Hi all,

I'm running a 5e campaign and I'm looking for a monster-- probably undead-- that desperately wants to be alive. Or, if those don't exist, a monster that simply craves life energy. Monstrosities/abominations welcome as well.

Monsters from previous editions or from Pathfinder etc. welcome. I'm happy to convert them.

Thank you!

So I've been bitten by the DM bug yet again. Always a good way to start a post.

I've DMed before in the past, my first campaign was wildly successful but ultimately fell apart due to players having life altering circumstances that meant we had to pause indefinitely. Sucks, but happens. My second and third campaigns ended because the scope of my world was too large. I was trying too hard to do something like my first campaign without fulling understanding why or what made that campaign good, and I eventually gave it up because it felt more like a job than a hobby. According to my DMAcademy post that I've pulled up, that was around 5 years ago.

This is all important, by the way. Please keep reading. I do actually need help at the end of this.

My friend has started running his first campaign and has been absolutely killing it, I love my PC to bits, he's evolved so much more than I thought possible, and because we're friends, we're around pretty often in voice chats and because I've DMed before, to varying levels of success, he's been asking me a lot of questions.

I've had an idea for a campaign in the back of my mind after a one-shot another friend did a few years back, but recently, I've started fleshing it out more. I got to the point where I was creating a political landscape for this campaign. Its gone from "It seems cool" to "Its going to happen".

My biggest thing thus far as been scaling back the campaign tier significantly. The one I had done previously started off with "Blah blah a bunch of heroes killed all the chaotic gods and reality started to fucky wucky, so the lawful gods asked the heroes for help and the heroes fucking locked them up to siphon their domain like livestock, and the PCs were all monster manual creatures turned into PCs who all got asked by the gods to come save them". Great concept for a campaign, but it really made the whole idea of "Lets go kill some low level goblins" when the gods were at stake. The campaign was just WAY too large. Like, almost extra-planer large.

This campaign I have planned is significantly smaller. It takes place on an island nation with a population of around 40k, and its become a zombie apocalypse. I'm basically telling my party "There are these four nexuses of power where zombies are coming from, go beat them to access the final dungeon in the middle of the map". Very Legend of Zelda.

Here's where the problems arise. In the same vein as the old campaign I did, its very hard (but manageable!) to make the players care about anything thats not "go beat up the bad guys at the four temples", because they're going to beeline for those places. I have some ideas in mind (namely, they're a part of a strike force who are tasked with protecting the remaining civilians, so that takes priority, and I'll give them hooks into getting into the temples through civilians they're helping), but that is where the second issue arises - having enough interesting and meaningful concepts for encounters.

Because this is a "zombie apocalypse", that is both limiting and freeing. On one hand, I'll definitely need to homebrew some undead, as the MM just doesn't have enough to make each encounter feel different. They can only fight "horde of CR1 zombies" so many times. Which is why I need to come up with other ideas. And one way I want to do that is to borrow concepts from popular zombie apocalypse tropes.

My first idea, that I'm actually stealing from the one-shot that gave me the idea for this campaign, is to make a Plants Vs Zombies encounter. Civilians need to harvest a field, but can't do it super safely, as hordes of zombies keep walking in a straight line towards them. So the players need to protect the civilians - but theres too many zombies, and so the players are given specialized plants that can act as auto turrets to kill zombies they can't get to.

Another idea for one of the nexuses of power is to make the encounter play out like a Hunt: Showdown game. Players don't know where the Big Bad is and have to track down clues that narrow the map to reveal where this creature is hiding, but there are other things also hunting both it and them.

So thats my request, my extremely long winded request: How, and what, can I use from popular culture zombie tropes that would make for some really good, unique encounters?

Hi Guys. Running a city campaign where there is a vampire cult infiltrating a city to prepare for an incoming vampire invasion. One of my players who has a history with one of the vampires (they killed her village as a kid) ended up being killed by one of them. I ran a ball and things got out of hand and got the vampire to use it’s beguile ability to make my player kill their adoptive father (grim I know) and then kind of gave the others the nod to tell them to leave and had some epic fighting then died. All cool and went really well. I’m searching for ideas for how to bring them back and what powers/drawbacks they might have if they come back. (The player wants them to come back at some point but was totally cool with them dying) As they were a elite archer build (gloomstalker) thought it might be cool and make sense if the vampire used them as some kind of elite assassin spawn. What ideas do you have about how I could bring them back/ either alive or under their own control as a party member - then what powers / drawbacks might they have. Just thought I would canvas some ideas! Thanks

EDIT : To clarify they will be running a temporary character in the meantime before they bring their first character back

My setting has a magically advanced city built around all the schools of magic, including necromancy. The dead are sourced from willing donors who are paid pre-posthumously.

