Advice for DMs from DMs. We create advice videos for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition geared towards helping you run a better game. Our D&D topics range from simple rules to advanced world building and everything in between. While most of our advice is geared towards Dungeon Masters, we also have content for players in the TTRPG space.
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I looked at the cost and time required to make holy water or potions and immediately ruled them out as an option in our group. I dont think any of the party has ever had more than 20 gold at one time
Kill your Players ... (wish about some toxic player) ... you talking about the character of the player, may be the transaltor give me =Comment tuer vos joueurs ... 😛
awesome video. gave me some ideas to think about. there are many videos on the subject, but they are very vague, here you get really good examples to work with! Thanks :D
I only use gold in my campaign and I tightly control the economy. I base costs on need rather than follow the DMG. It's really simple. I think some things are incredibly over priced, and other things are incredibly underpriced. By overpricing common goods, gold economy can be tightly regulated. This has worked exceptionally well.
Something I've noticed about illusions in games is that it heavily depends on the DM and their interpretation. For both the Player and the DM. If a DM feels like it, the players illusionary wall can be seen through immediately even if the target didn't see them conjure it, even though they would have no reason to doubt the illusion except for the matter the DM decided they did. From the DM perspective: I've discovered that if you present it as real the players have no reason to doubt it, they believe it because you as the DM said it, unless you have one of the skeptical individuals sitting at your table. If its not outright stated, or like the video said, out of place no ones really going to question it, at least until they wizen up and start asking themselves, "Is any of this real?" Even a number of the illusions in the game say the target rationalizes the results themselves, meaning they convince themselves that its real. Illusions are one of my favored schools of magic in games, except for DnD where they can almost be handwaved by DMs.
Easy Case: INT check DC 15 or WIS check DC 20: The narrator murdered the DM, for he was too violent for her comfy-zone in D&D. Probably one of those first generation roleplayers from the Seventies of last century. No need to thank me, you can do the True Crime Neverwinter video, though! 🤣
While it's not the most realistic option, I've molded my party's shopping experience after the Merchant from Resident Evil 4. My party is often away from friendly towns, so having a trader that shows up in the strangest places is very convenient.
I think that saying any establishment would go out of business might be premature. While it's easy to base opinions on current capitalism and its tennets. Businesses may be grandfathered in as just a property and the taxes/tithing either to a lord or landowner from what they make. It isn't common for their to be commercial competition for buildings back in the equivalent times. Sometimes if they weren't making money, were just poor and coincidentally owning a buisness that made money when it did. Just to keep in mind that businesses in ye Olde times often filled functions of the feifdom and then were allowed to sell off the excess once that need was fulfilled. So let's pace back the capitalism in your games a bit...lol
It's something that's fairly broadly applicable to DMing as a whole, but it bears mentioning here: Make the mystery difficult, but let them use their skills! If someone has a creative idea or clever use of an ability that you didn't anticipate but you suddenly realize will short track them right to the solution, let them do it! I love it when my players come up with clever ways to destroy my encounters.
If you're reading this 2+ years after it came out, I've got something for you: Smells ( linked to memory and emotion ) are sometimes sensed before the location is even reached. Candle Makers will smell of tallow ( honey sometimes ) the Tanner ( usually outside the city ) smells of boiled urine etc. Go through your list of places ( you made one right ? ) and think about what kind of smells the places put out and write it down. You may also want to search "things in a blacksmith shop", "things in a baker's shop" etc. And don't forget street vendors. It's a good way to showcase the cultural foods of an area and keep the city feeling busy. Also, the "Cart Vendor" moves about the city talking with all kinds of people and knows more than people would guess. If you're in a Port Town make it stand out as such. The warf should smell fishy, gulls and maybe their poop is everywhere and the street vendor sells bowls of hot gumbo.
You forgot another thing - a busy store is a great place to overhear gossip and hear about possible opportunities. Or to spread your own gossip with a few carefully placed comments that can be overheard . . .
Based just on spells and weapon damage here are a few homebrew ideas. Dagger like sources, say an icicle or a needle deals a d4, a large area of affect often uses the d6, element type damage plus a condition uses the d8, focused single square damage uses the d10 with the exception of maybe hourly environmental damage say cold or heat extremes, and the d12 comes up with big axes or continuous electricity like a tesla coil.
