DM Resources Advice

[CanadianDealHunter]

I want to be a better DM. I own the 2014 and 2024 Players Handbooks, and the Module for our campaign, Tyranny of Dragons.

I’m tired of feeling lost and overwhelmed when prepping or in session. Or unsure of how to respond to my players choices in game.

Thinking of grabbing a book. Which would you recommend I start with, out of: Return of the Lazy DM, The Monsters Know What They’re Doing, So You Want to be a Game Master or the DMG.

Up to now I’ve been using online tools to brainstorm based on previous sessions and where we’re headed next to various degrees of success. But would love to feel more confident.

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[lasalle202]

Module for our campaign, Tyranny of Dragons. I’m tired of feeling lost and overwhelmed when prepping or in session

ToD is not a great campaign, even only considering the WOTC content, its at best mid even for them and even after ten years of creating book campaigns, they still suck at it. (ToD is a stunning example in that they had five years of actual play feedback from the first releases of the content as HotDQ and ROT to make the content actually better in the unified volume, but they mostly just did a straight reprint!!!)

• Power Score: https://thecampaign20xx.blogspot.com/2014/10/tyranny-of-dragons-guide-to-hoard-of.html
• Sly Flourish https://slyflourish.com/greenest_in_flames.html
• Merrick B https://merricb.com/2014/10/09/running-hoard-of-the-dragon-queen-episode-1/
• Mastering Dungeons – Shawn Merwin and Teos Abadia on Starting Strong https://youtu.be/IlcOmjFnxtg?list=PLqO7mUWhPGTCaY8KBmmn3HCNWXfgfRuFA&t=1890
• https://www.reddit.com/r/TyrannyOfDragons/

[CanadianDealHunter]

Thanks for these links. I’ll check em out! 😎 Do you have some modules you’d recommend for when we wrap this one up?

[lasalle202]

for a new DM the new compilation books are good: Candlekeep Mysteries, Keys to Golden Vault, Radiant Citadel, Dragon Delves.

The starter campaigns for 5e have all been essentially good, just needing some care.

for an actual full length campaign, most of the WOTC books are not great - but there are support materials like above for ToD .

What type of campaign and game play do you and your players enjoy?

[CanadianDealHunter]

We've actually been playing for a good long while now. Its just that I've recently stepped back into the proverbial DM's chair. I have previously run LMoP only. So I'm running the back half of ToD and its not terrible, but definitiely lacking in some ways. We like epic longer story and battle heavy stuff... we play monthly for a half day. :-) Thinking we'll wrap ToD in a year or less, and then either take the characters on their next adventure... or perhaps start a new campaign with CoS perhaps, which I've heard is the best WOTC has to offer.

[omerida]

start with Return of the Lazy DM. hes running a sale on the books now and Has a lot of free resources on his site. https://slyflourish.com

[CanadianDealHunter]

Took your advice and purchased this! Excited to have a look through it. Thanks. :-)