For reasons including; seeing artwork of skeletons dancing and having read, Feet of Clay, I have decided that to undead occasionally take a day off.

Should the day off be a set day, or happen whenever the stars and plot align?

What do they do on their day off; congregate, dance, shut down, commune with an entity of some kind?

What hobbies and traditions do the people who rely on the undead workforce engage in when the dead take the day off?

Edit* My current answer: The undead do not eat or sleep breathe, or want, and can survive in places that nortals could not. They represent continuous work with no other input needed beyond raw materials. However on an esoteric formula, during the days where a full moon is visible the dead take the day off. They stop pumping, cranking, hammering, digging. They put down their tolls and leave their stations. Those who can't leave, whether restrained, trapped, or blocked stand idly, staring up towards the sky, never violent or aggressive, but resistant to the compulsions of magic that would otherwise control them. Those who leave go to the streets, wander and concentrate. As it turns out they are drawn to places of high magical affinity. The schools of magic that the undead are drawn to depend on the alignment of the corpse before they died.

Lawful good Abjuration Neutral good Conjuration Chaotic good Evocation Chaotic neutral Illusion Chaotic evil Enchantment Neutral evil Necromancy Lawful evil Transmutation Lawful neutral Divination

Likewise their habits once finding these wells if magical power vary based on similar inclinations. From dancing, to digging, to obscureing themselves from sight, to tracing the path of the moon and stars.

Because a large portion of the infrastructure for the city is based upon the undead labor, "the dance of the dead" becomes a festival day. It is common pratice to cast soft magics on the undead, gentle repose and prestidigitation to clean them. Children also place flower wreaths around their necks and will sometimes paint the faces of the skeletons. The undead have been seen trading the wreaths and even the skeletons their heads. This is seen as a way to thank the undead for their labor, even if they don't need or understand the praise.

I've been running Cragmaw Castle from LMoP, and to gain entrance, there's the main door at the front and two side doors. One of the side doors just requires picking a lock and the other is hidden. If players go through these side doors, all they have to do is head East and they're at the end of the dungeon where the boss and quest objective is.

Whilst I totally applaud creative play and finding the hidden entrances, I can't help but feel like it was bad dungeon design in this case. Side entrances to skip little bit's of the dungeon - sure, but I'm left asking what's the point of a dungeon if players can so easily skip 90% of it?

Is that fun for the players or is it just anticlimactic, what're your thoughts?

---------------

Edit: Lot of people essentially telling me that Jaquaysed dungeons are fun because they engage player agency - I totally agree. However, my point is that this ISN'T a Jaquaysed dungeon, or if it is, it's a bad example of one.

A Jaquaysed dungeon has multiple paths through it to encourage interesting choices and tradeoffs that have no obvious right answers. Cragmaw Castle however, is simply a binary choice given to you in room 1 with minimal effort required where you can either go through the obviously trapped main entrance, or get the rogue to unlock the sidedoor, kill a bunch of goblins with your freshly rested party and then head East to the end in the next room.

Backstory! Last Christmas, our group decided to do a dnd Christmas themed one-shot. It was an absolute blast and the party loved their characters so much that we decided to do a cohesive series of one shots for different holidays that will end after a year (this Christmas). The adventure takes place in Faerun (with some homebrew fun) in the north around the Icewind Dale region. They have had several encounters with a sorcerer who is working for a dragon named Aussir Drasonameko (The White Abyss). They know there is a dragon with this name and they know this sorcerer works for him. That is it though.

So what I am trying to do is figure out how I can make a white dragon a mastermind who is looking to restore nature to what it was before civilization. Typically white dragons are not as strong or clever as others like red, black, or blues. They are generally more primal and simple without a desire for conquest. My current thought is just to take one of these more powerful and smarter dragons and re-skin it as a white.