I have an odd sort of tavern I have created for my games. The church of Bill builds massive housing structures that have various services throughout including a grocer and/or soup kitchen. These are most of the taverns in my setting.
Xanathar's guide has a variant of this rule which is much better. It takes 1 day to craft a normal healing potion and it costs 25 gold pieces. The prerequisite is literally just having the money, time and a proficiency with a herbalism kit. I don't think you even need Arcana proficiency for the normal Potion of Healing.
The more you know about reality, the better you'll be at D&D. This is true of players and DMs. Just another example that proves the old saying true. Knowledge is power.
As a simple shop keep, I would poison some health potions. Or sabotage something else adventurers would steal. This is way cheaper than a guard hero, instant punishment and a deterant for next time. But the suggestions of a guard dog, door bell and wanted posters are really good as well.
It must have happened at least thrice where a GM says "And the Goblin runs past you and runs off the map- too bad, he got away." It annoys me every time.
In one town, I had a tavern called The Barfing Human. It was in the non-human quarter and had been named in response to the human tavern, The Stumbling Dwarf. The player (solo campaign) had been told The Barfing Human was run by an elderly dwarf named Piotr, and that they should talk to him. They spotted a greying dwarf behind the bar and asked him if he was Piotr. It was. They asked him for assistance with their quest. He suggested they ask his father, Piotr. The elderly Piotr was asked if he could help. He didn't want to speak for the owner, his father, Piotr. Granddad Piotr was asleep in a chair by the fire. This was a memorable encounter, and the player still remembers the name of an NPC (or three, really) in Innsmouth.
I’ve got my players essentially building a guild from the ground up! It gives them a great feeling of control for direction, gives them a LOT of things to spend good on and save up for, and that sense of a home that you mentioned. They’ve also got a pseudo base in the form of an airship, which is the remnant of their previous base that was lost. They have an NPC crew manning the basics for it, and it’s tied to their faction/guild, so they don’t really get to use it for too many things that would break the balance of the game. They do get to upgrade their ship with limited “ordnance” more or less though, which they can use during major battles and sieges etc. So far they’re very much enthralled with all of the strategic and customizable options, and I love seeing their eyes light up each session when I’ve built a piece of their base of their ship or base in mini-form to add to a diorama of the home they’ve built ❤️
I think Phandelver and Strahd are one of the best published campaigns. However a good horror game like Strahd is hard to pull off. I would stay away from all the published adventures and just take inspiration from them. Most modules are very poorly written in my opinion and need a lot of prep and alterations to run it. Which isn't a bad thing, only I don't have the time to read the entire book and make adjustments. It is in my opinion eassier to just to make something yourself, so you don't need to read everything and run it. To me it feels way more natural to let the story progress, also most information required is in your head without reading a module. Second why I would dissuade picking up a published campaign due to most of them take over a year to complete. With the honest intentions, people their life changed. It is extremely hard to have people be available for 1+ year. That said, just starting. Exploring the game and how to be a DM just takes time and repetition. Rome wasn't build in one day either. You can take so much information from RU-vid, Reddit, random tables etc. In time you will find your way, your style and resources. But most importantly having fun. It can be daunting to start DMing. To strain your mental (or anxiety) with self induced expectations. Just go with the flow, just start, explore while having fun and make awesome memories.
Ever feel as if many of the people who design TTRPG rule systems are secret sadists who enjoy making the systems as painful and joyless to use as possible?
The brain-dead assumption that powerful potions take longer is the real killer for these systems. I'd make all potions take two hours and just upgrade the component costs. There's literally no real-world pharmaceutical that takes 28 man-days per dose to create (if it takes near that long, it's typically created in large batches, which the system doesn't allow). As the video mentions, the downtime requirements are just killer for any actual adventurer. Even as written, you are far, far better just creating boatloads of base healing potions than to ever attempt the higher level ones. In most combats, it's far more important to just get someone up from zero than to have 35-45 points of healing (on average, and depending on which system).
