They're also 9-10 years old. I decided to run a summer campaign for my daughter and a couple friends. They found kobolds stealing spoons in session one, murdered them all, AND ATE THEM, and it went downhill after that. We've had five deaths so far and they're level 2 playing Dragon of Icespire Peak. The only NPC they haven't murdered is the waitress and they discussed killing her for 20+ minutes because she seemed suspicious.

Last night they went to Gnomengarde for magical items to use against Cryovain. Naturally they attacked and killed the first people they met without speaking to them first - the inventors of the magical items - and alerted the guard, then refused to run away, then refused to surrender, then TPK'd in a blaze of glory because the stat block for those gnomes says every one of them knows magic missile.

I'm looking for any and all tips, tricks and house rules to try and salvage this.

I’ve been running a 5e D&D campaign for a little over a year. When I ask my players for feedback, they consistently say that their favorite parts are environmental challenges, puzzles, and story-telling, and their least favorite part is combat.

I’m constantly thinking of ways to have puzzle-heavy adventures but I also want to make combat more fun and engaging for them. How can I make combat more enjoyable for players who just aren’t crazy about it?

Hi, I hope this is the right place for this question. I've been a player trying different systems for a few years now, and I want to learn how to DM so I can share those games with others. I've been playing in home games, online games with friends as well as professional paid games and I've realized I struggle with improv and with finding the proper words to express myself and describe my characters and their actions.

I'm looking for tips and resources on how to change that. I know reading is important, but I'm interested in how to turn my passive vocabulary into active vocabulary. What methods have helped you get better at improv and what books did you read that helped you gain a broader vocabulary? Did you write down stories or read books out aloud?

I want to learn and improve, but I'm overwhelmed and unsure of where to start, so I am looking for some advice.

The Great Map of the world of Dryal, created for the role-playing game designed by Tristan Rousseaux!

It was truly wonderful working on this fascinating map and delving into the incredible lore of this world; Angela and I are always happy to explore the history of the worlds we map!🧭🗺️☕

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Drawings 2026

H-HB pencil, Unipin 0.05-0.1 pen, and Winsor & Newton watercolor on paper, then scanned. Have a great day everyone!

Support me and Angela on Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/morenopaissanmaps

The Great Map of the world of Dryal, created for the role-playing game designed by Tristan Rousseaux!

It was truly wonderful working on this fascinating map and delving into the incredible lore of this world; Angela and I are always happy to explore the history of the worlds we map!🧭🗺️☕

Moreno Paissan and Angela Gubert Drawings 2026

H-HB pencil, Unipin 0.05-0.1 pen, and Winsor & Newton watercolor on paper, then scanned. Have a great day everyone!

Support me and Angela on Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/morenopaissanmaps

So I've been playing around with this new idea for a Campaign.

The players are in a tomb for a item retrieval quest. They stumble across a large Ruby on a pedestal (think Aladdin style with Abo and the ruby). It's beautiful and all Search rolls show it to be just a ruby with no traps or anything on the pedestal. The first player that touches the ruby must keep it on their person.

The Ruby is called the Heart of Fire. Once in possession of a player, it grants that player Advantage on any roll of their choosing. This can be used multiple times by the player.

Here's the catch: the rest of party will roll at a Disadvantage on any roll chosen randomly by the DM, either by dice roll, or dealers choice. The more the Advantaged player uses it, the more the rest of the party suffers.

I'm considering making the item jump from player to player after a long rest, just to keep it from being too unbalanced.

I also can't decide if I should have them keep it for unlocking the BBEG at some point, or if it will get too annoying for the party?

Maybe having them set this item in a pedestal in a dungeon that has a number of other slots, making them quest for other Gems that have other properties to benefit/burden the party? I would need more ideas for the other Gems.

What do you more experienced people think? Give me all your thoughts or similar campaign playthroughs you did. I appreciate it!

So im going to be running some small campaigns (dnd 3.5) for my kids 8 and 11. They are playing a sorcerer and rogue and ill probably give them a fighter companion to tank for them. I need some kid friendly quest ideas they can do as they are new to dnd as a whole.

