TL;DR Cult of Dragon / Wizards of Thay have captured my level 19 party. Meant to have cult leader be the mastermind (which would have made plenty of sense) but "accidentally" had the leader of all of Thay be there instead. Looking for good story-hook to have him involved to keep from having to retcon half a session (and possible compelling storyline)

First off...... I sincerely and genuinely apologize for being wordy in the following....

Background for context: My 5 players are all level 19 (leveling to 20 next time the can take a break). They've gone through all of the official Rise of Tiamat material and have finished several months of homebrew stuff to get them from lvl 15 to 20, culminating with them gathering spell components for Blackstaff to protect Waterdeep. Some months back, the wizard had gotten disintegrated by the cult and the cult of the dragon had recovered his gear, notably including a Staff of Power, +2 Ring of Protection, Ring of Spell Storing, a bag of holding, Ring of Spell Turning, and an Archivist's key. In the months since that had happened, he had found replacements or substitutions for most of it and more than one legendary item that would more than make up for it, but his character (very good RPer) really wanted to recover the archivist's key for RP reasons.... so he used Wish to get a simulacrum and the sim's Wish to pull out a veeeery carefully worded and well thought out 120-word spell to recover all his lost gear without any ramifications that he would consider negative. The player had obviously put a lot of thought into the wording, and he pulled this out in the middle of our session, and while very quick on my feat, I couldn't immediately figure out how to do something unpredictable without holding up the session while I put thought into it, so I basically teleported all his stuff to him like he asked, along with all the cp, sp, gp, & pp that was in a pile with it, having been hoarded for Tiamat's return (the player was aware of it's location and surrounding already). It goes without saying that the party was aware they were immediately being scryed on, and they immediately went on a several-hundred-thousand-gp shopping spree, not having considered that, perhaps, the cult would want their ill-gotten gains back (and the dragons that had donated substantial portions of their hoard).

Fast forward an in-game week and they had just completed a difficult quest and were teleport-circling back to their tavern (modified Trollskull in Waterdeep) when they found themselves, instead, in a 10' wide cell and a Rube Goldberg machine then exposed something akin to an artificially created beholder's eye to nullify magic in the entire cell. My intent was to have Severin Silrajin be the one to have orchestrated this (after all, capture, neutralize, and keep alive is safer than killing just to be resurrected somewhere else and come back) with the help of the Thayan wizards allied with the cult.... however it was late at night and I was tired when putting tokens on the board and my tired brain put Szass Tam there, instead, having cooked up a character sheet appropriate for him and everything.

It was only during the session, when he introduced himself and the appropriate amount of "oh crap" came from the wizard, I realized that.... lore wise, there's no official "he's doing this" during the time period for the Tyranny of Dragons (Hoard of the Dragon Queen + Rise of Tiamat) campaign time frame. And not only that, it's specifically mentioned that it's a "splinter sect" of the Thayan wizards that joined the cult. I spun it into a "You have been a thorn in the side of some of my brethren for quite some time. They approached me and we came to an accommodation, so I have captured and neutralized you and as long as you don't do something stupid, I won't kill you" kind of deal. My original intent was for the party to realize the Ranger/Druid could still wildshape and free the party, they could fight a hand full of undead and possibly discover a secret or two while leaving the tower (can't teleport while inside the tower), and once outside, they find that somehow the cult/wizards had teleported their entire tavern and looted it for anything worth value (and had done something the Wizard would count as a "too high" price).

My question is this: I really don't want to have to ret-con something like this if I can help it... Can anyone think of any way of spinning this outside of either A) Szass will release them if they do a job for him or B) Szass is really on the side of the cult?

My off-the-cuff thoughts are that if the official module has the players standing a decent chance (though not guaranteed) of defeating Tiamat at level 15... and my hella-beefed-up CR 30 Mythic Tiamat should be defeatable by the level 20 extremely well equipped party (with some npc help at times).... then demigod status or not, Szass believes that Tiamat is defeatable and he may plan to steal the cult's gold to fund Thay for a few centuries or something.... idk, I'm spit balling, but would love to hear what anyone else thinks!

(Also, here's my hand-crafted Thayan Tower map (with Forgotten Adventures assets) if anyone wants it. Go wild. Will include the DungeonDraft file as well for anyone who wants to edit.)

You know that place in Dragonball, the time temple near God that gives a fighter 1 year of training for one day outside ?

