Step 1: finish the wrap up from last session.
Step 2: ask the players what they want to next,
Step 3: look worried, roll some dice secretly then grimace out loud.
Step 4: adlib an encounter while they panic for 20 min discussing if they should change plans.
Seconding this, if they are in a town you can start by asking them individually what they want to do. Do they want to buy something? Is there a particular NPC they want to chat with? Go to a church and pray to their god? That can serve to release tension, deepen their immersion in the setting, and maybe give you ideas for what to do next. And, if all else fails, NINJAS. You can decide after the fight who sent them and why :P
My players' panic is legit my best source of ideas. "But what if, when we get to location X, BBEG is doing thing Y‽‽" Curses, they anticipated my evil ploy. The best bit is they feel super clever for 'figuring it out.'
Rolling the dice a looking worried, always every session multiple times. Random rolls, behind the screen mid game? Yes a thousand times yes.
To actually answer. Go old school? Wilderness travel with "Random " Encounters. A Randomly generated dungeon can be fun, try not to make it too big I'd suggest.
Also don't know why my autocorrect is Randomly capitalizing words but there you go. City adventures kind of write themselves. There used to be a zillion Random monster tables in the books. I imagine a quick search could find some online. Random stuff can be really fun and sometimes lead to interesting directions in the main game. You got this. Just have fun.
I amass a collection of pre-written one-shots/short adventures for just this situation -- it's just a little extra work to adapt them to my setting/where the players currently are. The wotc 5e one-shot anthologies all have at least a couple halfway decent adventures in them, as do all the Kobold Press one-shot anthologies. I've also got a huge collection of free oneshots I picked up from DMs Guild.
other ideas:
If they're mid-adventure, have the party done anything recently that one of your bad guys might react to? How would your bad guy react?
If they're between adventures, what do your players think their characters want to do? They could have some downtime, or have something you've mentioned in a previous session they want to follow up on.
This is the way. Have a couple that are roughly level-appropriate for the party, and change the names/places to fit your setting. Done. I do this every couple of months, they love it.
Sometimes you have more ideas than you need. File them in a folder and when you are NOT blocked, build them out a little. Having 'set pieces' 'in your pocket' means having something for those times when you don't have time to prep, or when things go awry and the party finishes the dungeon in half a session when you planned it to last at least 3 or 4 sessions.
Also, have a section of your 'file' for maps. And premade random encounter tables, whether you make them yourself or whatever. There's books that are filled with tables. Take a map and a table, roll a bit. "You round the corner and you see the road widen ahead. But there's a blockade across the road, and humans in black tunics over rusty chainmail turn to look at you as you approach. What do you do?"
Wing it and just say whatever comes out of my mouth and let the players guide it from there, or just ask what they want to focus on next (on a meta level). Note: I do not recommend this for newer DM's, I've been running games for longer than I want to count (ok fine is been... 27 years????? Fml).
I look forward to saying that one day. My friends have never played and I've been a player in like.....7 sessions total, and we all wanted to play so I figured I'd take up the DM mantle. It's be SO MUCH FUN!! And I've done a little of the "what do ya wanna do" and I think for me, I made the world and have a general idea of what's going on so I'm comfortable enough with that. But yeah, as a new DM, I couldn't imagine saying that with a pre-written story I haven't done.
Pre written is totally different. I pretty much exclusively do homebrew. I steal from pre-written though. Saves time.
If you haven't already, check how Matt Colville on YouTube, his Running The Game series is system agnostic almost exclusively, and he helps remind you of things you should and shouldn't do to make your world immersive for your players.
Oo I didn't know he had such a series, thanks!! I love homebrew too, I just feel like I've always enjoyed story creation and have built worlds for funsies, so making a one shot and turning it into a homebrew was super no brainer for me.
I'm so time limited that I try to stick to pre-written. Helps if the players go along with it. I don't want to take away agency to get them to stick to the story.
I will say that I've noticed that my games seem to sidetrack. Even if we start on a pre-made, I end up having to improvise or find a set-piece or a one shot to slot into a game.
I'm looking forward to the day I can drop a group in 'Tomb of Horrors' with no warning. Needs to be a committed group though.
Sound slike you have the right attitude! Having someone hire them to retrieve a stolen heirloom can be v easy because it's simple to improvise. Have a mini bandit hideout in an old tower. Have a forest battle on the way there. At the tower, bandits, there are stat blocks in the MM. Then come up with one secret about the tower, maybe a crypt in the basement, or a locked door to a room filled with junk and a map.
And remember , you don't have to play for four hours. Just have fun
There's what some folks call a session 0. If you say "what sort of things do you want to see in this campaign", and write down a bunch of stuff, it can be a good source of material. And, you can make a list of good ideas for later development. Even if you don't use them in this campaign, maybe you can use it later in another, or a one-shot.
This way my players made a ten years campaign (real time, \~10 to 15 sessions a year). They still praise me for the great ideas and plot. Little do they know that it was all their ideas.
"We can't do that! The enemy will do XY if we do YZ!"
...great idea, noted.
This is something that I've noticed and aboslutely love! Most of the creation in my game has come from their ideas of thinking out loud! I'm really proud of them actually, they just pieced together a major story hook and the next phase of the campaign is happening. The BBEG is FINALLY being revealed >:)
I can count back, but I have to do math to figure it out. 43 years. Of course, does 3 twelve year olds taking turns being gm count? Playing on tables photocopied from the AD&D DMG, player's handbook and Deities and Demigods?
Back when we first started, it was only 'off the cuff'. Then I got one of the Against The Giants modules and had my first experience with multi session adventures. Weekends of 12-16 hours a day playing.
I've never been good at asking what they want to do next, but there is a lot of inspiration if you \~eavesdrop\~ pay attention during pre-game, post-game, and breaks.
Also, never let on if you're improvising. Refer to source books and papers in your notes. Even if you're not really reading them, just stalling while you figure out what to do next.
I pull out the Return of the Lazy Dungeonmaster and roll on the tables and work the steps. I’ve started using art int to flesh things out that I like and then go with the flow.
Roll tables are lifesavers!!! Especially on these kind of days. You can look up roll tables in different settings: cities, forests, at sea, etc. it creates a lot of funny improv situations and ways for players to be creative. Have them roll the dice or you just roll in secret. Either way they'll appreciate the suspense
There's whole books. (Wow, today's GMs Day). Visit [drivethrurpg.com](http://drivethrurpg.com) and search for encounter table or random encounters.
That site is the one that teamed up with Wizards of the Coast for "Dungeon Masters Guild" website.
Both are good resources for DnD, and drivethrurpg is excellent for many other games.
Steal from others
Randomly generate some dungeon or ruin for them to explore
Try to curry favor from politicians and have them choose between 2 or more politicians vying for the same thing but done differently
I have a general story I've been working with, and when I've had to do something other than our main storyline, I had other characters from one of my world's factions try to fulfill a part of the story that would come later.
In this case, I had them roll higher level characters to travel through a desert to an ancient elvish ruin to retrieve a flawless ruby.
The main quest PC's would have had to do this later anyway when they were at a higher level but this was a nice diversion.
Now that the main PC's are at that level too, they'll run into each other.
Kill someone.
Your narrative might be getting stale, and as a result hard to improvise in because there are too few problems.
Is the "good king" a little TOO good at keeping the kingdom together? Stabbed by power hungry members of the parliament.
The inner city slums feeling a bit too... orderly? Drive by crossbow shooting of a bystander and the party has to decide if they're giving chase.
Lich in his dungeon not really feeling like an immediate enough threat?
Deliver a formal invitation to said dungeon sealed with a glyph of warding to the doorstep of the next highly populated Inn the party stay at by carrier peacock just because he's an extravagant asshole and cloudkill the building if they set it off.