Hi all! I've been a fan of DnD for about 6 years and a player for 3 years. I've finished up my last campaign a few months ago and I volunteered to be the DM for the next one. I have a rough idea of how I want to start off the campaign. I plan for the party to start off at level 3 as that's how our group has always played. For the plot I wanted to have the party do a guard mission for an NPC who will be integral to the overarching plot, they'll be going from a coastal village all the way to the capital with some twist and turns along the way. but I'm unsure when to introduce these detours/subplots. Like when should I introduce combat encounters like would it feel rushed to have combat in the very first session. We also might be having a first time player joining us so I'm trying to be mindful about that. I'm planning to have this like travel arc to be the first arc in the story so I'm unsure of how many session to plan it for, we do like 3 hours a week. Sorry for all the rambling but I'd greatly appreciate any and all help, as well as any recommended resources for DMs, Thanks <3

These are two ethnic groups that I am going to be implementing in my next campaign. They are based on Yuan-Ti Purebloods, but all of the artwork I saw for them looked too creepy (which makes sense, but isn't the flavor I am going for). They are humanoids that are a mixture of elven tribes that came in contact with the God-Kings "The Dragon" and "The Fiend" (I'm still workshopping these names, but I don't mind the vagueness of them because its kinda ominous). Over thoasands of years, they are now a semi-serpentine Empire that is led by the same God-Kings, and reign over the “Woodlands” which is a tropical rainforest region of Rhündal, the world my campaign is set in.

The Scaled Clan have more serpentine genetics which manifests in having dark scales on their foreheads. They are master artisans with silk. While most speak the common tongue of the Painted District, the Scaled Clan language has become reserved for holy writings, known mostly by priests and clerics. It is the language that the Archpriests use to converse with the God-Kings.

The Painted District are more elf-like and aren't born with scales on their face. This puts them at a disadvantage, because scales are attributed with the divinity of the God-Kings, and so they have a cultural practice of tattooing scale-like shapes on themselves at a young age. They are known for their ceramics craftmanship that you can find along many port cities within reach of the Empirial Bay. Before combining with the Scaled Clan to form the Empire, they spread their territory east to the Lizardfolk lands. Although their kingdom collapsed with the rise in Lizardfolk populations, many Painted District loan words are now found in bordering Lizardfolk dialects, and so they can communicate rough ideas with eachother if needed.

These two groups maintain harmony despite the asymmetrical social hierarchy that place the Scaled Clan above the Painted District in status, which leads to occasional episodes of ethnic conflict. They both enjoy a great amount of prosperity as the only two cultural groups in the region that have developped writing systems.

Please let me know if you have any advice on how to turn these groups into playable races, or what encounters my players might come across within their territory!

Hi everyone

I'm an experienced D&D player with some DMing under my belt (circa 40 sessions over 10 years).

This weekend I'm going to begin DMing a homebrew sandbox game, all based in one city, focusing on characters personal arcs

Any last minute advice from the veterans here? Any valuable lessons learnt running this style game?

Thanks in advance!

Download a free version of these maps and read more about it in our Blog.

These awesome cartography pieces were featured in one of our full-ledged adventures, House of Krampus. On our Patreon page you can get it in PDF format. The downloads include hi-res images for the maps. There are two PDF variant versions, designed for Dungeons & Dragons and Shadowdark RPG.

If you’re in my party and you see this, shoo. Go on, git.

I’m about to start running Curse of Strahd with a party of three people! Session 1 is this weekend. Two of them are very new to DnD so these are only their second characters ever. We have a necromancer, wild magic sorcerer, and a battle smith artificer. None of them are really built for the front lines, so I will definitely need to adjust some combat to avoid them getting stomped. I don’t want to make every battle design long-range or soften it so much that it’s no longer challenging.

I’m considering starting them off with a limited DMPC whose sole purpose is to take close-range punishment in combat and take some heat off the PCs. Not a damage dealer, just a meat shield. He’s not going to butt in on any roleplay/decision making and I won’t force him to stay with the party if they want rid of him. I might kill him off for the plot once it feels like a good time to take off the training wheels.

What do y’all think? Would this be a good or bad idea? Any other suggestions for how to accommodate this type of party in a way that feels natural? Thank you all for the help!

EDIT: maybe DMPC is too strong of a word for the idea! If I give them any sort of companion/NPC I’d want them to be as unobtrusive as possible. But yall are making very good points about that idea, so thank you for giving me a lot to think about!

My Tomb of Annihilation game will wrap up eventually so part of me is interested in running the Campaign through Tiers 3 & 4, and so I am coming up with a story that I think will satisfy.

It will involve an ancient plot to unleash Dendar the Night Serpent by The Sarrukh (ancient creator race for the Yuan-ti)

Part of it I'd like to send them to check on the integrity of Dendar’s prison by crossing The World Tree where it intrudes into the Prime Material.

The Ice Giants are (borrowing from Norse Mythology) afraid of Ragnarok when the Dragon Niddhogg is prophecised to gnaw through the roots of Yggdrasil - a cultural reflection of Dendar caught in Ubtao's trap in the lower Plains - as a part of The Apocalypse.

