10 Steps to Prepare a D&D Game | Don't Look Like a Newb! 

"Steal other people's wheels" this quote was sponsored by the Rogue Association

Well that was an unexpected twist. Know we know what the Warlock looks like.

The warlock spoke before his last moments a way to see a hero go

Me and my friends have this running gag, to where if we don't have a name of an NPC prepared, we name them Dave. The Players want to know the name of the owner of the general store, "Oh yes, My name is Dave. Nice to meet you." The players meet the King of a foreign kingdom they went off track with, "Yes, I am King Dave. Pleased to meet you adventurers." The Bard is flirting with a woman and asks her name. "My name is Dave. Nice to meet you hotstuff."

I’m going to be honest when I say I was terrified when the Druid said “I have an announcement to make” as I thought this was about to be a raid shadow legends add

"squeeze fluffy animals... " ok, I didn't realize until now that Druids were scarier than Warlocks.

I wake up the morning after my first time DMing to find this. Now where's a time machine?

Player: I will use Ruthless Mockery DM: Ruthless Mockery? Player: *points at DM - Tim? Ahahahahahahahahahaha

I look at my prep as filling in the "Who, What, Where, When, Why" and letting the players do the "How" during the session. As an example, in my latest session (and my first tele-game ever) I had set up maps for the building where the villains were holding a hostage, the guards, the council of three evil (and one clueless) people in charge, and the two combat bosses who were the secret power behind the council, and who were hold three OTHER hostages in the hidden cells. I had planned out what would raise the alarm, how many guards would be nearby, and what their reinforcement schedule was, how the two combat bosses would act, gave everyone (except the guards) names and backstories with motivaitons… And my players did their usual and upended the whole plan with unexpected use of charm magic and a parallel stealthy rescue mission. Evil council neutralized, guards in custody, two combat bosses defeated separately (which made them both much weaker, as they were designed to fill each others' weaknesses, and power restored to the rightful hands... My players are great. (/grumble, grumble)

4:21 Maps 5:34 The adventures situation 6:28 The main NPCs 7:01 Plot hooks 7:53 Loot 8:48 Traps 9:19 Puzzles 9:44 Custom Creatures 10:00 Handouts

I really need this because I'm preparing for my first one-shot

As for maps, the Random Dungeon Generator found on donjon is quite useful for coming up with stuff on the fly.

The best advice I can give for preparing content is to learn to salvage content you've prepared in the past. If you're DMing multiple campaigns, that might mean lifting a dungeon wholesale from one campaign, then re-flavoring it to make sense for the adventure the current party is doing. (as long as none of the players have seen the content before, there is *literally no difference* between recycled content and brand new stuff.) I've got whole folders of battlemaps for road ambushes, tavern brawls, campsites and more that I can slot appropriate monsters in and count on the terrain providing some strategic interest, more than it would if I had just sharpied a road onto a blank battlemat and threw down some circles for trees.

0:00 For a second there, I thoguht you were making a joke about microphone troubble, because the barbarian looked like he was talking, but we couldn't hear him.

ah, changing patrons to a warlock of the archfey i see

Something I find very important to prepare before a session is maps (etc. Map of Sewers, which I'm doing right now). Another is the homebrew creatures, also a good idea is to have prepared some random names to use during encounters, that helps a lot. Also bosses, personally, I make bosses unique by homebrewing them.

I can see him being a druid of spores. I love how he Is a druid now, but still has the evil voice. Personally I like to write modules for myself, with bullet points. I like to run sand box worlds, every country and kingdom has its bullet points and side quests to advance the plot, while giving freedom... But it's open world...tough things lurk in advanced areas.

One thing I learned from that campaign where I gave my players access to a skyship early on and they decided to explore the entire world in random order was to NOT plan out every single city, dungeon, NPC etc, but to plan them out to a point where they could be adjusted to fit the area they were travelling. Like that shop where they buy potions could be in narrow sidestreet of a big city or being the one shop that exists in a village or being just the cart of a travelling merchant on a crossing or a stand on a busy marketplace - but the item they sell there would still be the same and the character could also mostly be the same (maybe adjust the name and appearance, though) Or that temple ruin could be covered in snow, being overgrown by jungle, orpartially being buried by a landslide depending on where they find it, but the dungeon itself could still mostly be the same. So I keep a stack of prerolled NPCs, premade citymaps and at least one dungeon map at hand all the time just in case they are trying (again) to throw curve balls at me.