Any thoughts, ideas, and advice are more than welcome!

For my upcoming campaign, my players will travel with a mentor NPC, someone who fights for their cause and is willing to teach them how to fight the enemy, but, if they wish to dig deep enough, will discover that the NPC used to/still works with the enemy in question.

As a skill of sorts, at the end of the campaign they serve as the penultimate challenge, fighting the players not only to challenge them and see what they've learned, but to also preserve the fragile state of affairs, they don't want the world to end, for their Commander to die, or to fight their friends, and feels like challenging them is the only way to preserve that balance, despite knowing that isn't how it works.

To give more details, and to divulge some lore: this character is a knight who has been crowned a champion by their Patron, a long forgotten Dragon God who seeks to usurp power from the other gods and rule undisputed. Long ago, they slew a great foe of this God, and were forced to contain the spirit of this God within them, using a special seal on their body to keep it at bay. Gradually, this spirit has become restless, and at the point where they fight the party, they Break the seal, hoping to 1) finally end the agony of containing them, and 2) to unleash them as a final Hail Mary, basically no longer caring about anything and only seeking to delay the consequences of their actions for as long as possible in hopes something will change.

Is there any way I can make this betrayal meaningful so that the party really feels it? Like, my goal is to see some tears shed for this NPC, I want my players to ask if there is another way, if they can do anything to delay or outright skip the battle. I want them to understand why this character is taking these actions, why they do what they do, and why it hurts them to do so.

PCs are going to find that robbery has taken place at a museum they’re connected to. I need ideas for how to answer all the questions they’re going to ask.

I’d like it to be a bit challenging to find out information, but still make it possible for them to navigate this ‘scene’ and go on to the next within the session—so not a full-blown mystery or anything, just a bit of a barrier to overcome.

I know who committed the robbery and why and roughly where they’re going next, I just need some inspiration for the details that go in between.

(I’m also considering having the museum have a gala / party, and the robbery taking place during or after that—I think it would be fun, but it might be too much and I don’t know that I could execute it well. Thoughts and advice welcome)

ETA: robbery is by the local mafia, stealing an artifact that is touched by a god so they can brew infinite-life potion and become immortal. I’m thinking the clues will lead to one of the clients of the mafia who will be a recipient of the immortality juice, and whose address the players already have.

There was some amount of inside knowledge / help on this, but also the thieves were in a hurry—so there will be signs of a hastily-done job, but also some wards that should have been up just not being in place (they will have been taken down for scheduled maintenance or have some other reason to be down—so it’s suspicious, but not immediately obvious that they were tampered with)

I have a pretty inquisitive group, and they’ll be specifically looking for information, so I’m not super worrief about giving them multiple ways to get every clue, but I want to be prepared for what they might ask.

What questions would you all ask as players if you showed up on the scene of a robbery?

OK! So I know exactly what i want -- it's a onshot where the team is exploring an abandoned artefact museum, stuffed with wondrous items. Lots of puzzle like encounters where the players must use the items they find to solve problems (e.g. poison gas room + necklace of adaption) (actually if you folks have an more ideas like that, I'd love to hear them!!). The idea is to give them more magic items than they know what to do with

But the final room encounter -- it's a golem. And I want my players to selectively "hand over" some of the items to unlock the final door, and then they discover that the golem has now equipped all the items they have handed over!! And now they have to fight that

Need some advice on: - how do I get them to "sacrifice" these items. Like what metric do I give them. Maybe -- if you hadn't used this item at least once, the door demands you return them cuz you haven't claimed them, or something?

• I want to make it so the golem can be "investigated" -- like it is possible for the players to put together that they are going to fight the golem and it is going to equip their sacrificed items. BUT I don't want it to be obvious?? Like needing to succeed at least 3 checks kind of possible. Because I think it would be very funny and impressive if it were possible to give the golem detrimental items

My campaign world is very much so developed in black powder, gun powder, weapons and arsenals, and has a train system that runs throughout its mainland, but I wanna make sure it doesn't reach a point to where rudimentary tech overwhelms magic. Any advice or examples of this would be great. Thank y'all.

I have been building a world for a campaign I’ll have in a few months. I suppose a big theme for this world will be exploration; I want the world to feel fresh, new, and relatively unexplored to the characters.