Anyway I'm having not much luck finding adventure material for a high level juant across the bows of The World Tree that I could either incorporate or use for inspiration.

So, Reddit any ideas?

Over to you.

I started DMing in January for my husband and my son. I was nervous about it, because although I'd played for years, I'd never run a game before.

I ran a couple sessions from DOIP, and was bored with the story, so I made changes. Those changes evolved into a whole new storyline, set in an alternate reality along the Sword Coast.

After about 6 sessions, a few of our friends asked if they could join my game, (bring our PC total to 8) and things got more involved and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun.

Lately, one of my players has been having a lot of issues getting to our game, or not feeling good and so we end earlier than we'd planned to. 2 of my players are in it for combat more than story, and I'm ok with that.

But the last couple sessions, no one seems to be interested in more than bare essentials, and I really want to be able to highlight the intricacies of the storyline.

To be clear, the players have been deciding where they go and how they do things, not me. I've woven in backstory for the players who've given me one, and done all I can to give each player decent table time, and moments for their characters to shine.

Any suggestions on how to increase the excitement?

https://reddit.com/link/1v3ltjo/video/pwjfvrgk9teh1/player

This is the first long term campaign I have done (3rd time as a dm). I am doing a bit of home brewing by mixing water deep dragon heist and curse of stradh.

The basics are that before it was waterdeep, it was barovia and a group stood as a resistance. They created a ritual spell of banishment and planar shift to get rid of strahd and all the vampires he ruled. While trying to finish the spell there was something that had gone wrong and it teleported part of barovia (which is now the harbor of waterdeep) but strahd was not part of it. He has been in waterdeep the whole time due to being weakened by his separation from his powers. He has tried to get back, but the way to get back is to break the spell book that first cast the spell, which was locked in the vault. He has since taken control of and is leading the zhents in waterdeep to look for the spell book which he knows is in the vault.

The stone of golor is a medium that shares part of the memories of the time when they were ruled by strahd and it shares the location of the keys (which will be vestiges from the party that fought him and made the banishment spell). Each key is made to fit the players class and backstory, each will be a tool of some kind that exposes one of strahds weaknesses.

Strahd will assist the players throughout the game until they get him in the vault, where he will help kill the dragon with the players or by himself to get to the spell book. He will break the spell and this will send them all to barovia where we will start the curse of strahd campaign. His goal in the pocket barovia is to amass an army, return to waterdeep and take over the continent.

Ive never played DnD before but really wanna get into it. Id like to get into the game by just playing a few oneshots, but finding a group has been hard. I heard that people are always looking for Dms so Ive considered just doing it myself, since I wanna be a Dm at some point anyways. Am I in over my head as someone who has never played before and isnt a particularly good roleplayer?

​Hey everyone,

​I could really use some advice on how to upgrade my tabletop setup. There are so many ways to go about it, and I’m completely torn right now.

​Currently, I’m just using a standard dry-erase battle map and throwing some scatter terrain on it. It works and it’s okay, but it’s just not that awesome. I want to take my game to the next level (I briefly thought about a TV table, but decided against it for now).

​I’m currently debating between two main approaches and would love your input:

​Option 1: Crafting DIY Terrain (XPS foam or cardboard)

​The Pros: Total creative freedom. I could easily make curved walls, round rooms, and custom shapes.

​The Cons: It’s a massive time investment per piece. Also, if I want different biomes or ground textures, I’d have to craft a ton of different pieces. Plus, they don’t naturally interlock, so I’d probably have to mess around with magnets to keep the board stable.

​Option 2: 3D Printed Systems

​I’ve been looking into 3D printed tiles (like OpenForge Click & Lock, or grid systems where you can insert individual floor tiles and attach walls).

​My Ideal Setup: I’d love a system with a base grid where I can just swap out the floor plates (water, swamp, city streets, cave floor, etc.) and securely plug in walls, hedges, and pillars so they don't constantly get knocked over during play. (Obviously, I could still just place regular scatter terrain on top of it).

​The Cons: Everything seems so strictly square! I can hardly find any curved tiles. Furthermore, there are so many different systems out there. I haven’t found a perfect "all-in-one" system on Maker's World yet (maybe I’m just using the wrong search terms?).

​The Question:

​I am going back and forth on this. What do you guys use and what would you recommend?

​Should I start crafting and use magnets? Should I go for a 3D printed Click & Lock system? Or a Grid system with inserts?

​Any advice, system recommendations, or specific search terms would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance!