The party has just killed a group of dwarves to retrieve a key that will allow them entrance into the dwarven city but have been warned that a big baddie guards the city once inside. To assist them, they can get a special item which adds around 5 days onto their travel, or they can just go fight it and have a harder time.

Since they murdered the dwarves who would return to the city, they need to make it before people begin to worry. Here’s my plan if they decide to get the special item.

They will basically “fast travel” but each day requires a group roll of a d20 each. To pass, they need a combined 35-45 depending on the day (4 players). If they fail 2 of the 5 rolls, the city becomes aware of the murders and is on alert, making their journey in the city more difficult.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I have a feeling that my players are missing out on many opportunities I lay out for them, such as leaving loot, magical items, and NPCs by not making checks or investigating. I'm trying to prep using the Lazy Dungeon Master's Guide, so I can drop this stuff practically at their feet, but it feels like they are walking in a big circle around everything I set up for them.

For example, when traveling through the woods, they stumble upon a cabin. Inside, they find a man lying in his bed, deceased. Next to the bed lies a dog that whimpers softly but reacts enthusiastically whenever the players interact with him. I want my players to have the opportunity to befriend this dog, but to do that, they have to give the former owner a proper funeral.

The party interacts with the dog, gives him food, and tries to lure him outside. Every interaction the dog reacts enthusiastically, but still goes to its owner, lies down, and whimpers. The players then decide to take the body and drag it outside of the hut, and even think about dragging the body with them so the dog would follow them. As I describe the situation, I emphasize that the dog cannot part with the body of its owner. In the end, they leave the body outside of the hut and leave.

Am I making my checks too complicated? Or am I too hard? Am I filling in too much for my players?

My bestie and I are headed on vacation soon for her bday and she wants me to DM a duet for her (so just 1 player and the DM).

Her character would be going into the fey realm and she said she wants to do a quest where her character goes through challenges that would help her overcome feeling like she has to be the perfect princess/heir all the time and try to start thinking for herself. This could possibly include overcoming the compulsion to be clean and proper at all times, and living up to her grandparent's expectations/struggling with their disappointment among other typical 'Rebeling princess' tropes.

I don't really know how to do this :/ I thought about maybe using the Harry potter Mirror of Erised, and maybe her encountering a succubus? She's only Lvl 4 and it'll just be her and her beast companion (panther reskinned to a snow leopard). I'm also a super new DM, though I'm comfortable tweaking stat blocks for interesting monsters/ encounters. (I've been playing for about 2 years and running this campaign as a 1st time dm for roughly 6 months). I've thought about not really wrapping things up in this one shot and having her struggle "awaken" here and she'll explore it more as their campaign continues... A cursed item might help with this idk.

So I have some half baked ideas but not really sure where to go with them. Thanks for any and all suggestions!

In the last session, one of my players (Player B) made a move against another player character (Player A). They were having a discussion, and Player A was blocking Player B's way because B was so impulsive, occasionally putting the party in danger. The discussion escalated, and then B casted Banish on A, just to have him removed from the way, thinking that he would come back in 1 minute. However, they were in the Tomb of Annihilation, so any kind of planar shift or teleportation ended with the destination being a room without an exit in the Tomb, which is quite deadly. When Player A didn't return after one minute, Player B banished himself to try to find out what was happening. Both players ended up dead.
Now, player A says that every new character he makes will have the mission to kill every character B plays. He even wants to add background on why his new character must kill B's new character. I think it is understandable for A to be upset, but it seems like too much for me the way he is reacting.
How would you handle it?

I'm a brand new DM running my first campaign, and I've poured so much time and energy into researching, building storylines, creating NPCs, and generally putting together a lot of information. What the best resource you use to keep track of everything? I currently have all of it in an incredibly long Google Doc, but I feel like I need a better way to organize/store all of the info. We mostly run the campaign digitally, so any resources you have I would appreciate it!

-From an incredibly desperate newbie.

My pcs are from a viking clan.. when I asked there clan name... the came up with "The Sneaking Snarguffles"

I asked them what a snarguffle is .. they said " a sneaky fluffy critter"

As a good dm I feel obligated to make this an epic comedy moment in game but I fail at comedy LOL

What should I do here oh mighty world of reddit

The party has gone down and mine shaft where dwarves delved into a natural occurring cave. There’s dangerous monsters they have to kill in order to progress.

