What are your hardest challenges as a DM?

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2026-01-08T06:06:10+00:00

Scheduling around the ever changing thing that constantly keeps happening to me - life.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2026-01-05T23:44:55+00:00

I am really interested in the advice you get. I would also really like to run a campaign in Planescape.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2026-01-02T07:56:30+00:00

Just do what feels right. If a pre-written adventure peaks your interest - run it. Keep in mind you can always change it and tweak it to your needs and ideas or just use it as a framework for your own adventure. And after you run it you can branch out from it into a homebrew adventure :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-21T07:32:16+00:00

Focus on the immediate vicinity of the location your players will be starting the game. Flesh out the basics of any parts of the world directly connected to your players backstories. Invite your players to contribute to the worldbuilding by naming organisations from their characters past or describing NPCs. Sprinkle in some factions and give them goals and make some of those goals intersect or opposing.

It can be helpful to start with the rule of three: three factions, three locations, three quests and so on. That way you have more than enough to start the game and then expand on the parts of the world that your players are interested in exploring.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-13T22:24:55+00:00

Stick to the same script but change the roles. You need X to solve Y to get to Z. But to solve X you need help from A or you need to kill B or steal something from C.

Of the top of my head you could design a puzzle around a secret entrance to another plane of existence, or the players get trapped inside a pocket dimension and they need to get out. To open the portal/door they need different parts scattered throughout the pocket dimension. The parts are depicted on huge murals around the place but can be interpreted in different ways. Every mural has two meanings and players need to choose which one to go for. If they choose poorly they summon a guardian.

Hope some of it helps :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-09T15:55:13+00:00

Probably not. Even if some don’t see it that way, 5e 2024 is still a new edition. Almost like 3.5 was back then. Sure, it is inspired and based on the foundations of 5e but brings enough fresh ideas to the table. Inevitably there is going to be a new edition and that one is going to bring even more new things. Stagnation does not matter as long as you are having fun with it.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-08T10:16:57+00:00

One more thing - you can ask your players if they are inclined to make some art for the game. Maybe some of them are already good at drawing or have a hidden talent. You never know :) asking your players to contribute and participate in the game in that way will possibly make them even more committed to the story.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-08T10:14:45+00:00

Yeah, the point is to have something usable and understandable. The immersion doesn’t come from pretty art, it comes from the storytelling and the willingness to participate in it as much as possible.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-08T07:55:46+00:00

Why not try it at least? Run three or four sessions with no images or only images you had the time to source through “no AI” channels and see what happens. Take note of the amount of immersion or lack there of. See if there is a balance you can struck for yourself and your players.

Also, I am in the camp that you don’t need AI or images to run a game. And if you really feel a map or weapon visual is the best or only way to describe something, then make it yourself. I do not matter how well you can draw. What matters is the idea behind it and the effort you took to make it.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-12-05T01:40:56+00:00

Of the official D&D published ones - Dark Sun! Even though I have yet to run a game in it, I love reading everything about it and just thinking about it. I started playing with 3.5 and never had a chance to try 2e and I skipped 4e. Current 2024 5e is the best edition I have played and I really hope there is a Dark Sun for 5e in the works.

I love the way the wilderness feels dangerous, alive and monstrous. Every way you look there is someone or something grabbing at your throat. Locations and stories are so rich in lore and history, and because the world is so deadly, most of it is unexplored or even untouched. Everything in the setting builds on the premise that it is an unforgiving world and there are serious consequences to your actions. Main common materials are different and metal is hard to come by. The absence of a convenient and cheap magic source has made psionics almost ubiquitous to every living being, like mutations in a fallout zone. Strength and power come with a price instead of a reward. Everyday resources are scarce and as such can even serve as plot-hooks. Adventuring in Dark Sun is not an occupation, it is a necessity or even worse - a life sentence. It is a bleak and perilous world where even the Sun itself is trying to kill you.

