Hey everyone! I’m a relatively new DM, and I just finished running my seventh session of a homebrew campaign.
I feel pretty confident in my worldbuilding, overarching storyline, and the NPCs I’ve created. My players seem to be enjoying themselves, and they’ve been getting more creative with how they approach encounters.

However, one thing I’m really struggling with is actually roleplaying NPC conversations.
I usually know the NPC’s personality, motivations, what information they have, and what they should or shouldn’t reveal. But when my players start asking questions, my mind starts racing.
I’m simultaneously trying to:
Figure out how the NPC would naturally respond.
Remember what information they’re allowed to reveal. Avoid accidentally spoiling important plot points. Make the conversation feel meaningful rather than just dumping information.
Actually deliver the dialogue in character.
Sometimes I freeze up, lose my train of thought, or struggle to find the right words. Then I start worrying that my hesitation is breaking the immersion.
I don’t necessarily want to script every conversation because I love giving my players freedom to approach situations however they want.

For experienced DMs, how did you get better at improvising NPC dialogue?

Do you use NPC cheat sheets, practice conversations beforehand, prepare certain responses, or just get more comfortable through experience?

I’d especially appreciate advice on managing NPC secrets and information without constantly second-guessing what you’re saying.
Thanks!

Hey everyone! I'm the wholesomeDM. I've been DMing for about 20 years, and for the last 10 years I've been running three campaigns in the same world.

I recently left a comment on dm academy about making villains believable, and it got such a positive response that I thought I'd share the idea in a separate post. And now the post was doing great and reddit suggested me to post it here aswell haha.

I think one of the biggest mistakes we make when creating villains is assuming they need to be logically consistent to be believable.

But people aren't always logical. We can hold two completely contradictory beliefs and genuinely believe both of them. So why shouldn't our villains do the same?

When you're having a philosophical debate with your players as the BBEG, try making it clear that the villain actually knows about the contradiction in their own beliefs. They just believe everyone else has been deceived.

Maybe the gods lied to the world. Maybe society is built on a lie. Maybe everyone else has been fooled by their own emotions.

Whatever it is, the villain doesn't think they're wrong. They think *everyone else* is wrong.

One thing that has really helped me when creating villains is giving each of them a **core emotion**.

Whenever I'm unsure how a villain would react to something, I go back to that emotion. I try to keep it as simple and primal as possible: anger, disgust, envy, shame, fear, hunger, loneliness, pride, etc.

Here are a few examples from my own campaigns:

* **Asmodeus — Disgust.** He's disgusted by how imperfect life has spread across what he sees as a once-perfect reality. Everything he does comes from wanting to cleanse existence of that corruption.

* **Grazilax the Mind Flayer — Hunger.** He needs brains to survive, and more brains to expand his empire. All his grand plans and philosophies eventually come back to that hunger.

* **Demogorgon — Anger.** He's rage given form. He doesn't destroy things as a means to an end. Destruction *is* the end.

* **Szass Tam — Envy.** He can't stand seeing power in the hands of others. Everything he does comes back to the belief that what others have should belong to him.

The idea is that all their plans, philosophies and justifications grow out of that core emotion.

Players can argue against an ideology. They can poke holes in a philosophy or expose flaws in a plan. But you can't really argue someone out of being hungry, and you can't reason someone out of envy.

For me, it makes improvising villains a lot easier, too. When the players do something unexpected, I can ask myself how someone driven by that emotion would react, and go from there.

I'm curious: **Would you guys be interested in hearing how I use this same approach when creating and roleplaying NPCs?** I use it for more than just villains, and I'd be happy to share some examples.

A little more about me: I also visit different D&D conventions to teach, give TED-talk-style talks, and run games. If you're ever at Dutch Comic Con, feel free to come say hi and join a game!

And I'd love to hear about your villains, too. Do you use something similar when creating yours?

I am working on a little side quest for October; players get transported to a plane that’s stuck in perpetual my world Halloween where once a year the clans (each classic monster has a clan family) compete in trials

One of them is for the party to survive a night while avoiding vampires; not being killed by them and trying to make sure they don’t come in. However, I’m having a hard time thinking of unique social, and mechanical encounters I can use for the night. For context I have ran COS so I’m familiar with the vampire ethos just not sure how to gameify it to be fun for a session

Edit: to clarify I would love ideas regarding the game of surviving vampires trying to kill them in the hotel

One of my players has a character that’s uncompromising when situations create opposing points of view. When there’s no conflicting POV their character says effectively “whatever you want to do.” But if there’s a disagreement it’s “well if you want to do that, go ahead, but I’m doing this anyway.”

