what treasure you want to give them before the session starts, and what milestone will trigger it (they solve a puzzle, get a magic sword; defeat a monster, find a magic scroll; meet with a king, get a potion, etc.). When they hit that milestone, give them the treasure.
2. That's a question for you to answer. It's your game. If you want to be super married to the pantheon, be married to them. If you want some flexibility, be flexible. Frankly, especially re: pantheons, that stuff doesn't matter much unless you make it matter. As for metagaming, see below.
3. Ask them not to. If you don't want your players to do something, ask them not to do it. Trust that there is enough respect at the table that they won't. If you can't trust that... evaluate your relationships? That said, there is going to be SOME metagame knowledge that players just HAVE, and there is going to be some knowledge that they pick up through the course of the game. For instance, if I'm fighting six goblins that are all wearing the same equipment, I can safely assume what is true for one is true for all. If I hit the first goblin with a 14, then I can safely assume all the goblins have an AC of 14 or lower. If I see a new goblin wielding a shield where the others didn't, I can safely assume that goblin's AC is 16. This isn't really metagaming, it's just careful observation, but be sure to change up your creature selection if you're overworried about this kind of knowledge becoming commonplace.
4. Deep breathing and honesty. Players are going to derail your plans. It will rarely be intentional. When they do, just take a deep breath and be honest. "Hey gang, I wasn't planning for things to go this way, can we take ten so I can figure it out?" is a perfectly fine thing to say at the table. Remember that you're friends who are playing a game together. There's this real temptation, especially early on, to come off as this fully prepared god-king. You're not. If things go sideways, be honest about it, and your friends, if they ARE friends, will cut you some slack. Honestly, that kind of humility is a valuable life skill to practice.
The concept of "random loot after combat" is pretty outdated
The treasure does't need to be randomized for a DM to need help assigning how much to give. As a new DM, it's hard to know things like, "About how much gold should I award the party at this level so they don't have gold coming out their ears?" The die rolls they used to assign to monsters helped give a DM a sense of scale. If the book says that trolls are normally found with, say, 3d8 gold, I know that the roll will produce 3-24 gp, averaging around 13-14 gp. That gives me a good sense of about how much treasure a typical troll would carry on him, and then I can work from there. I know not to give them a Holy Avenger sword for killing a troll, and I know not to give them only 2 copper pieces.
The other thing randomizing it helps the GM do is make the treasure realistically variable without having to do any work. I don't have to remember how many gp the troll down the hall gave them so it's not always exactly 13 gp. I can just roll both times and the dice will make the numbers pleasantly (and realistically) varied.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Is there a resource for deciding what kind of monsters will be in a given area? For instance, my players will start on a beach. I found crabs and giant crabs, but would like to throw a few more randoms at them. Rather than looking through the monster manual all day, is there a spreedsheet for different types of locations and the creatures you might find there?
I've been playing off-and-on for about 2 years. I can't find a DM that will commit to running a game when it's convenient for our play group, so I'm thinking about doing it myself. I only own a PHB and I'm familiar with Roll20 and Discord.
I was thinking that maybe a few one-shots would be fun to introduce the group and also get me comfortable, before diving into a long campaign. Does that sound like a good or bad idea?
Are there resources for a DM that isn't ready/can't afford to run out and buy all the Dungeon Master's Guides, XGE, Monster Manual, etc?
The Basic Rules have monsters and some advice for GMs and are free on dndbeyond.
Under "Quarantine Resources" you'll find two free ine-shot adventures from Wildemount. "Frozen Sick" is a really nice adventure. I didn't play "Dark Star" yet, so I don't know if it is good.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/quarantine
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules
The basic rules in dnd beyond are free to use. I've always considered the PHB to be the bare minimum of what you need. Monsters manual if you want to spice up encounters later, but not necessary. If your comfortable with roll 20 and discord then I think your all set. I would say utilize the encounter builder and player creation in dnd beyond for an easier time. Other than that all I can give are tips.
The absolute best thing you can do is watch this series, here is part 1:
https://youtu.be/e-YZvLUXcR8
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I recently started DMing as well. I purchased the Lost Mines of Phandelver and ran my friends through it. It's juuuuuust big enough to make you feel like you're entering a larger world, but is small enough to keep from getting overwhelmed with details to keep track of. After running through Phandelver it made me feel confident enough to actually homebrew something. I don't know if there are any other modules that anyone else would recommend as a better intro, but I think doing something a bit more in-depth than, say... a dungeon delve one-shot that's focused just on combat and exploration.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I just finished my first campaign. I used the Order of Knights one-shot Matt Colville talks about in his "Intro: Running the Game" series. My players side-stepped some of the stuff, missed a lot, one-shot my guards but then walked into a mess of goblins and almost got TPK'd, so I had to revise the plan, then one-shot the hobgoblin and a shaman I had created, and ran away from the Skeletons. They missed all the good loot, even though I was trying to prompt them to check around the room.
