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001-Intro - Running the Game

• This series is all about teaching you to be a DM instead of just a player

002-Your First Adventure, Running the Game #1

• You need friends, rules, and an adventure
• In the beginning, part of the fun was writing your own adventure
• An encounter is anything that stops the player's forward progress: battle, traps, puzzles
• Battles are easy to make harder: just add more monsters
• Dungeonographer, free online with a paid version with more features
• Tomb of an order of knights and goblins have broken in and taken over it
• A few gobin guards at the entrance
• Pressure plate trap that triggers a scythe in the ceiling
• Goblins hanging out in the main/offering room that contains goblins but also the history of the knights and a place for offerings
• Tomb room with a big statue of the knight entombed here
• Bugbear boss hanging out with the statue
• Secret room containing all the sarcophagi and treasure
• Undead pop out of the sarcophagi
• Make the pressure plate require more weight than just a goblin to justify why it hasn't been triggered
• Put the oath of the knights on the wall of the offering room (use this for a later puzzle)
• Riddle on the dias below the knight statue: "If you are to keep this, you must first give it to me." "Your Word"
  • Players must speak the Oath of the Delian Order and give their word to support
  • "I swear the Delian Oath. To serve law, battle chaos, and strive to keep the Delian lore secret"
• Goblin patrol goes by every 4 hours; if the players notice, they can fight them in isolation. If not, they can get ambushed later on.
• What we have is an outline and some nice detail
• What we are missing is the context/setup: why are the players going to the tomb in the first place?
• Mistake: trap in place in front of the offering room instead of behind it, which doesn't make sense if this was supposed to be an open place for bringing offerings. But that's okay! Just rearrange it around a little bit so that it makes sense.

003-Your First Session, Running the Game #2

• One way to start is just declaring: this is where you are, this is why you are here, ready, set, go.
• This is the classic, old school way of starting a dungeon: kill monsters, get loot, level up; no motivation was required beyond "get treasure" or "do this because no one else has done it before"
• Taverns are a great place to start! Example: LotR Inn of the Prancing Pony Hobbits meeting Strider/Aragorn
  • Meet the mysterious stranger in the inn; BE the mysterious stranger in the inn!
  • Gives you an opportunity to establish character relationships
  • Ask players to describe their character: appearance, behavior, first impressions that others should have
  • Talk to some NPCs to exercise that role playing muscle
  • Use the internet to fill out a tavern
  • NPC arrives and says they got my little girl. Goblins have kidnapped the blacksmith's daughter
  • DM's Job: Describe what happens, "What do you do?"
  • Why do PCs do what they do in D&D? Greed!
  • Bounty board is a cool idea: money paid for various dead monster parts (because you need proof, but nobody is going to drag back an entire clan of dead goblins)
• So, where is the dungeon?
  • Maps are a great thing to have!
  • But maps aren't required. In fact, most people have probably never even seen a map.
  • Directions could just be "go 2 miles north and figure it out from there"
  • So, how do you find it? Look for goblin tracks!
  • NPCs are great for suggesting "maybe you should look for tracks"
• Put a forest between the tavern and the dungeon
  • Makes the world feel more mysterious; feels like an adventure
  • Players now need to bed down and set watch
  • Make everything outside of town feel risky
• "you travel along and see the tomb on top of a hill"
• Let the players decide what they want to do anytime. e.g. watching for activity before barging in
• Summary
  • Met in a tavern
  • Talked about themselves to each other
  • Met some NPCs and ordered food
  • Met the blacksmith and found out about his missing daughter
  • Investigated the kidnapping site for tracks
  • Followed the tracks into the forest
  • Spent the night
  • Found the tomb and did some reconnaissance

