>>98880556
I started a D&D5e campaign four years ago with four players. The campaign ran from level one to twenty and the group fell apart at level nineteen. I rebuilt the group with two of the players and adding more friends. We ran Storm King's thunder (1-12) and have continued onward through the high teens with seven players ranging from 15 to 18.

In the first campaign there was a wizard and a diety warring against each other for control of the Shadowfell, Material Plane, and the Feywild. The wizard was their main foe by choice and there was no resolution since the group collapsed due to real life issues.

In the current campaign the two players who participated in both groups began noticing similarities between campaigns and familiar high powered individuals. They began investigating and found the wizard they hired to help them was the same one they were hunting from the previous campaign. He lost the war and before the planes were conquered he used a Wish spell to rewind time one year to alter the outcome. The players have sided with him and all dieties and high powered individusls know there was a rewind but aren't sure of the exact details.

Out of my eleven total players who have come and gone there have been seven permanent character deaths, countless resurrectons, all but two players have experienced total character loss, and only one has never died. The two holdover players lost their characters and are once again playing their characters from the first campaign.

The current campaign level range will reach into the lower twenties and the climactic battle will likely be 5-6 sessions. We play weekly and average five players. While absent a PC knows everything as if they had been there but they are not involved in the session in any way, essentially a fly on the wall. We are about to wrap up four and a half years of conquest spanning a total fourty five levels, 11 players, and at least 16 PCs.

>>98881105
The group is excited to conclude years of gameplay. The players have all been heavily invested in the campaign and individual backstories. We are currently wrapping up all PC backstory elements as they know survival is unlikely so they want to leave nothing unfinished. Their deeds will live on in further campaigns with perks for any subsequent PC who is tied to their legacy in some way. It's been a pleasure to run and the highlight of my D&D "career".

Before anyone comments on D&D5e being a subpar edition I will say this:
The best gaming system in the world is the one your friends will reliably play with you.

I wish the best for all your campaigns, as a DM or player, and hope you find as much fulfillment and may you find as much in this hobby as we have.

My parting words of DM advice: "Kill them all!"
- Ancient One

>>98881134
*may you find as much fulfillment in this hobby as we have*. Fuck

>>98881105
Seven players in one session seems like an insane number to me. I struggle to rub games if there’s more than three players.

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>>98883432

>Another session has to be rescheduled due to a unforeseen work conflict
>Haven’t played in almost two months now

>>98883427
You're game's dead, the momentum isn't coming back.

>>98883432
I still have hope

The >>98883432 anon is right.
Next time one person is absent, just run the session without them. Which sucks, but it's better than calling the whole thing off.

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>campaign centers around nobleborn artificer PC
>first few adventures are finding components for his inventions
>and encountering demons lurking in northern mountains
>then his little sister is getting arranged-married to prevent a war
>then her wedding gets attacked by the lord they were trying to make a show of strength against
>then civil war breaks out
>characters soon find out lord was being manipulated by psionic woman
>storm royal palace, capture her
>war continues
>nobleborn artificer PC starts inventing magitech mechs
>wants to use them as substitute for war golems
>he finds the binding of elemental spirits to be like slavery
>wants it to end
>also learns to start mass-producing powerstones
>they eventually capture the enemy lord
>force war to end, put rebellious lord on trial
>feed truth serum to psionic woman
>learn she's part of a cult
>they want to undermine the weak king
>causing him to be replaced by someone stronger
>this is to prepare for some kind of apocalyptic event
>she won't name it
>tries to psionically an hero to avoid answering
>also find a bunch of dwarven lost-causers supplied gold to fund war
>they figured it would weaken the human kingdoms
>who they hate for conquering their lands long ago
>artificer PC was also given a not!palantir by his father's court wizard
>who may or may not have used to have been in cult
>they also found a similar palantir on one of the demons
>learned demons are ancient dynasty
>they were exiled, but are fleeing the gutter warrens of hell
>also find another cultist as handmaiden of another royal house
>the house that the noble artificer PC's sister was married off to
>the palantir has told other PCs that the artificer will cause the apocalypse
>he is basically about to unleash the industrial revolution on the world, in magitech form
Problem is, if he is "the apocalypse" why wouldn't the cult just kill him?
I like his character, he's a good humble man tormented by there being no right answer

also please excuse the coexistence of socket bayonets and pikes. It's a gunpowder fantasy setting meant to be 30-Years-War era, but with airships and war golems.

The cult in the story is heavily based on the Bene Gesserit from Dune, where they see themselves as masters of history. They all serve / fear / have knowledge of an ancient psionic superweapon that is basically just an entity of near-godlike power, that is imprisoned.