"Hey team. I need a little extra time to prepare the next section of the campaign. Does someone want to run some one shots for the next few weeks while I get caught up with my prep work?"
That would work if they were experienced and confident enough. I'm for the most part really good at fly by the seat of my pants, but feeling under the weather this week has me a little slower on that part. But, once one of my players gets comfortable enough, I'm going to plan a little role reversal with him for a session to give him the reigns to try!
Chaotic fey shows up offering a chance in the blood dome. Pit the players against each other in a 2v2 or 1v1 style fight and reward the player who wins with something neat.
I go through what I think of as “input” and “output” phases. Input phases are when I’m feeling uninspired and unable to create new material, so I turn my focus to reading new books, watching new movies/shows, listening to new podcasts, etc, until I feel like I have enough new ideas and perspectives that I need to start writing them down — that’s my output phase.
I take different approaches depending on whether I'm working on a campaign or a one-shot. For campaigns I always have an ongoing narrative where one session will usually lead naturally into another; when I hit a roadblock in planning the next session I try to make a loose outline of where I think things should go next and leave enough blank spaces for my players to connect the points the way they want.
For one-shots I usually pick a movie, TV episode or monster I like; for example, last October one of my regular players was on vacation out of state so I ran a couple of Ravenloft one-shots where the PCs were zombies working for Strahd to deal with the aftermath of adventurers being in Barovia based on *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* and *Lost Boys*, and earlier that year I ran one dealing with a creature from Eastern European folklore called the Bubak attacking a town on the Sword Coast.
What I've also found helpful is to write down whatever I've come up with, no matter how bad I think it is, which helps me organize my thoughts more and get them into something cohesive. If that's not working and you just can't think of anything, it's okay to take a break and tell your players that you're struggling; if any of them have been thinking about trying out DMing themselves that's a great chance for them to do so, or you could simply take a week off. We're all human, it happens to everyone and you're better off being honest with your players about it.
I have a spreadsheet of one-shot predetermined locations and encounters consistent with the overall campaign, and I’ll just roll into those and then ad-lib the party towards based on where they were in the last session. In this campaign it’s triggered by them passing through a door, selected by a d6 roll as they move around; the party gets solidly yote to the new situation when they go through the wrong door, kind of like being summoned.
They have yet to catch on to the actual method, but one party member has become fabulously paranoid about doors, and spends an action on landing being extravagantly sick because he chose to dump his Con stat and is now running with the idea that summoning sickness is real.
Crack open any acclaimed RPG game from Black Isle Studio, Obsidian, or Bioware.
Older Bethesda games are good too.
You could pretty much copy+paste every quest from Elder Scrolls Oblivion and give it a sprinkle of TTRPG magic and baby you got a stew going.
Insert a mini dungeon with a combat encounter and a puzzle, and some loot befitting of their efforts. You can flavor it to fit your setting and story, and it will fill a session but not be a waste of them.
That or mini-games. In one of my homebrew settings, I built a casino full of functioning games where my players could gamble and play cards. They spent many hours there when they just wanted some downtime, or when we were missing a few players we would spend a session at the casino. Be prepared for them to try to cheat, steal, or make infinite money. You’ll need good security.
Edit: someone else’s comment reminded me of some other encounters I’ve made that could be dropped into most settings. I created a bar that had been cursed with a portal of never-ending oozes. Every so often the portal would open and drop a random species and number of oozes into an arena, and PCs could fight them for money, drinks, and fame. Betting on the side, of course.
Also a gladiator arena can be a fun thing. Or if you have bards, a battle of the bands.
a couple of approaches:
**Become an improvisor.**
1) Look at where you are at the end of the last session.
2) Come up with one idea about where the story could go. This doesn't have to be tightly defined, you just want a destination scene.
3) Start the game, give the players agency. If they have a good idea of what they want to do follow them, otherwise start to pull them towards the prepared scene. Not directly, give them indirect choices, let their decisions inform you and help you flesh out the direction you are pulling them in, if a better idea about the destination arises from the characters interaction, throw out your original idea. When you are confident with your next destination, start trying to come up with ideas for the destination after the next one and what the players can do that will make one next destination more likely than the others.
**Have some goals in your back pocket.**
In a campaign I will have several things that I will want to achieve.
1) In the first session or so I want to have a scene for each PC which clearly displays what the character is about and why we should be interested in following them as a protagonist.
2) I will have a bunch of key NPCs and factions I want to introduce to the players.
3) Hopefully my players have provided me with some level of backstory that I can mine, and ongoing conflicts I can exploit.
**random generation**
Random input can be so good to get the creative juices going. Be they random tables, cards or pretty much anything that is used for divination.
I collect little quest prompts and ideas for one or two sessions dry spells and then adapt them to my setting. I have a few dozen at this point, ready to go if I need them.
This happened to me and what I did was make a list of possible encounters for the session, then basically just string them together and end the session a little bit early. My list was as follows: (Ravenloft Falkovnia campaign btw)
Impaled dead, dying elderly man (Arlan)
Group of Civilians attempting to flee
Troop of Talons, Seeking Deserters
Dark Dream (Endless tunnels, imprisoned, crawling broken )
Fort Watten: Rest, Conscription, Downtime?
James, the ghostly begger
Scoundrel
Talon Missions:
Roaming Undead Band
Fallen Star in Delmunster
Relentless slasher in Morfenzi
Troop of Talons:
3 Veterans, Death Cultist, Blackguard
I used all of these encounters in one form or another except Scoundrel (because it wasn't fleshed out beyond "a shady guy tries to scam the players?") and some of the Talon Missions because I decided the Talons would just assign them the mission I thought was most interesting. My players also helped by having some requests of things they wanted to do in the town (sell stuff, visit temples, buy a cart & horses) each of which I improvd into a full scene including one I quite enjoyed with a blind old antique seller who kept inadvertently scamming the players because his eyesight was too bad for him to see how valuable their wares were.
Alternatively, just throw some combat encounters in front of the party. Combat is the most bang for your buck as far as prep because stat blocks are solid pieces of pre-made content (that usually takes a while for players to chew through). Even if it's not the most creative/plot relevant combat, it's still usually a lot of fun for the players to get to cut lose on some random goons.
Youre making Plans? Lol. Heres how it goes in my campaign:
*#general: "Bois, head over to #course-of-action-discussion \*now\*. If i dont know what to prep for you guys by 5PM Monday (Session Start is 6PM Monday) yall can have fun wasting an hour of your session as i will have to do my prep mid session."*
Always works. DMing is all about outsourcing your working. Always outsource session planning.
Creative roadblocks are a bit of a myth, professional creatives, be it writers, artists or musicians have ways of just getting things out.
Now of course that’s not to say that you should stop feeling that block, breaking out of them is different for everyone and for me I do find it helpful to remember that factoid, that block is literally only in your mind.
The next step is just get something written, literally anything, it’s easier to fix a bad idea than to create a good idea out of nothing.
Let’s say they fight a giant parrot! Or their mother in law is coming to visit, or they lost a thingimagig.
Once you got that you can start problem solving, what monsters can I use for the giant parrot? They’re on the road so maybe their mother in law just happens to live in the next town, and I can look into what items the party care about to make into a small session. Sometimes I like to chat with anyone about the ideas and problems I have, even ChatGPT or Bing’s copilot. I almost never use their suggestions but it does help me think about things from another perspective.
Sometimes I just ask why doesn’t this idea work and the answer is eye opening, perhaps the problem with the giant parrot is I’ve been just doing too much fighting and I am burnt out, perhaps I’ll try to make it something more puzzle related, or maybe I haven’t explored the relationship between my characters and their mother’s in law enough to know if they’d make for an interesting session, so I should just include tidbits about their family for now, or maybe the character would never lose their precious item, so instead I’ll have something TRY to steal it, and that will be the session.
Lastly try to think of the arch of your characters, don’t be afraid to ask the players what they think their characters would need to face to grow or what they’d like to do, surprises are nice but a bit overhyped.
