Venomfang has been slain! Thank you to everyone that took part in bringing down the dragon by liking the video! Now unfortunately the magic axe in the treasure hoard will have to be split into 136 pieces to give everyone a fair share 😅.

I set a side quest in Ravenloft. I really turned on the darkness, gloom, and despair to bring the atmosphere. It turned out to be incredibly depressing to my party. So much so, that when the big bad was slain, they wasted no time looting or delving into any of the normal hooks, they just hauled ass back home. I actually felt bad that the sessions there had been too dark and caused stress. Your advice is good, especially asking players what they want from the game. My group had no stomach for the horror and hopelessness.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

It can be hard to do horror and helplessness in role-playing games. Requires being vulnerable with the people around and can be draining over the entire length of an adventure. But it sounds like you set the mood very well! Make sure to ask if they enjoyed/liked that dark atmosphere. Maybe they liked it, but in shorter bursts! Hope you got to enjoy the campaign overall!

Hi. Forever DM here (14 years now). I took a 2 year break from DMing because I had bad burnout but I have a few tips too for any wayward soul that happens to find it helpful. 1. I live and die by the 1 down we ride 2 down we wait rule. If we are out one person it kind of stinks but we will key them in the best we can. If someone misses multiple sessions or it is a common occurrence I usually have to let them go. I try my best to have a conversation with them letting them know that it isn't them. It isn't personal and usually they are welcome back but their spotty availability makes it hard on us all. 2. Weekly is almost always better than other situations if possible. It isn't always possible. But if it is then do that. Second best is every 2 weeks. I have never seen a monthly campaign work in the long term. The reason why I think weekly works best is because it puts people into the habit and if you miss a single session its not a big deal. But missing a session when you don't meet that often sometimes means waiting a month or more before meeting again. That makes people loose interest in the story. Also I think the speed in which you get through the story matters as well. This bleeds into part 3. 3. Get things done. I have lots of "campaigns" that never ended. Mostly because they were homebrew in my own homebrew world that never had a planned "ending". I just kept coming up with new things to do. That was the plan. It also meant that it was broken down into more digestible arcs that people could enter or leave easier. Sometimes people wanted to change characters and this was a great opportunity to do so. Though I have had some campaigns actually get "done done". Usually the pre-written ones though I admittedly haven't run many. Again weekly lets you get so much more done in a shorter amount of time. 4. This was mentioned in the video but please always talk with your players. Ask them what they want to do. Some people like different things. The best headspace to be in as a DM isn't one where you try to make a "cool" world but rather a world in which you would like to be a player. Always have at the forefront of your mind what will be the most satisfying thing for the players. Let them win, let them loose, let them struggle. 5. Last one. I could probably write a hundred but I won't. Let campaigns die. I have let more campaigns die than I have run to the end. Don't try to hamfist things that aren't working. Sometimes players don't get along. Sometimes groups don't mesh. Sometimes players don't vibe with your DMing. Sometimes you as a DM aren't in the right headspace. Or perhaps scheduling conflicts have harmed your prospects at moving forward. It doesn't mean you can't play DND. It just means this particular game is done. Maybe the characters can be reused or the group split up if there is a scheduling conflict? Maybe reform a new campaign out of the ashes of an old one if there is a falling out with a member or two. Always make sure to learn something from every game you DM. And every game you play in take notes on things the other DM's do that you like. Ask other DM's questions about how they prep and what they do. They usually want to talk as much as you.

Tried a blend of "animated" and just talking to the camera for this video! Though the camera was not cooperating, so my apologies if the camera stutters are too distracting.

@TnTyson81

2 жыл бұрын

Thought it was odd as your production values are normally on point but the message was still we'll put across.

@thenourway

2 жыл бұрын

I liked it better than the all animated, because that was very fast paced and hard to follow at some times. This was more engaging, for us lowly non-D&D players. But I am not your target audience… I don’t think?

