The first time I heard about The Deck of Many Things was in Dungeons and Daddies not a bdsm podcast, and the DM did an AMAZING work managing the consequences of pulling the cards, it was hilarious and perfectly angsty
The first game I ran was the Delian Tomb 7 years ago. Ever since then I’ve written my own adventures with the short adventure style in mind. I’ve actually never purchased or run any other modules or adventures, I’ve always preferred to just write my own because you initially showed me how easy it was. Thank you for that. I’ve attempted to run epic campaigns in my own world with large overarching stories, but they almost always fizzle out before we get to the big climax (usually because of real life and scheduling issues). I can confirm that running short, quick, 1-3 session adventures is far superior because they actually get finished.
A community of Gnomes has been struck with a curse similar to lycanthropy, but they are slowly transforming into goblins and kobolds. Their ability and motivation to grow their own food has been severely impacted. The despoiled Gnome homes are the dungeon. How will these cursed Gnomes cross paths with your PCs?
I'm a long term game runner and I absolutely avoid modules of any size. It took a lot of effort for me to understand how to write original long overarching storylines with multiple lines of plot and npc's with their own goals but, I think it's well worth the effort. I understand the idea of long modules being very daunting but, I feel like one of the reasons for that being the case is due to the story within the events of the modules being very impersonal. Its easy for a long drawn out string of events to become stale when there's very little personal connection to be built within the events taking place. Writing something original and personal around original characters that the players are building a connection with through that process, better secures interest and better ensures longevity imo.
Sorry, Matt - you're entirely incorrect on the 'American Civil War'. Here are the actual facts: 1. The US never had a Civil War. A Civil War is when two or more factions struggle for control of the whole. The CSA had zero designs on invading the North. It was a failed rebellion. 2. The vast majority of southerners owned NO slaves. So, why did they fight? Because the North had been economically strangling the South for four decades before the war began. That's fact. The North wasn't fighting over slavery, either. Lincoln STATED as much. Your argument is false. 3. The VICTOR writes the history, so there's a lot of propaganda to make the North look good and the South look bad. If you really believe the victor doesn't set the narrative, you're incredibly naive. Now, this can also be employed in your D&D politics, where one faction makes up a lot of lies about what a conflict actually was... and, like the erroneous 'Civil War' name is applied to the war in 1860 by those who don't know any better - the same could be happening in your D&D world. Perhaps a Baron tried to separate from a Kingdom because the King was corrupt, but that Barony has a lot of resources, so... the King put down his rebellion and then called it a Civil War and tried to paint the Baron as trying to usurp the throne... and has him put to death or locked away in a dungeon so he can't refute this narrative. We didn't go after Hitler because of the Holocaust, but that's how it's portrayed, today. We went after Hitler because a few days after we declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbour, Germany declared war on us. You could feasibly construct an entire campaign around the discovery that the narrative that's long been believed.. is false. To quote your Star Wars reference - Palpatine completely fabricated the Separatist movement and war... he was pulling the strings on both sides. It could really be translated to D&D and played out, there. Thing is - it's not wise to inject modern politics into the game - because 1. Most people really know next to nothing about politics. They watch talking heads on cable news and think they're informed, but, they're not - and you shouldn't have to go major in PoliSci so you can use modern politics correctly in D&D. and 2. With how polarized things are, today, and how people tend to latch onto cults of personality - and either practically worship or venomously hate political figures for no real rational reasons... you are walking amongst landmines injecting modern politics. Best to keep it OUT of the game.
Great video - yes, we used to play (something) like this (sorta...) - I'm actually putting together a video to discuss how we did it, where I was, and what you can take from the way we played to improve gameplay, now. Well explained, here, though - the West Marches style. The MOST IMPORTANT part of the West Marches style - and also how we played - is the structure. The party starts each adventure session in town (or at the fort or the encampment or village or wherever your 'home base' is...) and then ENDS each adventure session BACK at the home base. As to mapping, we ALWAYS had one player who was the mapper... and, no, I didn't correct them when they got something wrong unless what they got wrong was my fault for not describing it accurately enough. Let me tell ya, Matt... one of the funniest things was when the mapper FORGOT HIS MAP when we played the next session... OH - and one other thing you didn't mention? When you have more than one DM in on this sort of campaign - we had four where I lived, including me... The DMs can play a character when someone else is running the game.
