DM Gives Inspiration

Questions answered. How do you get players to roleplay? How should DMs handle the "evil" races? How do you know your big bad fight will be good? How do you avoid frustration when players miss something you worked hard on?

"The father of role-playing games," Gary Gygax's, story. A tumultuous tale of obsession, backstabbing, and betrayal, that, in the end, defined him as the creator of the beloved game Dungeons and Dragons.

What do you do if violence is the only solution your players present to your problems? If you feel your players are constantly ruining your game with their murderous antics, how can you fix that? And did you actually throw the first stone?

For the past year, I have been DMing a three season live play show on the Frogpants Network—There Will Be Dungeons: Delvers. This episode is a peek behind the curtain to talk about the production goals of that show and how it was run. It's also a tale of corporative storytelling and the importance of music.

There are many magical damage types: poison, acid, fire, cold, radiant, necrotic, lightning, thunder, force, and psychic. They all follow the rules of damage, but different monsters host different interactions. Use these elements to design interesting combat encounters and even entire dungeons.

Three big questions with three big answers. How can you make puzzles make sense? While things may not be realistic all the time, here are several tricks to get a puzzle working in your world. Kyle also tackles how to end a campaign and how to home flavor an undead dragon for your big bad ending.

Puzzles are not content unless they are interactive. Riddles, codes, logic, and grid puzzles can all be crafted to create a cooperative challenge. This episode includes famous puzzles such as One Tells the Truth One Lies and the Ravensborg's Guild.

Rules for player weapons continued. Player weapons are divided into three types: bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing. These damage types can play into features on your monsters, particularly their defenses—resistances , vulnerabilities, and immunities. To use these effectively as part of the combat monster puzzles, we must first understand their mechanical meaning.

A DM must know what the players know. Weapon properties, two-weapon fighting, and finesse can all be quite confusing if not overwhelming. This episode goes over the simple and martial proficiencies, where proficiencies come from, and how your players got them. Understanding these will allow you to give proper loot, make better custom monsters, and help steer your players toward optimization so you can run more difficult encounters.

How to read a character sheet as told through a goblin adventure. The age of digital D&D player preparations have left DMs ill-prepared for teaching players. Here, Kyle discusses not only how to teach players to read their characters but also what the DM should know to look for when starting a session.

Season 8 wraps up with questions from the mailbag. How can you handle players roleplaying outside their stats? Why do groups always fall apart? Should a level 3 spell deal 48d6 damage? And is it the job of the DM to make sure the party is balanced?

Balls and gala events are great climactic set pieces, but pulling them off can be tricky. By taking a look through history, we can identify what makes them unique and how you can transform an overwhelming night of NPC interaction into an interactive skill challenge and social event for your players.

Players will surprise you with roleplay, be it a natural 20 Persuasion or unknown spell. Be prepared for the odd languages and have a plan for player spells, like comprehend languages, tongues, speak with dead, and speak with plants.

There is nothing wrong with filler combat when used appropriately. Give yourself a break from planning the main plot and add some filler while you figure out the next step.

Traps are cool, but they need proper setup and delivery. It's not just order of operations and mechanics, it's about tension and theming.

This mailbag tackles a multipart question from a new DM, how to make use of player theories, setting your own expectations for session zero, and how to deal with one of the most difficult problem players—the "but that's just what my character would do."

Every DM wants big set pieces packed with crowds for their players to be heroic in, but how do you manage such a scene? Here are tips and strategies to reduce your burden in executing the masses while still giving your players achievable goals and objectives.

Players love the idea of owning a castle, but all the hard work of running and managing its execution falls on the DM. Use these tricks to keep your fort from getting bogged down!

The life of adventure can be thrilling, but a functional world and economy means that some tasks might be more mundane. Create a montage for your players using assorted skill challenges to help showcase their impact on the world beyond just saving it from the big bad.

Livestreams and podcasts of D&D should be different from your home games. Factors like linear stories, paid actors, an audience, combat adaptations, world lore, and even being stuck in a chair change D&D from a game into a product. Enjoy your hobby and avoid stressing.

On this season's mailbag finale, Kyle answers a lot of questions, including those about "Help! I agreed to DM!", planning your adventurers' day, working with established worlds, time jumps, fast travel, and ending or continuing when losing players.

On this episode, Kyle delves into the origins of the paladin class, starting with the original use of the word in epic poetry. The class has evolved constantly throughout the editions, culminating in the 5e version we have today.

In a D&D campaign, you are going to run through a lot of villains. In this episode, Kyle teaches you a technique for quickly creating an array of villain types you can use to build a diverse rogues' gallery.