@ItMeansSun

2 жыл бұрын

I guarantee noone noticed any stutters

That essentially happened to me about a year ago. Most of the players characters died and the players that joined a Curse of Strahd campaign didn't have narrative beef with Strahd. Where the campaign started to feel like a trip to the Circus instead of a high stakes of despair. As a GM. I latched onto 2 players where they were rhe only remaining PCs that began their story in the Village. What annoyed the players was the inconsistent time schedule. Where 1 player's job had an inconsistent work schedule. Players lived in opposite time zones. 1 lived west coast while others were east coast. I said, that "due to personal responsibilities we won't have a game this week." It kinda became a meme at the table when the Campaign started to fall apart. That was a poor attempt at my part to avoid players feeling bad about my skittishness and unprepared state when 1 or 2 players cannot show up that session. I hope to run Curse of Strahd again, and this time make it into a fun campaign setting.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Brutal! Scheduling can be so hard! As can mixing new characters into a story. If you run it again you'll have so much knowledge of possible trouble spots though! Will help a lot with running a fun game.

What I think matters is the way questions are structured for what they liked or disliked about the session. As Green DM stated: "Did you have fun?" is an inefficient question to get a critical perspective on the online Tabletop experience. Think of it like this. "How's work?" No duh, the recipient of the question is not going to frame their response other than "good." Think it as: "Oh, at work who do you get along with the most?" The question is essentially the same, but it sparks more enthusiasm from the recipient to talk positively or negatively on the topic. Then I think will help guide the conversation for you to decipher new information. Also, the "did you have fun?" question could be misinterpreted as a sign of insecurity. Or be a statement to inadvertently force a player to be positioned as the negative speaker among the group. Here are some feeler questions for D&D games: When did you feel like your character contributed the most during the session? During the session, what dragged down the pacing for you? For the combat encounter, was I over or under descriptive? What do you suspect your character will do for the next session? What were the highlights of the session for you? Some of these are overly specific. But I hope it gets your brain gears turning to find what questions that will assist you for future D&D games.

Well, quarantine helped finishing mine.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

I hope that is in a good way. Like "hey you have no where else to be, so come play dnd".

@CCCeramics

2 жыл бұрын

Ya'll I've never had people show up so consistently for games as I did during the pandemic, it's true. And though I know it's technically not over, I saw when things started to switch. Now I can expect one player may be missing per session, a need for reminding/polling people, and reiterating the minimum I will still run with. That being said, I also saw some weirdness come about from dnd turning into one of the only social things people were relying on during mentally trying times. I had to do some meditation between players in ways I've never had to before. So I still give pandemic 0/10.

I agree with everything you said! I've had significant luck when I define at session zero that we'll play if one person can't make it but cancel if two can't make it. It's also nice to define a backup day that will be the first option if rescheduling is preferred for a given week. I also despair when playing online and everyone hops off immediately when the game ends. I like the social winding down after the game.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

The instant hope off is TERRIBLE! I setup that we "hop off" the game channel in our discord and go into a general voice channel. Helped a lot of the instant leaving.

Mate, your content is amazing and I'm happy you exist.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you!

Thank you for your honest and useful advice. So much of it resonated with me! Best of luck on finishing a campaign 👍

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! And starting a new campaign soon, that will hopefully be short enough that it does in fact finish!

To find out what your player or their character cares about, step 1 should be: Ask them. Seriously, just ask your players. It is quick, painless, easy and shows that you care about their characters!

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

True!

@ikariiprince

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah I found that funny that a lot of these issues boiled down to “better communication”

@XpVersusVista

Жыл бұрын

@@ikariiprince well, almost all of humanity's failures boil down to: greed/egotism, miscommunication, patriotism/nationalism and ignorance.

I had my first and only campaign die. It sucked because, as the DM, I so badly wanted the story to be told. But now I am thinking about how I could improve.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

It does suck to jade campaigns die. But making mistakes and struggling through obstacles are part of the learning process. Hope your next campaign is a little better than the last one! And keep those story ideas around. If your players are like mine, they start asking to revisit failed campaign areas in about 2 years 😄

I found your channel and I love it. every video you provide very good and helpful tips and also add comedy and art that pleases me (the audience). Keep up, you ll grow. Also can I mention that atm I am watching the video, we have 136 likes to kill the Dragon of Thundertree which has 136 HP.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Also I shall pin a comment on the slaying of the Dragon!

