#dungeon master problems

[atlas7seo]

My only gripe with Dungeon Meshi is that I, a DM, now has even more unrealistic expectation for my players' puzzle solving abilities due to the clever ways Laios' party kills monsters. But then I remember it took my party 50 minutes to light a lantern to solve a puzzle.

[threeroadsmeet]

I found out two of my coworkers. Both younger than me by 7-10 years are very interested in playing DND. One has only played once. The other not at all but really wants to...neither of them have friends that want to play (the younger one has really shitty friends apparently: her words, not mine)

My hyper fixation has been triggered and I have become Dungeon Mom 😭 making sure they have all the resources. I just don't have time to run another campaign right now but I might host a one shot for them.

[strixcattus]

The upcoming arc in my D&D campaign involves the PCs meeting the ENTIRE NOBILITY OF THEIR COUNTRY including not only every royal family in full but also an entourage of knights and one priest from each region and even though most will no doubt be background characters I have no real guarantee who will or will not be spoken to so they all need at least a name, race, class (for the knights), appearance, age, and rudimentary personality just in case I need to involve them in a conversation

And given I'm still only at the point of having names, ages, and basic descriptions for the noble families themselves—which is to say I'm pretty much where I was when I started except they're all written in the "characters" section of my planning document instead of just the "miscellaneous—Nokobia—leadership" section—I frankly have to admit this:

I have a significant amount more respect for the author of Bleach right now. Twenty-six-plus characters being introduced in a single arc didn't seem particularly impressive until I found myself on the other side of it all.

[julandran]

There's so much stuff in my brain. Sometimes it just leaks out.

Matt Mercer, correcting a bit of worldbuilding he’d previously misidentified Critical Role — campaign 3, ep. 53 “Ripples”

[deanturtle]

Trying to create a prayer to the raven queen for the players to discover. Trying to strike a balance between being nice and poetic and not adding too much that needs backstory explaining.

Like calling her “the matron of fates, bane of Narull, lady of memories” is nice but won’t mean much to my players who don’t listen to d&d lore videos as they go about their housework.

[m4lexxx67]

Scrolling through dm tumblr posts and there's sooo many cool ideas, but I can't reblog shit bc there's players following me here jxndjdjsjdbsn

[evilartificer]

do you have a problem player who is under stimulated and makes that everyone elses problem? do they make puzzles a nightmare cuz they keep solving it before the other members can even see it?

the solution: make increasingly ridiculous little side puzzles tailored to just for that one player

examples being a calculus problem, an ARG esc video with hidden goodies, debugging a python script!

[wishingstar12]

Hi. I’m Wish. And as an “introduction post”, how about some chaos from the warlock in my campaign? I will gladly share more stories of the adventures of this psychos over time.

Just a heads up, I’m horrible at staying on track with stories, so bare with me.

~

I recently started a campaign for my friends. I’m dragon obsessed, so it’s a very dragon based campaign. However, the dragons haven’t fully come into play. HOWEVER, our warlock is a little.. chaotic.

On the FIRST SESSION OF THE CAMPAIGN, the group had settled in an inn. I was like “Okay cool. We’ll settle down and end session here.”

Oh boy, my baby dm self was not prepared 🤣

Our warlock decided to jump out of the window of his room, which was on the second floor. Ended up hurting himself, but just.. walked it off!

He heads into the forest, and sense they just started out this character has no real reason to stay. So to scare him back, I “introduce him” to one of the BBEG’s dragons. (For those who don’t know, BBEG stands for Big Bad Evil Guy/Gal)

Context to this: The BBEG Lelos has three dragons, two are loyal to her, one is loyal to one of the dragons loyal to her. The two loyal to her are an ancient blue dragon named Sidio (saved Lelos and is now her “father”), an ancient red dragon named Athanasios, or Athas for short (Lelos saved her, and they’re now best friends), and an adult black dragon named Inkanus (Athas saved him, so he’s begrudgingly loyal).

Anyways. In order to have him return, he came face to face with Inkanus. What does this bitch do?

He tried to punch the fucking dragon. He missed, which is hilarious, but still tried to punch an ADULT BLACK DRAGON. (I mean, fair response to being snuck up on but still-)

There’s a bit more chaos that happens after he’s turned around by Inkanus’ threat to kill him if he goes any closer to the mountains, including contemplating breaking into a farmhouse to sleep for the night instead of returning to the inn, but he does eventually return.

To his own bed? No! To obvious! Let’s very creepily enter the Druid’s room and stalk over him!

So yeah. Druid is kinda freaked out despite being a 7 foot tall naga.

I forgot to mention this earlier, but our warlock is a red dragonborn. Keep that in mind for the next part.

This bitch decides to roll underneath the Druid’s bed, and gets stuck. So he sleeps there all night.

-

Now let’s fast forward to the most recent session. Keep in mind we’re only like.. 5 sessions into this campaign.