They all said they had a good time and I had a pretty good time too. I realize I need to do a lot more research and reading before I slap together a whole Homebrew, and I need to come up with more balanced combat and plans for my bad guys because I was having a hard time not meta-gaming my players (although I said in my head that those dudes were under strict orders not to leave the temple - then my players were perplexed when the goblins didn't go chasing them out).
One player I don't know and found on Reddit is playing a Lawful Evil character and managed to capture a goblin, which he plans on beating into a submissive companion. Not sure how to handle that. He's also asking about a lot of magical items he can buy in the next city they come to, but I had to tell him that the rarity and availability is at the discretion of the DM and I hadn't gotten that far yet.
My other player said he read that WotC has revised the Ranger... ? He was telling me there was a revision made where some of the Ranger's subclass skills became class-wide because they were under-powered or something?
There is a revised ranger that was presented in UA, but it ended up being scrapped due to a lack of interest. More recently, there was a Class Feature Variants UA that was more well received, but it isn't official (at least, not yet) I'll post the links below:
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/unearthed-arcana-ranger-revised
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/class-feature-variants
I don't normally allow magic items to be purchased on the open market (like, in a shop), except for very minor things. In fact even a full Potion of Healing is not available in shops... I made a half-strength item called "Healing Salve" which heals 1d4+1, and that is the most powerful magic item generally available for sale. It is up to you how much of this you want to make available, but except for in a major capital city, magic items in my world are not usually for sale (and, selling them is hard because not many have the money to buy them). But that is all up to the DM.
As for beating a goblin into a submissive companion... Well remember Goblins are chaotic, not lawful, so this means (to me) not loyal, not likely to want to stick around. Fear might keep him in line but first chance he gets to escape, he's probably out of there.
If you want to see how a good player does a Lawful Evil character, Anna Coulter does a great job with Judge, her Lawful Evil anti-Paladin, on Colville's Chain of Acheron stream. Careful as a new DM watching it though... Colville does a lot of non-standard things for starting a campaign, many of them pre-discussed and pre-planned between him and the individual players. The whole first 6 episodes are basically the prologue to the campaign, that he and the players like a year earlier decided they wanted to play out rather than just having as backstory, and it includes multiple character deaths, the destruction of a city, and so forth. Many people watching it live did not realize this and thought Colville was being a brutal DM, and he had to remind the audience, the players chose this type of start -- it's what they all wanted.
My point is, I wouldn't necessarily take pointers on campaign crafting from the Chain -- but if you watch how Anna plays Judge, the decisions she makes with him, etc, she does an excellent job (IMO) of playing a character who is both Lawful and Evil.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I also don't think beating a goblin into becoming a follower is a good plan. I'd simply tell him he can beat the goblin if he wants to, but the results are uncertain how that will come out. As the DM I'd roll for damage every time so if he kills the goblin, he has a dead goblin. I also agree that unless you decide the goblin would react to the beatings (or whatever) in a manner that could allow him to change his loyalty, he is most likely going to run off at best, and try to murder the party in their sleep at worst.
Bio, I like your idea of a healing salve or whatever. How often may it be used? Once per long rest? Once per hour? Is it good against ANY kind of damage? or just the big three or four, bludgeoning, piercing, slashing and fire? What about psychic, poison, necrotic, radiant, force and other types?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
My healing salve is just a healing potion at half strength. By description it is like modern ointment you'd get in a drug store - it's equivalent to a tube of Neosporin. You spread it on the wounds and it magically heals them. 1d4+1. I don't specify "kinds" of wounds that can be healed. It just heals up hit points.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Oof. I wouldn't allow a PC to literally enslave an NPC, even if they are playing as an evil character. There's just... too much baggage with that concept. Although I have to admit I've also got an instinct to turn it around on them and have the goblin be just a little too "into it", but that's a whole other over-stepping someone's boundaries that probably isn't a healthy response...
As for the UA Ranger... I recall that it was basically the Beastmaster being rebalanced to be more viable long-term, but the additional subclasses in Xanathar's Guide addressed the weaknesses of the Ranger class a bit better.
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Actually I was going to point this out and forgot. If you have a player wanting to make an actual slave of another creature, you'd better make darn sure the rest of the gaming group does not find this objectionable to RP about. Some people just do not want to RP about certain things. And slavery could well be up there for many.