Hope any of this helps you.
After your player, characters, rest and sleep, ask them to tell you what their character dreamed about. Let them do most of it, but make it semi-interactive, where characters from their dreams, you will control them you were the player character.
Get into the habit of doing this regularly, but take a little bit more control each time until it’s about 50-50… Then they will be used to you asking about their dreams so when a BBE ever uses the dreams spell against them then it won’t be weird they won’t suspect it.
step one: be unable to sleep, running a game off of a 30 minute nap and caffine
step two: random bullshit. something ive used a couple of times: three goblins in a trenchcoat sell a bunch of cheap, goofy, but not very useful magic items. this can take up a fair amount of time
step three: uhhh hey i have this plothook lying around, how about i just kinda toss it in there and hope for the besta
step four: follow plothook for as long as it will reasonably go
step five: random encounter, have someone escape so the party can try to track them downa
step six: repeat steps two through five untill session is over
step seven: retcon any major fuck-ups you made to the overall story (optional)
(this is just a summerized version of a couple of my sessions, it works though)
I like using ChatGPT as a creative back-and-forth partner. I go to it with the start of an idea that I'm struggling to flesh out and ask it to give me the next couple of steps in the plan. I find that it works really well.
In addition, if my roadblock starts at the blank page and I've got no idea where to start, you can also ask it for some ideas/prompts to get you started.
Obviously this can be done without the use of AI by bouncing ideas off of friends and the like, but pretty much everyone I know who would be down for that is a player in my game, so it doesn't work out haha.
That's amazing! I'm definitely doing that tonight. I'm in the same boat where everyone I'd ask is in the party too so I feel that haha. It gave me exactly what I needed just now, so awesome suggestion
Hey Man! Having a conversation with the party is also a great way to go.
"What do you guys want to tackle next? I'm having a bit of a hard time preparing for the session so i figured i could ask so i prepare the right things"
What is interesting you in the real world? Any favorite shows, books, hobbies that you’ve picked up? For example When I hit a creative roadblock I think about what tv show has got me hooked and take flavor and elements from that to make a cool session about something I wish the show did . That usually gets the ball rolling and then I gain enough momentum to plan the other 3 hours of the session lol good luck Remember to take it easy on urself and don’t stress about it
lol good one but don’t go so literal. That show is full of fun crime, drama and mystery. Have ur players help local law enforcement solve a crime based off one of ur favorite episodes reskinned to fit the world
Too late, Jake Peralta and Charles Boyle are now the towns deputy and sheriff and they're after Sgt. Peanut Butter, the killer horse, destroyer of worlds. Jk but that's awesome idea!!
I have 10 maps and a grouping of enemies. If I am at a loss, I will let the players just do as they like and if something sort of sparks a "ohh hey, this could be something fun", happens, then I go with it.
One time I was in a game and we had to somehow get back to the main plot, but the DM we had didn't know how to, so they rolled a random event dice and after something got taken, one of our party went nuts because of the thing stolen and that lead into a fun encounter, and some really fun roleplay but got us back on track to the general story.
For me as Long as they aren't in the middle of a quest or task ill ask them what they want to do. I'll say there seems to be some down time so there is nothing imm3diate available for whatever their goal is. I'll say they can try to get some personal time in for character d3velopment or they can search out quests for money if they are lacking then I use a random quest generator and let the characters tell the story because remember this is a cooperative story telling game l. Not just you
Let your players know you're getting a little burnt out, because that's what this sounds like. You might need a little break and then come back with a shake-up to make what's happening more interesting.
My players used to do this wonderful thing. I'd put a note in our chat that I wasn't ready to run the game, usually the night before. And they'd all ask if we can still get together and they'll just roleplay. I let them know they have to stay inside a certain area, so they don't run into the plot but they were generally good with that. They all had a great time just chatting in character, making up their own hijinks to get into. Playing pranks, telling stories, emulating life. Not every table will be interested in that sort of thing, sometimes it's best to just cancel but never count your players out as a resource.
Nah not really getting burnt out. Just felt a under the weather this last week and had some major brain fog affecting my creativity and such. However, this is a REALLY good idea since my players absolutely LOVE the immersion aspect and roleplay of D&D. Our sessions can easily be trailed out to 5-8 hours without feeling like it's too much. I do have to do a LOT of NPC story improv but it's totally fine and they love all my wacky ideas. But, they are all also very good at coming up with things too. I'm going to suggest this!! Thanks man, this is awesome
Personally i like to run a primarily social interaction for when im struggling to fill a gap, a holiday or party something that lets the characters interact freely with the various NPC's youve created. It can lead to some really funny stuff and plot advancement or event he start of a new side quest that you can trigger off whatever sounds cool while your interacting with them.
Sure you can consult \`\`your book''. Whatever book you just read, whatever TV show or movie you just watched, a newspaper or magazine article, or something that just happened to you can be the seed for an adventure. I'm watching X-men: Evolutions just now. A kid with special powers that they can't control (with a fantasy twist) could be the core of an adventure. I don't know what your game is like, but borrowing any idea can break through a mental block. You can also just let the players roam around and follow their own plans, and the chance of them finding trouble is quite high. Have some generic ruffians made up, and when they pick a fight, you're ready.
Simple Scooby Doo style mysteries will entertain a party for a whole session if needed. Just about any location can have a dude trying to save/destroy a business/event by pretending to be some monster or ghoul.
Shopping side quest. You guys have gold? Wanna buy a fancy new sword? That'll eat up half a session right there. Bonus points if you improv a shopkeeper and let them haggle lousy deals.
Oh shit I’ve been there man.
For encounters, I like to disguise a monster as random event - roll some dice and pretend they mean something, give it a 1d6 loot drop table with some really cool magic items. Players are always excited when this shows up.
For plot and story, that just needs time and or improvisation unfortunately - can’t push yourself to make it happen on a whim, there’s no non-natural method that won’t sacrifice quality.
If they’re outside, have them come across a cool magical flora or fauna. If in a city, make them witness something paranormal or creepy, maybe? You just need something for a fun few hours, doesn’t have to be correlated to everything you’ve done so far.
I run two games currently, one home-brew, and one Out of the Abyss. With my home-brew campaign, I usually cancel if I'm not at least 50% ready. I can confidently draw sessions out if I've at least got the bones of a session there, if not, I respect my players time too much to give them something subpar.
My OOTA game, however, just had an amazing session when we were already a player down, and a second player cancelled after we had already started so I postponed what I had planned. The random encounter tables didn't just save me, but pulled together what one player described as "That one episode in a series that was supposed to be just filler, but turns out to be a fan favourite."
Also playing Oota, and I just threw together a dungeon draft map for crossing the dark lake that is mostly random encounters rolled such that they can choose at each intersection which path to take. Super easy to prep and just had a cliffhanger ending on a tense battle.
I like the options idea. My dudes completely noped out of the Darklake after Sloobludop.
The session that I mentioned above was the culmination of the previous two sessions, which were a split party scenario so I ran one part with the 3 players I had, and the following session was what everyone else got up to in that time. The session in question began with the party defacto leader, a take-charge Goliath barbarian breaking up an argument with Prince Derendil and another PC, and ended with the barbarian killing Derendil, after he got the killing blow on a stone giant who had surrendered. The foreshadow, the tension, the violent resolution. Perfect.
I have 2 different solutions for you. I have a card game called Storycaster that is meant to build adventures in any genre. It works great but I added a component that builds adventures from any literature. I was testing it out and built an amazing Harry Potter game, Lord of the Rings and even real world game just by pointing it at ww2 data. If you want to check it out, it is on [discord](http://www.storycaster.io/discord) and we play Storycaster games all of the time. You will never run out of ideas with this game it is a lot of fun. Hope it helps!