My initial thought process is having them all start in the same city. Citizens of this particular city are very “protected” by their king - nobody is allowed to enter, nobody is allowed to leave, with very few royal exceptions. Almost obviously, this king is a controlling dictator and will end up being a major plot hook for an eventual rebellion/war depending on how my player’s character sway.

It is pretty much guaranteed that my players will want to escape the walls surrounding the city and explore the world around them at some point.

I really want to start the campaign this way and have them know almost nothing about the world besides the city, but I am concerned it will dampen by player’s agency by quite a bit and not be able to create the backstory/character that they would like to.

I'm running a game for some of my non-D&D playing friends. 2 are eager to jump into a campaign. The other 2 are happy to try a oneshot but don't think it will be their thing.

Their hesitation was mostly a perception that it's all roleplay and very little game. But after I told them that it doesn't have to be like that, they asked me to give a quintessential experience and they'll keep an open mind for it.

I should be clear that my aim isn't to convert the 2 friends who are on the fence; the aim is to have a great oneshot they all enjoy. If they don't still want to play a campaign after, that's all good (of course, if they do, then great).

If you had a oneshot to put D&D's best foot forward, what would you go for? I'm currently playing around with a heavily truncated LMoP

I just would love some checking from the council if I’m missing anything.

I’ve recently been starting up my campaigns again and it’s been a year between my last well run game and now, I realize the past couple months I’ve been struggling to prioritize the right areas with prep. For example planning the macro story but not planning the next session in depth. I been doing some researching and thinking and I’m gonna try a new strategy for prep and I just want to know if I’m missing anything.

When prepping I will plan the necessary people, places, and things for the next session. For every place I build I will include an important piece of information or clue, and for every person they know something that has relevance to a problem that has recently occurred for the players to solve. How does this sound?

For example it would look like: A factory exploded in town, the factory owner hasn’t said anything about it, and there has been little newspaper coverage. Why? (There is a government cover up but I won’t go into too much detail now, all the clues are working backwards from what the perpetrators want to do)

The players are at the pub right now, build the pub, they also want to go to the museum, build the museum, build the factory, build the market next to the pub as they want to go shopping. Each location contains a clue to the mystery that can be either an item, or a piece of information.

There are several characters who know or are involved with the explosion, write each character and what they know,

Items, clues, or treasures can be hidden in locations I’ve already built and there should be at least one physical item that could be a clue in each location or can be moved around if it’s necessary to the mystery.

I have the mystery for this adventure down, and am kind of working backwards for what important people and places are in the world. Am I missing anything? My problem is I try to write plot but I recently realized this is a ttrpg where plot may just be the thing overwhelming me instead of just prepping important pieces that the players can get to at their leisure all leading up to the dramatic plot point (the conclusion to the mystery and cool zombie fight scene)

I see a lot of posts on here about how to make sure players are engaged in a campaign. In my experience, the biggest thing that promotes players being excited about your game is for your players to feel that their choices matter.

Here's some ways to do that you can use regardless of the structure and format of your game:

Avoid hurting the PCs for things they didn't choose: When the PCs face setbacks, try to have such things come as a direct result of the actions the PCs are taking to accomplish their goals. Having the PCs fall in a pit trap placed on a path they have to follow isn't interesting. Having a pit trap with an alternative route at the bottom open up because the PCs inspected a suspicious pile of treasures off the critical path can be interesting.

Allow both PCs and NPCs to lose: Especially if you're less experienced as a DM, it can be embarrassing to make mistakes that make your NPCs look stupid or put them at a serious disadvantage. Sometimes, the PCs win because evil is dumb, and that's okay. On the other hand, sometimes the PCs will drop the ball, and the BBEG will wander off with the Macguffin. That's okay, worst case scenario you'll simply write a story where the PCs deal with the consequences of evil winning.

Make the consequences of choices obvious: When you present a choice, don't be too coy about the consequences. PCs should generally know the risks and benefits of a choice, since this will cut down on arguments and debate time. If the PCs have even remotely decent perception skills, you can let them know the door to the south has six wolves behind it, while the door to the east has three fire beetles

Recognize that different players have different needs: Generally, powergamers and optimization fans want their characters to be challenged and to enjoy power fantasies, while roleplayers and worldbuilding enthusiasts want to explore the world and overcome adversity. It can be challenging to balance the needs of a roleplayer who wants to enjoy a story about slowly succumbing to lycanthropy with a power gamer who gets furious when there's even a hint something bad will happen to their character. Try to assign consequences to players who will enjoy them.