In fact although we haven't RPed about it at all yet, in my Roman Empire campaign, I warned the players about this pre-session 0, after they all said they wanted to do Rome. I said, "Romans have slaves," and talked about it a little. Now my Roman Empire's slavery is based on conquest, not race -- if they conquer a nation, they take some of its members as slaves), so you can have slaves of all sorts in the Empire. But I warned them how it works and that it exists and said if people are going to find that offensive, we can't do Rome. (What I was NOT going to do, was generate a Roman Empire that didn't have slaves -- slavery was too integral to how the Empire's society functioned for me to be interested in generating such a world.) They all said they were OK with it, so off we went. But my point is - I checked first.
And so should the OP.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
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I'm not going to let the slavery stand. I'll probably kill the goblin or have the goblin backstab the group before he becomes a willing servant.
I have a couple questions for y'all though:
1. How do you quickly decide loot after combat? Is there a website or something?
2. When choosing a pantheon for a campaign, how close do you follow lore? And how do you prevent players from meta-gaming via fandom wikis and such?
3. How do you keep players from meta-gaming combat stats of creatures? Like, if a player googles the AC of a goblin?
4. Are there any other tools you think are essential?
1. It used to be that each monster came with a typical amount of treasure that could be randomly rolled up after they were killed. Modules and adventures used to say this explicitly so you didn't have to roll it at all, but I don't know what the published adventures do these days. If you are making something up, you can either roll on the random tables in the DMG, or else you can just assign things yourself. As a result, I find it easier to roll up the treasure beforehand and have it prepped.
2 & 3. There is literally no way to prevent players from reading external sources. Any player can buy the adventure you are trying to run and read it -- and in fact there is a whole thread about players metagaming in which the players supposedly did this. The solution to this is, don't play with people who cheat. Alternatively, though it is a lot of work, homebrew everything. Then they can't metagame (at least not by looking things up). But to me, if you are doing homebrew not because (like me) you enjoy doing it or your players like it, but to "keep your players from cheating," you've got a lot more problems than simple "metagaming."
4. Using Roll 20 and Discord you should have a lot of tools already available. You might want to look into some map-making software but only if you are going to homebrew things. If you are going to buy adventures, do that through Roll20 (not here!) so that the maps and monsters are already imported into it (you should get those with purchase) and you don't have to do extra work.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
0. Do it! DMing is a ton of fun and I think if your players are people you can trust to work with you and address things as they come up, you'll all have a great time. I personally think just the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master paid account so you can share the content is enough to start and give the players some options, and if you want more stuff down the line Xanathar's guide is great. I really enjoy the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual but I think they are way more of "coffee table books" and inspiration/lore than hard-hitting rules and content you need to refer to in the heat of battle. DnD already makes a ton of monsters searchable in the basic rules and once you get a feel for about what level of challeneg your players need, you can make up or adapt your own.
1. This is one of the elements of old-school RPG stuff that feels baffling to me, I can't really imagine having this be a random chart you reference quickly after battle without it disrupting the flow of things! Maybe if you have a specific cheat-sheet ahead of time this will work out. For me, I pretty much let them loot whatever the people they were fighting had, minus some wear and tear I narrate while fighting (ok, so it looks like that soldier's light crossbow is still in good shape, unfortunately since you ran him through with a longsword, that leather armor won't be salvageable...), then an appropriate amount of cash, maybe a snack or a trinket in their pocket like a set of dice or a flask. If it's a specific villain or the person is dropping something magical, I usually decide that ahead of time, although having your players roll in the moment to reveal the contents of a big treasure chest could be fun. In general though I consider that to be the 'filler' part of the Dungeon Master's Guide since you can make it up just as well on your own.
2. This should be a discussion before you play. Looking up the story or rules to cheat undermines the fun of the game, and is disrespectful to the DM and everyone else playing. While for some people this kind of metagaming (or cheating, really), is just them being juvenile and isn't something a single discussion can fix, I can see there also being some core assumptions/feelings that a somewhat-well-intentioned player would have that would tempt them to do this. Do they want to see what kind of monsters lay ahead? Cool – use roleplay and award their investigative efforts in game as opposed to looking up what room has a beholder in it. Are they scared that they're going to get killed? Assure them that as a DM you're going to take a tough but fair approach and not go out of your way to punish or hurt the players for your own amusement, but that there are in game resources like researching local stories, buying spellbooks and training with a fencing coach that could help them prepare for a fight if they're worried about it. Maybe this is too "friendly DM" for some people's liking, but I don't even mind my players saying things like "hey, we're level such-and-such, do you suppose we'll find any magic weapons soon" and I can make a note of that and go "well gosh, you do know that other adventurers have tried to delve the depths of this hydra's lair before, who knows what kind of things you might find lying around".
3. Even if your players aren't metagaming, say they're working their way through the goblin keep and after 3 combats they get pretty familiar with the goblins. Just tweak the enemies! Maybe the goblin shock-troopers wear better armor and have axes and javelins compared to bows? Maybe a leader to inspire them so they're less likely to run away? A goblin sorcerer or two that rains firebolts down on the players. Especially at low levels I think enemy variety is key to keeping the combat fresh, since your players will only have a couple of things they can do in combat themselves, and they will probably get bored of just chopping down goblins in hallways.