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I run a travel heavy game with a lot of random encounters, I just start adding bits onto the random encounters to feel like a planned session. "Suddenly you are attacked by goblins" and then halfway through the goblin fight, the goblins ask for a ceasefire and explain they are starving due to their hunting cave where they collect delicious muskrat and moss for stew is occupied by an owlbear. Party can choose to fight the goblins, give them some rations to tide them over till they can find a new muskrat cave, or go fight the owlbear. Generally take any random encounter and while you fight think of if there is any interesting direction you can take it.
Alternatively, you can do "Dungeon-town!" a mechanic I've added because sometimes you run out of ideas. The concept is that in my custom setting, sometimes dungeons pop up in the world, set up as challenges for adventurers to conquere by powerful magic beings. Little temporary towns pop up around these dungeons, essentially meaning that any time I run out of ideas, the party will see a massive tower in the distance indicating a pop-up dungeon with an abundance of loot. Then you just random generate it, and I personally just make the maps on Inkarnate while the party runs around the city outside the dungeon.
My last session I knew they needed to get to an island on the plane of water but not how to get there
So we discussed it at the end of the session. They came up with walk across (smart paladin, dumb player), swim (druid player), buy passage on a boat, or get a portal to Sigil then find a portal from there. Ultimately they chose portal
I had only expected a boat of some kind so definitely ask players how they want to get somewhere
If it's a one-two session thing, usually my world building saves me: I always have 2-3 open quests ready, when my players start with one, I add another idea. Nothing finished, but for a blank session, introducing the idea is enough to close the evening.
If they don't take the plot hook, I let them explore the city. Even in this case, if it's not a small town with just a tavern, I have at least 10 secrets ready, to give life to the people (lazy dm guide ftw).
If it's a longer crisis: " hey guys, it's a hard period I can't dm as I usually do. Do we take a break and play boardgames/go to pub, or does someone want to do the master for a new campaign?
Edit: anyways, don't feel blocked by your world: when in a creative crisis, just make a quest you'd like to play. YOU, not your players, they'll enjoy it I assure you. Do you want to play an Indiana Jones dungeon in the middle of a holy campaign? Duck it, make them find it on the road. Do you want to fight w a dragon? Oh, casually it's the national dragon holiday, they take flight and roam the country to find someone to kill. You can put Strahnd as a tavern keeper for fun, who cares etc etc
I would have them in a situation where a "side-quest" style rumour or event can happen. I also (and this will involve you taking notes) seed my sessions with 1 or 2 new side quest hints or starts (the players may not even notice) so when the session becomes a little stale or slows down you have reference ideas from previous sessions that you can bring back into the current session
I usually just go over last sesh than say like "so what are we doing here gang?"
Most of the time, the players write the story for you. DM prep is a scam.
Assassin attack!
Get a nice challenging combat going, have signs and evidence that the attackers were hired to go after the party.
Then let the party figure out why. I like to sit back and listen to their theories then pick the one like best or that’s easiest to turn into a hook.
Worst case scenario a group that looks enough like the party arrives afterwards and it’s all a big case of mistaken identity.
That’s usually enough to fill 3-4 hours.
Give them a market/tavern and let them spend a session rp-ing by themselves, it's gotten me a couple of sessions of extra prep time XD
Otherwise, travel encounters are great and you can easily look up many ideas for them that can be just small things on the road.
Then there's sites like Adventure Lookup that you can use, should be possible to find short adventure plots you can slot in as small plots or look for your next story arc
Come up with a vague area and play off the players. One area with one threat that doesn't have an easy solution you don't even need to know the solution.
One example. Deadly enemy who shows off why the players shouldn't fight him. Then an obstacle that makes escape at least a little awkward. Perhaps environmental hazards. See how they react let them voice concerns and maybe use that on them. If they escape too easy have the creature chase do a dynamic chase sequence
It's always good to know how to improvise just don't keep then on rails if they well and truly beat your idea reward them.
Survival session! Pull out darker dungeons pdf and get ready for a road trip!
If you can't tell the real answer is, read a bunch of adventure building resources and figure out what runs best.
Maybe the 5 room dungeon comes easily to you.
Maybe you find a cool boss monster, find a lair from r/battlemaps and throw on some area specific minions.
Maybe the party meets fey or a lost noble and engages in rp to understand their insane, but harmless, goals.
I'm usually pretty upfront with "I don't have a lot prepared today, so I'm just gonna wing it." As long as players can stay immersed (not asking them to roll loot tables), they don't really mind.
And of course, take breaks if you need it. Players no show all the time, the dm is allowed a few vacation days too.
If you had a favourite video game, tv show, book that was a little less mainstream growing up, you can rip ideas directly from that with a few tweaks. Even if one person is familiar with the media it should still seem new to them. They might even be very proud to have subconsciously solved the riddle/challenge/quest without realizing why it came naturally to them.
I like to throw them a curve ball, something that looks like an innocent encounter but creates a lot of intergroup roleplay.
Like having them find a lost item that is very valuable, knowing the rogue would want to sell it and the paladin wants to give it back.
I keep an album in my phone with pictures of potential NPCs or scenes that I use as prompts, usually for myself, but I'll often just throw one into Discord and say "This person just showed up." Let your players imagination take the lead for a session and see what happens.
Depending on the group sometimes I'll introduce a minigame. Usually it's an in-game thing the characters can go to like the typical festival, or having a mini worldbuilding session. One time I had a group just make up books they would find in a library they wanted to go to, and they were able to flesh out and fill up the tomes with information they were interested in for the story.
I find that when I'm stuck as a DM, I push for and rely on the players RPing. Hearing what the characters' motivations are and what their expectations are in-game helps me figure out where to go next. Just sitting them down at a table and having them chat about their greatest fears or where they want to go next can shape my next session
Suggest a Shopping Trip. Come up with amusing and weird shopkeepers for them to deal with.
Bring out one of the more beloved NPCs and instigate some personal drama with the PCs. Confessions of love, revelations of secrets, etc.
Have them head out on the road and roll a series of random encounters. Some crunchy combats to chew on eat up the session time.
Get the PCs to debate or argue something in character. Use an NPC to instigate it; "The King needs to know what the party wants to do about X." Sit back and eat popcorn while they Rp.
Be honest. "I don't have a lot of material tonight so what would you guys like to do for a bottle episode?"
My go-to is...
"Hey guys, I don't feel that I have enough prepared to make a good session. I can run a short session where we... \[do a wrap up of last session, handle some down-time, decide where the party is going next\], or we could postpone the session. What do you want to do?"
I try to map out my campaign in a three-tiered approach. I have the in-depth notes for the next 1-3 sessions, slightly less deep for the next 2-3 sessions after that, and then a high level diagram of plot points and potential arcs/scenarios that I want to pull out of the campaign at some point.
That way, even if I have nowhere to go at the end of an arc, I have plenty of options to where I can get going on something else. If they hate it, I’ll run something else and just be upfront with my players if it seems like they’re not enjoying it.
I’m pretty good at improv, but it’s definitely not a bad thing if you get blind-sided to ask for opinions and then ask for 20-30 minutes to whip up the beginnings of something.
Step 1: finish the wrap up from last session. Step 2: ask the players what they want to next, Step 3: look worried, roll some dice secretly then grimace out loud. Step 4: adlib an encounter while they panic for 20 min discussing if they should change plans.
I actually love this haha
Buying time by making them question reality is always an option.
Seconding this, if they are in a town you can start by asking them individually what they want to do. Do they want to buy something? Is there a particular NPC they want to chat with? Go to a church and pray to their god? That can serve to release tension, deepen their immersion in the setting, and maybe give you ideas for what to do next. And, if all else fails, NINJAS. You can decide after the fight who sent them and why :P
Ninjas similar to "A man bursts through the door"?