004-Running Your First Dungeon, Running the Game #3

• The players are now standing outside the dungeon, hiding in the trees
• DM's job is to create verisimilitude: Players should believe this is real! (assuming willing suspension of disbelief)
• Players shoudl feel like this isn't scripted: anything can happen!
• So, what are the goblins' goals? Always know what the bad guys want
• Consecrate the tomb into a temple for their god by sacrificing a human
• Think about what kind of victim would be most motivating for your players
• Goblins are interested in not dying, so they are going to try to run away and alert the others
• Present the tomb as a real living thing: the ritual is occurring and at some point, the sacrifice will occur
• Goblin patrol makes the tomb feel dynamic: everything inside is sitting around waiting on the ritual (and the players); the patrol is the thing that is changing all the time
• How does combat begin?
  • Interesting chart: starting encounter distance
  • This is really useful if you are out in the open
  • Who notices who first? Is there any surprise?
  • Players don't know about a patrol; patrol isn't expecting the PCs
  • Ask a leading question "are you trying to avoid being seen?"
  • It never hurts to give the players the benefit of the doubt, since you as the DM have infinite power
  • Think about the purpose of each encounter
  • Is this supposed to be a resource burner or a life-or-death situation?
  • Two goblins is interesting because one can run away and get help after the first one dies
  • Everyone makes a stealth check; players and goblins both
  • One check for both goblins is fine
  • Then, everyone makes a perception check opposed by the other's stealth check result
  • Now it is time for initiative!
  • If you are surprised, you don't get to act in the first round of combat
  • Make a list of everyone
• Goblins will shoot at the lightly armored characters first because they know they can hit them easier than the heavily armored characters
• Remember: the goblins want to win!
• Once the goblins have taken damage, have them start moving away and firing shots over their shoulder (as opposed to a double move, rapid retreat)
• If they can get some distance, have the goblins shout in goblin that there are intruders, notifying the other goblins
• Goblin guards retreat inside the tomb and begin to fortify the entrance
• How did the goblins get in? The broke down the door (turns out, by using a bugbear)
• Surprise + High Initiative is very powerful
• At every encounter, there is an opportunity for the goblins to retreat and call for reinforcements
• What is the tomb like?
  • Look: dark, goblins have darkvision
  • Sound: goblins chanting deep in the tomb; random movement nearby
  • Smell: dry & musty; this has been closed up for hundreds of years and was only recently opened -- or maybe it smells like goblin poop
• The Offering Room
  • Describe the room
  • Any time the players are outnumbered, they are in serious danger
  • Remember: just because the encounter is now "harder" because the goblin guards joined in, that doesn't mean you actually need to change anything. The players just need to believe it is harder.
  • If they haven't encountered the patrol yet, then maybe the patrol comes in and flanks the players
  • If the players cleared everyone else out, then maybe the players can sneak in and surprise the goblins
  • If everyone knows about everyone else, then it is a standoff and the players get the chance to be creative and "change the conditions of the test"
  • If the players set a trap, let the goblins fall for it, because that is interesting and fun
  • The offering room is just some clues and information to be used later on to enter the secret burial chamber
• Trap time!
  • 10ft pole story: constant trap detection
  • Maybe ask the players to make a perception check, but then everyone gets paranoid and everything slows down
  • You can look up traps and figure out how they work...or you can just decide "this should be roughly as powerful as a goblin. done." Use known reference points to make up new encounters
• Resting
  • Short rest vs long rest
  • 1h vs 8h
  • short rest allows you to spend hit die for some healing and have some abilities reset
  • long rest all your hit points back and all your abilities reset
  • Either way, let's have a random encounter! Resting doesn't come without risk and potential consequence
  • Random encounters can be unrelated but particularly nasty to make the point that the risk is real
• Boss Fight (or so they think)
  • Bugbear time (and the goblin shaman)
  • Choose the imagery you want: victim is locked in a cage, clothes torn, cold, hungry, and scared
  • Bugbear is tough, so be careful about sending more goblins into the room
  • Bugbear is standing guard; shaman is super focused on the ritual, so there is a chance for surprise
  • If a player falls, the bugbear can say "leave and your friend lives"
  • If you best your enemy, it is tradition to capture them and ransom them back for gold or other valuables
  • Bad guys have real tactics!
• Puzzle time
  • It is okay if they don't solve the riddle and decide to leave: they will forever wonder the answer
  • If they ask after the session, keep it a secret! The less information you reveal, the more material you have for future encounters and callbacks; it also ruins the players' fun
  • If they solve it, they discover the secret room! Might be a great time to stop on a cliffhanger
• Secret room
  • Describe each of the sarcophagi and how they are unique; makes it feel even more special
  • The moment looting begins, the undead skeletons attack
  • Scale the encounter based on how healthy everyone is
  • Consider how the treasure could be obtained without combat: honorary member of the order is safe to retrieve items (e.g. a Paladin)
  • Reward with consumable magic items (as opposed to permanent items)
  • maybe a +1 goblinsbane sword (+3 vs goblins), or vs whatever is drawn on the walls of the offering room (the thing they fought in the past)

