High Quality Trash

Forager Essentials (Public July 19th)

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DM Advice: More Than You Can Chew

Time and again I’ll have folks write in with a really solid idea for a big picture campaign concept or third act twist with a request to help bridge the gap between the low levels/start of the campaign and the thing they’re excited for. I love helping these folks, but as someone who looks for structural answers to problems it’s made me think there might be something lacking in how we’re teaching DMs to tell stories.

If I had to break it down into pure fundamentals: The constant guiding theme in any and all adventure or campaign writing is that whatever the party happen to be doing, whether it be hunting monsters, protecting an ally, exploring a ruin, or planning a heist, It’s only a piece of a far larger story. This larger story operates at a greater scale than the party currently has a means of dealing with, initially making them feel like small fish in a big pond and providing a great sense of achievement when they finally do manage to take on the larger threats.

 On a Campaign Basis:

When plotting a story arc you should start with a goal, something difficult but conceptually achievable that the party can throw themselves at with cleverness or daredevil bravery. Rescue the Heir, Save the Village, Avert the Disaster, Steal the Jewel. The task is not impossible, but the solution is not obvious requiring them to explore, be crafty, and get inventive. It’s best if they’re invested in accomplishing this goal in some way, so make the stakes personal and resonant with the characters and their desires.

In the background however you’ve got something else cooking, a larger story that the party are only pieces in, a conflict between individuals and forces far larger than they’ve previously dealt with that’s been going on unseen. Start with how the party achieving their initial goal will affect the world: who’s it going to piss off? what tenuous balance does it disrupt? What had to be done to keep that balance in place? Do any of the power players in this arrangement see the party as their opportunity to make a move and so throw their support behind this seemingly innocuous goal? What prices do they extract?

Villains are generally going to be your primary link between the small and large scale stories, but it’s important to set them up correctly; the villains are acting/reacting in relation to the larger story and their actions trod on the lives of the party/the people the party care about. In trying to correct this injustice (if only for selfish reasons) the party gain the villain’s attention/the attention of that villain’s enemies ( though whether they be allies or villains themselves depends on the story) and suddenly find themselves caught up in the events of the larger narrative.

While it’s a good idea to plan the goal based adventure as something the party can objectively “win”, I prefer setting up the background scenario as a delicate sort of jenga tower: things were inevitably going to fall apart but there’s no way to predict how. That’s because your players a) are chaos agents b) have agency, and it’s all about seeing how they choose to act/react in the face of an overwhelming scenario. 

The small scale story is about the lives of the heroes/people, where as the larger scale story is about the outcome of ideas/the world.  You do the small story first because getting your audience to care about themes and lore is best done through getting them to care about characters first, and then using their plights and passions as a lens to see the bigger picture.

Advice on using this technique on specific adventures under the cut:

So I’ve been DMing D&D 5e for a couple years now, and that means I’ve collected a ton of free online resources to help the whole process! Without further ado, here’s all of the websites I’ve collected over the years.

NAMING: 

Xanathar’s Missing Pages: Hundreds of surnames for any characters you’re writing! There’s sections for different regions, such as Polynesia, India, and France!

This Reddit thread is a goldmine of shop names! There’s tons of variety for a bunch of different kinds of shops!

This website has a TON of diverse names! Like, seriously, I’ve been using this for two years and I haven’t had to use another website for first names. 

STATBLOCKS: 

5th Edition SRD has a list of NPC statblocks! There’s some based on classes, existing monsters, character archetypes and more!

Outclassed is a compendium of statblocks based on almost every published subclass! It’s pay what you want with a recommended price of 10 USD. I use this CONSTANTLY, and imo it’s one of the best DM resources out there. 

MAPS:

This Subreddit is purely for battle map creators to post their work!  They’re even categorized by genre and location!

This is a post from that subreddit that has a big list of free, semi-free, and paid mapmaking tools.

CityGenerator is a website that generates city maps down to the tiny details. It generates the names and descriptions of important locations in the city, holidays, people, travelers, and more! 

 DungeonFog is a mapmaking website that you can use for all kinds of maps! I’ve used it for combat maps primarily. There is a premium membership, but it’s useable as the free version. 

