A Dungeon Master's Guide To a Perfect Campaign

A DUNGEON MASTER’S GUIDE

TO A PERFECTA n O k CAMPAIGN (How to Keep your players from driving you crazy)

What You’ll Need: Dungeons and Dungeons is a table top role playing game that does not require many supplies.

There are some things that you will need to have a sucessful session. There are many places to find these items, and some you may already have around your house.

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The Perfect Campaign

Instructions unclear, I have 17 One set of dice sets

4-6 friends

I only have two, two is fine

Dungeon Master screen

cereal b

Character Sheets

ox card b oard is fine

Pen and Paper Minifigures Players Handbook

Google IT

Monster Manual

Your imagination And Lots of notes Improv Skills

Silly voices

Snacks and soda (essential) Dice Jail

Violet Andrew

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Session 0: Session 0 is the session of campaign where collaberative worldbiulding is done. This session consists of player charecter creation and an establishment of setting. This is something that you as the DM can decide upon beforehand, or take time during this session to create the world together.

Creating a Setting In your session 0 it is important to establish what kind of world your players will be adventuring in.

This will help them to feel immersed in the world they will be playing in.

Bringing Them Together This is the most critical peice of the session. You must make sure that your players’ charecters have a reason to be adventuring together. Consider the charectors’ motivations or potential threats that could force them to work together.

Just have them start in a tavern

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The Perfect Campaign

Player Charecter Creation

do not let them do this unsupervised!!!

1.Choose a Race: A player’s race impacts what racial traits they posses, as well as the culture of their charecter, which can add flavor text for thier role playing.

switch

2.Choose a Class: This is the most important decision for your players to make. When forming a party make sure to have your player diversify thier classes to ensure you have a well rounded part. It is recommended to have at least one healer to ensure the party all survives encounters. unnessesary you can have a bard and rogue and they will survive through pure spite 3.Roll For Ability Scores: These scores will effect what yoru players will be able to do well. Keep your players’ strengths in mind when considering the difficulty of saves and checks throughout the campaign 4.Charector Background: A player’s background is something that you, as a DM, should be aware of and intigrate into the story.

5.Charecter Equipment: Make sure your charecters have all the items relevent to your aventure. give them cursed shoes that make them only walk backwards. not for plot reason, just for fun

Violet Andrew

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World Building: After deciding on a generalized setting in session 0, you will need to further develope the world in which your adventure will take place. You should have an idea of the overall tone you want your adventure to take. is trol over th on c o n e v a you h

Towns and kingdoms You will want to have a reserve of towns for when your party travels. Make sure to make them unique and interesting. Your players will want to know more about the world they are in, so make sure you create a rich history for wherever they may be. you will know so much more than your players will ever in a million years ask about. Building this world will slowly consume your life until there is nothing left

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The Perfect Campaign

Dungeons Dungeons are a staple of any good campaign. It’s right there in the name. Give your dungeon a theme to help keep the players grounded in the story, such as water, or bones. When in doubt raise some dead Be sure to incude a treasure at the end of the dungeon in order to make the time spent in the dungeon worth while for your players.

Just give them money. It can’t break the game

Pro tip: if you’re ever stuck take directly from the media you like. If your players notice they will appreciate the reference and you will have to do a lot less work Violet Andrew

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NPC’s And Monsters: Non Player Charecters Non Player Charecters are the lifeblood of a campaign. They are the way for you, the DM to communicate directly to your players. Any information or sense of danger will come from these interactions.

Make sure that you create well rounded, interesting NPCs for your players to interact with.

Make sure your NPCs fit with the tone of your world. t to n they only wan le ob gl e th en ev rs Name them all st is all that matte en ev St . en ev st talk to

Villians Your campaign needs a villian. Make sure that your party knows who this is.

Consider drawing from your players’ backstories.

Bringing in people from thier past will allow for better immersion Don’t let your players know who this is. You don’t even get to know who this is. just make everything seem fine until you have the perfect charecter to backstab them

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The Perfect Campaign

Monsters Monsters will serve to be a constant antagonist for your players to work against. Make sure to calculate the threat level of your encounters and balance them so that they are not too difficult, but still provide a challange.

Some common monsters are: bugbears gelatinous cube dire wolves skeletons dragons They could never handle a dragon kobald gollum goblin If you say it wrong once it will be globlins forever

Violet Andrew

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Session Planning: The goal is to make them cry It is essential for you to plan out your sessions in order to ensure that they run as smoothly as possible Have them play smash or pass to get into it, it helps them feel connected to the NPCs

Session outline: Charecter interactions: Including this ensures that your campaign remains grounded and keeps your players from becoming murder hobos.

Travel: Allow your players to experience the world you have created Combat: Provide conflict to your adventure by including at least one combat per session.

Don’t let them fight they live in the village now Watch as your players try to kill eachother.

(How could you Montana)

Pro Tip: Everyone they talk to has the information, doesn’t matter who. Just get the info to them

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The Perfect Campaign

The Real Steps: 1) Create maticulous plans 2) Start the session 3) transition from place to place a) they aren’t leaving b)they’re interigating an empty corner c)they’ve been here for the past two sessions D) oh thank goodness they’re finally leaving 4) humor a funny bit a) no sweat, This is imossible b) oh no they rolled a 20 c)they can now talk to birds d)what does a bird sound like 5) all your plans have halted so they can experiment with bird talking abilities 6) this is the campaign now 7) just “Wing” it (puns are essential to DM-ing) 8) repeat

Violet Andrew

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Combat: Combat can be cluncky to run at first, but it is a fun way for your players to test thier strength

Combat progression Positioning: Pull out your battle map and draw out the setting and place the appropriot minifigures.

This aid will help your players visualize the combat Roll initiative: This will determine the order that all the participents in the combat will take thier turns Take turns until it is over: The rounds will go through initiative order until all enimies have been defeated. don’t prepare spells beforehand. having to look them up gives you stalling time Same with snacks and drinks

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The Perfect Campaign

On thier turn players can move up to thier speed and take one action.

Actions include: A single Attack casting a spell grappling the on fire monster attempting to steal the skeleton’s ribs throwing other party members

no they cannot do a double move and attack and heal

Violet Andrew

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How To End: you will never get to this point

Every good thing must come to an end, and your campaign will eventually come to a conclusion. Be sure to start your campain with an end in sight.

Different ways to end Defeating the BBEG: After your players have destroyed whoever has been holding them back, having the charecters retire and move on makes for a satifying ending.

Solving the mystery: If your party has been searching for answers, the discovery of these mytries can serve as a natural conslusion to the story.

Saving the realm: Many campaigns involve the saving of the world from certain doom. If this is accomplished it is time to put your charecters to rest.

Realistic ways

to end

Total Party KIll: Your players don’t know what they can handel and will accidently die ... frequently. If this happens all at once, then they’re done for good Schedualing Issues: unfortunately people have lives outside of DND, and this can make everything fall apart

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The Perfect Campaign

Everything impol odes After completing your campaign you may want to start another campaign, and with one under your belt you are sure to make it a success

Happy Adventuring

k

Goo

uc l d

Violet Andrew

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Your Dungeon

Your Rules The Players’ world to ruin