Ending a long-running Dungeons & Dragons campaign (or any TTRPG) can be one of the most intimidating moments for a DM. You’ve managed to carry the momentum, tension, and player interest for dozens of sessions over perhaps years. How do you wrap all that up into a few final sessions that leave you and your players feeling like it all paid off?
We’ve talked about DMPCs before, but now Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything has added a new way for DMs to have an avatar in the game to help PCs out, cover any weak spots, or just have a view across the table: The sidekick. In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave break down how they handle party companions in their games, what they think of the sidekick mechanic, and how to run a sidekick or DMPC who doesn’t overshadow the party.
Whether you’re running a campaign or playing in one, it can be a huge commitment in terms of real-life time. Case in point, nearly all the games we are currently running have been going anywhere from a year and a half to three years. Over that time, it’s not hard to imagine how playing a character or even the world itself might start to feel a bit stale. However, not all, or even most, of the members of the campaign may feel that way. They could still be having a great time. This is why we’ve composed a list of tips to help both DMs and players overcome the fatigue of their current games until it’s time to bring down the curtain.
DM prep: It can be the most important thing to putting on a good game or the biggest obstacle keeping you from getting back behind the screen. Some DMs say the thing to remember is to not over-prepare, but YouTube DM guru Ginny Di recently called this The Worst advice new DMs hear, and that it actually hurt her development as a young DM. Is “don’t over-prepare” bad DMing advice? In this episode, Thorin, Tony and Dave take a close look at Ginny Di’s take, the different ways they approach prep, the pros and cons of trying to DM without over-preparing, and how new DMs can find the right level of prep for them.
They say a hero is only as good as their weapon, which may not be true but if you’re Thor, She-Ra, Drizzt Do’urden, or Trevor Belmont, but it gives them one hell of an edge. Not to say that their amazing magic weapons or objects of badassery define them as characters, but they definitely add to their personas. The same concept can apply to D&D characters.
Rich, vivid descriptions bring your fantasy world to life. Unfortunately, they can also lead your players to think that the intricately carved and decorated elven bridge they’re crossing has to be an important clue or secret! If it weren’t, why would the DM have given it such a cool description? This is the curse of the red herring: When you’re casually monologuing details to give the world depth, and the players lock onto something that you meant to be insignificant. Next thing you know, they’re spending 3 hours trying to investigate a mystery that isn’t there. d Dave talk about red herrings they’ve seen get out of control and what they do in their games to try to back to the story … if they can.
As the DM, when game day finally arrives of course you want your game to be both as fun and memorable as possible. However, you don’t want your adventure to come off like a bad action movie that feels like three forgettable plots sandwiched into one. Nor do you want your game ending after just two hours because your crew ran through your content like they chugged a six-pack of Red Bull. This is why we have created a list of tips, so your session will have a satisfying amount of material but not so much that a one-shot adventure takes 12 hours to finish.
What’s some of the tedious stuff you have to do as a DM that you really wish had an easy button? Why does WotC make some essential DMing info hard to find (or at least hard to find while you’re trying to run a game)? Here are the tricks and tips we use to try to make DM chores from magic item pricing to map making and initiative tracking less tedious and more fun. And, spoiler alert, it’s different for all of us because every DM has different things they find tedious in running the game.
In our recent episode on “How Many Players Are Too Many for One D&D Game,” we answered a listener’s question regarding “How big is too big” for adventuring parties. The challenges this creates can be confusing for both beginners and advanced DMs. So, I decided to share two examples of running 5e games with eight players to reflect on how I did it, what worked and what didn’t, and, hopefully, help you agree that, while having too many people wanting to play is a good problem to have, it’s still a problem.
The oldest Dungeons & Dragons books said the game was for 4 to 50 players, and we know people who DMed white box D&D campaigns with groups in the 20s. But that was then, and D&D 5th Edition runs into a lot of issues once you pass a certain number of players. So, what do you do when your game is already at 6 players and 3 more want to join? That’s the question posed by one of our listeners in this week’s episode of 3 Wise DMs.