Exactly
My players' panic is legit my best source of ideas. "But what if, when we get to location X, BBEG is doing thing Y‽‽" Curses, they anticipated my evil ploy. The best bit is they feel super clever for 'figuring it out.'
Rolling the dice a looking worried, always every session multiple times. Random rolls, behind the screen mid game? Yes a thousand times yes. To actually answer. Go old school? Wilderness travel with "Random " Encounters. A Randomly generated dungeon can be fun, try not to make it too big I'd suggest. Also don't know why my autocorrect is Randomly capitalizing words but there you go. City adventures kind of write themselves. There used to be a zillion Random monster tables in the books. I imagine a quick search could find some online. Random stuff can be really fun and sometimes lead to interesting directions in the main game. You got this. Just have fun.
I amass a collection of pre-written one-shots/short adventures for just this situation -- it's just a little extra work to adapt them to my setting/where the players currently are. The wotc 5e one-shot anthologies all have at least a couple halfway decent adventures in them, as do all the Kobold Press one-shot anthologies. I've also got a huge collection of free oneshots I picked up from DMs Guild. other ideas: If they're mid-adventure, have the party done anything recently that one of your bad guys might react to? How would your bad guy react? If they're between adventures, what do your players think their characters want to do? They could have some downtime, or have something you've mentioned in a previous session they want to follow up on.
Ooo I never really thought about pulling one shot ideas and tweaking them to fit the setting!!
This is the way. Have a couple that are roughly level-appropriate for the party, and change the names/places to fit your setting. Done. I do this every couple of months, they love it.
Sometimes you have more ideas than you need. File them in a folder and when you are NOT blocked, build them out a little. Having 'set pieces' 'in your pocket' means having something for those times when you don't have time to prep, or when things go awry and the party finishes the dungeon in half a session when you planned it to last at least 3 or 4 sessions. Also, have a section of your 'file' for maps. And premade random encounter tables, whether you make them yourself or whatever. There's books that are filled with tables. Take a map and a table, roll a bit. "You round the corner and you see the road widen ahead. But there's a blockade across the road, and humans in black tunics over rusty chainmail turn to look at you as you approach. What do you do?"
how do you get free one shots from DM guild?
They have some free, if you search. Also, they have some in range of 1-5€
There's a lot of pay what you want as well.
Wing it and just say whatever comes out of my mouth and let the players guide it from there, or just ask what they want to focus on next (on a meta level). Note: I do not recommend this for newer DM's, I've been running games for longer than I want to count (ok fine is been... 27 years????? Fml).
I look forward to saying that one day. My friends have never played and I've been a player in like.....7 sessions total, and we all wanted to play so I figured I'd take up the DM mantle. It's be SO MUCH FUN!! And I've done a little of the "what do ya wanna do" and I think for me, I made the world and have a general idea of what's going on so I'm comfortable enough with that. But yeah, as a new DM, I couldn't imagine saying that with a pre-written story I haven't done.
Pre written is totally different. I pretty much exclusively do homebrew. I steal from pre-written though. Saves time. If you haven't already, check how Matt Colville on YouTube, his Running The Game series is system agnostic almost exclusively, and he helps remind you of things you should and shouldn't do to make your world immersive for your players.
Oo I didn't know he had such a series, thanks!! I love homebrew too, I just feel like I've always enjoyed story creation and have built worlds for funsies, so making a one shot and turning it into a homebrew was super no brainer for me.
I'm so time limited that I try to stick to pre-written. Helps if the players go along with it. I don't want to take away agency to get them to stick to the story. I will say that I've noticed that my games seem to sidetrack. Even if we start on a pre-made, I end up having to improvise or find a set-piece or a one shot to slot into a game. I'm looking forward to the day I can drop a group in 'Tomb of Horrors' with no warning. Needs to be a committed group though.
Sound slike you have the right attitude! Having someone hire them to retrieve a stolen heirloom can be v easy because it's simple to improvise. Have a mini bandit hideout in an old tower. Have a forest battle on the way there. At the tower, bandits, there are stat blocks in the MM. Then come up with one secret about the tower, maybe a crypt in the basement, or a locked door to a room filled with junk and a map. And remember , you don't have to play for four hours. Just have fun
> And remember , you don't have to play for four hours. Just have fun Such a short time
There's what some folks call a session 0. If you say "what sort of things do you want to see in this campaign", and write down a bunch of stuff, it can be a good source of material. And, you can make a list of good ideas for later development. Even if you don't use them in this campaign, maybe you can use it later in another, or a one-shot.
This way my players made a ten years campaign (real time, \~10 to 15 sessions a year). They still praise me for the great ideas and plot. Little do they know that it was all their ideas. "We can't do that! The enemy will do XY if we do YZ!" ...great idea, noted.
This is something that I've noticed and aboslutely love! Most of the creation in my game has come from their ideas of thinking out loud! I'm really proud of them actually, they just pieced together a major story hook and the next phase of the campaign is happening. The BBEG is FINALLY being revealed >:)
I can count back, but I have to do math to figure it out. 43 years. Of course, does 3 twelve year olds taking turns being gm count? Playing on tables photocopied from the AD&D DMG, player's handbook and Deities and Demigods? Back when we first started, it was only 'off the cuff'. Then I got one of the Against The Giants modules and had my first experience with multi session adventures. Weekends of 12-16 hours a day playing. I've never been good at asking what they want to do next, but there is a lot of inspiration if you \~eavesdrop\~ pay attention during pre-game, post-game, and breaks. Also, never let on if you're improvising. Refer to source books and papers in your notes. Even if you're not really reading them, just stalling while you figure out what to do next.
Excellent advice in there
27 years ... good job!
I pull out the Return of the Lazy Dungeonmaster and roll on the tables and work the steps. I’ve started using art int to flesh things out that I like and then go with the flow.
Roll tables are lifesavers!!! Especially on these kind of days. You can look up roll tables in different settings: cities, forests, at sea, etc. it creates a lot of funny improv situations and ways for players to be creative. Have them roll the dice or you just roll in secret. Either way they'll appreciate the suspense
Ooooo I love getting them to roll and not telling them what happens except with ominous phrases like "That's going to hurt" or "Hmm, I see"
There's whole books. (Wow, today's GMs Day). Visit [drivethrurpg.com](http://drivethrurpg.com) and search for encounter table or random encounters. That site is the one that teamed up with Wizards of the Coast for "Dungeon Masters Guild" website. Both are good resources for DnD, and drivethrurpg is excellent for many other games.
Time to go SHOPPING!
Steal from others Randomly generate some dungeon or ruin for them to explore Try to curry favor from politicians and have them choose between 2 or more politicians vying for the same thing but done differently
I roll on a bunch of tables and see what speaks to my imagination. Sometimes I take the results and drop them in ChatGPT.
I was gonna say ChatGPT but the rolling on tables beforehand sounds like you give it the structure it really needs. Nice...
I have a general story I've been working with, and when I've had to do something other than our main storyline, I had other characters from one of my world's factions try to fulfill a part of the story that would come later. In this case, I had them roll higher level characters to travel through a desert to an ancient elvish ruin to retrieve a flawless ruby. The main quest PC's would have had to do this later anyway when they were at a higher level but this was a nice diversion. Now that the main PC's are at that level too, they'll run into each other.
Kill someone. Your narrative might be getting stale, and as a result hard to improvise in because there are too few problems. Is the "good king" a little TOO good at keeping the kingdom together? Stabbed by power hungry members of the parliament. The inner city slums feeling a bit too... orderly? Drive by crossbow shooting of a bystander and the party has to decide if they're giving chase. Lich in his dungeon not really feeling like an immediate enough threat? Deliver a formal invitation to said dungeon sealed with a glyph of warding to the doorstep of the next highly populated Inn the party stay at by carrier peacock just because he's an extravagant asshole and cloudkill the building if they set it off.