The group is now heading to a fort that resides in Thornehaven, one of the seven kingdoms within the Runia Empire (where the campaign takes place).

First things first, before even leaving, the warlock gets drunk. First thing in the morning, and he’s drunk.

They have to cross a bridge, which is being slowly barricaded. Our wood elf rogue goes out to try and figure out what’s happening, and try to convince them to let them through.

When asked their purpose, the NPC I made to temporarily guide them along says that they “need to learn to protect themselves” hence why they’re going to the fort. Keep in mind she knows full well they can handle themselves, she’s seen them fight. It was something that she said quickly to hope the guard would let them pass (who was being controlled by the secondary DM at this time)

The group, reasonably, is kinda like “what the fuck?”

Which leads to the warlock, out loud, in front of a guard, saying “We’ve literally killed people.”

-_-

They eventually get by, and come across another adventurer, who at first is a bit defensive. The warlock ends up throwing something at her (I don’t remember what) and nearly starts an encounter, but the Druid manages to settle the situation.

There’s some interaction, and then they’re on their way to stop at a town for the night. Upon arriving at the town, the warlock starts looking for booze.

He finds a shop that has a sign saying they say alcohol, however it’s closed. As it’s night time at this point. So, sorry warlock. No alcoho-

Bitch tries to break down the door, then shatters the window, then tries to break the bars behind the window. Unsuccessfully.

After they finally leave that area, the secondary dm hilariously reveals “Yea, they actually don’t sell alcohol. That shop used to, but it was bought out, is now a potion shop, and they just haven’t taken the sign down yet.”

~

So uh… there’s the warlock. He’s kinda the most interesting character in the campaign besides the Druid so far, but I’ll share more on these psychos as the campaign progresses.

Aight bye✌️

[thirddagger]

Ya girl is back on their DM grind and this time it's in the OCEAN

I am so excited, all I have are DnD fish ideas, to my player(s) who follow me here and you start to get suspicious no you aren't

[kyliafanfiction]

What is it about players of D&D and D&D derivatives that makes them so freaking determined to take the path of most resistance when the obvious options are RIGHT FUCKING THERE

[earlgreytiefling]

currently googling to try and determine if elemental whales would be classified as sapient or not

[a-curious-being]

Why are my players like this!

Me, first time DM, with vague outline for a campaign, and a fairly solid outline for the first session.

Players, my family, all new to DnD.

———

Me: *playing one of my favorite NPCs, whose a little weird, and really likes the party.*

Player 1: this guy is immediately suspicious because he’s being really nice.

Me: *slightly stunned because while I do have nefarious plans for the man he hasn’t done anything yet, but he’s also just kinda like that.*

———

Me: *enjoying being a dramatic little shit as the NPC.*

Player 2: “where did these strange objects come from.”

Me: “oh! How bizarre, I have no idea.”

Player 2: I don’t trust that.

Me: ok, can’t you roll a-

Player 2: Nat 20. “Tell me the truth, where did these come from!”

Me: *slightly stunned* riiight… ok

Me: *working out how to not fuck up my plans to much*

Me: so he leans over, “well you see dear. I left them.”

Player 2: “ok!” Moving on!

Me: *…internally confused that didn’t go further.*

———

Me: *still recovering from the last incident.*

Player 3: oh, wait wait, what if the weird friendly NPC is actually the crazy powerful magical creature that created the town!

(For the record I talked about said creature ONCE, via the most jittery little priestess you ever did meet.)

Me: *internally screaming because that’s EXACTLY WHATS HAPPENING!!*

Me: what? *just act confused this is FINE*

Player 3: yeah can you imagine? Anyway!

Me: *inhuman brain screeching*

———

And all this in session one! It was stressful! Leave me and my weird little man who might become an antagonist alone you heathens. I need you to like him first before I can rip your hearts out!!

[nebjamin]

So I’m running a murder mystery in my D&D campaign and one of my players just randomly walked up to me and correctly guessed who the culprit was after just one session. He hadn’t spent much time with that NPC and he hadn’t seen many hints yet, so there was no way he should have known yet. He then clarified in a perfectly serious tone:

“It came to me in a dream.”

None of the guides I read prepared me for this.

What the fuck do I do now

[minimallycreative]

who let me be an author / dm. i have too much power.

don't stop me, im having a delightful time

[tofu-bento-box]

curse of strahd DMs:

your players WILL adopt victor. he can insult them, admit to two murders and agree to cover up a third, mention cursing a man into insanity, and generally sulk, and it will not matter. they will adopt him. you cannot escape.

[sadbisexualmusic]

As a DM, you worry about if you made your encounter too hard, because you’ve previously gone a little too hard on your players and ended up with two of them making death saves, so you make your boss fight a little easier than before, keeping the big boss tough but starting with less of his minions with the option to summon more of them provided the very beefy boss (with a consistent source of temp hp) is still alive.

And then one of your players crits on your big bad guy three turns in a row.