I kinda did this for my players.

I gave them permission for the full week to interact through roleplaying on the Discord channel of roleplaying as if it was happening instantly.

Why ?

Because we were at a very very very important crossroad for everyone and there wasn't a single second to discuss it at the start of the next session, which was starting with a battle that included 4 dragons, one of which was an ancient red.

And... well, it's both important and just fun to discuss in character of what to do when shit hit the fan, especially when you see a few ways the whole campaign could go to and you don't know for sure which is the actual good one for everyone.

It worked... sorta. Not everyone was on the same side, 2 of them prefered to leave the group and 2 joined with the bad guy that was their boss at the moment. And since the direction the campaign took then didn't really satisfied anyone, in the end I retconned before the very first big "oh no" happened.

But yeah, that metagaming bubble is a tool I'm glad that I have used, even if the result wasn't perfect. Highly recommand it, if you want to give your players a small hiatus of talking between sessions.

There was a link to a somewhat old blog post about 10 wizard illnesses/diseases that I saved and then lost the link. Does anyone have it? They were really creative and the writer had published a bunch of stuff on Drive Thru RPG. Might have been D&D or OSR.

One of them involved a contagious disease that eats your spell slots one by one and when you lose all of them you transform into a froglike creature that only says one word?

Hello there fellow ex-DM academy scholars, Just left Reddit for good, so I'm here with a question that wasn't answered in under spez's shadow, so I might try it here if I can.

I would like to know if you know of magical items or spells for 5th or similar that would attract ghosts and other spirits : ghosts, banshees, souls, etc.

I would like to take example from an existing item for what I am preparing in a currently used dungeon that I made.

Thank you in advance, and fuck spez

I am planning a campaign where the PCs will get stranded with some NPCs with the goal of making the survival aspect a major part of the early levels and building up and protecting the Village the motivation for adventuring.

Are there any resources for this style of game i should be aware of so, trying to make a system for building and managing a small comunity, I don't reinvent the wheel?

EDIT: Thank you so much <3 There are many good Ideas and directions to take Inspiration from.

Hello All!

First time using the new platform - F*ck Spez

I am building an utterly MASSIVE dungeon that is based on the idea of a hidden library. Its ancient, full of lost secrets and treasure. It shifts and moves and its easy to get lost.

I'm trying to populate sections with relevant loot for my party. I have RNG tables, but I prefer not to use them, as I like having narrative reasons for why something is there. (For instance, you find a dead adventurer, and in their pack is healing potions and a magic item).

There is a section of the library that is completely underwater. Its for housing the literature of underwater civilizations - "books" that would dry out and be lost if they ever left the water.

What sort of magic items would be found in this section? Bonus points if its book-themed. (I've already got the obvious ones that give you water breathing or swim speed, help me be more creative)

THANKS!

Any tips for adapting published adventures to a different language?

In my case, to Spanish but I'm looking for general tips, for example I'm gonna run Wild beyond the witch light soon and I'm having to sit down and think of what name would make sense I'm the setting while also being easy to remember and to pronounce to my players.

For example:

Tither Nither are hard, specially because of the TH, I'm thinking on translating them to "Aquí y Allá" I think they kind of work and seem easy to make rimes with.

Now I'm adapting/translating all the NPC's names and tip is welcome.

So I'm gearing up to once again start something and I've got an idea in my head. But once I put it down into something concise it either becomes bloaty or dry. I mean just the parts below are almost a google docs page, pretty much 2000 characters. And that is even when I removed 2/3 of the situation text as it was rather big picture information. Explicitly writing down the campaign style was something I took Colville's recent game design video, trying it out.

What I really would love feedback on is mainly Situation. Enough/too little information? Is it confusing? Does the information fit with the Campaign Style? And also is Campaign Style something fitting in a campaign ad/synopsis?

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Situation

You all are part of the third imperially sponsored caravan into the Aablu, the hot and arid lands east of the Pearl Cities. The first caravan went out eight months ago and was expected to have returned two months ago. Second left four months ago with another destination. Yours have the same destination as the first with the additional task of bringing back news of the first.

Information about Aablu is scarce and unreliable, mostly because traders and inhabitants in the Pearl Cities don’t venture into it and its local people consider themselves under no obligation to divulge information. There are of course tidbits of information: old travellers’ journals, hearsay and sales-talk. You are not headed blind into the Aablu, only mostly.