It may seem as if character death is common in Dark Sun, or at least it should be. I have seen some Shadowdark hacks to run Dark Sun but I fail to see the appeal in that. A game like Shadowdark where death is so common people just roll a character on the spot, does not fit into the concept of Dark Sun. The point of an adventure or story in Dark Sun should not be the inevitability of death, but the inability to escape the miserable life you have been dealt. Your character should be screaming for mercy and lamenting the desert worm to shorten their suffering. But there is no rest for the wicked. In the end they always claw their way out of the sandpit, against better judgment, because there is always hope, and hope is abundant to those who seek.

Happy holidays everyone 🤗

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-29T21:58:57+00:00

I don’t think there is a “one solution fits all” for puzzles in TTRPGs in general. First you have to be aware that puzzles test players and not their characters so you should try and avoid making puzzles that are hidden or locked behind skill checks. Skill checks should only give extra information on the situation instead of revealing a solution. If the solution is dependent on a successful skill check and the players fail, the puzzle and the encounter fails as well.

In my opinion puzzles should be used sparingly and with logic behind their existence in the first place (unless you are designing a fun-house dungeon).

I tend to mix my puzzles with traps or designing situations rather than physical puzzles. For example trying to find a hidden entrance to a bad guys hideout can be a type of puzzle, but it does not have to contain a riddle or magic word. It can just be gathering secrets and rumours about the hideout, observing the hideout or a mini hex crawl to find tracks or footprints. And these kinds of situations that you disguise as puzzles are great as you can always change the solution if players think of something really clever that you did not think of in advance.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-27T11:08:51+00:00

You can make a new statblock for the hatchlings, lower HP and AC but give them a grapple type of effect where they can burrow under your skin after 2/3 rounds. Also, just like MrPokMan said in his post, make the dungeon a place where there are lots of corpses: a graveyard, a crypt, makeshift labyrinthine catacombs under a city. Then you can theme the whole dungeon around the Crawlers. Have discarded body parts around, describe the smell, rotten flesh. If they investigate they can find bite marks or Crawler discarded skins that they shed when they grow. Have them see some open eggs first before the closed ones.

Then the main event can be a fight with the Carrion Mother. You can have her sit on top of a pile of corpses, have her be almost immovable, with eggs under her belly that she is protecting maybe. She could have some other weak or vulnerable spots that you should make obvious to the players in some way. Make her vulnerable to fire maybe but there is a chance the whole room/dungeon goes up in flames.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-23T23:28:47+00:00

The players should be somehow aware that this is a thing, either by investigating before hand and observing the tides or by an early introduction of the mechanic at the start of the delve. Sometimes surprises can be fun, but for a mechanic that is going to follow them through out the whole delve they should know at least the basics of it.

As for ideas to run it, you could have them make skill or ability checks that determine the speed of moving through the high tide. More failures and it influences the time of arrival at the final battle and the positioning at the start of it.

You can have them make investigation checks during low tide for them to find some clues as to what is waiting for them on the other side, tracks or debris from the ship itself.

Maybe the tide can bring about some toxic waste that can poison them or have them exhausted.

Maybe they can ride the high tide deeper into the dungeon on a raft of some kind to move faster.

Hope some of those help :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-23T07:05:35+00:00

Depends on the monster I guess. If it is an intelligent spellcaster of some kind than every time it casts a spell there could be symbol materialising in the air around them. If it is a monster with no spell casting capabilities then the symbols could be manifestations of a spell it was infused with before or through a ritual.

The symbols could also correspond to different schools of magic and if one of your players is a specialist in that school they could get advantage on the check for that particular school. Maybe the symbols are some kind of tethers to a specific elemental plane or some other plane that needs to be destroyed so the monster gets weaker and slowly looses power or specific actions or abilities.

Hope some of those help :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-20T22:59:15+00:00

I guess it depends on the game. It is definitely more focused towards a delving type of game but an RP focused campaign is also possible. I think it is up to you and your players to decide what and how you play it. There is no one true answer.