4. I think Biowizrd covered it, but I would also check out Patreon for some great maps and assets. It's usually only a couple bucks (literally $5 or less) for access to an artist's backlog of maps or something. I do one that nets to about $20 a month for layered photoshop maps, but many are less expensive.
You cannot prevent players from metagaming. But imo you really don't need to, either.
The players that are interested enough in the campaign to actually read through books and stat blocks are usually quite capable at separating their player knowledge from their characters because they want to enjoy the game as much as you do. ;-)
I've DMed D&D for the past four years or so and I know pretty much every monster in the manual. I've also read through most official adventures, mostly to prepare them for my players. But I'm also playing in a friend's Curse of Strahd campaign and as long as I remember that my Gnome Artificer has no idea the old granny is a Night Hag and her cupcakes are cursed drugs ground from the bones of children... well, she's totally going to buy that cupcake and eat it. :-)
It's a bit more challenging and sometimes I slip up when I don't remember last session ("did we figure out he's actually a Deva?"), but overall it works and is lots of fun. I am also DMing a Pathfinder:Kingmaker campaign and one of the players played the entire CRPG and knows the story. He still keeps his knowledge to himself and acts as if he didn't know anything. And I try to mix things up a bit so it keeps interesting for him.
So... unless metagaming actually becomes a problem, no reason to do anything about it. And when it does become troubling, just talk to the player and tell them you don't like it and would appreciate it if they stopped metagaming.
1. Don't. The concept of "random loot after combat" is pretty outdated. Instead, just decide what treasure you want to give them before the session starts, and what milestone will trigger it (they solve a puzzle, get a magic sword; defeat a monster, find a magic scroll; meet with a king, get a potion, etc.). When they hit that milestone, give them the treasure.
2. That's a question for you to answer. It's your game. If you want to be super married to the pantheon, be married to them. If you want some flexibility, be flexible. Frankly, especially re: pantheons, that stuff doesn't matter much unless you make it matter. As for metagaming, see below.
3. Ask them not to. If you don't want your players to do something, ask them not to do it. Trust that there is enough respect at the table that they won't. If you can't trust that... evaluate your relationships? That said, there is going to be SOME metagame knowledge that players just HAVE, and there is going to be some knowledge that they pick up through the course of the game. For instance, if I'm fighting six goblins that are all wearing the same equipment, I can safely assume what is true for one is true for all. If I hit the first goblin with a 14, then I can safely assume all the goblins have an AC of 14 or lower. If I see a new goblin wielding a shield where the others didn't, I can safely assume that goblin's AC is 16. This isn't really metagaming, it's just careful observation, but be sure to change up your creature selection if you're overworried about this kind of knowledge becoming commonplace.
4. Deep breathing and honesty. Players are going to derail your plans. It will rarely be intentional. When they do, just take a deep breath and be honest. "Hey gang, I wasn't planning for things to go this way, can we take ten so I can figure it out?" is a perfectly fine thing to say at the table. Remember that you're friends who are playing a game together. There's this real temptation, especially early on, to come off as this fully prepared god-king. You're not. If things go sideways, be honest about it, and your friends, if they ARE friends, will cut you some slack. Honestly, that kind of humility is a valuable life skill to practice.
The treasure does't need to be randomized for a DM to need help assigning how much to give. As a new DM, it's hard to know things like, "About how much gold should I award the party at this level so they don't have gold coming out their ears?" The die rolls they used to assign to monsters helped give a DM a sense of scale. If the book says that trolls are normally found with, say, 3d8 gold, I know that the roll will produce 3-24 gp, averaging around 13-14 gp. That gives me a good sense of about how much treasure a typical troll would carry on him, and then I can work from there. I know not to give them a Holy Avenger sword for killing a troll, and I know not to give them only 2 copper pieces.
The other thing randomizing it helps the GM do is make the treasure realistically variable without having to do any work. I don't have to remember how many gp the troll down the hall gave them so it's not always exactly 13 gp. I can just roll both times and the dice will make the numbers pleasantly (and realistically) varied.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Is there a resource for deciding what kind of monsters will be in a given area? For instance, my players will start on a beach. I found crabs and giant crabs, but would like to throw a few more randoms at them. Rather than looking through the monster manual all day, is there a spreedsheet for different types of locations and the creatures you might find there?
Yes, there are tables for monster encounters, leveled, by terrain type.
The tables begin in the DMG, Appendix B, pp. 302 -
Likewise the DMG has tables for rolling "random" treasure by encounter level. That begins DMG on pp. 136
Good luck.
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