However it is linked to the palantirs in some way. The palantirs themselves are imprisoned human souls. Breaking them would return the soul to eternal torment in the Psionic Weave where the psionic entity, the Patient Mind, would essentially just batter them about in its thoughts.

Currently it is easy for the cult to simply continue manipulating the nobles into fighting each other, and the PCs themselves are even being manipulated to a small degree to consider trying to take down other noble houses.

This is part of some grand design, and I intuitively understand it, but I am not sure how explicitly I should plan it out.

Part of the cult's biggest pull on the main PC, the nobleborn artificer, is that they are weakening the institution of hereditary nobility, something that he hates. The PC hates his station, his privilege, and the cult is trying to destroy it. So they would tell him, aren't we giving you what you want?

But that character also despises instability and civil war. He wants peace. He builds weapons but he wants them to be peacemaking deterrents.

Perhaps the apocalypse is entirely a lie, perhaps it isn't.

There is one possible plot thread where the characters fail to stop the psionic superweapon, and one if its defenses is a petrification trap. This leaves the PCs petrified for hundreds of years. When they are thawed out, the fruits of the nobleman artificer's labors have been fully realized. The world is run on magic weapons, magic flying ships, basically magitech scifi, with industrial-scale death and destruction.

>>98884288

Well, I'd play, if I wasn't a foreverDM

>>98881134
I only began finding fulfillment when I put a foot down hard and required my players move to PF1e from D&D 5. And by their own admission, it was so for them as well (though one complained about it for a while: he's the stupid one of the group).
I literally just straight up told them I'm not using Dicks & Dildos anymore, so they can find another GM or we'll actually do something that I can find any enjoyment in. Because I'm sitting at the table, too. My happiness matters, too.
They panicked and begged me not to leave. We switched the very next session. They pay more attention now, no one's piddling with other tabs in their browser or doomscrolling, they're actively moving their tokens on the map and listening to dialogue even when it doesn't involve them. They write backstories and develop relationships. They get stressed when their characters are in danger.

The best gaming system in the world is the one you actually enjoy. If your friends expect you to deny your own enjoyment just to serve them, they're not your friends. Find friends who enjoy the same things you do. That's what makes them friends. By definition.
Friends don't demand friends do things they don't want to do that only frustrate them.
You don't have to play that game with those guys. Play the game you actually want to play.
The guys who will want to play it with you will be there to play it with you. That's something that happens *afterwards*. It's not a precondition.

>>98882631
Your players need discipline and social skills.

>>98880556
But what about GMs?

>>98884987
Thanks man. Any ideas or advice on where I should take things? I realized I subconsciously based the main PC (at least, the parts of his character I am in control of, seeing as I am the GM) on Urza from MTG, and the idea that he is raising the tech level fot he setting to prepare for an extraplanar invasion. Currently that's demons, and he's mad at all the noble squabbling and civil wars distracting from that. So for the cult's feared apocalypse to also be an exteaplanar invasion, would not make sense. Also, I already used a pseudoPhyrexian invasion in the last campaign, although those were Far Realm entities. On the other hand, the demons could be fleeing an invasion of their abyssal realms, and that invasion will eventually make it to the material plane. And that would be the threat that the cult is trying to strengthen the kingdom for. Or they could just be trying to undermine the kingdom for the hell of it, or just to destroy the concept of nobility, but these are hyper competent psionic illuminati guys so anything goals that aren't sufficiently lofty wouldn't really make sense for them. They don't care much for money, because if they wanted that they could have just siphoned it from the dwarven magnates they manipulated into funding the rebellious Lord who started the civil war.

I've started running modules lately, and it's a whole different skill set to running my own shit. I'm not sure I'll keep doing it tbqh.

>>98887314
I think the most important skill in using modules is knowing when to go off script

>>98885293
No third-party game masters allowed, only genuine TSR-approved Dungeon Masters here.

>>98885031
I would support you but you went from shit to wet shit. Suck nuts fag

>>98887314
I find modules are fine as long as everyone is in the know that you're running a module and the expectations are that you're going to go along with it. I'm all for player freedom but they don't really work if you have the type of group that avoids every hook or likes to go off in random directions for no reason.

I've got this situation where the players are supposed to go meet some elves in the wood and get asked to clear out a magic dungeon with a lich in it, and I've just got the elves there as a placeholder, and it's boring to me. What can I use instead? Needs to be a group that's capable of working with the PCs and other humans. I've got a few weeks to let this percolate, fortunately.

>>98887453
Just got to give them a reason that they want the place cleared out, I think. Maybe it’s an ancestral tomb of the elves and they don’t like that the lich has taken it over. Maybe the lich was a former elf related to these elves and they want to take care of their crazy uncle before he brings any more shame on the family name.