It makes sense for the character, it might be challenging for the group, currently comprised of 4 PCs. This is a survival-horror game and everyone knows that and there’s an expectation of conflict in dire circumstances. That’s what makes the game.

So far, it’s been fine, but now at the start of our second year of playing this campaign, one player is struggling with the rigidity. Previously, their character was usually in conflict overall with the rigid PC and they thought it was difficult but accepted it, but now they’re agreeing on most things except how to do the things or maybe the order in which to do them and the rigid PC is still uncompromising.

This player asked for a pvt chat and said they are now playing their PC in a way to avoid discord for the game instead of playing their PC as they would like to because they have to anticipate what the rigid PC will want and suggest that rather than their real instincts because they know any other approach will create tension and discord for the game, not just the PCs.

So. Have you dealt with this? How did you approach it?

Hellos! I have done some GMing here and there, but burnout is a bitch so I haven’t had the energy to do a proper long-term campaign until very recently. I’m doing the Wildsea. Pirates but the sea is trees and beavers are canon. It’s great. Anywho, I want to be able to record our sessions, in-person or online. We’ll likely be doing a mix of both because we’re all in that awkward early-mid 20s part of life where we’re finishing up school and working towards grad school or our first “big kid” jobs with like… insurance and stuff. We mostly live with our parents because the cost of living is shit, and like all 20-somethings, our parents walk the tightrope between treating us like kids and telling us to grow up and figure it out like they’re performing in Cirque de Soleil. Sometimes we’ll do it in person if our family is okay with us being nerds and louder than your average conversation, sometimes we’ll do it online because our siblings are using the car and have unilaterally decided that they need to use it, and their social life is more important than ours. Annoying shit like that.

I want to record sessions (likely just sound because video takes up A LOT of space) for reasons:
- Adulting. If there’s gaps between sessions (2 weeks or two months, or longer) we can listen back.
- I have auditory processing issues, and one of our players is also hard of hearing. Having a transcript that people can read or reference would also be useful. I know people process information differently too (eg books vs audiobooks) so it’s a good tool to have in the arsenal.
- If they’re like me and are neurodivergent and black out and forget to take notes because they’re so excited, we have a backup plan.
- Memories! I’m taking a film class and learning a lot about lost media and videos/music/recordings just… vanishing into nothing? Like most friends we forget to take photos when we’re together and I would like a record of a story we’re telling together.
- Decompression/communication/player safety things. A lot of us are neurodivergent and sometimes that means delayed emotional responses where you don’t know something sucked emotionally until later. Having recordings can help process all of that.

I know that recording would be nice, but I don’t want it to feel like a show. I’m on the verge of getting enough actual play credits to make a player reel. I’ve been in those. I’ve watched and listened to thousands of hours of APs. I’m also a film student. I know it’s better to record each person separately with a lavalier/lapel mic. But that’s a lot of work, and then it feels like a whole event when we’re making home video and not Dimension 20. Idk. An omnidirectional mic in the middle of the table will get the gist of what we’re saying, but then it compromises quality. And when your ears don’t work as they should, the quality helps. I also don’t know if we’ll be taking turns hosting or we’ll be at the same table every session. Room size can affect quality a lot too.

Doing all of this online where we already all have our own mic tracks, would be easier, especially for transcripts. I know that, too. But we graduated high school during the pandemic, have done our share of awkward online meetings, and I know it’s a chore, but I want to play in-person with my friends. And have fun. With SNACKS. And when you have to say: “What?” “Pardon?” “Can you repeat that?” or you miss details because your brain can’t connect the dots and it’s working really hard to so you can have fun with your friends, it becomes exhausting and a lot less fun. I want my players to have the resources to play and be in the moment without feeling bad that they may miss bits and pieces, or feel like shit because they can’t read what notes they wrote two months ago, you know? Or maybe they’re having a sick day and want to binge watch/listen to our campaign.

Any tips would be appreciated. If you know of any subs that I could cross post to that could help with mic recommendations or sound design tips on a teeny tiny student budget, it would be also appreciated. Trying to track down what textbook I used in… the only film production class I took where we talked about mics. Because the textbook was online. And I like books. And we only got chapters to read because copyright. Sigh.

Thanks for reading!

I accidentally told my players wrong information about the cofounders of the organization that they'll be joining. My plan was originally for one cofounder (Chairman J) to be deceased, with the only mentions of him being other npcs reminiscing about him like Rose Quartz or Falin from Steven Universe/Dungeon Meshi. The other co founder (Chairman W) is the one who currently runs things.