005-Making Characters, Running the Game #4

006-Why Do We Play D&D Running the Game #5

007-Campaign 101, Your Town. Running the Game #6

008-Dead Ends, Running the Game #7

009-The Sociology of D&D, Running the Game #8

010-The DM Screen, Running the Game #9

011-The Deck of Many Things, Running the Game #10

012-Different Kinds of Players, Running the Game #11

013-The Sandbox vs the Railroad, Running the Game #12

014-Catastrophic Failure, Running the Game 13_Campaign Diary 03

015-Alignment, Running the Game #14

016-Alignment Examples

017-Bad Guys! Running the Game #15

018-Q&A

019-Random Encounters, Running The Game #16

020-Miniatures! Running the Game #17

021-Story Vs Adventure, Running The Game #18

022-Information. Running the Game #19

023-Terrain! Running the Game #20

024-Skill Challenges! Running the Game #21

025-NPCs! Running the Game #22

026-Politics 101, The Central Tension. Running the Game #23

027-Politics 101 - War & Peace. Running the Game #24

028-NPCs 2! High Level NPCs, Followers, and DMPCs. Running the Game #25

029-Interview a DM - Jim Murphy

030-Sandboxing! Running the Game #26

031-Using 4E to make 5E Combat more fun! Running the Game #27

032-Fantasy vs Fiction, Running the Game #28

033-Explaining vs Engaging, Running the Game #29

034-The West Marches, Running the Game #30

035-TIME, Part One. Running the Game #31

036-Slog, Running the Game #32

037-Losing, Running the Game #33

038-Time and Calendars, Running the Game #34

039-Verbs! Running the Game #35

040-Funhouse Dungeons - White Plume Mountain. Running the Game #36

041-Prepping An Adventure + Contest! Running the Game #37

042-An Alternate Initiative System. Running the Game #38

043-Cinematics, Running the Game #39

044-Diplomacy, Running the Game #40, Politics #3

045-Monkeying With Monsters, Running the Game #41

046-Challenge Rating, Running the Game #44

047-Undead, Running the Game #45

048-Let's Start In A Tavern! Running the Game #46

049-Undead Again! Running the Game #47

050-Dice Math, Running the Game #48

051-The Climax of Critical Role, Season One, and 'Mistakes.' RtG #49

052-Vecna & Running Epic Bad Guys. Running the Game #50

053-Pitching Your Campaign, Running the Game #51

054-Red Hand of Doom! Running the Game #52

055-Hobgobglins & Low Level Play! Running the Game #53

057-Campaign Settings - Birthright. Running the Game #54

058-Range and Altitude in Three Dimensions, Running the Game #55

059-Metagaming, Running the Game #56

060-Creating a Pantheon, Part One - Culture First

061-Problem Players

062-Making Travel Interesting, Running the Game #58

063-On Rails, Running the Game #42

064-Speeding Up Combat, Running the Game #59-HZe

065-The Monster Wrangler, Running the Game #60

066-Dead Empires, Running the Game #61

067-Your First Town, Running the Game #62

068-Let's Build an Adventure, Running the Game#63 Live!

