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Well I finally got around DMing Ravenloft as a one-shot, except that of course I failed to make it really finish in a single session so we'll need at least a second evening. To my defence, we had planned to have 4-5 hours for the game, but between being late to start and then having kids wanting...

Curse of Strahd is presented as an adventure for 4-6 characters of level 1-10. The BBEG is CR 15 and 13000 XP, making him a deadly encounter for 4 level 10 PCs, which sounds like a DM might want to discourage the PCs from going straight towards Castle Ravenloft too soon, but even at level 10 it...

I have a little more than a month for preparing a one-shot RPG adventure for a new year's eve with friends. We've all played D&D before, but this time the idea is to play something different than classic fantasy. Everything is still open at the moment, and I have a thread where I asked where to...

Where do you go around the web to find sample one-shot adventures for RPGs? I am planning a game for friends on new year's eve but this time I am thinking anything but classic fantasy. It could be a modern story, historical non-magical, historical with magic (but likely non medieval), sci-fi...

With UA being published primarily for playtesting purposes, do you keep using any UA material in your games, even after it has been published with modifications or left seemingly abandoned by WotC? I'm thinking that the only UA character option we've taken for permanent use by some PC at our...

(Useless anecdote first) I started DMing over 20 years ago with 3.0 edition which first introduced feats to the game. I was immediately on board with the idea of plug-and-play abilities that each individual could choose to skyrocket variety among characters, and the system was super-simple to...

Lots of talking about playable character races in the last year or two... what are your preferences regarding the following approaches? (You can specify whether you are answering from a player's or DM's point of view) 1) Few or plenty? Do you prefer having a small bunch of races available to...

Whether you use the DMG chase rules, or your own version of them, how do you exactly switch from the turn-based combat initiative sequence to the simultaneous movements during a chase? The obvious scenario is one or more combatants (or even a whole side) decides to break off and run away, while...

In our family game we're mostly adventuring in the Forgotten Realms (with a bunch of non-FR locations tossed in, due to having run some adventures not set in any specific setting). Soon the PCs will have capabilities to travel to other planes, and being myself a fan of planar adventures I...

Does 5e ruleset define living, dead and undead as mutually exclusive? This is a bit of theoretical curiosity since I don't have any trouble at hand to manage, but I am sure it can have some practical consequences. Narratively speaking, it's normally not a problem to say that an undead is...

I've never thought about this until yesterday... We broke a key inside a lock at home, and we were looking around for methods and tools to extract the broken key. I easily found lockpicking tools on sale online for just a few bucks on legit international websites such as the obvious Amazon...

I am updating my DIY DM screen before we start our next adventure so I am considering what to remove/add on it. I thought I would just ask what people have on their own, particularly if it's self-designed. My current screen is 3 pages, and I am thinking of making it 4 pages, but I don't want to...

As per the title, as a DM what is your approach to DMG material (obviously excluding that which is marked explicitly as a variant rule), do you strictly abide to it or do you use it only as advice on running the game? To anticipate fluid answers by many, saying "I strictly abide to something...

Do you run everything by the book, do you cut corners, or even outright ignore certain aspects? Do you otherwise add more precision with variant/house rules? Consider the question from the separate points of view of being precise on the following: 1- creature positions and movement (e.g. TotM...

If you want your adventures to take place in a large fantasy setting that encompasses different civilizations, cultures, pantheons, technologies, perhaps even actual rules... do you prefer to set them in a different region/continent of the world on a single plane of existence (e.g. Forgotten...

I never got around to doing this, because picking an existing fantasy setting or homebrew something vanilla is just way easier... but it's an idea I had in mind for ages, and every now and then I like getting some input on it. Essentially, how about using the real world as a starting point for...

Our family D&D game with the kids is only at 4th level. They have just finished an adventure which ended with defeating the "goblin king", except it was duly noted that there are many goblins who self-appoint themselves such title, leaving it largely vague how important their accomplishment was...

Just finished watching season 3 of Sabrina, where a lot of characters are witches/warlocks and someone's (no spoilers) patron changes. In D&D this would be a very dramatic change in stats and abilities, but can make for a good story. I don't think the PHB mentions the possibility but the DMG...

Still after all these years I hear people complain that 5e is not modular enough or that WotC has broken their promise to deliver modularity. Yesterday I was browsing the DMG with this in mind and counted at least thirty paragraphs of stuff which I would definitely consider to be "optional rules...

As a DM I have long removed any randomness in character creation and level-up, unless the players really want to. I always start by proposing the fixed ability array, but I allow point-buy and rolling for ability scores at your own risk. Similarly, I grant average HP by default when levelling...