The caravan itself is the size of a small village, with competent people of various professions who are there for their own reasons. Some want to strike it rich, some are running from something, some are there for the glory and some just want a bit of adventure. Your characters are also competent individuals, filling a role in the caravan and have ambition to make something extra of themselves.

Campaign style

Adventurous daring sword and sorcery.

Adventurous - The very nature of the caravan is an adventure and on it are those with an adventurous spirit. When it calls, your characters are those who step up, those who have a bit extra drive to see what is on the other side of the hill.

Daring - Rewarded are those who boldly go where no one has gone before. Daring plans are to be rewarded and there is always a chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Sword and Sorcery (from Wikipedia) - A subgenre of fantasy characterized by sword-wielding heroes engaged in exciting and violent adventures. Elements of romance, magic, and the supernatural are also often present. Unlike works of high fantasy, the tales, though dramatic, focus on personal battles rather than world-endangering matters.

I have been running a DnD campaign which is only getting longer and more complex as time goes on. Keeping track of every bit of lore, every NPC that is relevant to the party and major events that have happened is getting increasingly difficult. I am currently mostly trying to just keep everything in mind while taking notes here and there, but I am finding linear text documents to be hard to maintain and look through.

The thing that has made me especially interested in better tools is that I have been planning to do a homebrew campaign once this one has wrapped up and I would like to start planning it out.

What tools do you use to document info on worldbuilding, story and lore?

I'm running a wilderness exploration campaign currently with lots of hexcrawl sections, and my players are about to progress to a new zone.

One of the hazards I've decided should be here is a low lying swamp of decayed plant life that has an layer of asphyxiating gas (a big layer of carbon dioxide sitting on the ground) over the area. Idea is it's a dangerous biome with a non-obvious hazard unlike ones they've seen before in the more traditional forest and mountain settings.

I am strugging to come up with a way to make this idea into an encounter that would be satisfying for the players, not wanting them to all end up asphyxiating in some dire swamp after failing a roll or 2 but still having a level of risk and the option to use their abilities and such to overcome it.

My current working concept is this: -On attempting to enter this tile, perform a Constitution (Perception) check against DC 15. On a success, you notice that the air here is making you feel light headed and rapidly very out of breath. On a fail you go deeper in and everyone starts suffocating. Either way, all torches currently being carried go out. If they go out, everyone makes DC 10 CON saves to escape without issue On a fail, they start suffocating and the encounter begins 100 feet from the edge. On pushing deeper in, everyone makes CON saves and the worst person (or persons if they tie) begin suffocating first, with everyone else starting to suffocate a number of rounds later according to how good their save was. Encounter begins 200 feet from the edge. When suffocating you have your CON mod rounds until you drop to 0 hp. The encounter here would be an initiative roll and then they could proceed to escape and rescue their allies - no monsters.

Hey everyone!

Just posting here to get any advice if anyone has run a similar campaign, but my group is just about to finish a modified version of The Lost Mines of Phandelver for 5e. One of the party is a githzerai who has lost their memory, and depending on the outcome of the fight, I was thinking of a portal to Limbo being created to where either the Black Spider escapes to or where the being behind the Black Spider is imprisoned. This would also allow the exploration of the githzerai’s backstory.

Has anyone ever done sessions in Limbo? How hard would that environment be for 5 Level 6 characters? Is it a good place for an adventure to take place? Let me know if you have any tips!

Combat makes up a decent chunk of most campaigns and the setup can make it either a blip that no one will remember to one of the most memorable parts of the campaign. I've been looking for various ways to make combat more fun in my campaign and was eager to see if people here have any ideas they'd like to share. I'm looking for anything that gives alternate win conditions, gives the players new ways to interact with the environment, forces special behaviour or anything to make a combat encounter unique.

I'll start with some of my favourites.

---

Battle Complications

Anything that makes combat more complicated than "kill this list of people". Special conditions and anything in that direction.

-- Ritual in Progress Someone is casting a terrifyingly strong ritual and it must be stopped by either destroying conduits, removing sacrificial materials or killing the casters. Typically this is something that allows enemies that wouldn't be very dangerous otherwise to have a far greater effect simply because the party can't focus them down, needing to spend their time on the ritual being stopped. If they fail, the possible punishment should sound quite bad, so that they feel a strong urge to stop what is happening.