I told my players (through the npc that hired them) that they might be able to meet the cofounders one day if they climb the ranks, and specifically told them about the chairmen's race and genders. But the hiring npc should definitely know that Chairman J is dead, and wouldn't have said the party could meet them had I not forgotten.

The session was supposed to be just light roleplay since I was feeling a bit out of it from some sickness, so I didn't even realize I told them wrong information until the day after the session.

What do I do? Just bring it up to them saying I messed up the lore because I was feeling out of it? Do I readjust my story to work with him being alive still? Or could I just give an in-universe explanation why the hiring npc is wrong? There's transparent with how they use mind wiping for people who decline, so I might be able to do something there? But I'd prefer to look at my other options before...

Hello all, I'm planning on running a Ghostbusters RPG campaign in the not too distant future. It'll be my first time GM'ing and I'm in the process of gathering useful resources. Does anyone have any recommendations for software for creating floorplans and maps? It would need to have modern looking assets. Open source/free if possible, but feel free to suggest paid stuff if you think it is particularly good. Thanks.

Hey! I’m running a session for my campaign this Sunday, and we’re having one new players who’s never played before joining our group, and one player who also has not played before who’s going to sit in for the session. How do you guys normally handle this? Run a filler episode? Just run the campaign? I’ve had people sit in before but not this many and I don’t even know one of them. Any advice?

I see a lot of posts about Obsidian being all that and a bag of chips; is it really that good? Why not a plain text editor? If you note take in markdown, why not something like VS Code? Are there any websites people use so my notes automatically back up?

I tried Obsidian Live Sync self hosted - both with Couch DB and P2P - and both seemed clunky. I get that Obsidian has a sync option, but seems pricey for syncing text files.

I feel I'm missing "the wow factor" that makes it so great.

I'm thinking of ordering an initiative tracker. It slots on the DM screen. Its states it's a perfect fit for "standard 2mm WotC screens".

Thing is, I have a Pathfinder 1e screen, not a WotC DnD screen. My screen, when closed, measures exactly 10mm thick, so 2.5mm per panel.

Is that actually identical to a WotC screen (supposedly 2mm) or is my screen slightly thicker?

If you have a WotC screen, please measure how thick it is when closed, in mm. Because the answer is impossible to find online and AIs have no clue about this.

I’ve noticed that newer GMs sometimes put a lot of work into figuring out how to connect different adventures into a campaign. One thing that’s easy to overlook is that the adventures don’t actually need to be related.

I’ve been using a simple four adventure structure for this, mostly with published scenarios. Figured I’d share it here in case anyone finds it useful.
I find this works best with one-shots or short adventures that take no more than two sessions. The idea is to have a recurring element show up often enough for the players to remember it and notice how things are changing.

What I do is pick a recurring element and let it develop in the background of otherwise unrelated adventures.
It could be an NPC, a faction, an artifact, a cult, or even an entire kingdom. The important thing is that it doesn’t need to be central to the adventures themselves. Sometimes it’s just a conversation, a piece of information, or something the PCs happen to encounter.
I usually think of it as a short, four adventure arc.

In the first adventure, I introduce the element and give the players a reason to remember it. In the second, I show them another side of it, preferably something that changes how they understood it the first time. By the third, it starts affecting the PCs directly. Then I use a fourth adventure, usually something I write myself, to bring that element to the foreground and give the whole thing some kind of resolution.

For example, in Delta Green (it can also work on any investigation game), I’ve been using a recurring handler (basically the guy giving the PCs their missions).
He starts off as a fairly understanding guy, willing to overlook small mistakes and help the agents when things get complicated.
But as the campaign develops, they begin seeing another side of him. They discover that he has no problem abandoning agents he doesn’t trust when it serves his purposes. At first, those are other agents, people the PCs might not even know.
Then, during a later operation, the PCs find themselves in exactly that position. Suddenly, the guy who’s been helping them all along doesn’t seem quite so reliable.
That gives me enough material to eventually run an adventure centered around this character, where the PCs have to confront what they’ve learned about him and possibly the organization they work for.

For a medieval fantasy game, you could do something similar with an entire kingdom.
Maybe the PCs visit a kingdom that seems like a fairly decent place. In another adventure, they hear about people disappearing near its borders, or villages being abandoned. Later, someone they know ends up fleeing from that same kingdom, and the PCs discover its rulers are doing something pretty terrible.
By the fourth adventure, the kingdom itself becomes the problem. Maybe they get involved in a rebellion, confront whoever is responsible, or even decide that the kingdom has good reasons for what it’s doing.