The continuing saga of Conditions! This episode poses paralyzed, peaks at petrified, prepares poisons, postures prone, reminisces on restrained, and uncovers the mysteries of unconscious—all with strategies for players and monsters.

Navigate combat buffs and debuffs smoothly with an understanding of Conditions! This episode tackles blinded, the horribly misused charmed, deafened, the frustrating frightened, grappled, incapacitated, and the RAW-wrecking invisible.

In-party deception, length of play, traps, group skill checks, and professional DMs. The mailbag is open and questions are answered!

Downtime activities don't have to be relegated to shopping and drinking. You can help your players craft their characters, meet NPCs, gain new features, and vary their ways to play by setting up a training or university system as a gateway to the greater world.

Death is a constant threat in D&D, but with some monsters, it's more instantaneous than others. Prepare your players accordingly. Avoid cheap deaths by presenting dangerous monsters as puzzles to be solved rather than lucky survival.

Writing lore can seem insurmountable, but there are several rules and tricks you can use to get things underway. Once established, it's as simple as filling it out top to bottom and choosing the location where your big reveal takes place.

Zombies make great evil servants but don't function in D&D like they do in pop culture. If you're looking for an outbreak of creatures to engineer an apocalypse, there are several monsters that would serve you better—shadows, wraiths, gas spores, vargouilles, ghouls, gnolls, constructs, golems, and animated objects.

This mailbag we talk dissecting premade adventures, deals with devils, writer's block, and double skill checks. But first is the announcement of my crafted mini adventures now being posted at kylefergusson.com!

Forgotten Realms is the primary campaign setting for D&D 5E official materials. While it has a rich history spanning books, video games, and published adventures, do not be intimidated. It is a foundation for mystery that lets you build your own story atop it.

Blindsight, tremorsense, and truesight—supernatural and magical vision types broken down for use by the everyday DM. Increase your monster arsenal and be prepared for the most persistent of rules lawyers.

How do you use darkness when everyone has darkvision? What are the rules of darkvision and how can we still make a scary, tense environment in a world of magical sights and senses? This episode discusses the vision mechanics of bright light, lightly obscured, and heavily obscured.

Every story has life and death. Use player descriptions and "fade to black," as well as your own authority, to create a welcoming table that works for everyone.

In this mailbag, Kyle answers questions about DM types, adding mystery, and figuring out how much to prepare for the first session. Big questions need a big episode.

Change up your combat scenarios through purposeful use of initiative. While side objectives and gimmicks can be great, they are only flavor unless they provide your characters with interesting choices.

Start your campaign plan not with lore but with monsters. Fill out your world and let the story tell itself.

Limit skill checks while traversing dungeons in order to encourage tactical choices and interact with the passive senses. Use surprise and initiative to reward or punish players for their choices.

Season 6 kicks off with how to use skill checks and challenges as a narrative device. The more information you have, the better you can describe the outcome.

DMing, playing, and podcasting—big questions on this mailbag. Also, a special focus on getting that quiet player to roleplay.

Fueled by mounting fears, D&D became embroiled in devil worship. Forgotten now, why did the tabletop game come under fire?

Describing combat is hard work. Help your players describe their own actions and make your job easier. What makes this fireball different from every other? How does one class's magic missile look different from another's? And how are your villain's spells unique from your players'?

Everyone loves a populated battle—a pack, a horde, an army—but managing it on the DM side is difficult and time consuming. It also comes with its own set of CR balancing. Here's how to better manage large encounters.

Kyle describes how to run a dragon as a solo encounter using the Young White Dragon as the primary example.

This mailbag is a doozy! Kyle addresses player problems; missed sessions; schedules; turning one shots into campaigns and subplots; and rules clarification.

Using arithmetic as an ally, Kyle gives a rundown of some of the criteria to follow and warning bells to look out for when selecting that big monster for your climactic first boss encounter at level 1.

Make the most of your space. What is hidden and what is public knowledge? Divide and conquer but don't burden yourself with being the answer to everything. Kyle also shares some of his personal equipment for the job.

NPC quest givers ground and set up your entire adventure to come. Whether or not you can add a twist or action-packed start is entirely based on the savings in your emotional bank account.

Your players' abilities will sneak up on you and you need to be prepared! Work portals and teleport spells into your world early and avoid the tragic pitfalls of magical escalation and bureaucracy.

In this final episode of Season 4, Kyle answers a myriad of questions concerning things like invincible players, item lists, big bads, downtime, and reincarnation.