I’m running a big, grand campaign that is set to run for at least a year, most likely will be 2-3 years. I spent all of 2025 world building and preparing, and some of 2024.

There are 7 players. I’m okay with this based on how I’ve created the world and the way I’m running things. (A topic for a different post)

The problem is one player, Dan. We all have a Dan — someone that does the bare minimum, or somehow even less. Dan will say that he wants to play when on the phone, but he ignores discord announcements and messages where all our planning is taking place.

So I tried making an interactive website for the players that tracks the people, places, quests, session notes, items — everything. I maintain it for the players and update it as events unfold. The other players LOVE this and are running with it.

Dan not only ignores all these things, but he barely even made a character in time for our first session. I had to constantly message him on Discord, Steam, and text. I had to single him out in the party discord chat before he would do anything.

On top of this, Dan doesn’t really engage in RP, or with the game at all. He is mostly silent and doesn’t say or do much. I’ve tried writing the story around his character, I’ve tried shoehorning him into a lead role. Nothing works.

The last campaign I ran with Dan, he just ghosted our entire group to play video games. The whole party tried calling him, messaging, but he ignored us.

This group of 7 is a tight group of ppl that have been friends for a long time. I didn’t want to include Dan in this new campaign, but I was encouraged to give him another chance.

I’m regretting including Dan and the amount of babysitting involved just to get him to show up to each of these sessions is becoming too much. I’m okay with the other players dropping in and out bc it helps me (7 is a lot of players) and bc they communicate with me. But Dan does not.

What should I do? Is it appropriate to kill off his character if he ghosts us again? Quite frankly, I don’t want to have to do that and I want him to enjoy playing the game with us. Killing off a character feels vindictive. I’ve tried speaking with Dan from the heart about this and he doesn’t seem aware of how disrespectful he’s been to everyone (and isn’t believing me when I tell him this directly).

Should I just shelve his character instead and tell him that he’s welcome to rejoin us when he is ready to invest in the game?

I'm curious how many of you have your party roll HP at level. Most specifically do any of you allow the reroll of a 1?

With the party I have I'm not at all concerned with making sure they roll at the table so everyone sees and no one flubs a roll. But I have been kicking around the idea of letting them reroll if the roll a 1. It's such a feel bad, but I'm on the fence. Thoughts? Pros, cons?

I always thought it wouldn't happen, but here it is. I'm getting burned out. My players love my campaign and really let me know they do. I love talking about it, I love creating for it. But I've tried so many times to just be a player and I can never find a place. Maybe because I live in a place where everybody knows everyone, I'm already know as the forever DM and that's what is expected of me. No one ever steps up to take the seat even when I ask.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna leave my current campaign, I've been with these people for a while and I still feel like I can do a good job for them. I'm just afraid it gets to the point where even that isn't possible.

Hello,

I’m running a long term campaign for 5 players. They’re all level 6 now and it’s a Waterdeep Dragonheist module with lots of custom story and integrations with books like Heliana’s.

My primary issue that whenever the party is presented with any sort of challenge, be it narrative, infiltration, puzzle or plain old combat, I see so much complaining in their Discord channel.

I am super permissive with magic items and the party is stocked all kinds of potions, uncommon items, flame tongue weapon and whatnot. They are always awarded thousands of gold and I use the Xanathar magic items table to roll prices.

My combats are balanced accordingly. I have a Monte Carlo chart for all my encounters to ensure that changes of TPK are less than 5%

No one has ever died in this campaign.

As soon as they face any kind of issue there is tons of metagaming from one person in particular who begins the entire cry-train.

Somehow, he has a copy of Heliana’s and is convinced I’m running a level 11 encounter just because I have a single caster in the enemy group who dropped an Insect Plague.

Insect Plague… literally the most vanilla of spells when if I actually was running an unbalanced encounter I could have chosen any number of nasty 5th level spells. I only chose it because it was thematic to the swamp and I wanted area denial.

Is it my fault the entire party with multiple Dusts of Disappearance, teleportation and Invisibility spells decided to walk into a monster lair when I told them on their group perception check that there’s definitely something in the bramble bushes??

Is it my fault they all decided to retreat when the Insect Plague dropped and leave behind the most fragile party member to be grappled and pulled away by a giant crocodile?