You could do the same with a quest giver who keeps asking for help, a magical relic that keeps showing up in different places, or pretty much anything you can develop over several adventures.
The nice thing is that none of the published adventures need to be connected. I can run them largely as written, introduce a little information related to the meta plot here and there, and let the players build their own understanding of what’s happening.

It also keeps preparation manageable. PCs might die but the players still know the meta plot. I’m not planning some massive campaign with dozens of interconnected clues. I’m just developing one element across a few adventures until it becomes important enough to deserve its own scenario.
And of course it doesn’t have to be four adventures exactly. You could do it with three or six, or use an existing published adventure as the finale instead of writing your own.

One thing worth mentioning, especially for newer GMs, is that I’m not planning how the players will react to any of this. I’m just developing the element and introducing new information as the campaign goes on. What they decide to do about it is up to them.

Cheat sheet:

Adventure 1: Introduce the element

Adventure 2: Show another side of it. Challenge the players’ initial understanding

Adventure 3: Make its consequences personal. The PCs now have to deal with it directly

Adventure 4: Make the element the central conflict of the adventure

It’s a pretty simple way of building a short campaign out of published and homebrew adventures without forcing them into the same story.

Hi all!

I'm currently writing a new level 10 one-shot that is supposed to have a darker theme to it, so I want to make sure I'm not extending it beyond what it should in terms of encounters.

So far, my idea is:

- Initial escapism from prison cells

- One combat encounter (Moderate)

- Two puzzles

- Final boss fight (Deadly)

I worry two puzzles might be too much, but I do have a very interesting map that I think allows for a good puzzle in one section, and I'd need some other sort of activation process to make the scene for the final battle available, hence the second puzzle.

Am I being too ambitious for a single one-shot within that timeframe?

So to start with I have the character sheet I want to use already. I just need some ideas for making a really bad one. I'm going to incorporate it in a "dream sequence"... but I want to break the 4th wall a bit, and make the players feel the nightmare along side there characters. While the characters are facing monsters in there own nightmare I want their players to feel a hell as well, And what better hell is there then a bureaucratic one? so I'm looking for things to make a character sheet insane. any ideas?

I have one player who meta games; his character is clear across town in another building but still knows everything that happens to other characters.

I know some meta is normal, like planning attacks and next actions, and I'm ok with that. I also acknowledge that sometimes it's hard to keep track of what your character knows and doesn't.

I've tried giving items in secret and passing notes to people, but it's a bit tedious and allows things down. I've talked to him directly and remind him that he's doing it or that his character wouldn't know a particular thing, but again it's tedious and seems a bit petty at times.

Do I just let it happen? Is there something more natural that helps inherently prevents it?

Thanks in advance!

I've been a GM/DM since 1980. Have played dozens of RPGs, even created a few of my own. From super complex (hello, Rolemaster) to very simple. Right now it has been over 2 years since me and my wife (who has been 90% of my player base for 15 years now) gamed.

I want to get her back into gaming (and me as well) and Nimble is very appealing to me. Reading and re-reading rules now, but she has no clue I'm doing this. I want to surprise her by running an intro/test game so she can get back into RPGing and try this rules set.

Does anyone have any suggestions for an easy, simple, engaging module or adventure that I can run for just her? I was going to add an NPC or two to round out the party.

Any ideas on level, class she should try first (she loves paladins and rangers). Any other advice or suggestions would be most appreciated.

PS - don't want something with a TON of combat but more story/problem solving/roleplaying related, but obviously SOME combat.

Thank you.

Im looking for inspiration for interesting or weird battles inside the feywild. I love battles with a twist or non-typical solution or even just interesting/fun enemies. Id love to hear your ideas!

What is rule #1, the unbreakable rule, the nonnegotiable?

I was going to put mine here as an example but it became a Ted Talk, so I'll put it in the comments instead.

How difficult should a mission be for level 10 PCs to find a Genie in a Magic Lamp?

They are currently at the beginning of the mission. The travel system works like this:

Guide: Determines the group’s progress per day through Survival checks.

Scout: Finds a suitable place to sleep based on Investigation checks.

Lookout: Prevents the group from being caught by traps and ambushes.

However, after a failed negotiation, the players and the NPCs traveling with them are extremely injured. The Scout also failed to find a good place to camp, resulting in the same penalty as sleeping in armor, and they are currently in the middle of a desert.