"Hey team. I need a little extra time to prepare the next section of the campaign. Does someone want to run some one shots for the next few weeks while I get caught up with my prep work?"
That would work if they were experienced and confident enough. I'm for the most part really good at fly by the seat of my pants, but feeling under the weather this week has me a little slower on that part. But, once one of my players gets comfortable enough, I'm going to plan a little role reversal with him for a session to give him the reigns to try!
Chaotic fey shows up offering a chance in the blood dome. Pit the players against each other in a 2v2 or 1v1 style fight and reward the player who wins with something neat.
I go through what I think of as “input” and “output” phases. Input phases are when I’m feeling uninspired and unable to create new material, so I turn my focus to reading new books, watching new movies/shows, listening to new podcasts, etc, until I feel like I have enough new ideas and perspectives that I need to start writing them down — that’s my output phase.
I take different approaches depending on whether I'm working on a campaign or a one-shot. For campaigns I always have an ongoing narrative where one session will usually lead naturally into another; when I hit a roadblock in planning the next session I try to make a loose outline of where I think things should go next and leave enough blank spaces for my players to connect the points the way they want. For one-shots I usually pick a movie, TV episode or monster I like; for example, last October one of my regular players was on vacation out of state so I ran a couple of Ravenloft one-shots where the PCs were zombies working for Strahd to deal with the aftermath of adventurers being in Barovia based on *Invasion of the Body Snatchers* and *Lost Boys*, and earlier that year I ran one dealing with a creature from Eastern European folklore called the Bubak attacking a town on the Sword Coast. What I've also found helpful is to write down whatever I've come up with, no matter how bad I think it is, which helps me organize my thoughts more and get them into something cohesive. If that's not working and you just can't think of anything, it's okay to take a break and tell your players that you're struggling; if any of them have been thinking about trying out DMing themselves that's a great chance for them to do so, or you could simply take a week off. We're all human, it happens to everyone and you're better off being honest with your players about it.
This is fantastic, thank you!
I have a spreadsheet of one-shot predetermined locations and encounters consistent with the overall campaign, and I’ll just roll into those and then ad-lib the party towards based on where they were in the last session. In this campaign it’s triggered by them passing through a door, selected by a d6 roll as they move around; the party gets solidly yote to the new situation when they go through the wrong door, kind of like being summoned. They have yet to catch on to the actual method, but one party member has become fabulously paranoid about doors, and spends an action on landing being extravagantly sick because he chose to dump his Con stat and is now running with the idea that summoning sickness is real.
Crack open any acclaimed RPG game from Black Isle Studio, Obsidian, or Bioware. Older Bethesda games are good too. You could pretty much copy+paste every quest from Elder Scrolls Oblivion and give it a sprinkle of TTRPG magic and baby you got a stew going.
Insert a mini dungeon with a combat encounter and a puzzle, and some loot befitting of their efforts. You can flavor it to fit your setting and story, and it will fill a session but not be a waste of them. That or mini-games. In one of my homebrew settings, I built a casino full of functioning games where my players could gamble and play cards. They spent many hours there when they just wanted some downtime, or when we were missing a few players we would spend a session at the casino. Be prepared for them to try to cheat, steal, or make infinite money. You’ll need good security. Edit: someone else’s comment reminded me of some other encounters I’ve made that could be dropped into most settings. I created a bar that had been cursed with a portal of never-ending oozes. Every so often the portal would open and drop a random species and number of oozes into an arena, and PCs could fight them for money, drinks, and fame. Betting on the side, of course. Also a gladiator arena can be a fun thing. Or if you have bards, a battle of the bands.
a couple of approaches: **Become an improvisor.** 1) Look at where you are at the end of the last session. 2) Come up with one idea about where the story could go. This doesn't have to be tightly defined, you just want a destination scene. 3) Start the game, give the players agency. If they have a good idea of what they want to do follow them, otherwise start to pull them towards the prepared scene. Not directly, give them indirect choices, let their decisions inform you and help you flesh out the direction you are pulling them in, if a better idea about the destination arises from the characters interaction, throw out your original idea. When you are confident with your next destination, start trying to come up with ideas for the destination after the next one and what the players can do that will make one next destination more likely than the others. **Have some goals in your back pocket.** In a campaign I will have several things that I will want to achieve. 1) In the first session or so I want to have a scene for each PC which clearly displays what the character is about and why we should be interested in following them as a protagonist. 2) I will have a bunch of key NPCs and factions I want to introduce to the players. 3) Hopefully my players have provided me with some level of backstory that I can mine, and ongoing conflicts I can exploit. **random generation** Random input can be so good to get the creative juices going. Be they random tables, cards or pretty much anything that is used for divination.
I collect little quest prompts and ideas for one or two sessions dry spells and then adapt them to my setting. I have a few dozen at this point, ready to go if I need them.
This happened to me and what I did was make a list of possible encounters for the session, then basically just string them together and end the session a little bit early. My list was as follows: (Ravenloft Falkovnia campaign btw) Impaled dead, dying elderly man (Arlan) Group of Civilians attempting to flee Troop of Talons, Seeking Deserters Dark Dream (Endless tunnels, imprisoned, crawling broken ) Fort Watten: Rest, Conscription, Downtime? James, the ghostly begger Scoundrel Talon Missions: Roaming Undead Band Fallen Star in Delmunster Relentless slasher in Morfenzi Troop of Talons: 3 Veterans, Death Cultist, Blackguard I used all of these encounters in one form or another except Scoundrel (because it wasn't fleshed out beyond "a shady guy tries to scam the players?") and some of the Talon Missions because I decided the Talons would just assign them the mission I thought was most interesting. My players also helped by having some requests of things they wanted to do in the town (sell stuff, visit temples, buy a cart & horses) each of which I improvd into a full scene including one I quite enjoyed with a blind old antique seller who kept inadvertently scamming the players because his eyesight was too bad for him to see how valuable their wares were. Alternatively, just throw some combat encounters in front of the party. Combat is the most bang for your buck as far as prep because stat blocks are solid pieces of pre-made content (that usually takes a while for players to chew through). Even if it's not the most creative/plot relevant combat, it's still usually a lot of fun for the players to get to cut lose on some random goons.
Youre making Plans? Lol. Heres how it goes in my campaign: *#general: "Bois, head over to #course-of-action-discussion \*now\*. If i dont know what to prep for you guys by 5PM Monday (Session Start is 6PM Monday) yall can have fun wasting an hour of your session as i will have to do my prep mid session."* Always works. DMing is all about outsourcing your working. Always outsource session planning.
Creative roadblocks are a bit of a myth, professional creatives, be it writers, artists or musicians have ways of just getting things out. Now of course that’s not to say that you should stop feeling that block, breaking out of them is different for everyone and for me I do find it helpful to remember that factoid, that block is literally only in your mind. The next step is just get something written, literally anything, it’s easier to fix a bad idea than to create a good idea out of nothing. Let’s say they fight a giant parrot! Or their mother in law is coming to visit, or they lost a thingimagig. Once you got that you can start problem solving, what monsters can I use for the giant parrot? They’re on the road so maybe their mother in law just happens to live in the next town, and I can look into what items the party care about to make into a small session. Sometimes I like to chat with anyone about the ideas and problems I have, even ChatGPT or Bing’s copilot. I almost never use their suggestions but it does help me think about things from another perspective. Sometimes I just ask why doesn’t this idea work and the answer is eye opening, perhaps the problem with the giant parrot is I’ve been just doing too much fighting and I am burnt out, perhaps I’ll try to make it something more puzzle related, or maybe I haven’t explored the relationship between my characters and their mother’s in law enough to know if they’d make for an interesting session, so I should just include tidbits about their family for now, or maybe the character would never lose their precious item, so instead I’ll have something TRY to steal it, and that will be the session. Lastly try to think of the arch of your characters, don’t be afraid to ask the players what they think their characters would need to face to grow or what they’d like to do, surprises are nice but a bit overhyped. Hope any of this helps you.