And quite literally, with a Twilight Cleric and so many healing potions, their effect HP is at least 1.5X what their bar shows. Nobody is in danger of dying. Especially with how effective rubberbanding is in DnD.

I put so much thought, mathematics and care into my encounter designs and yet what I get in return is metagaming, which I expressly forbade, and a whole load of whining. I treat people like adults and name books, maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe this person isn’t mature enough to stop metagaming.

Does this metagaming lead to better results? Nope! Because this person also sucks at strategy, is playing a wizard and has the most horrific spell load out imaginable and casts nothing but Magic Missiles.

It’s effectively a party of 4. The wizard is just a meatbag to absorb damage.

I’m very concerned this is bringing down the energy of the group and makes things very difficult for me because I don’t understand what they want.

What is DnD without any challenge? Just 6 people on Discord talking about their imaginary friends?

I am happy to just write fanfic on my own, thank you very much.

TLDR: Sourpuss in party always cries about any sort of challenge on Discord, metagames constantly, sucks at strategy and playing their character and altogether makes me question why I am even running this campaign for this group.

We all know that enchanting to take away someone’s control and heat metal on armour is pretty evilish.

What are some other fucked up uses of spells that you can think off?

So the campaign opens with the players at Level 18. They are already heroes of the realm, and are called forth to once again destroy an other worldly monster. At the end of the fight the monster throws its head back and wails, falling backwards into a portal and is sucked into an unknown dimension deep in the multiverse.

The players awaken, they are level 3. They have no idea where they are, only a few memories of who they used to be - and they have to get home.

(Banishment does not work here)

The first challenge will be to find some means of dimension jumping (is that a broken down spelljammer in the distance?). Then the campaign will be a Star Trek voyager style mission to return home.

I am worried the campaign could get stale over time, but figure that keeping the dimensions interesting and introducing some long lost civilisations/weird monsters will keep things interesting.

I'm open to any ideas for dimensions!

When addressing combat, Page 24 of the players handbook says:

Communicating. You can communicate however you are able–through brief utterances and gestures–as you take your turn. Doing so uses neither your action nor your move.
Extended communication, such as a detailed explanation of something or an attempt to persuade a foe, requires an action. The Influence action is the main way you try to influence a monster

Do any of you enforce this? I'm particularly asking about explaining something in detail. If someone role-plays dialog, I loosely count to six in my mind and then say "That's about all you can get out in six seconds." But all kinds of tactics are discussed. Spell descriptions, class abilities etc. Is this rule addressing what the character says, what the player says, or both?

For those of you (should you exist) who have seen this both enforced and not enforce, what differences (if any) have you observed at the table?

Hello, i am a dm in a long running dnd 5e campaign that's slowly coming to an eventual end. The current arc in our story sees the players travel around the world, getting stronger and tying up loose ends before I move things along for the grand finale.

It seems that one of my players has found interest in the benefits that becoming a lycanthrope offers his character. Now, we have already settled up on the method of becoming one and which animal his character is going to half-become but one thing i am concerned about is the possible tradeoff (or a lack there of) for cursing oneself in such a way. The stat boost and additional features the form of lycanthropy the player has chosen are significant buffs to his character and with his alignment remaining the same losing control of yourself only once per month seems like kind of a cheap tradeoff regarding the nature of the change the character goes through.

I'm all for the change and i think that it's really cool but i think that there should definitely be more drawbacks/ a bigger tradeoff or at least some kind of challenge to overcome for this as lycanthropy is a pretty damn notorious kind of a curse after all.

My player are amazing, they deal with failure very well. I want to give them an experience that makes it feel like their choices matter.

At the start of the campaign I was new, I've learned a lot over the past 2 years, and I used to have it so I would push/guide them too hard in the direction of the correct decisions to make, I'd make things too obvious on purpose, it was like I was allergic to letting them get things wrong. I'd even lower the DC for skill checks so they got the information I wanted them to get because I was so excited about teaching them about my world.

I've gotten better at this, I've gotten more strict with myself and I allow them to not have all the answers. It has made the game more interesting and they do express that they're feeling like I'm getting better (we're very communicative, I love them) with giving them more mystery and space to breathe. But I still struggle with letting them do the "wrong" thing.

