r/DungeonMasters

To be clear, I'm talking only about the way you DESCRIBE successes and failures on attack rolls. When a player fails, the enemy always either dodges or blocks the attack. Likewise, when an enemy fails an attack against a player, that player always dodges (dex characters) or blocks it (heavy armor & shields). Nobody just "misses", incompetently swinging at the air, except maybe in the case of a crit fail. It's a subtle change, but I think it really helps the vibes, helps the players feel smart and powerful, and helps the enemies feel threatening.

Just imagine your sword wielding paladin goes toe to toe with your sword wielding BBEG. You can either describe it as a bunch of dumb wiffs, or an epic clashing sword fight.

I've been running games for a while, and prep keeps taking way longer than I expect. I'll sit down to plan one session and two hours later I'm still naming NPCs and trying to remember what I said about a town three sessions ago.

I'm curious how other DMs handle it:

1. Which part of prep takes you the longest? (worldbuilding, NPCs, encounter balancing, session notes, tracking plot threads, maps, something else)

2. What do you use right now? (notebook, Google Docs, Obsidian, World Anvil, LegendKeeper, Kanka, AI tools, nothing)

3. What bugs you about those tools? What made you stop using one?

4. If one thing could disappear from your prep, what would it be?

Most of all I'd like to hear from newer DMs who feel overwhelmed. What made your first campaign hard to get off the ground?

Hey fellow dungeon masters.

UPDATE (SOLVED): First of all: Thank you all for contributing! This community id amazing for advice and additional insights in such situations! As some of you pointed out, the player might have been more upset about the fact, that he was singled out than being upset about discrimination, which, after talking to him this evening, came out to be true. So we talked the situation through and found, that there are ways and means to get around the townsfolk and their mostly superficial hatred towards dwarfs. We also agreed that in future I make it clearer that this could happen in specific places either through NPCs or through general narration.

In my last session my players had to escape a fortress formerly run by dwarves but the fortress was besieged and captured by an army of a wealthy (mostly) human family.

The players knew the story and successfully disguised themselves as soldiers of said army with the dwarf of their party miming their prisoner.

The townsfolk was not too happy to see a dwarf on the street and act accordingly (a couple kids threw a tomato, the bar keeper articulated their distrust)

I could see that the dwarf's player took it quite seriously so after a dinner break we had, I decided the barkeeper was secretly helping dwarves and other folks to flee from the town etc.

Still he called me after the session and asked if he could skip next session to "not be in the way" of the other party members who had gathered intel over another quest they wanted to pursue here.

The last thing I wanted was alienating a player and I explained that there are a lot of concepts in DnD to not be seen like disguise kits, not using the main road, travel by night etc.

He reluctantly said he would come to the next session. What could I have done better? What should I do next?

Thanks for any advice!

I just want to hear some of your coolest puzzles! Maybe steal some ideas as well😂

I don't know how things are in the US and elsewhere in the world, but in Romania, for a couple of years now, the TTRPG scene is growing exponentially. Of course, most of the people who start out do so with Dungeons and Dragons. This article is somewhat for them, cause I have been asked about the history of the game on a number of times when I mentioned the very first edition was released in '74 what the history of the game even is, if it's been on the market for so long (for the international audience who might raise an eyebrow at this, given that Romania was under a communist dictatorship and after its toppling the following decade was very rough economically, the first D&D players start to pop up in the very late 90' and early 2000's, and back then it was a very very minuscule fanbase, most of the players nowdays have started playing during the pandemic).

We tackled various aspects of D&D history before, talking about the evolution of certain classes, about older mechanics, but up until now, we didn't do a full on dive into all of the editions. Obviously it is a big undertaking so we're gonna split it into two articles, this week looking at 1st edition, B/X, BECMI, AD&D 1st edtion and AD&D 2nd edition. Next week is we return and talk about 3rd edition, 3.5 edition, 4th edition & Essentials, 5th edition and 5.5 edition.

So if you wanna take down a trip through memory lane or if you just aren't familiar with the history of the game, I invite y'all to read the article! For the veterans, please do tell if I missed something (to be completely honest, there is so much, we couldn't possibly gone through everything) and tell us when did you start playing and what nice memories you have from back then!

I hope you enjoy this one, cheers!

Hey guys, fairly new DM here. We played through the stranger things box but this is my first open world!

Got a party of 2 newbies and 2 seasoned players. We’re playing death house, cleared the main dungeon level and about to head down to the final level.

My question is how do you guys feed info from the book to your players without it feeling like metagaming? For example, they killed the 2 ghasts who were the Durst parents but they’ve no idea who they were. Likewise the shadows when they touched the statues orb but have no idea they were ghosts if cultists, devoted even in death.

How do you tell them all this cool info that their characters probably would never know?

Ok, I love maps.

BUT

I can't draw maps and am far too harassed and handsome to spend time learning to use Dungeondraft, Inkarnate or even the hand-holding Dungeon Alchemist.

I DO use Azgaar, or did.. now I am only using Watabou. 30 seconds to Mars. Or at least 30 seconds to a fully formed campaign world.

Crank out island maps, city maps, street maps, village maps, (basic dungeon) battle maps. Steal the sense of empowerment, of being creative, Be inspired. Be Magnificent, my People!

Our main campaign has been reaching its climax, a lot of surprise reveals and a major death recently, so I wanted to give my players (and myself) a break with a silly fun oneshot. New separate characters from the main story, lvl 3 ish. Encouraged to build for fun and flavor over power.

The concept I had in mind is:
The characters see posters that a carnival is looking for new performers. They get the job, but realize too late that the posters were hidden messages for the thieves guild, and they’ve been mistaken for members.

I want It to be very character and socially focused as opposed to combat or exploration, something I need to work on in our main campaign.

Any ideas for NPCs, situations, settings would be greatly appreciated (bonus points if they encourage roleplay or potential funny moments).

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Just got the latest Humble Bundle for Frog God Games. I love their stuff but I have another 40 something Frog God items from their last bundle. I am constantly tweaking my folders, currently its:

• Adventures
  • Tiers
• Settings/Locations
• Groups/NPCs
• DM Tools
• Other Systems

Does any have a magic system that makes sure you actually end up with a Library of Useful Material rather than a 'pile of PDF files'

I need fun ideas for my player who’s the first in our group after 2 years to have a character death and want to do something fun to commemorate their achievement.