I use visions as a way to give information about the past or to connect about something that is going on the present but never something so grandiose or foreboding that it's cataclysmic
Yeah, that's why not many of our characters ever "retire" in the classic sense, because we define a "campaign" as the adventures of those PCs, not some event with established boundaries. Yeah, they defeated the Lord of Darkness but that was after organically deciding that he'd become a problem and shopping around until they found someone willing to supply them for a mission to take him out. They followed no year-long trail of crumbs and strange story twists, they just happen to be in the business of knocking over troublesome villains and - despite what the bards sing - their "quest" was never foretold in the stars. That means, though, that most of those "campaigns" end with them in some tavern after their latest adventure, while the next one waits for the new dawn that never comes. That said, I don't think an adventure should be 3 hours long, as some would suggest, either - that's just as ludicrous. Most of our adventures take 1-3 weeks to overcome, depending on how the PCs choose to go about them. Then we roleplay some of their downtime, integrate it with pursuing their goals and setting up the hooks that will pull them into the next adventure. We have had multiple sessions where the players do nothing but pursue personal interests and hang out with their social groups before the situation is right for a new adventure and my players love to just indulge in the rp. The "jump right to the adventure" crowd are just as cringy as the "every adventure needs to be a grand epic" people.
I think the idea of those little "Goal - Reward" cards ties in very, *very* nicely with quest-board-driven adventures. You can make each quest on the quest-board into one of those cards, add a few for personal goals, make up a few on-the-fly as and when the players state them. Also, you *can* keep the reward secret, narrative-only, or on-the-fly - as long as you make it clear that there *will be* one.
I think the underlying topic of this video that you should address more broadly is progression. If someone is new to D&D, they shouldn't buy a massive campaign book to run on their first rodeo. It seems obvious, but needs to be said. Once they've run some smaller adventures, they can work their way to bigger and bigger books. This is true for and can be applied to any new hobby (e.g., writing: poem, short story, chapter, book). More importantly, you mentioned the lack of completion/satisfaction brought by playing longer campaigns. I think this problem can be solved with a good sense of progression within the campaign's narrative, gameplay, etc. Big campaigns are a factor for sure, but not the root cause.
I have been wanting to play Pathfinder or d&d for years now and finally had my first session as a player a couple weeks ago. But I have always had ideas of what a game I would want to play is like, creating Homebrew, thinking of map design, overarching story hooks, and so I've always thought that maybe being a DM would be better for me but I've never known where to start. You were the first one to actually explain things in a way that can help me get off the ground
I wish I knew about the two 15's implement when I rolled up my forest gnome warrior. His strength was a 13, dexterity was 11, 11 constitution, 7 intelligence, 3 wisdom and 3 charisma.
i love that you refer to elves, dwarves, etc as species. As a person of color i always hate that they are called 'races' because elves, dwarves, and humans actually ARE different in REAL ways that modern races are not
Reading up on Polymorph, I'm not sure I understand how, using the Polymorph ability, the Green Slaad was able to make itself look like it was pulling out an illusionary scroll and reading it? Just trying to understand how this works, maybe I'm reading too far into it, but the ability says the Slaad can only polymorph into a humanoid or back into its true form. So the Green Slaad could only change it's physical appearance? Not trying to be an ass here lol just trying to get a better understanding Thanks!
So, I've seen this video probably over 5 times, but I just looked up what "skin that smoke wagon" is from and imagining a palidin saying this to a demon is pretty great
I know this is years later, but I'm gonna throw out this idea for the 6 shooter. You split the shots amongst 1 to 6 people, or less if you wanna save bullets. The gun does 1d6 to all of them. BUT for each additional bullet you hit one target with, add 1 damage. Or 2, if we're imagining a higher level adventure. Maybe due to a feat with a level prerequisite. Bam. Easy street. Then you can unload on one target for an easy but reasonable damage bonus or spread the damage amongst numerous people. Plenty of incentives to do either.