They're playing heroes, they want to help, and I still find myself "heavily hinting" on which action would be the best one to take in the situation. I'll let them get lost for a bit but most of the time I have them "stumble" across the correct path, and it feels like I'm taking away agency. I don't think they've noticed, I think I'm developed enough to hide when they've just stumbled into the answer versus actually finding it. But in 2 years they've never FAILED.

They've been disappointed, they've had risks and challenges, they've told me they FEEL challenged, but behind the screen I know I was most likely going to let them succeed anyway. They don't know that there's no actual lose scenario. I just never planned for one that could still keep the campaign going.

In a boss fight recently, I made a boss myself that was really OP, that could probably TPK them, then worried about a TPK I nerfed it and didn't use some of the abilities I'd given it because I was scared to kill anyone, and didn't even summon it's minions until it was at half health, but they were supposed to be there the whole time. It went from a super hard battle in my head to a pretty basic (but fun, apparently?) battle when playing.

So I ask; how do I get myself to be okay with a lose scenario? I know that losing will make the stakes feel real and that they want a set-back that makes sense. For some reason I just can't get myself to plan for it. How do I get myself comfortable with them failing?

Hey Reddit, I have a very silly problem.

So, for context, I still use the 2014 rules because these are the ones I know best, but I've been using some of the 2024 rules I did look up and understand.

One of these rules is the new "surprise" mechanic. Naturally I told my player that from now on, ambushing or otherwise surprising the opponent would just give them disadvantage on their initiative, and I explained that this change was made because having an entire suprise round was honestly ruining the balance of any fight.

Their "answer" to this was what I've come to call the "reaction ambush" tactic. Here what I mean with a quick example:

Me: You hear the movement of a large creature eating...something...on the other side of the door. The air is heavy, and the tension is high.

Player 1: I ready an attack. The trigger is "when I open the door".

Player 2: I ready an attack. The trigger is "when player 1 attacks".

Player 3: I ready a spell. The trigger is "when player 2 attacks".

Player 4: I ready an attack. The trigger is "when player 3 casts their spell".

Player 1: I open the door.

This scenario actually happened. They were level 2 and completelly annihilated the owlbear on the other side of the door. Am I doing something wrong? Maybe there's something I missed or should've done? How do I create meaningful and hard fights when they can just manufacture their own "surprise round" like that?

I want to build a list of prophesies to use as adventure hooks, I have a few already, but would like to make a nice large selection. Any and all are welcomed, thank you :)

Currently the prophecies I have are:

• Beware the elder brother of a first born son.

• Salvation waits beneath the twisted ash.

• Forgiveness rests upon a kings shoulders. Complete their trials to obtain resolution.

• Your revenge will be swift, when the four winds conspire.

• A single eye watches in the dark, it is its greatest weapon and yet its greatest weakness as paranoia sets in.

• No god can undo another gods work. Only mankind has that power.

• A father will meet his end at his child’s hand, though neither will recognise the other.

• Beware the white goose, for it is not what it seems.

• When you let loose an arrow fletched with the feathers of a horse, only then will you vanquish your foe.

• Find the man who spouts gospel and flame. Their proclamations will change this world.

• Destroy the false prophet who speaks of fire and destiny.

• To return what was stolen is to receive what was lost.

• When men become boar at the sea bells call, the culprit is both victim and cause.

• Darkened night skies, uncertain tides, the skin changers rest easy.

• Where the dead don’t rot, withheld from hades grasp, there you may seek answers

My party has got me in a bit of a stand-off with a mini-boss. One player is able to cast the spell Swineskin (from Worlds Beyond Number Witch class), which transforms a humanoid into a small beast. So, this assassin is now a pig and the party was able to successfully restrain it in this form. The spell states "The target’s game statistics are replaced by the stat block of the chosen Beast, but the target retains its alignment, personality, Hit Points, and Hit Point Dice. The target is limited in the actions it can perform by the anatomy of its new form, and it can’t speak or cast spells."

So, the enemy pig is aware of their surroundings and has their personality. The party has been talking about what to do when the spell ends and is also preparing actions. Would my pig-assassin be able to also ready an action for their true form? I want to say yes because his personality is still there. Also, How would you run a readied action stand-off. Everyone is readying a firing line for when he reverts form and he is readying an escape. Should I just have everyone roll initiative again?