But I also want to make it seem like the caves are not that natural; That a Tarrasque has possibly dug them. Would that work? I read something about a Terrasque’s ability to become one with the stone or something. So then, would he leave giant caves in the rock?

Hey fellow DMs, need a bit of advice.

My daughter has asked me to run the My Little Pony game for her and her friends which is my first attempt at DMing for kids.

Anyone have any tips or tricks for helping teach them the flow of the game? Things like what to say they're doing for example. Go to the one NPC's house in the morning tends to involve lengthy descriptions of waking up, brushing teeth, eating food etc...

They'll get it with time but I figured I'd pick your brains for any good ways to help them learn it quicker.

It might be the best thing I have ever done for my games. They just need to write a sentence or a paragraph summarizing the session from their characters perspective and it helps so much they often don't take normal notes so these journals act like notes down the line. Its all in a shared google doc so if someone misses a session they can just read all the journal entries to get caught up. It helps me figure out what moments stick out to my players and if I didn't spread the spotlight around enough or present challenges unique enough for everyone to get involved. Most of all it means every session ends with us all talking about what worked or didn't work in that session what was fun or if things got boring. Not to mention we have a giant google doc that chronicles the whole game at the end of a campaign. Very cool certainly recommend trying something like this. That's all I'm just stoked on how well this has worked.

I’m about to start building a one-shot for a group of friends that will eventually lead into a campaign, and I wanted to garner and advice for the Session 0’s: specifically how to link my pc’s background into the greater lore. I.e., how do their parents fit into this, what secrets do they have that the rest of the party will have revealed later on, etc. how do I work with them to be like “hey how would you like to fit into the greater scheme of the world?”

Haven't ran a game since Pathfinder first released. And before that 3.5.

Planning to set up a game for a batch of 13 year old hooligans and was thinking of updating. What y'all think is the best bet these days? Core books for a on the fly homebrew style game to keep it simple. The 13 year olds will be hard enough to tangle without needing to read a paragraph of lore setup! Any setting base accepted. Fantasy, post appoc, cyber, steam, vampire. I don't know if the old school systems that can run anything are still viable to modern audiences, but that would be cool to. Just be handy to have settings balanced as well as one could.

Thanks in advance for helping me intro these kids into it proper. I won't be having no Maas abominations!

I can't find info on them.

Or try to at least.

One of my players is running an Oath of Vengeance pally. We were discussing paladin convictions and his oaths tenets to make sure we were both up to snuff. I made the joke that, "I'm gonna have to find a way to put your character in a moral quandary to test you at some point." Just offhand, not being serious.

But this gentlemen decided to look me dead in the eyes and say, "Good luck. Come at me bro."

So, game on.

What are some good RP ways you have put your players paladins in a situation to test their convictions? I've never tried to break a paladin before, so this is new territory for me as a DM.

First thought was to have a "child" read from a tome a spell that decimates a village, feign ignorance and innocence, but actually isn't a child at all and definitely isn't innocent. See if he'll break his oath there. I can definitely think of a few ways to tie that into my world too. But if any of you have better suggestions, I am all ears on this one.

I want to put my tabletop players into a dungeon based on electricity, but i don't know what monsters they could encounter, so, if you have any ideas for a fight/encounter against monsters, i'll take it. Thanks.

Ps: And if you have ideas for a trap, mechanism, gimick or puzzle, I'll take that too, thanks again.

I have recently played a one shot and I'm thinking if running a game myself. I have watched a few running the game videos and have the Dungeons and Dragons starter set

Hi! I’m a newer DM (been dming a campaign for 7/8 months now) and I keep running into players that automatically after a battle or fight call out what they’re investigating. A few of my other players enjoy taking a beat after a battle and then investigating. This sometimes leads to some players always finding the loot (and they’re also not great sharers even when items aren’t fitting for their character), and other players not having many fun weapons/ magic items and things. Any suggestions on how to balance this out better and have a more fair approach? Thanks !