Owlbear.rodeo is an extremely easy to use interactive online battlemap. I’ve used it a TON as a DM that plays online and hates using roll20. It’s really easy to get the hang of, and there’s nothing to purchase! I can’t recommend this one enough!

D100 LISTS/GENERATORS;

Goblin Punch has this amazing d100 list of minor magical items for any high-rolling pick pocket rogues out there! 

 Donjon has a great Random Magic Shop Generator! You can customize it a bit, and it gives you some interesting details and magic items to give your players.

This dndbeyond thread is a d100 non-combat random encounter table. Great for any non-planned areas your players go into! 

Nerdsonearth have a d100 table of city encounters that’s perfect for writing plot hooks!

This one is a bit weird, but if you have to come up with an NPC on the fly, here’s a Character Voice Generator!

MISC:

The Thieves Guild is an all-around amazing resource for anything D&D. Like, seriously, they have anything you would need .

This is absolutely not a PDF of the Modern Magic Unearthed Arcana. You should not download it because it is not at all useful for modern settings.

This is a giant Google Drive just chock full of oneshots. Some are better than others, but they’re all one page and free, so go at it! 

And, finally, a reminder that even though it is easy and free, you should not google a WOTC official d&d book PDF because it will show up as the first result and you can just download it instead of buying a 30 dollar book. This is bad and illegal and you should not do it <3

The Rival (derogatory): party that is, whether seemingly or legitimately, significantly more accomplished than the players. Best used to stir up petty drama and/or inspire subtle action.

The Rival (affectionate): the party that happens to show up to claim the same or parallel jobs, is as skilled as the players, and is fair about competition. Best used as a non-lethal testing method, or as a resource to be tapped in large, multitask quests.

The Kennys: just as skilled as the players, only job is to show the players they are in deep shit, usually by rushing in and dying or worse.

The New Kids: significantly weaker than the players, but eager to prove themselves. Use to either inspire mentoring or to trick the players into calling themselves dumb by calling out repeats of the same dumb shit they pulled.

The Experts: hired agents by the government, use to show how you interpret law, procedure, and the relative power of elite officials in your setting. These parties should be both generic and static; if an elite dragon hunting team is level 5, they stay level 5 forever.

The Sweepers: as or more skilled than the players, they exist to take on time sensitive quests in exactly the ways they don't want. They are the bad ending group, and exist to add, not relieve, time sensitive pressure.

The Kevins: a party that exists only to be found injured and going away from the quest location. Use to drop clues about encounters and to instill fear.

For height-dysphoric trans men - list of shorter male celebrities.

6′0 Aisha Tyler

6′0 Allison Janney

6′0 Brooke Shields

6′0 Elle Macpherson

6′0 Famke Janssen

6′0 Geena Davis

6′0 Jane Lynch

6′0 Jeanene Fox

6′0 Jennie Finch

6′0  Kristen Johnston

6′0 Margaux Hemingway

6′0 Natasha Stefanenko

6′0 Saffron Burrows

6′0 Uma Thurman

6′1 Adriana Karembeu

6′1 Ana Hickmann

6′1 Brigitte Nielsen

6′1 Faith Minton

6′1 Janet McTeer

6′1 Julie Strain

6′1 Michelle Wie

6′1 Monika Schnarre

6′1 Pam Stone

6′1 Penny Lancaster

6′1 Tara Moss

6′1 Venus Williams

6′2 Dorothy Ford

6′2  Elizabeth Debicki

6′2 Ireland Baldwin

6′2 Jodie Kidd

6′2 Karlie Kloss

6′2 Lindsay Davenport

6′2  Maria Sharapova

6′2 Natalia Bush

6′2 Suzie Plakson

6′3 Dot-Marie Jones

6′3 Gabrielle Reece

6′3 Gwendoline Christie

6′3 Judy Gold

6′3 Kerri Walsh Jennings

6′4 Candace Parker

6′4   L'Wren Scott

6′4 Rebecca Lobo

✦If you’re also Lois Griffin don’t follow

✦Stewies DON’T interact

✦Looking for my Peter ♡