If you are up for the complexity, why not both situations?

1. The village of goblins has taken over the former military base, but the bandits want it
2. Bandits have control of the base, but goblins are sending out smaller sabotage and capture squads to eventually drive out the bandits without direct confrontation
3. The dungeon is big enough to have both groups in the fort at the same time, and it is now a turf war

The way that I've done is to make sure both groups have clear motivations (instead of assuming they always want to kill the PC's). When you define motivations, it makes your story adaptable, and allows unconventional methods of success.

E.g. Let's take situation 2 above. Bandits like having a strong hold, but they are not going to defend it to the death (which is pretty rational). The Goblins want an outpost, but they have other priorities, so they only send out small forces that mainly do hit and run tactics. This allows a few possible plans for the players:

• Convince the bandits the goblins are a huge threat, and they leave
• Help Goblins drive out bandits
• Help Bandits in exchange for getting the information they want
• Help Goblins infiltrate the fort to get the info they need

If this overwhelms your players (e.g. they see a vague situation and seem to just not know what to do), then have an NPC simply suggest a few options, like a traveler who is observing the conflict, and has no part in it.

Could you flesh out the idea more? Why are blink dog, phase spider, and pixie conjuration themed? I understand elementals (conjure elemental spells).

If I were taking this theme, I would probably start bending the rules of conjuration in this plane: you can summon with fewer components. You can conjure things that don't normally conjure. Also, you could use themes of conjuration: earth-types can summon reskinned versions of zombies or walls. Fey-types can pull gradually strong fey creatures. One might just be a humble potion brewer.

Being OK with playing to my strengths. I do well at making interesting NPC's, monster design and combat. I did try to start making whole new mechanics for exploration, but it fell flat. My players all enjoy the type of game I run, but I have perfectionism. So I would say I work on being, "good enough".

Hi guys and gals,

I'm running a level 6 campaign atm. They gust finished up gnolls, and they were hinted at demons and levels at level CR 8. The campaign takes place in a moderately established settlement (pop 3000) well away from major cities with unexplored areas. There is a portal to Levistus 1 days walk away.

I'm just having trouble finding inspiration, and was wondering if anyone had any ideas for this level?

Your players sound like jack***

Anyway, I would just give the players a dose of consequences. The world exists regardless of them. If they want to go strait to the death knight and get murdered, let them. If they murder someone, that will come back to them.

There is something called "mechanics as story" which means the mechanics reflect the story. If they murder a girl, mechanically nothing happens. But if they start having alot of fights, can't buy weapons in town, and are being hunted, then there is a mechanical reason not to kill everyone (yes the players should have some small amount of morals, but this will bypass the ethics argument)

Also, setting boundaries is OK. Important for both DM'ing and life.

This is my systematic and practical approach to NPC's

1. Name:

2. Race:

3. One physical defining characteristic: need not be super in depth. A scribe with ink stained fingers. Hairstyle done a certain way, facial hair type, scars, always rolling a coin

4. Role: e.g. how do they earn a living, survive, are they a guard, hermit, blacksmith

----These traits alone can take care of many problems. E.g. PC's say, I need to find a poison brewer, and they have already written one thing (role). In two sentences you can say they have a burned hand, human, average height. More than once my players won't remember the name, but they'll say, "the poison brewer with a scarred hand".

5. Stat block: I just go into the monster manual and find a stat block. No need to write brand new stat blocks

6. ideal/bond/flaw: These can be added later and provide just enough to flesh them out, and sometimes parts of it can be relevant to your story. If you need a tax collector, the ideal is greed. A noble fighter has an ideal of honor.