-- Ritual-borne Foe Similar to the last one, but this time it's not a time limit but rather something that requires a novel way to defeat. An enemy that is incredibly powerful and dangerous to the party being kept alive or present by as summoner or necromancer of some sort, or alternatively by a contraption. Players must destroy or deactivate the source to defeat the opponent before it defeats them. This may be through directed combat or through a puzzle of sorts in the middle of combat.

-- Constant Reinforcements The BBEG is constantly calling forth fiends from another realm or some device creates more and more small creatures swarming the players. These elements make sure that the players can't just clear out the room, leaving the big bad guy in the middle helplessly overwhelmed by sheer action-economy. Instead, they have to either win quickly or alternatively do their best to disable the sources of enemies.

Environmental Hazards

These are difficult to design but great when they work out. Hazards in this case is taken in a very general sense.

-- Unstable Ground The ground that both the players and enemies are standing on is unstable and may break away easily. May it be as the result of some level being pulled, an attack hitting the ground or maybe just random chance. As long as the players have some chance to react to what is happening, this can include anything that can make ground unsafe to simply stand on. This makes certain types of ground that are stable very favorable and possibly worth fighting over. Bonus if the enemies have ways to contest ground, just like the players can.

-- The Floor is Lava The ground erupts in Flame, flashes of radiant beams hit the combat arena or meteors strike the area. Very similar to unstable ground, but more temporary, are occasional AoEs hitting the ground. Once again, these are best when the players feel like they can really work around them sensibly.

-- Bottomless Pit (Maybe with a bottom) A pit that people can be thrown into. This urges people to finally realize that shove is a thing. Don't make it too easy to fall into though, falling to your death into such a pit with little chance to safe yourself won't feel great. Make sure that they get a chance to save themselves or be saved if they do fall!

---

These are what comes to mind immediately. What interesting mechanics have you used to change your combat into something the party ended up finding really thrilling or memorable? I myself play DnD 5e, but I would love to hear your stories from other systems that I may implement in my campaign too!

So, this is an area I've been struggling to figure out. How do I balance a combat encounter?

I obviously know you can't trust CR, but I'm struggling to figure out how I should plan or balance a combat encounter when that's not an option.

Title. I'm a noob DM, I've played some 20 years ago, never DM'd.

So far, I've read the books, but more importantly, I've read and watched both Sly Flourish and Matt Colville so I think I got a handle on a few things. I mean, not really, but I'm a bit more confident in knowing that I'll mess things up, but roll with it. But... my first game would have a single PC who never played D&D, which isn't mentioned too often.

Any tips on running for a single noob PC?

My main concerns are:

• a single 1st level PC can easily get wrecked by even a small number of goblins
• playing a DM PC comes with important caveats
• fudging dice can work but needs to be subtle enough, and not the only thing keeping the PC alive.

Action economy means even lowly encounters would have a very thin line between boring/challenging/tpk. DMPC has its pitfalls, I'll need to avoid stealing their thunder and not become a leader/authoritative voice in the party.

As such, I was thinking on running more of a cowardly follower type rather than some full-fledged customer-support-superhero DMPC. Not that it needs to be bland, but I feel it definitely needs to be following rather than leading. Helpful and engaging, sure, but that NPC's story shouldn't be the focus. I'd probably roleplay it, but have the PC run both in combat.

I'm very confident they'd enjoy getting something like a pet from a Wondrous Figurine, but I feel like getting/rescuing that from a BBEG SBEG (SmallerBEG) in their first adventure is probably more fun and memorable for them than just getting that in their starting equipment on their character sheet. But I guess having them make a cool background story of how they got that might work too.

Pros: The wondrous figurine is implicitly not a leader, helps on-demand when they ask for it, rather than when the DM thinks so. Unlike a pet, it never really dies, it just goes to the astral plane to kick their wounds and comes back purring. Having their beloved pet in an actual death situation is probably a red line for them, those will be discussed in session 0, but since I've been living with that player for 15 years, I already got a good picture. Cons: probably a bit much magic at that level, but I'm not too worried about them being more powerful. Needs a realistic intro.

Not many cons tbh. If they have fun and I don't kill them outright I think that's pretty good. I feel it'd be easier to have them be a bit more powerful and find bigger challenges if needed... than it would be to scale everything 25%.

So far... my plan is to inspire myself from Phandelver, but keeping it loose and as sandbox as I can manage.