• GenCon 2018 presentation
• Certain kinds of beats in all stories
• Start with Steady State World: what happened before the story started and what would have happened if the adventure never happened
  • Star Wars: Luke is never going to the Academy
  • Indiana Jones: Indy is going to always be competing with Beloch and acquiring little trinkets
  • Guardians of the Galaxy: Peter Quill is just middling thief that no one knows about
• Inciting Incident: Trigger that causes the events in our story to happen
  • Star Wars: The droids arrive and tell Luke that Leia needs help; even if Luke declines, he will be a different person
  • Indiana Jones: Government arrives and says "The Nazis have found Tanis"
• Call to Action: Players are like action heroes: reactive instead of proactive
  • Players are very risk averse; they don't risk things without some reason for them to do so
  • "What's in it for me?"; a bit of the director/writer/narrator responding to the PCs saying "fuck off, that's crazy; I'm not going on an adventure"
  • Star Wars: Luke doesn't want to leave home/Tattoine; Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru are killed
• Journey into the Wilderness: Present a world that is the opposite of the steady-state world
  • Can usually skip the first act (steady-state world) in gaming because the PCs already know that
  • This is when you get to see that the PCs are in control of their destiny
• Point of No Return: Trapdoor that opens underneath the players and puts them on the track for adventure
  • Supply chain you were relying on has been disrupted
  • LotR: Gates of Moria; literally no turning back
  • Lock off the civilized world; no choice but to go forward
• Final Confrontation: Fight the bad guy; prove either we are good or we change
  • World changes or we change; in a game, almost always the world changes
• Storm Troopers
  • Need the enemies that the players can kill without consequences (this is a game about monster killing, after all)
  • Release valve for the players to just use their skills/abilities/weapons
  • Promising your players that the time they spend investing in learning about the enemy in this encounter will be useful for future encounters
  • Killing them doesn't present an ethical challenge
• Villain
  • Needs to be more than just "Storm Trooper ++"
  • Could present an ethical challenge or other quandry that makes them harder to confront
• Meet someone cool
  • At least one cool NPC
• Be challenged (Physical, Mental, Ethical)
  • Ethos, Logos, Pathos
  • Physical: Solve with your character sheet
  • 80% of the challenges
  • Mental: Traps and puzzles; challenge the player
  • The Crypt of Lyssandra the Mad is full of logic puzzles and word problems; seems cheesy on paper, but was really fun because someone in the group wanted to do it
  • 1-2 in an adventure
  • Ethical: Give the players an opportunity to define who their characters are
  • Success looks like the players getting stuck trying to figure out what they want to do
• Something Unexpected
  • Predictability in the unexpected is okay: "Ah, I've seen this twist before! I know what to do now!"
• Confront the villain in a cool location
  • Show them something they wouldn't have seen if they stayed back in the tavern
• What makes a good villain?
  • "Keep everything the same" - evil ruler that wants to keep themself on the throne
  • "Change everything" - summon a demon and change the world in their favor (or just destroy it)
• Using stormtroopers effectively
  • Encounter 1: Blue toad demon - okay, cool, we understand the blue toad demon
  • Encounter 2: Blue toad demons and a red toad demon - wait, what's this red one? Why is he different?
  • Make different/interesting combinations of the storm troopers to keep encounters fresh

The Adventure

• Villain is using Blue Slod (toad demons) as minions to help summon a demagorgon and change the world
• Villain wears some elaborate head dress (ya know, to make him cool)
• Meet a cool druid, which is very pro nature, which is cool because Slod and Demagorgon are very anti-nature (very chaotic)
• Druid tried to stop this herself in the past and got captured after her team was wiped out
• Inciting incident: our druid went off with some adventurers and never came back
• Gives players a chance to find clues of the failed adventuring party; build tension with vague messages/notes that don't clearly describe the enemies
• Use the monster manual to figure out other creatures that normally show up with Slod
• Slod are "the xenomorphs from Alien" and can put a slod tadpole inside someone; Ethical quandry: druid is still alive because they have a slod tadpole inside them
• Put the Druid in front of the players before they know about Slod Tadpoles as a thing so they don't guess that the druid is carrying a tadpole
• Number one way to get players to trust an NPC is to give them a cool item
• Super stereotypical character can be a surprise because they keep looking for a twist/surprise; players are always suspicious
• Druid knows she has a limited amount of time before the tadpole grows
• Ethical quandry: how can we defeat the villain by somehow sacrificing the druid? Druid knows she is going to die, but the players don't know
• A good challenge should ensure there is no clear right answer; there should be a reason to prevent the Druid from sacrificing herself
• Cool location: Slod have an extradimensional pocket universe that they know how to get into and the players do not. This is the mental challenge/puzzle of the adventure.
• What is the evidence that evil is happening that inspires the Druid to depart and investigate?
• What is the bad that inspires the town to ask for help when the Druid disappears?

c.f. "Building an Adventure Template"

069-On Being A Good Player

070-On Being An Evil Character

071-Let's Split The Party!