I think a big thing for me at least when it comes to Campaigns is the pacing aspect. And that’s between both the players and the DM. But it kinda plays into what the Green DM was talking about in this video about having a number of sessions that is going to encompass the campaign. I’ve been playing in a campaign for three and a half years now and needless to say, fatigue is setting in. We wanted to do a big level 20 adventure but after all this time we’ve only got level 10. It’s become sooo slow and it shows. We’ve had 6 people come and go from the campaign and I believe it’s because of this issue.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

3.5 years is loooong. I recommending taking a break to play boardgames or other tabletop rpgs. If not that, then at least talk to DM about pushing levels faster to inject excitement into game. Hope you can complete the campaign before burnout totally tanks it.

@joshp.1682

2 жыл бұрын

@@GreenDM We’ve talked about pushing levels faster and the pacing aspect and I think our DM is starting to get the hang of it. He keeps telling us that things are gonna start moving a lot faster but I’m not seeing it. Frankly, we don’t even know what the main story is yet which (for me at least) is frustrating. Another thing on our part though on the players part is pointless RPing. I know it is a role-playing game but getting sidetracked with out of place RPing or screwing around can really mess up the timing on a session.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

If you like the straight forward nature of having a main thing/quest, I'd bring it up with the group. Some people are very use to free form stories so they don't recognize that having a clear end goal can help drive a campaign to conclusion. As for the pointless RP, that really is a double edged sword: shows players really want to interact with the world and other characters, but can feel like nothing really "happens" during it. The DM may be able to bend those pointless RP times into the main story or plot, but that is very hard. Perhaps talking with the group and having those pointless RP parts become less sentence by sentence conversations and more broad concepts and actions. That is a hard one to balance at the table!

@joshp.1682

2 жыл бұрын

@@GreenDM I like those ideas thanks for the advice. I also really your videos. Thanks again!

Some really sounds points that I've never thought of. Thank you

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for watching!

I have a lot to say on this topic, including advice on what has worked for me (and hasn't), but what I am going to say for now is unrelated. I need to finish OotA so that my players can watch your video on it together with me and laugh, like my last group did for your CoS video. We are most of the way through Blingdenstone. Say a little prayer to Smoothands for me!

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Good luck! Hope they can get back into the underdark after that one section where they leave it.

Very useful advice even for experienced dm's (I've been playing for 6 years and I haven't finished a campaign either). Since the beginning of the quarantine my eternal campaign (3 years or so) has moved online and for me it was really bad. All the attention, hype and fun died. Now we continue online because certain players study in other cities, but man, playing physically is a whole other matter. We were only able to play all this summer physically and came out some of the best sessions I've ever played. Then this fall we went back online and boom, painful sessions. it really sucks

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

I've been struggling with online dnd as well. Just started a new campaign using tabletop simulator to try a new version of online dnd. Hopefully it goes well!

@lorenzosaracino9912

2 жыл бұрын

which tabletop simulator do you recommend? i've always used discord because i really have a problem learning sites like roll20 or similar hahah

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Lorezno I meant the game Tabletop Simulator on steam. There are workshop mods on Steam that have full dnd table setups. So you can download one of those and work from there.

There was a spanish D&D twitch campaign called LYNXDYD: Barovia. In this campaign the DM changed all he needed to change in the Curse of Strahd campaign for the players to enjoy the campaign. Strahd became a secondary but important NPC and their BBEG was Isidor, the nemesis of one PJ, who kidnapped his daughter. Different NPCs from the original campaign were removed just to bring some NPCs from their backgrounds. Basically, the DM made a personalize Curse of Strahd (Now "Curse of Isidor") for these characters and I think that this is what you should look to do in every campaign you lead.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

I agree. Strahd more as a faction or force in the world, not the main antagonist the party cant fight at all till much later. And definitely learning to make campaigns around characters, or at least bend them to make the players connect to it more.

As a new DM who just finished his first big campaign I relate so much to the "who cares" point. I ran Waterdeep Dragon Heist, and it is basically a treasure hunt for 500 000 Gold pieces. Only my players barely reacted whan they learnt about a treasure being hidden somewhere in the city, becoming rich was not a big motivation for them, so it was really hard to get them to follow the plot at some points. Really need to work on that on future campaigns.