After your player, characters, rest and sleep, ask them to tell you what their character dreamed about. Let them do most of it, but make it semi-interactive, where characters from their dreams, you will control them you were the player character. Get into the habit of doing this regularly, but take a little bit more control each time until it’s about 50-50… Then they will be used to you asking about their dreams so when a BBE ever uses the dreams spell against them then it won’t be weird they won’t suspect it.
Orc attack.
step one: be unable to sleep, running a game off of a 30 minute nap and caffine step two: random bullshit. something ive used a couple of times: three goblins in a trenchcoat sell a bunch of cheap, goofy, but not very useful magic items. this can take up a fair amount of time step three: uhhh hey i have this plothook lying around, how about i just kinda toss it in there and hope for the besta step four: follow plothook for as long as it will reasonably go step five: random encounter, have someone escape so the party can try to track them downa step six: repeat steps two through five untill session is over step seven: retcon any major fuck-ups you made to the overall story (optional) (this is just a summerized version of a couple of my sessions, it works though)
I like using ChatGPT as a creative back-and-forth partner. I go to it with the start of an idea that I'm struggling to flesh out and ask it to give me the next couple of steps in the plan. I find that it works really well. In addition, if my roadblock starts at the blank page and I've got no idea where to start, you can also ask it for some ideas/prompts to get you started. Obviously this can be done without the use of AI by bouncing ideas off of friends and the like, but pretty much everyone I know who would be down for that is a player in my game, so it doesn't work out haha.
That's amazing! I'm definitely doing that tonight. I'm in the same boat where everyone I'd ask is in the party too so I feel that haha. It gave me exactly what I needed just now, so awesome suggestion
Hey Man! Having a conversation with the party is also a great way to go. "What do you guys want to tackle next? I'm having a bit of a hard time preparing for the session so i figured i could ask so i prepare the right things"
What is interesting you in the real world? Any favorite shows, books, hobbies that you’ve picked up? For example When I hit a creative roadblock I think about what tv show has got me hooked and take flavor and elements from that to make a cool session about something I wish the show did . That usually gets the ball rolling and then I gain enough momentum to plan the other 3 hours of the session lol good luck Remember to take it easy on urself and don’t stress about it
Hell yeah, time to incorporate the crew from Brooklyn 99 in my world!! Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago, lesgoo
lol good one but don’t go so literal. That show is full of fun crime, drama and mystery. Have ur players help local law enforcement solve a crime based off one of ur favorite episodes reskinned to fit the world
Too late, Jake Peralta and Charles Boyle are now the towns deputy and sheriff and they're after Sgt. Peanut Butter, the killer horse, destroyer of worlds. Jk but that's awesome idea!!
I have 10 maps and a grouping of enemies. If I am at a loss, I will let the players just do as they like and if something sort of sparks a "ohh hey, this could be something fun", happens, then I go with it. One time I was in a game and we had to somehow get back to the main plot, but the DM we had didn't know how to, so they rolled a random event dice and after something got taken, one of our party went nuts because of the thing stolen and that lead into a fun encounter, and some really fun roleplay but got us back on track to the general story.
For me as Long as they aren't in the middle of a quest or task ill ask them what they want to do. I'll say there seems to be some down time so there is nothing imm3diate available for whatever their goal is. I'll say they can try to get some personal time in for character d3velopment or they can search out quests for money if they are lacking then I use a random quest generator and let the characters tell the story because remember this is a cooperative story telling game l. Not just you
When in doubt, bar brawl! That’s my go-to.
Let your players know you're getting a little burnt out, because that's what this sounds like. You might need a little break and then come back with a shake-up to make what's happening more interesting. My players used to do this wonderful thing. I'd put a note in our chat that I wasn't ready to run the game, usually the night before. And they'd all ask if we can still get together and they'll just roleplay. I let them know they have to stay inside a certain area, so they don't run into the plot but they were generally good with that. They all had a great time just chatting in character, making up their own hijinks to get into. Playing pranks, telling stories, emulating life. Not every table will be interested in that sort of thing, sometimes it's best to just cancel but never count your players out as a resource.
Nah not really getting burnt out. Just felt a under the weather this last week and had some major brain fog affecting my creativity and such. However, this is a REALLY good idea since my players absolutely LOVE the immersion aspect and roleplay of D&D. Our sessions can easily be trailed out to 5-8 hours without feeling like it's too much. I do have to do a LOT of NPC story improv but it's totally fine and they love all my wacky ideas. But, they are all also very good at coming up with things too. I'm going to suggest this!! Thanks man, this is awesome
Go to a source like Arcane Library or Drive ThruRPG
They fall into a gnome festival.
ha my session 0
Personally i like to run a primarily social interaction for when im struggling to fill a gap, a holiday or party something that lets the characters interact freely with the various NPC's youve created. It can lead to some really funny stuff and plot advancement or event he start of a new side quest that you can trigger off whatever sounds cool while your interacting with them.
Sure you can consult \`\`your book''. Whatever book you just read, whatever TV show or movie you just watched, a newspaper or magazine article, or something that just happened to you can be the seed for an adventure. I'm watching X-men: Evolutions just now. A kid with special powers that they can't control (with a fantasy twist) could be the core of an adventure. I don't know what your game is like, but borrowing any idea can break through a mental block. You can also just let the players roam around and follow their own plans, and the chance of them finding trouble is quite high. Have some generic ruffians made up, and when they pick a fight, you're ready.
Simple Scooby Doo style mysteries will entertain a party for a whole session if needed. Just about any location can have a dude trying to save/destroy a business/event by pretending to be some monster or ghoul.
Shopping side quest. You guys have gold? Wanna buy a fancy new sword? That'll eat up half a session right there. Bonus points if you improv a shopkeeper and let them haggle lousy deals.
The sword can be really pricey and the shopkeeper can give them a quest to retrieve something in the, "insertname" cave, for better prices.
Oh shit I’ve been there man. For encounters, I like to disguise a monster as random event - roll some dice and pretend they mean something, give it a 1d6 loot drop table with some really cool magic items. Players are always excited when this shows up. For plot and story, that just needs time and or improvisation unfortunately - can’t push yourself to make it happen on a whim, there’s no non-natural method that won’t sacrifice quality. If they’re outside, have them come across a cool magical flora or fauna. If in a city, make them witness something paranormal or creepy, maybe? You just need something for a fun few hours, doesn’t have to be correlated to everything you’ve done so far.
I run two games currently, one home-brew, and one Out of the Abyss. With my home-brew campaign, I usually cancel if I'm not at least 50% ready. I can confidently draw sessions out if I've at least got the bones of a session there, if not, I respect my players time too much to give them something subpar. My OOTA game, however, just had an amazing session when we were already a player down, and a second player cancelled after we had already started so I postponed what I had planned. The random encounter tables didn't just save me, but pulled together what one player described as "That one episode in a series that was supposed to be just filler, but turns out to be a fan favourite."
Also playing Oota, and I just threw together a dungeon draft map for crossing the dark lake that is mostly random encounters rolled such that they can choose at each intersection which path to take. Super easy to prep and just had a cliffhanger ending on a tense battle.
I like the options idea. My dudes completely noped out of the Darklake after Sloobludop. The session that I mentioned above was the culmination of the previous two sessions, which were a split party scenario so I ran one part with the 3 players I had, and the following session was what everyone else got up to in that time. The session in question began with the party defacto leader, a take-charge Goliath barbarian breaking up an argument with Prince Derendil and another PC, and ended with the barbarian killing Derendil, after he got the killing blow on a stone giant who had surrendered. The foreshadow, the tension, the violent resolution. Perfect.
Time for the beach episode!
I rip off stuff from videogames that I'm pretty sure the players have never played.