072-Fudging Die Rolls

073-Let's Kill A PC!

074-The Dungeon

• Early in the game, all that existed was "the dungeon". This is about why dungeons are still important.
• Adventure design is all about stringing together a bunch of little microconflicts: "get X to do Y"
• Sometimes players get lost and you have to stop and explain it to them: "wait, why are we doing this again?"
• Dungeons are useful because they allow players to measure progress and always know what they are doing and why
• Creativity needs boundaries, and dungeons provide those boundaries
• Delian Tomb
  • Background (tomb of ancient order of knights)
  • Something has changed (goblins are there)
  • They have a goal (sacrifice a human to consecrate a temple)
  • Crafty villains with traps and guards
• Dungeons are fast to generate with significant returns on play time
• Dungeons are memorable and fun because of the "cool ideas" you bake into it
• Building an adventure is an exercise in taking something complex and simplifying it appropriately, which is very much a learned skill
• Dungeons help you to perform that simplification process automatically (they have constraints)
• "Dungeon" can be any collection of rooms connected by corridors
• Step 1: What is this place?
  • Burial chamber with traps to foil grave robbers
  • Good diety? Bad diety?
  • Ruined keep with a prison dungeon underneath, but monsters have taken up residence in the upper portion
  • Closed off wing of the wizard school hiding a dark secret
• Players don't miss the stuff you cut out or don't design in the first place
• For the dungeon outline, know what each level of the dungeon represents
• L1: Entrance, greeting areas
• L2: Sleeping quarters, food preparation, working spaces
• L3: Classic prison/dungeon or whatever fits the theme
• Each area can either be a room or multiple connected rooms
• Area: Workshop; Rooms: "where we mix inks", "where we copy scrolls", "where we let scrolls dry"
• Easy way to get more rooms is to convert a room into a multi-room area
• Great trap idea: prevent players from coordinating their efforts; e.g. trapdoor that puts a player in a deep pit, and then a monster appears
• Dungeons are great because you can pack lots of little dramatic moments into one place; "out of the frying pan and into the fire" experiences
• Reward exploration: false book in the library opens a secret door; fireplace in the kitchen actually hides a secret chamber
• Force important choices: e.g. going to the left drops a block of stone behind them, preventing ever exploring the other path
• "Build a dungeon" is an acheivable goal; "build a world" can be insurmountable
• Dungeon rooms are great little discrete units to measure player progress and help you guage how much prep is required for next session