I was thinking on running a coward, possibly expendable NPC with them at first, at least until they complete the first goblin hideout. I'd change that to somehow have some of the goblins there using the reluctant figurine pet to torture Sildar (not unlike Drizzt' Gwenhwyvar to be honest). The figurine could have been a gift from the Spider to Klarg for capturing Gundren. Even then, I don't wanna plan too much and would rather find an organic way for things to happen. Getting the figurine earlier than Klarg could be helpful, but needs a bit of work story-wise. Maybe there's a goblin teasing it instead of the chained wolves in one of that first room, idk. It'd have to feel natural.

The more I think about it, the more I think Gwenhwyvar was explicitly invented by Salvatore for Drizzt's first low-lvl single-PC campaign.

Any input is appreciated. This post is way longer than it should

Peace

Hey guys! I'm a newer dm (not a new player, been playing for a few years) and I just want to ask what a dm should consider when it comes to planning and worldbuilding. I would also like to ask if you have any tips for when a player goes wildly off course in a direction you have zero ideas for. You guys got tips?

Hello GMs of Lemmy!

I have been a GM myself for about 7 years or so, with more or less the same players in most of my games. What I have started to run into in the recent year or so, is that I have started to lose the interest in campaigns if the sessions get canceled often.

So my question is that how do most of you deal with this issue where you might start to lose interest in a campaign in the middle of it?

Hey guys! I've been trying to work on some homebrew content for an idea of mine, it's gonna be very loosely horror based with plenty of room to goof off, but I also intend to mess around with and test alignments quite a bit with this campaign. I'm already working on a weapon that interacts with the choices the players make while using it (potentially cursing them if they become too evil), but I wondered if you guys had any other ideas on how to mess with or test alignment in a campaign. The thing with the weapon is that it can only really affect one person. I want to figure out a few more ways to mess with the others.

Identifying when to throw those last few hit points in the trash and call the fight a "win" for the adventurers is part of what separates a great GM from a good GM.

Your games pacing, the spotlight moment for your heavy hitters, and respecting your players time and emotional investment in a combat scene, are all much more important than the big bads last 10 HP.

Hey there TTRPG Network! I'm a brand new user, so please forgive me if I post or format this a little incorrectly.

My need for advice comes from a friend of mine who is running a 3rd edition Mutants and Masterminds game. He's new to the system, but wanted to get away from D&D 5e to try something new and out-of-genre.

However, come session one, there was a combat encounter. He had followed some advice on how to run the encounter (I'm not exactly sure where from) and the fight was a curbstomp on the players side. Multiple PCs made use of Multiattack + Takedown, as well as high damage. They started out with about 150~ points, I think. Several mooks were taken out before the DM had a chance to make them a threat. His boss monster got taken out in about two rounds.

While I know throwing easy fights can be fun for players, I think the DM had plans for the encounter, and that there were missed opportunities.

As a fan of Sly Flourish, I've recommended using things like "monster dials". Although I have little idea how the system works, but I have plenty of experience with TTRPGs in general. I was wondering if any fans of M&M had advice for new GMs? Any advice, general or specific, would be appreciated.

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/81886

> Some of my friends are starting DnD but none of us have played before. I offered to DM because I have listened to some podcasts(TAZ, Dimension 20, CR, etc.) We are starting with Grammys Country Apple Pie as way to dip our toes in. How can I best prepare and learn how to DM effectively. What resources do you suggest to read or watch? We are also using Foundry VTT because I live in a different state. > Thanks in advance!

Hello!

Welcome to this place where Game Masters, Dungeon Masters, Storytellers, Narrators, Referees (and etc) can gather and ask questions. Uncertain of where to take the story? Want to spice up your big baddie? Encounters? That player? Ask away!

And if you have questions about becoming a Game Master you are most welcome with those as well!

Rules (as of now)

• Be civil. Be kind. Treat each other with love and respect.
• No question too small, no conundrum too complicated. Ask away.
• If system is relevant to your worries do mention it.
• If you post a link do add a few lines why it is helpful.
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• If your question, or answer, contains mature themes mark it NFSW.

With that out of the way... Hi. Hello. Welcome. Thought it was time this community got set up where we, whatever we want to call ourselves, can get our problems solved. Some of them at least. The community rules I cobbled together based of what I found here and there, not too set in stone. Suggestions are welcome. Don't have much more to say, we'll see where and how it goes and go from there.

Again - Welcome!