I use chatgpt. Explain the situation, including information about your setting and the party, then ask for suggestions.
I have 2 different solutions for you. I have a card game called Storycaster that is meant to build adventures in any genre. It works great but I added a component that builds adventures from any literature. I was testing it out and built an amazing Harry Potter game, Lord of the Rings and even real world game just by pointing it at ww2 data. If you want to check it out, it is on [discord](http://www.storycaster.io/discord) and we play Storycaster games all of the time. You will never run out of ideas with this game it is a lot of fun. Hope it helps!
Cancel. It’s not a job, no one will die if you don’t play tonight.
Rip off media
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I take a break and cancel the session.
I run a travel heavy game with a lot of random encounters, I just start adding bits onto the random encounters to feel like a planned session. "Suddenly you are attacked by goblins" and then halfway through the goblin fight, the goblins ask for a ceasefire and explain they are starving due to their hunting cave where they collect delicious muskrat and moss for stew is occupied by an owlbear. Party can choose to fight the goblins, give them some rations to tide them over till they can find a new muskrat cave, or go fight the owlbear. Generally take any random encounter and while you fight think of if there is any interesting direction you can take it. Alternatively, you can do "Dungeon-town!" a mechanic I've added because sometimes you run out of ideas. The concept is that in my custom setting, sometimes dungeons pop up in the world, set up as challenges for adventurers to conquere by powerful magic beings. Little temporary towns pop up around these dungeons, essentially meaning that any time I run out of ideas, the party will see a massive tower in the distance indicating a pop-up dungeon with an abundance of loot. Then you just random generate it, and I personally just make the maps on Inkarnate while the party runs around the city outside the dungeon.
My last session I knew they needed to get to an island on the plane of water but not how to get there So we discussed it at the end of the session. They came up with walk across (smart paladin, dumb player), swim (druid player), buy passage on a boat, or get a portal to Sigil then find a portal from there. Ultimately they chose portal I had only expected a boat of some kind so definitely ask players how they want to get somewhere
If it's a one-two session thing, usually my world building saves me: I always have 2-3 open quests ready, when my players start with one, I add another idea. Nothing finished, but for a blank session, introducing the idea is enough to close the evening. If they don't take the plot hook, I let them explore the city. Even in this case, if it's not a small town with just a tavern, I have at least 10 secrets ready, to give life to the people (lazy dm guide ftw). If it's a longer crisis: " hey guys, it's a hard period I can't dm as I usually do. Do we take a break and play boardgames/go to pub, or does someone want to do the master for a new campaign? Edit: anyways, don't feel blocked by your world: when in a creative crisis, just make a quest you'd like to play. YOU, not your players, they'll enjoy it I assure you. Do you want to play an Indiana Jones dungeon in the middle of a holy campaign? Duck it, make them find it on the road. Do you want to fight w a dragon? Oh, casually it's the national dragon holiday, they take flight and roam the country to find someone to kill. You can put Strahnd as a tavern keeper for fun, who cares etc etc
I would have them in a situation where a "side-quest" style rumour or event can happen. I also (and this will involve you taking notes) seed my sessions with 1 or 2 new side quest hints or starts (the players may not even notice) so when the session becomes a little stale or slows down you have reference ideas from previous sessions that you can bring back into the current session
I usually just go over last sesh than say like "so what are we doing here gang?" Most of the time, the players write the story for you. DM prep is a scam.
Assassin attack! Get a nice challenging combat going, have signs and evidence that the attackers were hired to go after the party. Then let the party figure out why. I like to sit back and listen to their theories then pick the one like best or that’s easiest to turn into a hook. Worst case scenario a group that looks enough like the party arrives afterwards and it’s all a big case of mistaken identity. That’s usually enough to fill 3-4 hours.
Give them a market/tavern and let them spend a session rp-ing by themselves, it's gotten me a couple of sessions of extra prep time XD Otherwise, travel encounters are great and you can easily look up many ideas for them that can be just small things on the road. Then there's sites like Adventure Lookup that you can use, should be possible to find short adventure plots you can slot in as small plots or look for your next story arc
Come up with a vague area and play off the players. One area with one threat that doesn't have an easy solution you don't even need to know the solution. One example. Deadly enemy who shows off why the players shouldn't fight him. Then an obstacle that makes escape at least a little awkward. Perhaps environmental hazards. See how they react let them voice concerns and maybe use that on them. If they escape too easy have the creature chase do a dynamic chase sequence It's always good to know how to improvise just don't keep then on rails if they well and truly beat your idea reward them.
Survival session! Pull out darker dungeons pdf and get ready for a road trip! If you can't tell the real answer is, read a bunch of adventure building resources and figure out what runs best. Maybe the 5 room dungeon comes easily to you. Maybe you find a cool boss monster, find a lair from r/battlemaps and throw on some area specific minions. Maybe the party meets fey or a lost noble and engages in rp to understand their insane, but harmless, goals. I'm usually pretty upfront with "I don't have a lot prepared today, so I'm just gonna wing it." As long as players can stay immersed (not asking them to roll loot tables), they don't really mind. And of course, take breaks if you need it. Players no show all the time, the dm is allowed a few vacation days too.
If you had a favourite video game, tv show, book that was a little less mainstream growing up, you can rip ideas directly from that with a few tweaks. Even if one person is familiar with the media it should still seem new to them. They might even be very proud to have subconsciously solved the riddle/challenge/quest without realizing why it came naturally to them.
I like to throw them a curve ball, something that looks like an innocent encounter but creates a lot of intergroup roleplay. Like having them find a lost item that is very valuable, knowing the rogue would want to sell it and the paladin wants to give it back.
I keep an album in my phone with pictures of potential NPCs or scenes that I use as prompts, usually for myself, but I'll often just throw one into Discord and say "This person just showed up." Let your players imagination take the lead for a session and see what happens.
Tell my players I've hit a block and need some time. Focus on it a little less for a while. Come back to it.
Find a pre written module that you can squeeze into your game.
Depending on the group sometimes I'll introduce a minigame. Usually it's an in-game thing the characters can go to like the typical festival, or having a mini worldbuilding session. One time I had a group just make up books they would find in a library they wanted to go to, and they were able to flesh out and fill up the tomes with information they were interested in for the story. I find that when I'm stuck as a DM, I push for and rely on the players RPing. Hearing what the characters' motivations are and what their expectations are in-game helps me figure out where to go next. Just sitting them down at a table and having them chat about their greatest fears or where they want to go next can shape my next session
Suggest a Shopping Trip. Come up with amusing and weird shopkeepers for them to deal with. Bring out one of the more beloved NPCs and instigate some personal drama with the PCs. Confessions of love, revelations of secrets, etc. Have them head out on the road and roll a series of random encounters. Some crunchy combats to chew on eat up the session time. Get the PCs to debate or argue something in character. Use an NPC to instigate it; "The King needs to know what the party wants to do about X." Sit back and eat popcorn while they Rp. Be honest. "I don't have a lot of material tonight so what would you guys like to do for a bottle episode?"
My go-to is... "Hey guys, I don't feel that I have enough prepared to make a good session. I can run a short session where we... \[do a wrap up of last session, handle some down-time, decide where the party is going next\], or we could postpone the session. What do you want to do?"
I try to map out my campaign in a three-tiered approach. I have the in-depth notes for the next 1-3 sessions, slightly less deep for the next 2-3 sessions after that, and then a high level diagram of plot points and potential arcs/scenarios that I want to pull out of the campaign at some point. That way, even if I have nowhere to go at the end of an arc, I have plenty of options to where I can get going on something else. If they hate it, I’ll run something else and just be upfront with my players if it seems like they’re not enjoying it. I’m pretty good at improv, but it’s definitely not a bad thing if you get blind-sided to ask for opinions and then ask for 20-30 minutes to whip up the beginnings of something.