>>98887470
the reason to go in isn't the issue, it's the elves. And I suppose the lich needs some minions who can leave the dungeon that aren't just goblins or kobolds. Blah.

>>98887667
Oh, you need like stat blocks? What rule set are you using?

>>98887750
Savage Worlds, but I don't need statblocks, I just need something that I'm more enthusiastic about than elves and goblins

>>98888788
Humans.

>>98887453
make them dryads or any other sentient magical creature of the forest

>>98887453
I would make them something that the players would normally kill on sight, and that they would normally kill the players on sight, but the Lich is forcing them to do labor/ gather materials/ bring sacrifices/ whatever and they hate the lich so fucking much that they're willing to parley and form an uneasy alliance with the party to try and get rid of him. Personal favorite of mine is ogres/trolls, but that might be a little too powerful depending on the level of your players. So I would stick with something like generic bird-people (harpies maybe?) or maybe beastfolk. I'd also have them eventually betray the party if they fuck around too much and/or cause too many unnecessary deaths among their people.

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I'm running a silly Halloween one-shot for my friends on Halloween, hoping we can actually finish a one-shot in a single session for once. We're all going to get high on mushrooms, so I expect nothing to go smoothly, but for everything to be fun.

The PCs are summoned by a lich to his castle, who mistook them for actually noteworthy warriors. He explains that his mother confiscated his Halloween candy and he wants it back, so the party must travel through the castle and get to the kitchen. Each room of the castle has some bullshit hijinks, some of which must be dealt with in some way to proceed. For example, an animated suit of armor blocks the stairwell and demands his riddle be solved to proceed, but he forgot his riddle, so tells the party to retrieve a book of riddles from the library. The library has ghosts in the middle of arguing over their book club, and won't let the party pass unless they help end the argument.

All that's left is deciding what monsters go where, and placing loot around

If I'm writing my own short campaign for my players, is there a reason to *not* specifically work their characters in from the get-go, aside from the potential of character death? My sister happened to have made the perfect main character for the story I was planning.
t. second-time GM

>>98881105
Can you share some details about the early campaign with the wizard vs deity? How did you start them out, and how early did you introduce the overarching plot?

Did you just drop hints and let them discover it or did you have, like, an NPC just come tell them about the wizard or?

I've been running more and more games over the last 6 years or so with friends, mostly people who have been gaming for a long a time, and yet the most fulfilling gming experience I've had is the current game of vampire I'm running with some kids in their early 20s who have never played games before. I'm running it like Angel/The Vampire Diaries/True Blood, it's gay as hell, and its the most fun I've had in a game in quite a while. Last session was a shopping montage to get dressed up for a big Toreador-hosted art show where I introduced about six or seven giant ass plot hooks that they're following up on.

Embracing some stupid, silly fanged superheroes drama has been very liberating.

>>98893785
The players were largely unaware of the larger plot until roughly level five. I tntroduced the wizard as an ally who asked them to clear a funhouse style dungeon to test their power. Once the dungeon was clear he clapped his hands and as a show of power he leveled them up. He asked them to help find three powerful artifacts so he could perform a ritual to conquer his foe and revive his long lost lover. He is nice to the players, never lies to them, but is overtly evil and is trying to become a lich and battle the Raven Queen who holds his long lost lover's soul hostage. One PC was a warlock patron of the Raven Queen so they faced some interesting choices.

They didn't discover the wizard was evil for a while until the artifacts they were gathering were clearly evil and they started asking local nobility about the wizard. They confronted him and he was "Yeah I am evil, so what. I have my goals the same as anyone. I still need your help to save my lover." Having the wizard never lie and be up front with the party made them much more likely to see him as person or an asset rather than just a monster to kill. Plus he had enough pizzaz and was giving out levels and magic items so by the time the party found out he was evil they already loved him. Essentially I set up to villains at odds with each other and let the party choose how to handle it. It helps if the diety is related to the party in some way like a patron or even a rival of a cleric's diety.

Drop context clues but honestly I create a conflict with two opposing powers and the players are the third party late to figure it out. Let them choose sides and it will feel more earned when one side wins. It's also fun when both diety and wizard are evil. To be clear they met the wizard at level 5, found out his rival was the Raven Queen around level 8, found out the wizard was evil and wanted to become a lich around level 12, then tried to stop him for the next 8 levels.

>>98880556
One of my players was late last week, so I am going to start the session out with a "monster" that steals experience levels.

>>98897731
>Obviously evil, but honest and nice to the PCs

I love this trope. I think I'm gonna develope this in my game, the powerful Toreador in the city has been the one powerful vampire who hasn't done anything overtly creepy or mean to the players, I think I'm gonnaske them the most fucked up one.

>>98893503
Don't make a PC the main character of your story. People don't want to play the supporting cast around your sister.