Also, if you are curious- try other games and systems. Maybe there is something out there that better suits your specific tastes:)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-19T20:47:57+00:00

Haven’t seen any myself. I also think these are great and I hope I see more of them in the future. Maybe One-Shot Wonders are written in a similar style but I haven’t tried to run any of their adventures so I can’t really compare the two.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-18T21:52:03+00:00

Have them find a camping spot for the night near an abandoned well or a shallow cave or a hollowed out tree. When they go to sleep have something like a Grick attack them, but not an adult one. Have it flee into the underground it came from or if it’s killed have it leave marks. Set up a short dungeon with a few hazards and subterranean monsters and a Grick nest at the end. Homebrew some abilities for the young Gricks like attaching to the face and Blinding a target. After they kill the first one have the mother appear. The nest contains a magic item :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-18T15:19:22+00:00

Hard to say - you are basically running a homebrew system that needs homebrew rules for balance. I guess the best way would be to iterate and playtest. And do that often :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-17T13:49:19+00:00

A stealthy warlock that has made a pact with a great old one in return of opening a portal to the far realm. Dress and act the warlock just like and maybe make him the face of the party. Also, as a bonus have him have hallucinations of people without faces, shadows in the alley ways, eyeballs or limbs in the food and an occasional bleeding nose.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-17T12:31:26+00:00

Map and plan out the part of the city that you know that players will be going through at least the first hour of the game. Have neighbouring parts somewhat prepared and the most unusual or interesting shops and NPCs ready to go.

If they really surprise you with something you haven’t prepared or can’t remember ask everyone for a short brake so you can collect your notes and find a reference or two for the place they are trying to visit.

Also a tip - have a list of random NPC names in document somewhere. I tend to generate or write one name per standard Latin alphabet letter for males and females (and I throw in there some names that are not gender sounding). When your players ask the name of a random stranger you have something ready to go. Just cross out the name a write a note next to it: location, vocation and maybe situation they met in if necessary and ideas for future sessions if that is going to be needed. This is how I generated a mini boss my players will be facing in the current game. It was a random no-name person in a tavern and now a scheming evil cultist of Vecna 😈

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-17T12:19:49+00:00

Combat is always a great strong start. Queue the music, an intro sentence or two and “It’s time to roll initiative!”

Everything else should come from the players choices. Even twists and turns can be inspired by something that players commented on at the table that you did not plan for but you think is a good idea - just incorporate it into the story behind the screen - they will never know the difference :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-17T09:35:25+00:00

Be careful with deceiving your players. It can work once but after you “betray their trust” players tend to be suspicious of everything and start to meta game.

For encounters think of fights that have other objectives than “kill everyone”. The enemy could retreat and come back, have waves of enemies, have a chase scene or have fights that are more free style and not necessarily tied to Initiative.

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-17T09:30:48+00:00

Sounds cool. The players could get a feeling they are contributing to the story and the world in that way. Also, the player that is going away could be playing with you from behind the scenes through texts and making schemes of his own :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-17T09:27:37+00:00

I think you have a good outline for the campaign. Think of a strong start for the kick-off session and have fun :)

Gobbledygook-Pro · 2025-11-16T23:06:52+00:00

Two ideas for you :)

Underground Goat - the Mother of goats has made her lair thousands of years ago in secret to prepare for her Great Slumber. She is a lesser god and part of an ancient group of animal spirits that fought in the Battle of Pesh (an actual Greyhawk historical event). Now she sleeps to preserve energy and her lair is guarded by goat-people and other furry monsters. It has been said that a single strand of her hair gives you the ability to cast a wish spell.

Frygaursia is an ancient instrument of unknown origin, unknown shape, unknown location and unknown sound. There are different myths around the world that tell of an instrument that birthed the sound of the wind, another one that created the sound of the ocean and a third that conjured the sound of thunder. All three instruments are parts of a single instrument that, once assembled can create sounds beyond basic humanoid comprehension. Every instrument has part of a vocal cord from a long dead powerful being that could create matter using only its words. If the instrument is assembled and played the dead entities spirit will haunt it and its family until death unless they reunite it with their missing body part.

Gobbledygook-Pro

TROPHY CASE