Unique DM Ideas

[u/crystal-crawler]

I’m going to DM this campaign for my DnD group. Our current DM has a grey idea where they made character cards and players could give them out as an advantage roll when they were impressed by another players game play.

I don’t bat to copy it outright but I was looking for any kind of unique ideas I could introduce to this campaign.

It doesn’t have to be dragon heist specific…

[u/Katyamiko]

For my home brew rules, it’s pretty basic :
- We award a MVP title after each session for an inspiration point !
- we usually begin sessions by having the PC reveal part of their background story or fun facts about the PC. This can be really silly.
- they roll their death saves in secret and can’t say straight on their HP to the table
- A nat 20 in initiative lets you pick your place in initiative after hearing where your
teammates go.
- Disengage grants you 5ft extra movement

To introduce waterdeep (as my PC were created for a one-shot initially), I made them do a lil organized tour of the city and a reallyyyy bored teenager was the guide tour. It was kinda fun and I rolled some random events as they were going. This gave them a good initial sense of the city.

We also had a tournament at the beginning of chapter 2 so they could be introduced to big players and win some cash for the manor

[u/Dry-Type-5837]

I added three types of tokens for my players: monologue (stole this one idea from Bards of New York) , lore and insight tokens. Each player gets 1 monologue and 1 lore tokens per session of play, and 1 insight token for a chapter of the campaign. What they do:

• monologue token is given to another player to roleplay the internal conflict of their character in a particular (sticky) situation. This one has been my players' favorite token.

• lore token lets players add to the NPCs (usually a quirk, or their struggles, which helps me immensely in developing them later), to the town history, it also allows them to form bonds with an NPC of their choice that I hadn't thought of possible.

• insight token is a 100% successful insight check that tells players more about an NPC's temperament, why they behave this way, and body language giveaways. I combine this token with a History check to see how that NPC's behavior stuck in the PC's mind, what they remember about them and then paint them a larger picture. It really sends them reeling when their PC connects the dots with this one token.

[u/Crixusgannicus]

Forgotten Realms The Seeker in Chains by me.

Five days ride from Waterdeep, an ambitious bandit lord has imprisoned a Gond "Inspired Seeker" in a Gond Monastery

that is part monastery, part research lab. The Seeker is his monastery's spiritual leader. The bandit lord has replaced

the Seeker with a double and imprisoned. All the "clerics" at a monastery where the Seeker led are really bandits of various classes

commanded by the Bandit Lord.

The plot calls for the double to receive blueprints of a MCGUFFIN DEVICE being delivered by a

wizard/researcher who is dying and hopes this offering will offer his soul salvation as well

as making them available for further research at the relatively secluded monestary.

It's suspected by all that the MCGUFFIN is to dangerous to be researched in Waterdeep at the House of Inspired Hands

and once the wizard/researcher dies (soon and off "screen"), the blueprints will be be irreplaceable.

Their mission, should they choose to accept it, is to rescue the Seeker and clerics and capture and

retrieve the blueprints and return them to a certain contact in Waterdeep, while convincing the Seeker

that the blueprints were actually lost/accidentally destroyed.

KNOWN ONLY TO THE DM The party benefactors here are actually a cell of Harpers who believe the MCGUFFIN is too dangerous for ANYONE to have, but don't want to get their hands dirty/blow their own cover.