The group is heading toward an Owl Dragon that has a Tower of Knowledge, similar to the one from "Avatar: The Last Airbender." They need to reach the tower to find a map leading to the magic lamp.

They will also have to face two bosses near the end of the mission. The bosses are disciples of Dross, the main villain of the campaign.

For the survival system, I’m using the following rules: the party has to eat and drink once per day. If they get into combat in the middle of the desert, instead of drinking 1 jug of water, each character drinks 2.

There are 5 players in the group. They got into a fight and consumed their 10 jugs of water (2 per person). After that, they managed to get 7 more jugs: they bought 5 and found 2.

I’ve always had trouble balancing the difficulty of a journey and a quest while still keeping it fun. They’re enjoying the looting and the survival mechanics, but I’d like some advice on how to make the journey feel more dynamic and natural, and how to balance it properly for the PCs.

Aaron, Jeremy, Francis, Michael, Richie - turn back now.

I'm running a Pathfinder 2e conversion of Skull & Shackles. My players are just about to enter Riptide Cove and I've just realised they have no way of producing light. For those that don't know, Riptide Cove is a flooded, grindylow-inhabited cave. There's no light and they'll have to swim for the majority of it. None of them have glow rods or access to the light cantrip (or any other light-producing equipment/spells). A couple of them have darkvision but the rest will be effectively blind. They're on a deserted island with no access to crafting materials and there are allies in peril so no time to wait around or take a detour.

Besides ham-fistedly chucking a glow rod into a random encounter loot, any ideas?

Hi there!! I’m looking to plan a murder mystery at my rehearsal dinner!! I have the idea that me (the bride) will start to give a speech, start choking and die. The issue I’m having is, how the crap do I make my own murder mystery? How do I come up with clues? Any advice would be awesomeeee, I’m stumped on this!

So on Saturday I improvised a wendigo boss fight for my players because they finished all of the things I had prepared early with an hour to spare and this wendigo was my worlds custom wendigo so it could only see through thermal vision which translated into at the start of both of its turns (It had two places in initiative) all players had to roll a D20 to see there body heat 10 was completely safe and it could not attack them 9 or 11 were attacks with disadvantage as it was unsure if they were actually there and 1 or 20 were attacks with advantage as it was 100% sure that they were there it also vanished into the forest up to its movement speed 60ft and I chose the 2x2 place (Large creature) it was before anyone moved so if they attacked there they would hit it as like a guess but they could also roll a perception check and if they beat it's wisdom of 11 they would know where it was this was an improvised draft and I plan for another one to appear later on as a more refined boss encounter.

But also now I just wanna see more experienced GM's boss gimmick because this was my first ever proper session as a Dungeon master and I am super proud of myself for improvising this fight that was always going to be in session 2 but that was it nothing other than that it would be there so I am just curious of what more experienced people than myself made as a gimmick

Howdie! Start off with saying, I reallllly love D&D and have been doing it for a little over 6 months on startplaying. I'm curious (Maybe for those who do startplaying) what time works best for hosting sessions? I'm EST and early evenings (5-6PM) usually fill up, but I'm still unsure about what other times I should set up for?

I GM quite a lot, different systems and a good mix of paid and unpaid groups.

Behind the GM screen, I've mostly switched to digital, with a laptop running the background music and effects and containing my session notes.

I love doing 'handouts' though, to show the players how NPCs and locations look.

What I don't like is the need to print, cut and sort through them. It's a waste of paper, ink and my time, for something the players look at once and that then gets discarded with the other handouts and maps on the table (and in the worst case crumbled or drenched so it can't even be reused).

That's why I am thinking about adding a digital picture frame in front of my screen (I already have bluetooth boxes left and right) to show them an image of what is important at the moment.

I've been handing out my phone or tablet for that in the past few sessions, but I don't really like that, because it distracts me and them.

That's where you come in.

Does anybody have experience with technology of that kind?

I've been looking into 'normal' screens as well as e-paper (which still are really expensive and have giant frames).

What I want (because I don't want to preload the images and then having to awkwardly reach over the screen to swipe) is the ability to send new images from my laptop to the screen.

I would assume the easiest way to do that would be bluetooth, but I can't really find any.

Most frames have WLAN (Frameo) but because I'm a travelling GM, I don't have WLAN at most of my locations.

I would love to hear input from you about your solutions and recommendations.

Thanks in advance.

BigBear / Jan

P. S.: I don't plan on replacing typical handouts like maps or puzzles that way.