>>98887446
I don't know you and I won't ever know you, and I don't care at all about your judgements. What you are experiencing right now is a familiar sensation for you: you bid for attention being completely disregarded.
Go think about why that might be, quietly.

>>98897806
I would highly recommend having a level range for your party. I found the sweet spot to be three levels. The players earn xp/levels as a group as usual but can earn xp/levels individually by continuing to develop their character's backstory through side quests which often include the whole party. Eventually the party spreads out a bit so your players who show up regularly and participate in their own and other player backstory quests are at the top of the range (let's say level 10), those who show up and play but don't care about their backstory or maybe miss sessions here and there are in the middle (level 9), and those who come only sometimes and can't/don't develop their backstory are at the lower end (level 8). New players start at the bottom of the level range. I contract and expand the range from time to time and those who really dig into the campaign can level up quickly through the level range. It allows me to reward the engaged players without in game monetary rewards or magic items. It's far more natural and everyone is happy. It's another tool to show gratitude to the consistent players and it's lame when everyone is the same level without equal effort.

Question

How does one make travel sequences interesting? Skip them? Keep it capped at 1-2 sessions at most? My party has to travel far away because reasons, but I don’t want to just fast forward through travel and neither do I want to have a month of sessions just repeating campfires and random encounters

>>98900526
* Think about the journey in overall terms. How far, what stages, what means (if there's any alternative then they won't just walk), etc.
* Think about the big things they'll need. Sure, food and water and shoes, but try and conjure the unusual. The toll for a gate, surviving the cold, getting through the Plain of Fucksbury without being seen by the dragon, etc.
* Highlight in your mind the landmarks they will pass. Great mountains, dank swamps, towns, bridges, etc.
* Make a mini-adventure out of each significant landmark, stretch, or requirement.
* Get spicy and offer some forks in the path where they can pick one encounter over another.

>>98900526
Ask yourself: is your game about travelling? Will interesting choices be possible en route, or is the interesting thing going to be when they get their? The problem with most travel in rpgs is that it just exists to stretch time between actually interesting game play. In a hex crawl style game, travel *is* the gameplay, but if you're running a more narrative focused game, it's different. If you want to do travel well, make sure the players have actual, meaningful choices that occur on the road, so it isn't just a bunch of encounters standing in the way of their next actual goal. Something as simple as "you can go on route a or b, route a is quicker but bandits have been seen, route b is a little slower because it goes through the woods but their are zero bandits, you'll have to deal with nature though." And even that is kind of weak shit.

>>98900526
As a forever DM, I've struggled to find ways to keep travel interesting and became very predictable by always just throwing in a combat encounter or two to any travel sequence.
However, once while actually playing as a PC, we had an extended travel sequence lasting two, three, maybe even four sessions. I actually found it one of the most fun parts of the game whereas if I was on the other side of the screen I would have been worried that not enough plot progress or events were happening per session. During this time there was of course some combat, some plot events, but a lot of it was just showing up in towns and looking around, interacting with NPCs on the way to our destination. The DM did a good job of describing the changing landscape day by day, maybe throwing in a minor skill check to proceed, maybe we get lost for a day as the road gets rougher, and sometimes nothing happens at all that day.
My advice would be to not worry so much about it and give the travel time space to breathe. How much of Lord of the Rings is just describing the landscape between big events? Downtime helps.

>>98900526
>>98900610
>make sure players have actual, meaningful choices
This is also great advice. Whenever the players are making decisions, the game is working.

>>98899927
Your reply to his post is way longer than his. Do some reflection yourself.

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>>98903005

Killed my brother's character, he was initially bitching that I should have given him leeway because we're brothers but I told him to drink jizz and now he's not showing up this week.

I hope he rerolls next week. He's kind of a tard so he needs the socialization.

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>>98903604

A friend wants to invite a friend of a friend. He's a largely decent player and I don't have any real reason to not allow it but I worry this won't end well. Our game is tonight. We play 3rd.

>>98901670
top bantz

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>>98903237 >>98903591 >>98907179

Are GMs cursed? I was wrapping up a campaign where suddenly I was hit with an ear infection, then a flu, the got circumcised, and then diarhea lasting several days.

This always happens to me. I GM a bit and get struck ill. When does the faustian pact kick in and I get dark powers in exchange for my mortal health?!

>>98903102
No, that's just you individually. Sorry Anon.

>>98903102
>tried to sneak that one in the middle

Whoa, whoa, whoa, what?

>>98901912
Update. New guy was pretty cool. Treated to pizza and really helped to keep the pace of the game moving. We got more done tonight than we have in the last few sessions. I think I like him more than the other guy my original friend and I play with.

>>98903102
Petah mate, time to get your liver checked.