You guys need to have a bit more distance between each other, Covid is no joke lol

Great video (as always)! That's a very interesting take on it. It seems like most other people either brag about improvising everything, or else they go the completely opposite way and say to prep most things that aren't dialogue. As a chronic over-prepper myself, I really appreciate it! Keep up the great work!

I've waited weeks for a video like this! Thank you! After multiple rescheduling my first game is this weekend. This list helps me immensely since its structured.

The best inspiration for puzzles: Undertale, Papyrus. His traps are hilarious.

My top 5 thing i know i need to prep 1.encounters (so i dont tpk them every session) 2.maps (so my dungeons can exist in euclidean geometry) 3.quests (so they feel have options cuz if no one's interested in a escort mission that night i can save it for when they want it more) 4.placing more flags in the world (so i can track who like them who hates them which shops have been upgraded etc.) 5.Tests (so the puzzle, riddle, or trap doesn't break due to a gentle nudge)

Location descriptions are number one for me. Places feel more alive by far when I have a 2 or 3 line description of what my party is seeing.

Thanks luke been struggling with my dm prep this has really help me think what i really need to prep.

Man, I just posed the video to do somethong and sudenly thought about your book and games collection visible in the background and oh my god xD it freaking awesome

Aw, I liked the warlock. The Wile E Coyote signs were amusing. Oh well, at least he's got a fluffy animal to squeeze

I can tell you an essay about the way the morning mist touches the rock in the warm dawn rays, but I cannot improvise characters to save my life. I found it easier to not only create named npcs beforehand, but a bag of "Misc npc" usually inspired by the people I see during the day that I can pull from, it also makes me less stressed not having to think of characters

Great video! Very helpful!

I usually prepare descriptions of main places ahead of time, like the town hall interior, the feeling that certain streets give, or how the dungeon smells and looks, because I feel it adds a lot to the game and I'm really bad at coming up with these on the fly. Some key sentences of important conversations as well, so that it reminds me the tone of it. But only key sentences, I'm not bad at improvising the conversation as it flows, just want to know if the npc was friendly, suspicious, not willing to give much info, etc.

Wasn't expecting a druid but I love it nonetheless!

the warlock spoke praise the sun, thanks for another awsome video luke you have really inspired me to play dnd more thank you so much.

When I ran the rize of Tiamat module, I had forgotten that Tiamat could fly 🤦🏼‍♀️

To make small temporary handouts on the fly for my players I use a Paperang Thermal Paper Bluetooth printer which is basically just a small handheld printer you can feed receipt paper. You can screenshot or manually imput basically anything in the phone app and just print straight away in a very convenient and inexpensive manner!

I think you can forgo maps and encounters. You should plan ahead what kind of creatures there are, so that your players are able to face them of. I mostly do a calculations of how many creatures in a fight would be enough or too much. Then I come up with the exact number on the fly. Same with dungeons. Solid maps can get stale. I have the rooms in my mind and written out and I kind of decide which room comes after which, based on the sessions pacing. A map would maybe say room for fighting after room for fighting. In the case that my players are sick of fighting some more, I change the dungeons layout and set the room with a riddle where the room for fighting was before. For me, the most important thing is making NPCs and their motivations. Because those mostly drive the story. These NPCs are the villains, the helpers and the quest givers. After that comes basic layout and appearance of a local, followed by some lore tid-bits that are crucial to the NPCs and their quests. As of late, I also began making random encounter tables. They are a great way to keep tension up when the PCs travel around in the same kind of locals.

I need to prep location, towns, stores, taverns, magical forest, you name it I am sooo bad at improvising that. I don't prep NPCs so much and I'm actually pretty good at random battlefields and monsters

I love the short sketch clips spread throughout the video.

No player ever has suddenly found a magic item on their sheet that they had forgotten about you say? *Has vivid flashbacks to dozens of situations in our homebrew game where some whacky item in our bags saved our asses* Well I guess that happens when every player has whats basically a bag of holding and just stuffs it with things theiy find

That was soo helpful thank u soo much!!

On the encounters part: I like to have a few encounters ready to throw in at a given time. If I see that one fits, pop! It goes in. If a few players stray from the group, they might encounter a few goblins. (This is how two of my players nearly DIED in Session Zero, which we joke about to this day.)

Just starting up playing DnD. Watched hundreds of hours of Vox Machina and did a bit of research. I absolutely love these videos. Trying to DM a game with only one other person cuz thats all we have. Its going fine and we both love this learning experience.

One good place to steal parts for a campaign are published modules. While I find 'em ponderous and restrictive to run from end to end, they often have well-designed encounters, properly-statted NPCs, etc, which can all be reskinned. That minor crime boss in a cantina with a couple of bouncers can easily become some small-time pirates attempting to hijack the players' cargo, etc. The cantina itself can then become the guard's mess room in a prison belonging to the corrupt dictator who's holding the mission objective hostage, etc.

I use index cards for loot, magic items, notes and journals. They are like 1cent each. And if your not writing much on it you can cut them down and get 2-4 pieces out of each card

Thank you for making a straightforward list haha. I work best with lists, and so many of these prep videos are amorphous 😂

I love noticing the different Elder Futhark rune in every video.

That guy that didn't talk was a warlock?!

I had an idea, and the Warlock stole it: What about a situation where a player, who is always stuck with a certain role (such as a Warlock) but they wish to switch classes (as in to a Druid)? Also related - what if a player who always picked a certain race (like a Mountain Dwarf) decided to change to another (such as a Tiefling)? Do you have any tricks to help them get up to speed with their new class/race/both? I know that our group actually had a one-shot combat scenario where our party (as our DM had gotten out of a Creativity Block funk, and we'd finished up Lost Mines of Phandelver), which included some new players and a guy that had rolled up a new character, did battle with a group of harpies led by a sea hag - it was fun, refreshed the rules of combat, and helped out with the bloodlust some of us had, without affecting the story.

Our Pathfinder DM gave us a puzzle once, it was a series of words written in a way he came up with, we spent about a month trying to figure out what it said, it was a fun puzzle

Exactly what I was needing

Mostly correct in this video... Names are rough, so definitely names... A reasonably sized list to work with for those NPC's that incidentally catch the Players' attentions. Obviously "Main" NPC's need fleshed out more than the "window dressing NPC's"... SO a half-decent Character Sheet is worth the investment... Stat-blocks for the creatures, regardless of importance... These should be scratched together prior to the game... Random encounters are a bit of fun peppered into the game along the way, too... BUT primarily the engagement of encounters for Plot should be crafted to be worthy of the Party. It's no good awarding a bunch of loot and XP for something the Party just steamrolled... as nice as it might be to win a battle once in a while. Maps... DEFINITELY... Now, while I can (technically) make a pretty sophisticated labyrinthian dungeon "off the top of my head", it's important to be able to do so fluidly enough that you're NOT interfering with the fluidity of the game. Some things simply shouldn't be done, even if you have that kind of skill... AND it's easy to end up with an impossible dungeon when you're just tossing random encounters and snarly directions around. Puzzles... riddles... and gag's... Okay, so sometimes I can get inspired mid-game, and create some of these pretty quickly and even have fun doing it... That doesn't mean I won't piss my Players off to no end with the already jerky spits and spurts of motion as we RP our way along. No good comes from holding up the game for the sake of a "better gag" than you already had planned... For "parchments" (for those of us who can't afford/won't justify specialty paper)... You can take just about any grade of paper and stick it in the oven at 400F (paper will burn above 450F) and keep an eye on it as it darkens to your preference. It's easy... and reasonably cheap when you do "bulk batches" of the stuff for later use. There's no need to get specialty paper just so you can show off an "aged handout"... unless you simply ARE that avid about it... I've discovered index cards work remarkably well for a cheap magic-item or specialty item handout. I prefer the ones with lines on one side... This allows me to draw the item on the unlined side of the card, and a reasonable write-up should fit on the side with lines. This write-up functions well enough with the basics of mechanical values and "proper usage" notes. It doesn't require my Players to copy anything, unless they wish to... AND anything I've "created from nothing" I can simply duplicate to keep my own copy for "future records" or uses. Mostly, I balance what's improvised versus what's planned to make the game BETTER. There's no reason to do poorly what could be done well... just for being too lazy to put actual work into a Game you supposedly Love... for Players you probably care for. I mean... if you don't care about your Players, you probably shouldn't be playing with them... let alone going the extra miles of building the game/world/settings/story... ;o)

I don't "prepare" for my games, exactly. I usually spend a lot of time imagining encounters, locations, plot hooks, et cetera and writing these ideas down, especially when I don't have a group . Then during games, I pull ideas from my list that have a reasonable narrative flow together, or can be justifiably chained together, and improvise off of these ideas. I have a jumbled list of maps, and npcs that I can pull from at any time for a given genre, if they make sense. Not actually "preparing for the game", but preparing for any possible game I may think would work for my group... I guess I would call this a sandbox, but I still choose the narrative structure of adventures.

And when it comes to custom monsters, go the easy way if it is possible. Just look through the monster manual to find a stat block you like and just describe the monster differently.

1. Prepping Maps Agreed. I try to have a map ready to go as well. Not just for a dungeon, but also a valley and nearby environments. Allows me to know probable travel time in case my players want to get aid, merchants etc from elsewhere to their location. Also aids in improvising probable adventures. Hey bullywugs started to occupy a nearby waterfall lair. Why? well apparently they came from the north where they used to live together with Lizardmen. Why were they chased away/decide to migrate south? Presto...let's improvise the rest :P 2. Situations I prefer to create situations and dramatic moments that I can drop in whenever needed. I never care about preparing a possible solution either. Let the players figure out how to deal with a situation and improvise the solution depending on what they do. And how plausible it is. 3. Puzzles and Riddles my players hate them. I hate running them. So often I keep those to a minimum. And always have an NPC somewhere the group can keep around to solve just such things. However this doesn't apply to solving secret messages and correspondence between army generals. Those are fun and they enjoy it as well. Know the group and adjust basically. 4. NPC's and Cities I prefer to work with themes. A dwarf mining settlement that is similar to an old western gold rush village. With people and dwarves dressed in long coats while wearing hand crossbows at their side etc. That is often enough for me to improvise how the buildings look. Followed by a short list of key locations that can be visited each with 1 or 2 npc's. And then. Usually I prep these in between sessions when the group declared to visit it. At start of the campaign I only know the name of the city and 1 or 2 key NPC's max.

I’m definitely taking all this advice for my own games.

I really need help. I have one player and literally every one of my other friends won’t play but I still love the game and want to play more. What I currently do is run dmpcs but they’re really difficult to run without being even slightly biased. Edit: I run 2 dmpcs

My preparation style is very hands off Basically I just prep a few npc's,some locations(which I stole the descriptions of),and then gather resources like adventure ideas

I remember that one time my players asked the locals about the nearby statue of a hero (which I improvised) and so I made up a story about a legendary hero, and then they asked for his name. And I said John. My players are still laughing about that to this day.

Make handouts as you read the campaign or buy premade ones (if you aren’t playing a homebrew campaign)

I have a player who still forgets what his legendary maul does even with his handout lol.

i hate puzzles so i make the bosses puzzles instead. one situation had a mad scientist grell who was creating a frankenstein monster army and had one giant one he was creating in his lab. his lab had a catwalk around his lab. when you enter the door, he pulled a switch that dropped the players into the bottom floor if they failed a save. he then started to flood his lab and forced electricity into the water where the players had to jump around the room and get to higher ground to avoid the electricity all awhile getting attack by a giant frankenstein that was immune to electricity and having spells flung at them by the grell.

Definitely just had a session where all of the NPC at a military camp were named Johnny, Tommy, Sammy, Johnnie, and Ronnie

I liked how you actually used your skits inside the video and not just the beggening of it. You should do it more often I think. It was really funny.

Got a question. I'm building a home brew campaign and while doing some research I came a small unknown cult that worships a being known as the Succubus Queen. The information I found out about it mostly references how the cult operates and is very chaotic even fighting with their own members of different branches. But there's no mention of any key artifacts, what the main purpose of the cult is or any key members. So my question how would you work in this cult in to your campaign? I'm currently thinking of using them in a side quest but I want to hear other's thoughts.

I lost my shit at "vorpal clubs". Thanks for that 🤣🤣

I'm about to start an Avatar themed campaign, my first ever attempt at DMing at all. Luckily, Google has lots of maps on the world of Avatar.

A signet ring is great for wax sealing too. :-)

Hmm, I disagree that you should "not prepare a story". The games that I like the most have a fleshed out story. Of course with different ways to solve the puzzles and different ways to get to the end of the adventure, but still, it's planned out. Here in germany one of the most famous D&D games is led by a game master that ALWAYS prepares stories. It's also actually not D&D, but another system, but that's besides the point. He often prepares stories where he easily writes 40-60 pages per adventure. And it can DEFINITELY be a lot of fun. It's one of the most successful pen and paper games here in germany for a reason. Even cinemas here showed the sessions! A well-prepared story is not a bad thing in my opinion.