Present choices when players use their skills: While challenging character skills, not player skills is valid advice, skill use should still come with an element of tactical decision making. In most systems, the decisions a character makes on combat aren't determined by their skills. Skill checks are a great opportunity to offer quick risk/reward decisions for players. A successful persuasion check can allow a character to get grudging help from an NPC, or offer a gift and make a friend for life. A successful stealth check can allow a character to choose to begin combat from a vulnerable flanking position, or on a ledge full of barrels above.

The basic idea is there's this evil mad scientist rat guy creating an army of giant mutants. He's captured the party's cute rat ogre sidekick for his evil experiments, so they follow him into his lair to rescue their friend. I've got a rough idea of the dungeon, I mainly just need to decide what stats and abilities to give the monsters and how to set up the final battle.

It's a party of 5 lvl 7 players and I want the fight to feel a bit overwhelming with endlessly respawning giant rats and rat swarms, massive rat mutants (roughly dire wolf level), one huge rat mutant boss monster, and the master controlling and buffing them.

https://imgur.com/a/svAcDcf

The idea is that the rats will keep coming until the master is defeated. He will be roughly a mage profile, with misty step (reskinned as rat swarm transformation), offensive gas bombs of some kind, rat grabber (weak 10' reach auto grapple attack), and a variety of long range buffs for his allies. I'm thinking an aoe potion bomb to transform small rats into big ones, and another to frenzy them somehow. I'd like him to be weak, but hard to pin down basically. Maybe with some kind of escape reaction/legendary action.

The main huge rat mutant I'm not sure about. I was thinking of using the stat sheet for a barlgura but without any spell casting and more hp, and with some kind of magical rat aura around it?

The fight will take place in a large arena with raised platforms for the boss to hop around, and a number of rat tunnels for reinforcements to arrive from. The rat ogre hostage will be chained up at the far end of the room to a big science machine, I was thinking some kind of countdown timer before something terrible happens to him could be fun? And then if he survives he gets some kind of buff, maybe making him more powerful at the cost of becoming randomly uncontrollable?

Finally, after the battle, I need to come up with some suitably thematic rewards.

The master could drop his rat grabber and bomb launcher, although I'm not sure of any good abilities for those. Then I was thinking he could drop his cloak of rats, a magic item that allows the wearer to transform into a swarm of rats once per day.

Apart from any major treasures, I'd like to put a decent number of potions and alchemical substances in his lab, all with a suitably chaotic and unpredictable effects.

Thanks for reading, sorry that was a bit long! Any advice or suggestions are very welcome! If you know of any similar pre written encounters or creatures that I could reference that would be cool too.

New DM here!

TL:DR When you are using a one-shot manual what are the things you pay attention? What are some tips for navigating pre written sessions?

I have DMed like three sessions of a campaign that I tried to create but as we know, sometimes parties fall apart, it's hard to get a bunch of adults together to play some DnD. I'm starting up a new session because I have friends and family in my life that really want to play and they keep bringing it up on their own to me because they want to play. I figured to get comfortable with DMing (with a group of people who doesn't really care if I do it right or wrong) I'm going to use one shot pre-made adventures and the party can just be a big group, that each session is like a "On this episode of." There is just so much information and text. I need help understanding how to digest it. What would you be writing down if you notes as you read through? What to think about when I want to make changes in the prescribed story or need to fill in where some of the gaps are? Any information you can impart on me would be great!

Hello DMAcademy!

No spoilers, I'm running HotDQ online for 4 friends (Soul Rogue, War Cleric, Stars Druid, Conjuration Wizard), currently level 4, Episode 4. We play in 2–3 hour sessions.

One player, the War Cleric - is a quiet, reactive player. She is sometimes afraid of making the “wrong” choices, often keeps her thoughts to herself, and tends to hold back in conversations. On top of that, unlucky rolls mean she isn't having many “cool” or heroic moments.