As I started DMing for my friends after watching your videos I did go for shorter adventures. I have an overarching story but not every adventure is part of it 🙂
Yep, my D&D Edition is changing... for 35 years now. Since I started a my campaign and began customizing, tinkering, back and forth. Drawing inspiration from farious games, including other iterations of AD&D 1st Edition which is my backbone still. So, I don't understand the fuss about newer editions, really. I mean, it is not as if it were a tournament thing like Warhammer AoS or whatever it is now called. We are all playing with a fixed group a cooperative game.. or don't we? I mean, it should be rather easy to shrug and play with the rules set you like. Can you convert the adventures to a new edition... heck, of course. you don't need all the ability mechanics.. you interested in the story.. I mean, I that's what you roleplay, isn't it?
Hey Matt! I've been finally working my way through your RtG videos after hearing about them for years. I love prophecies and visions. Here are 2 examples (though there are more) of prophecies/visions that have worked for me: 1. All Vedalkan in my world are able to receive premonitions of the future. They used to be Aetherborn, which existed outside of the stream of time in my world. So the lore goes, the Aetherborn saw themselves join the stream of time and artificially create these vessels for their arcane essences, i.e. the Vedalkan. Anyway, because of this history and their faith to Umare, God of Anticipation, the Vedalkan can receive premonitions. For NPCs, these premonitions are always fated-there is no way for them to change this future. For the players, they can defy the visions they receive-and this goes for non-Vedalkan as well, i.e. time-related subclasses. This is great because most players don't like the Vedalkan in my world; they find the constant narrative convenience of "It was foretold" to be very annoying. 😂 I love it. Anyway, to summarize that, I give NPCs visions with determined ends, then I give players those same kinds of visions, except they can choose to change them because they have free will. 2. The party was abducted by a criminal syndicate of Tabaxi within the city of Gale. They were ambushed in a bathhouse, many of them wearing only a towel. Except one party member chose not to go to the bathhouse. He has physical deformities and thought his character wouldn't want to show those off, so he stayed back at the tavern to read some books. We did the whole ambush combat without him, then I panned back to him reading in the tavern. A Half-Orc moved over to him to bid his farewell since he was leaving the city of Gale to return home-and that's when Khanek (Human time wizard) received a premonition of his comrades tied up in a warehouse in the lower districts (they weren’t there yet, of course, but they would be by the time Khanek got there). Khanek clasped arms with the Half-Orc and asked of him to remain in Gale one more night. Brelikk (one of the PCs who went to the bathhouse), his Half-Orc kinsman, needed his help. Khanek and the Half-Orcs went on a prison break to free the other players from their bindings and fight off the Black Paw crime syndicate. It was very dramatic. Anyway, love your videos! Hope you read this and feel inspired to find more different/creative ways of using these storytelling tools.
I know this is an old vid but I played a lawful good cleric in an AL game and another player got annoyed because I was telling him off for looting(stealing) random peoples stuff. DM did a really good thing where I would roll perception against his sleight of hand or loudly tell him to put it back! But after the game I was quietly asked not to "Be so stuck up with the roleplay".
A decent way to get players to accept routing the enemy is to get them to use the intimidate skill. Of course, this has a chance of not working. Alternatively, getting fights that even the players would love to route more quickly. I've also been looking for games that have smaller pools of health pools, more variance. I think low level fights are inherently more dramatic compared to high level fights. you go from needing 1-3 hits to kill or be killed to needing 3-9 hits within just a few levels. if you need 3-9 hits to kill your opponent and you have a 50% chance to hit them, thats a pretty long bout, a mean-average of 12 turns.
Yeah... I'm interested in D&D though. Like... I know there are good games. But I'm not gonna learn them to GM. I look forward to playing them though :) I GM D&D so this is great! Also this is pretty system-agnostic advice. Feel like you can use it for a lot of RPGs
Evolve is getting pretty dusty back there in the room. I honestly thought that Evolve was going to be a game changer for online PVP. It's still one my favorites of all time. Team vs Monster. Only a DM would like that kind of game.
Tom Bombadil is the living embodiment of Thorin’s last words to Bilbo about the world being a happier place if more people valued food and song over hoarded gold.
When this came out I didn't really understand the message matt was trying to say. Now some time passed, im opening up on my next decade in life and probably most importantly, i burnt out and had a mental breakdown greater than any other i have had before or sense. During that breakdown i watched this video again and decided to fix my life and embrace my artistic side now, with 9 months having passed, my freshman year of college done, and my first book 1/3 done u just want to thank him and all of the other people in this community.