@GreenDM

Жыл бұрын

100%. I wish Wizards had much more at the beginning of their adventures give possible reasons for why player characters would want to go through these big adventures and stay engaged. Seems lacking in most adventures. That causes lots of DMs and players to struggle to stay invested in a long term campaign.

I finished 2, and another one ended earlier than expected, but we all agreed that it was a very good and fitting ending (TPK, but by the characters actions, and in a bookend feel of a completed circle). About 7 died. I'd like to improve these ratios.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

I too wish for better ratios! Hope you can get more finished in the future!

Very succinct and informative, good video dude!

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Hope it helps with any future campaigns you have!

Wow, I honestly wasn't expecting this level of quality. This is awesome.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! I don't make dm advice videos often, so I am trying to make them good quality.

I read the title and immediately guessed scheduling would be one of the problems. Even just yesterday, daylight savings time messed up the session time for some of the players in the game I play in and delayed things 1 hour.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

I didn't even think of daylight savings time as a scheduling problem, but of course it is! Hope you still had a good session though.

10:56 I played in TTS and I was constantly spawning dice for people to roll around. Not quiiiite a fidget toy but close enough.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Rolling dice is surprisingly fun in TTS! Which is good because rolling dice is very important to the feel of dnd for me. And just chucking them across the table is fun too!

Great video!

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! Hope it helps!

I've been in three weekly games with different groups for over a year now, and it actually looks like we'll be finishing all three campaigns. Here's the secret sauce for me: Nobody leaves the table until we've set the date for the next session. This lets us flex around schedules by only being one week ahead of time, while always knowing when to play next. The sessions chain together into infinity :)

@ThisAintAStupidName

2 жыл бұрын

Also - if only one player can't make it, we still play. Someone else controls their character, or their character is just absent for the session.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Scheduling is the most important part, so always working on it is a good idea! Also letting a session continue without someone being there really helps campaigns keep forward momentum.

My players are mine BF and GF, so scheduling conflict isn't a thing at all, because we all leave together

@GreenDM

9 ай бұрын

Very lucky! Hope you have many good adventures with them!

@darkhol222

9 ай бұрын

@@GreenDM dnd threesomes, yes indeed

I'm generally surprised that first campaign that i started DMing for my friends (ToA), i chose it because i liked the idea of them roaming jungle and adventuring but it's damn hard for first time players and DM but we are after 2 years in endgame and i'm preparing something to continue up to lvl 20 for them to make them legendary heroes of realmspace not just toril

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

That's incredible! Having your first campaign go so long is really cool! Hope they can survive that final dungeon and head out into the world beyond the jungle!

@paanjaan

2 жыл бұрын

@@GreenDM i have already contingency in case of TPK in form of Kelemvor :D because i guess they will be able to destroy Soulmonger since is not that hard once you get there

Our Curse of Strahd is still going luckily, though we had to go from bimonthly to once a month as one player decided to marry and have children (imho by far the biggest threat to any campaign, way more so than jobs etc). Luckily my GM and me are too gay for such things and we will drag this campaign to the end even if it has to be on our own (I will marry Rahadin, no one can stop me!!!). But yeah, definitely getting a good team of people who all enjoy the same thing is very important as well.

Mate this is legit my favorite dm tips video for the current dnd climate. Your who cares section especially. It's extremely poignant for premade material especially, given that the hooks provided aren't catered to your party or players.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you# I've found using official modules as a foundation then adding character specific connections and homebrew stories works best for me when I want to make a campaign. Usually doesn't end up looking much like the module but it helps to have a place to start!

Question: is the cookies glue tens freed,Bcauz i's problems...

I'm running a campaign about ancient China right now with guys I've been playing with for years and man it's annoying regarding scheduling.

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

Scheduling truly is the worst

Dude get the candle off the books. Fire hazard bro

@GreenDM

2 жыл бұрын

They are electric candles, so hopefully more safe than just books near an open flame. hopefully.

underrated content. do you have a discord i could join?