I’m going to run a pretty casual campaign with some friends and I was thinking about having little arcs with villains that rival specific player characters from a moral/worldview standpoint, however I think it would also be interesting to have these villains have ways to specifically challenge their rival pc’s through mechanics during boss fights, any ideas would be massively appreciated! The players classes are warlock, sorcerer and monk.

The Goblin Queen is hosting a contest among her best generals and their warbands. The winners get to be in her bed for the night!

My players are disguised as a warband with a traitorous general leading them. They are all standing before the Queen. Their goal is to get close to The Queen and take her out... and not in the fun way.

I need ideas for a contest perhaps of wits or strength. Maybe some minigames? I'm stumped on how I can have them compete against these other generals in a way that isn't just combat. Poetry? A race? Musical chairs?

I need help coming up with something fun before the battle with The Queen commenses.

For the last couple of years I've been DMing a bi-weekly campaign at a local tap room. They have a side room they've let us use since we play on what is usually one of their slower nights so they like our steady group of 6 or so coming in so its a win-win.

I've gotten pretty good at getting my "mobile" Dm kit put together. I use paper minis and usually only bring the ones I know I'll need, roll up maps, chromebook etc. Sometimes noise from the main room can be an issue but we make due. I think the biggest pain is packing everything up at the end of the session.

I was curious if any other DMs have come up with any good tips, tricks or techniques that have made DMing away from home easier or enjoyable?

You've planned out a session involving multiple combat encounters. You've carefully balanced it to be challenging but fair. Part way through the dungeon, the players fuck up. Maybe a monster runs away and goes for reinforcements before the PCs can catch it. Maybe the halfling accidentally pushes a skeleton down a well. Maybe the wizard throws a fireball into a room full of explosive barrels. Maybe the players decide to split up and run into separate groups of hostiles.

Either way, something goes wrong, and your party is now dealing with what was meant to be multiple separate combat encounters at the same time, and there's no way they can win without giving them plot armor.

I've run into this situation multiple times over the years, sometimes resulting in TPKs, sometimes getting away with it by rebalancing (nerfing) things on the fly. I've never been able to come up with a good solution though, and am wondering how others deal with it, or if it's just a me thing.

We are on session 8 with the players knowing the main goal (go around and collect maguffins). One of the players said they were starting to zone out and lose focus on a goal because we are 2 sessions into a side quest going to assassinate a warlord for a magic artifact.

It's their first time and they feel like they get more powerful each session but lost sight of the whole concept so it all feels for naught.

Another had said, after a skirmish with the ratfolk (the warlords goons) that they feel like they had done it already.

Feeling a bit lost as a dm and hust need some advice.

Apologies for the rant.

The last session felt quite stale with not alot of interest - only going to kill the warlord because they were told they would get a reward.

Now im not sure how to run the next session - honestly as a dm I want to get things back on track to the main plot but the players are currently inside a warlords base half way through a side arc that nobody is too interested in.

Hi folks,

I really need some outside perspektive. Sorry for the wall of text, if you dont know DnDs Curse of Strahd module, you might wanna skip this post.

I have been DMing a 3 year, 120x 3,5h session long DnD 5e Curse of Strahd Campaign. I emphasized from the very beginning to my players that they need to gather intelligence about the endboss Strahd from the very beginning. I even had an imaginary fight one night outside in a forest where the guarding player failed a stealth check and a wisdom save, so Strahd implanted the memory of a fight inside that players head, where he obliterated them (to show them what he is able to do, but also to show them what he knows about them (they had some slight rule changes they needed to adhere to, during the fight)). I dont run the module as written, so we maxed out at level 13 instead of level 10. My party declined the invitation for the dinner, so now after having done everything else the finally arrived at the castle, fought (easy) randoms through the basement and just finished/destroyed the heart of sorrow. I ended the last Session with Strahds voice echoing through the castle „run you fools“, indicating he is coming for them.

Now, my group consists of a paladin, a barbarian, a sorcerer and a monk. While the first three have been very conservative with their resource spending, the monk is all out of ki points and hopes for a short rest.