😮Character development from the Warlock! I can't believe it! And now we know what his face looks like!!!

I once made a puzzle for any dungeon just for fun. Then I proceeded to forget about it to find it only a month later. I then took a solid 30 minutes to resolve the puzzle. I then stopped putting in puzzels.

I thank u for i am a new dm, i also thank a friend of mine who showed me your channel

Yes I need the NPCs names so I don’t forget them Good stuff Stay safe

Nice Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail reference

Names. Oh my god do i have an issue coming up with names on the fly. I usually have a little note card or something with a whole bunch of random names for my player that goes "Oh what is your name random npc?" Usually have it organized by race to so that I have some theme to it. granted last couple of sessions I haven't been prepared so yeah I stalled like crazy saying I had to find him through my notes.

Cool the Warlock speaks and now he is a Druid. Nice

Vorpal clubs? How in the H.E. double hockey sticks do you have a sharp blunt weapon?

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Don’t reinvent the wheel... STEAL other people’s wheels... lol... that’s BRILLIANT!! Great video and I couldn’t agree more with the “only prep what you suck at” I used to prep for a 4 hour session for like 12 hours... nuts

Use sticky notes for the magic/special items. Players will more often than not put them ON their sheet and not forget it.

"No player ever has suddenly found a magic item on their sheet that they had forgotten about"... well... next level is... I had a ranger player once, who had to write on the top of the character sheet, in big letters: "I HAVE SPELLS!" :D

One thing I learned the hard way in my first session: when you plan an encounter, make sure you copy (or at least bookmark) the stat blocks. "Hang on a sec... *furiously searches for "giant rat" in the MM*"

Not fair! You have those cool backlit shelves AND a pocket door that nice looking?

This video felt more like the livestreams. I like it :D

i really love the barbarian : 3 what a sweetheart

6:10 I died laughing! - Innkeeper Vase Odin

My players wanted to duel the King's champion for the throne... I didn't have a champion for the fight so I reskinned the boss and named him Steve the Strong.

Okay, after Davvy Chappy i thought it would be a bard. But why would you scrap the Warlock? He is one of the best characters!

Never 2 game sessions later, the next game session!

So becoming a herald of death too a herald of life...sure

I have to take time for npcs myself and monsters

Maps and encounters are the most important.

I thoroughly enjoy your skits before the videos begin the actual topic. Love the creativity and effort that goes into them. Thank you!

or you could do what I do and have only one compact every few sessions, but make it SUPER deadly, like at least doubble their CR I think I'm a mean dm

Never replace Druid He stays now Forever gone are the days of Warlock

Most important thing to plan: the campaign What I'm good at improvising: an entire campaign

Ha i didn't say my big bad's name was Tim, I said Billy. I must be a great dungeon master when it comes to names :)

That time when you were so early, Luke didn't have time to insert the video links yet. ;)

when you don't prep the only option you can give the players is whatever you randomly pull out than. better to have 10 choices instead of 1 undetermined only... (worst case the pre-written 10 can't apply , seat of your pants improv option is now #11 )

So do I have to prepare npc stats in case the pc attack them?

🤔 Does this dungeon remind anyone of the water temple dungeon from Zelda. Lol Ps what if there was a water dungeon where the players had to keep changing the water level in order to move on.

Now that I have seen this video I'm certain that you do not think that the lazy DM method is lazy. You and Sly Flourish are really similar the way you go making a session or an adventure. The biggest difference is how you two make encounters. You use the calculation method from dmg and he uses basic guidelines and does not prepare the whole encounter just the enemies. Lazy DM method steps: Review the characters, Create a strong start, Outline potential scenes, Define secrets and clues, Develop fantastic locations, Outline important NPCs, Choose relevant monsters, Select magic item rewards (These names can be found from the website) Most of those are basically the same as yours and are quite handy. 3 February 2020 he made a post with more points to it for times that he has more time on his hand to prepare: Prepare maps Read the adventure Read the appendices Consider character backgrounds & hooks to each adventure Review and make handouts Collect miniatures for the next few sessions Ponder NPCs and their actions Build a campaign soundtrack Get a prop lantern Most of these are extensions of the old ones or module-specific. But still useful. So I can be certain that in a way I'm not being lazy ;)