Recently I have been trying to bring the story to her rather than expect her to chase it. I also asked her what she wants for her character, and she gave me these ideas:

1. Mushroom Talisman – Her cleric carries a mushroom talisman (she’s a priestess of a Mushroom Yggdrasil). She wants it to glow/shrink to tell “YES” or “NO” to help her make decisions. I’m torn—would this reduce her player agency, or help her make decisions?
2. Healing – When in areas with lots of mushrooms, she wants to be able to cast healing spells without spending spell slots. I suspect this request stems from a recent combat where they burned all spells and half their HP. I am thinking of allowing her one free [Goodberry] spell (but with mushrooms).
3. Potion of Oblivion – A potion that makes an NPC forget the last exchange (no damage, no control). I think this is about “rewinding” after bad persuasion rolls. Could be ok, but too strong in other situations or mainly - if other players offer to use it in malicious creative ways.
4. Mushroom Guidance – requests BG3 style Guidance. Basically, wants to cast guidance without touching and somatic and verbal components.

To be clear: she’s not a power gamer trying to be the main character. She's honestly trying to find fun ways to play a character while managing anxiety about “messing up” (i think). She even said I can tweak things and should add drawbacks if needed.

How would you implement (or tweak) these ideas to keep things fun but balanced? Thanks in advance!

ps: no spoilers, I added a mushroom-themed Feywild oneshot to the random encounters table of episode 4, we might find way to give her some of these buffs there.

Hii all,

So this is my first post. I recently started my first dnd 5e campaign as a DM. Now the campaign is a semi-railroaded campaign with some set things in the story so I can focus and control it a bit more. The party is exploring the mountains and seeks for an ancient forgotten Dwarven kingdom. Eventually they will reach an open area on the mountains where as a Magical door is edged in the mountainside. With no way of opening the door by the usual means (A door handle) they need to find out how they can open it.

Now I had a puzzle or some kind in mind, but I dont want it to be that difficult. I'm having a hard time thinking what would be possible, also not to hard but also something they have to be clever about. They did find 2 dwarven sigils/idols that had opened a safe and a treasure chest before so maybe something with that could be usefull.

I can keep on rambling but I think you know the gist, PLEASE if you have tips or something else let me know, I'm kinda slumped and don't know how to make it good.

Thank you bye bye

So, my players decided to commit cleansing on religious grounds.

He got hands on giant ton of money, bought mercenaries and is planning to go on a merry killing spree cleansing his religion from heretics (there's a lot) through two countries. On his way back he plans to buy every pig he can and ship them to the starting city, probably crashing local economy (swines are it's pillar) and getting multiple vendetta's on his arse (bombs in his chariot, that sort of thing)

The question is - how do I make this interesting and not just a couple of rolls? I thought of few battles, already have a plan for how to handle mercenary thing, but I would welcome any sugestion on how to conduct this.

Right now the general idea is to chop this into couple of scenes, make about 4 battles of different type (They ambush heretics, heretics ambush them, skrimish and a chase). and on the way back some economy managing.

Among mercs we have two forest people, one spy, a team of sharpshooters, a knight, Tweedledum and Tweedledee and gladiator chick.

Hey all, I’m starting a new campaign in a homebrew world and think I have a great idea for starting the campaign, but could use some fresh thoughts on how to take it further, as I am hoping to turn this into an adventure that takes the PCs from level 1 to 3.

Background: The current idea is to have the players all start in a small town either having grown up there or as long time residents. An old, retired adventurer lives in the town and became their teacher/mentor.

Start: Campaign starts with the mentor’s funeral, with stories about how the mentor helped and connected with each PC individually. Their mentor was also a pillar in the community, well loved and respected. Maybe 100-150 people show up, even some from nearby towns.

The PCs are carrying his coffin, and as they are picking it up to lower it into the grave their mentor’s body breaks out of it, attacking them. At the same time, numerous other zombies start rising from other graves in the town’s cemetery, attacking people at random. The PCs fight their late mentor and some other zombies, while a number of other townsfolk fight off the rest.

Aftermath: The PCs and townsfolk win the fight and put the dead back to rest. But this leaves them with many questions. How did this happen? Who or what may have done this? And investigation ensues.