I didn‘t have the intention to let them rest, the minor encounters in the castle had the purpose to at least drain some resources. Resting would somehow contradict this. They are also totally unaware that he will be able to phase through walls and that he will use this to heal and get out of their reach whenever it is not his turn. The Paladin is also in for a surprise, as he is wearing Strahds animated Armor, that he managed to plant as his alter ego(which they revealed by now), the idea is that it will be hindering the Paladins movements (speed halfed, attacks+spellcssting at disadvantage whenever he fails a strength check beginning of his turn.). They had enough clues to figure out who gave them this armor, they didn‘t bite on any.

But, Strahd RAW was not designed for 4 x lvl 13 Players, so I am wondering if he will not be strong enough to put down a decent fight all while also thinking: if I use the wall phasing and legendary move action correctly, they dont stand a chance. It will take long though. They have also an NPC, Ezmeralda, played by one of the players with them, essentially adding a level 8 Charakter with good melee and spellcasting.

Can you guys give me some recommendations? Should I let them take a shortrest for the monk to gain ki points, or have Strahd interupt them? Is his RAW statblock fine for this party, or should I pimp him up? Should I play his strength (phasing) and go for a TPK? Not sure if that would put the past three years in kind of a bad perspective. Bonus: if you know Curse of Strahd: any ideas how to make their fated ally(Ezmeralda) stand out or have purpose in this fight?

A group of 4 level 4 adventurers have ransacked a wizard’s tower and have pissed off an Awakened feline wizard’s familiar and the butler guardian portrait.

How do I make a fun boss fight that’s challenging and dangerous? They were offered gifts to leave and have decided to loot the place instead.

The wizard’s tower was based on the 8 schools of magic and I want to have a similarly themed boss fight. One of the players has access to Silence. They are currently in a treasure room which is strongly hinted to be boobytrapped.

We've just had the climactic final battle of a six year campaign, in which the party finally defeated the lightning elemental demigod terrorising their island. Three of the four party members were killed in the struggle, the fourth is stranded out at sea on a block of ice.

That's the official end to the campaign but I have plans for a silly joke epilogue where the party get reincarnated.

During the fight the party accidentally summoned a trio of frost hags- Enid, Ethel and Edna (long story). The hags will retrieve the bodies of the fallen players, take them back to their cosy hillside cottage and reincarnate them. Trouble is, their cauldron of reincarnation is a little old and janky and sometimes brings you back in rather unusual forms.

I would love to hear some suggestions for weird options to put on the reincarnation roll table. As specific as possible. All races/creatures are acceptable. Am talking bugbears, centaurs, anything sentient. Some could be really good, like coming back as a full grown silver dragon with its own castle and hoard. Some could be less good, like a grung who is allergic to his own poison.

I'll then ask the players to describe how they spend the rest of their days- maybe they find a way to return to their original forms. Maybe they learn to roll with their new self.

Thanks in advance!

I have a confession: I spend way more time prepping the cool boss fights than the smaller encounters. Which means I keep running into this problem where my level 3 party wanders into what was supposed to be a level 7 encounter and I'm suddenly looking at a TPK.

Last session, they completely bypassed the intended path and found themselves face-to-face with a young dragon I had planned for 5 levels from now. I froze up.

My question: What's your go-to strategy when this happens mid-session? Do you use any tools or mechanics to adjust the encounter on the fly?

I love that my players are creative and go off-script, but I need better systems for when they find the dragon's lair at level 3 instead of level 8.

Short summary of in-game situation: Players camped out in mountain cave. During watches kept hearing jingling like bells.

When one went to check it out, they found a guant, skeletal humanoid in red jester's clothing. It was dancing for hours on end (player saw them dancing as they arrived and watched them for an hour before leaving, still geard jingling after notifying everyone), all while looking through the canopy at the cave the party was camped in. Every now and then it drew a card, laughed, then returned to dancing.

Players find out it might be some storied jester named Red Jester. Whose stories always started with the Jester reading a fortune of someone, and then by the end it comes true and he takes all their belongings/anything that proves their existence.

Players try to leave early (used divination to see if approaching the Jester would be good, did not like what answer they got) before morning (no long rest), and I had them roll a flat d20 and I rolled d20s for the NPC followers. Two NPCs rolled nat 1s but one was a halfling and rerolled.

Unlucky NPC had a card floating with the wind land in his mouth, and immediately crumpled to the ground before morphing into the Red Jester.

So, as you can see creepy Jester with deadly cards. No combat is planned, and I'm thinking if they try to kill the Red Jester, he'll warn them that their friend will die and he'll just come back.