075-Tactics and Strategy

• If combat is intimidating and/or unfun...this video is about a simple set of tools to allow you to build and run fun combat
• Combat flavors
  • Patrols: small group of mobile bad guys; usually all the same monster; highly mobile, medium damage; more like a puzzle than a death trap
  • Scouts: range far away searching for trouble; usually a mixed unit; more of a puzzle than an
  • Guards
  • Boss Fights: this is the existential threat!
  • "I don't fit in the rest" (not really combat, but could turn into combat)
• Patrols
  • have patterns that players can strategize against and develop clever tactics to defeat it
  • if they fail to strategize, then the patrol will report back information to the BBEG (or some other consequence)
  • success state: neutralize; fail state: alert the rest of the dungeon; ability to fail forward: patrol decides to investigate a noise
  • easy to see if the heroes are paying attention/playing somewhat conservatively
• Scouts
  • give the enemy multiple sets of tools to use for locating the heroes and damaging them
  • scout's job is to identify and report threats to the keep
  • "hard" to see
• Guards
  • super easy to see: they are visibly standing guard
  • very obvious what is going on to the players: these are guards that are in our way and will alert the others if we fail to neutralize or bypass
  • yet another puzzle: not an existential threat
  • guards can be fooled: lure them away, disguise, bluff
  • guard just needs to notify the people in the next room for a small encounter to suddenly become much bigger
• (Mini) Boss Fight
  • This is the existential threat to the party
  • Monster categories
  • Glass Cannons (chess bishop)
    • thieves, rogues, highly mobile, low AC, low HP, high damage
    • throwing in a glass cannon makes the encounter much more interesting: how do we eliminate the striker without being wiped out by the infantry along the way
  • Infantry (chess pawn)
    • Meat and potatoes of the encounter; medium mobility, high AC, low damage, medium hit points
    • goal is to get up in front, engage, and protect the squishy characters in the back
  • Brutes (chess rook)
    • low mobility, high damage, low AC, tons of HP
    • function as an alternative to the glass cannon
  • Artillary (chess knight)
    • low mobility, low AC, low HP, low-ish damage, but ability to attack anyone at anytime
    • gives the DM the ability to plink "the problem character" (from the DM's perspective) and push them out of range or hinder them in some way
    • forces the PCs to change their tactics
    • could be many characters doing lots of plinking every round or a single character that does a lot of damage
    • should have a range of >30ft to prevent "move in and attack" by PCs
  • Boss (chess king)
    • functions as multiple categories combined together; e.g. could be a brute + artillary for a ranged caster who can disrupt from afar, but hit heavy when up close
    • Legendary Actions (5e) really make a boss feel special since they can now act out of turn
    • Should be obvious that taking out the boss will cause the rest of the encounter to collapse: e.g. if the necromancer is killed, all the undead will collapse
    • This can be something that the PCs would definitely figure out, even if the players themselves don't, so the DM can explain it if necessary
    • "Death of the leader will force the other enemies to make a morale check", which it turns out isn't a real mechanic, but it gets the point across
    • The goal here is to entice the players to ignore the other damage dealers and focus on the boss (as opposed to a slow slog through everything)
• Random tactics
  • If you have problem: bad guys end up in melee before chance to act at range, then you are probably starting combat with the heroes too nearby; great starting distance is 30ft -- "if you put your players more than 30ft away, you will ensure your villains survive one more round of combat"
  • 5e: "split move and fire" -- pop out from behind cover, make an attack, and move back behind cover
  • LOL: build a machine gun out of ranged fighters stacked up behind a brute, popping out one by one to fire and hide
  • deploy infantry as far apart as possible to minimze AoE effects, but close enough to prevent the heroes just running past them without consequence; the magic number is 15ft (so 10ft between them), leaving no space to move past without incurring an AoO

076-Break Your Heart

077-Pitching Your Character

078-The Handout

FILL IN THE LIST OF TITLES

# 086-Downtime

• DMG presents downtime as if it was a minigame
• Favorite D&D story: played a Paladin and did lots of praying and got lots of rewards, which other players felt was unfair
• Kept teasing another player with "Free Me!" in his head. Finish the adventure, player now has some downtime and says "I guess I'll go free my god?"
• Play style for that group was to break out after an adventure into individual side quests; usually worked out in an afternoon or something with the DM while doing something else
• Could be lots of politics or non-combat challenges; little interludes with impact on the game/world before the next adventure
• Advance your own personal agenda outside the group
• Once a player develops some ambition or a personal goal, others are frequently interested in doing the same
• Didn't talk about side quests between adventures and instead would all talk about it together right before the next adventure began; it was more fun that way
• Side quest for freeing my god turned into "I released a bunch of super evil dudes and now they want to take over the world??" which was then the entire next adventure
• The Black Company (books?)
• Downtime is a chance to pursue your players' own goals; play asynchronously; be independent; invent your own goals
• Provides two different styles of play: together and separate; building characters and then building a team and then building the characters further
• Solo adventures are always more personal
• Let the players have the idea and then also let them be the ones to make the decision to do it. Don't just say "yes, that seems safe"; instead say, "that's what you know and you don't know everything, but it seems that way". This forces them to make the decision themselves and create the drama they are about to experience.
• Important to have lots of failures states when doing 1:1 games so that a single bad die roll doesn't go horribly wrong. Don't have a team and multiple die rolls to recover from bad luck.
• Players need to have their own motivations and ideas for what they want to do
• Take breaks between adventures to play other games or let other people run their own adventures. During that time, let players act on their character's goals.