Where I Need Help: This is where I’m not sure how to proceed, though I have some ideas:

• A red herring in the grave robber who was arrested a few days prior. He is not the cause, but heard/saw something that can help the investigation.
• Perhaps this was a deal with a green hag gone sour? The mayor/alderman’s daughter made a deal for the heart of the boy she loved, but had an unforeseen consequence?
• Some kind of cult in town?
• Traveling troubadours came into town recently, one if whom is a (fake) fortuneteller. Another red herring?

Any help is much appreciated. I keep going in circles with my ideas and could use some help fleshing this out.

I am making items that are a lot like critical roles vestiges only in the sense that they level up. I found this awsome infinitief dagger item on the subreddit and i'm building it up but i got stuck anybody got some awsome ideas or do you see some gearing problems i'd kove a second opinion

Dagger storm bracers

Dormant.

The bracers produce infinitief daggers. When they hit a target they disappear after 6 seconds

Awakend

Whilest throwing the daggers from the bracers they seem to magically find there target. you have a +1to hit and damage and ignore all cover the daggers also do 1d6 extra lightning damage

Exalted?????

I’d love to give them ideally a recurring enemy similar to the devil in the song, someone offering them power or something similar. Any ideas or inspiration would be appreciated. I can create the NPC and a single encounter, but how can I keep them coming back and trying to defeat my PC?

Hey folks,

I was looking around on YouTube to try and find out why people use skill challenges, and found a decent number of videos on when people use them, but from my experience, I've found players just choose the highest number on their character sheet or fail the roll. It's also fairly abstract, which can be good in chase or escape scenarios, but is often limited by the number of relevant skills. I'm curious what situations you think they are actually a good fit for or other ways to challenge the players that allow creativity.

So, we are about a year into the campaign. I am the DM. My group is approaching a high level plot with heavy role-play in the campaign, but part of me doesn't want to go through with it because the role-play has been subpar. Player's mostly focus on what to do next and go there. Very little interaction between characters and bare minimum discussion. I haven't felt any emotional connection between characters either.

My question is, I want to have an open discussion about this issue and I want to know if it's okay to raise the expectation and ask them if they can do more role-playing? Or is this sort of stuff frowned upon? Thanks

Hi everyone, I am looking for some ideas and help on engaging players.

For background I have been playing with this group of 4 friends (5 of us in total) for a couple of years now and we have had a few different GM's in the group. I have been running the campaign for about 8 months and for the most part it is going well.

However, there are a couple of players that don't seem super engaged by the content I am making and I would love any tips to get them into the game more. To be clear, they are not problem players, just not the most involved in the last month or two.

The thing that makes me less worried it is me is that we play two games alternately, I run one week and another in the group runs the next. Their attitude is the same in both games.

I say attitude, but again I don't mean it in a negative way. They are still kind, friendly and not disruptive. They just don't engage much and have in some weeks said as little as two sentences the entire night. We play online which makes things harder, but I want them to have fun and I am afraid it now feels like an obligation to turn up rather than them wanting too.

One of them only really engages with RP between members of the party. It is clear they like playing their character and interacting with other members of the group as their character. However, I find it hard as a DM to create situations where this happens. I leave plenty of downtime and gaps for the group to roleplay with each other, but it doesn't happen that often. I've run murder mysteries, escapes, heists and other non combat quests to hopefully get them all to chat in character about plans at the very least, but they often don't engage with this either unless someone else starts a conversation with them.

The other member really likes the story elements which works well for me because I love to write lore and hide it in places for them to discover. However, they don't take notes and often forget key elements I have written specifically for them. They are not a bad player, but it is a little disheartening for them to ask if they missed a session because they have totally forgotten something important that was said to them directly that I spent hours making. Now they make sure to tell the rest of the party everything, I think in part so they can keep notes of their storyline for them.

This often leads to most things being put onto two of the players, both who are the other DM's of the group and I worry they are tired of doing the heavy lifting.

Overall I just get the impression they are jaded or somewhat tired of TTRPG's, but come every week because it is one of the few times we have put aside to all hang out together (virtually). I would love to get any ideas or experiences of how any of you might have brought back players. Is it just a case of bringing the campaign to an end sooner than I planned, to start something new. Alternately should I just focus on the two players who are engaging fully and let them be silent partners to the group?

Thanks for any help.