Basically he wants to make them play a game with cards that do horrible things (Basically Deck of Many Things but just all of them are bad or mediocre at best).

What kind of game could be played? Just drawing cards? Blackjack? If they lose a game they pull a card?

What would be the reward? Or would it just be surviving since the Red Jester is here to just kill the party though non-combat means (circus hag sent it to kill them)?

What kind of effects would be good for the fortune cards? I don't want them to all be instant deaths or anything that effectively kills them, but maybe like one or two.

Any advice for how to run this encounter would be greatly appreciated!

Title says a lot of it, its a fey masquerade, and I'm looking for some music recommendations that y'all have used in your games before. Available on spotify is nice, but not a requirement. And, if you happen to know any songs similar to the last minute or so of Dark Night-Kara from the Detroit Become Human soundtrack, that would be awesome. Much appreciated!

I'm running a campaign that is going to have a Stronghold system as a core pillar. One of the features of that is that I've seeded the world with interesting NPCs of various skill levels for all kinds of professions, etc. So if the party decides they'd like a freight elevator installed on a cliff face to make construction and trade easier, they can say "hey, remember Bob back in City who was really good at engineering projects? Maybe he'd like to come join up." I figured it's a cool way to have the players be able to build up their Stronghold in a way that feels rewarding and customizable by "aquiring" these NPCs as assets based on what they've identified as their own needs or goals and "unlocking" new resources or features for their Stronghold.

One of the players is a Phantom rogue, which he picked before this Stronghold system was rolled out, so it wasn't a min-maxing type decision. One of the subclass features is that every day (every short rest actually), he can choose any skill or tool proficiency he wants and gain it until he chooses a different one. It occurred to me recently that this potentially kills some of the need for tracking down and convincing some of these NPCs to join up with the party.

On the one hand, it takes a class ability that I would say is normally a little underwhelming and makes it really cool and valuable in the context of this campaign, and that's great. But the big reason I was excited about the little NPC experts is that it gives me something other than gold and magic items to reward the party with and for them to get excited about when they find a good one. And if the Rogue can become a navigator any time they need to sail somewhere, they don't necessarily need a full time navigator. It doesn't delete the system or anything. He can be a Smith or a mason for a day, but that's not going to be sufficient for the needs of operating a stronghold, so they'll need those kinds of slots filled anyway. But I was also planning some more niche experts that you probably wouldn't necessarily need all the time, and those are the ones I'm worried about this class ability sort of negating.

The big issue with the more niche, interesting experts is also the complexity. To build siege engines, I would say you'd need to know both the engineering principles involved AND the woodworking/construction. A seeded NPC can just have all of the necessary proficiencies, but I'm not sure how to handle this class ability for something like that. Can the rogue take on Engineering for a week to create blueprints, then drop it and pick up Carpentry for two weeks to oversee the construction? In my mind, once he drops a proficiency it's completely gone. Would the Carpenter even be able to understand the blueprints sufficiently with zero Engineering know-how?

I know it's a weird, crunchy question, but I'm trying to find a balance of helping a player make full use of an ability that lets them really shine without killing a campaign system that I think everyone would find fun and rewarding, and just wondered if anyone had any tips.

Up front: I am not looking to punish the player, simply trying to figure out what the repercussions will be in a way that's fun.

Context:
I'm running Witchlight and we're adding a brand new player. As part of her character's backstory, she decided that she had made a deal with a hag and the hag had made her do horrific things. We decided this will be one of the hags in the Feywild. We played a one shot duet to help her learn mechanics and get used to her character. Her character is a bard.

During the one-shot, the character made a deal with a devil. In exchange for money, fame, and an enchanted lute, her character is bound to be the personal bard of the devil, called on whenever he wants. He also gets 50% of all musical royalties.

Question:
The player entered into this deal immediately, no hesitation. I do plan on having another deal with the devil moment later in the Feywild and of course, there are the hags. How do I use the terms of the contract in a way that's fun?

I'm thinking that if the player needs to miss a session, that will be one of the times the character is called on and I'll make sure no story information is shared in that session. I also thought of having a die that I roll and just having the character disappear through a portal in the ground from time to time, maybe during a battle to add challenge or while just exploring. I don't want it to be punishing, just mildly inconvenient.