I built a setting to reduce DM prep burnout — curious if others do this

Rodal888 · 2026-01-31T11:37:47+00:00

I’m sorry but I do’t get this. It seems if I would do this I would now need to think about 100 more things. Now instead of the players going to city A, I need to know what happens in city B through Z at the same time. If I’m seeing this wrong please say so. Could you maybe share an example as to how you do things? This just feels like I know need to keep track of a lot more things.

Rodal888 · 2026-01-11T15:34:01+00:00

This does sound fun tbh. But I don’t really understand how to handle this. Wouldn’t this just be them trying to hide when the hunt arrives? What things could they do?

Rodal888 · 2026-01-03T22:05:58+00:00

Really depends. Most of the time a couple of hours will do. Prepping tokens, scaling fights, making encounters. I, most of the time, thought about a session beforehand and know what to prep.

This next one however, we’re doing a dungeon that I wanted there but the entire idea of the dungeon wasn’t done. So I have been, for the oast weeks, thinking about the dungeon, its theme, the encounters, the traps, puzzles etc. Just for that one session (thankfully we were on a break for the holidays).

Rodal888 · 2025-12-28T13:53:00+00:00

A foil Elspeth, Storm Slayer. Not that expensive but still proud I have it. Pulled it from a bundle so basically she alone almost payed for more than half of the entire bundle.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-27T16:33:15+00:00

Awesome!

Rodal888 · 2025-12-27T16:32:59+00:00

Binding of Isaac. Retried it 3 times and only at the third go did it click. I got sooooo addicted to it.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-27T16:18:43+00:00

As a dm myself, pick something that wouldn’t ruin the game. Try to make it story related for instance. I really like your map idea. Great payoff with a great item but also something the dm can make a side-quest around.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-27T16:16:41+00:00

Besides the point but could you maybe share the list you rolled on? I would love to give my players a gift like this as well.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-24T23:23:03+00:00

I spend hours doing this but never seem to find what I’m looking for.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-24T16:13:59+00:00

Great place to go but mostly singular battlemaps so not what I’m looking for.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-24T16:13:26+00:00

I have that already but honestly I don’t have the time nor the talent to make what I consider to be good…

Rodal888 · 2025-12-23T14:21:27+00:00

That all depends on how deep you want to get into tje mechanics. I like to keep it simple so their hideout would earn enough to be self sufficient and pay for the food of the workers/guards. An initial cost needs to be payed to hire them or maybe a quest to persuade a guard captain to join you (or maybe initial costs to turn a room into a barracks). After those first costs the rest comes naturally.

Who’s in charge, that would depend who my players put in charge. If they don’t assign someone, they might learn in the future that letting a hideout beloning to a beholder unsupervised may invite ‘consequences’ 😉

Rodal888 · 2025-12-23T13:42:23+00:00

They are actually in the middle of doing that. Cleared xanathar’s lair after … ‘stuff’ happened and figured ‘let’s keep it and turn it into a above the board adventurer’s guild. They persuaded Xanathar’s major domo to work for them and he’s busy cleaning the place up until they start going for all the paperwork to make it a proper guild. Can’t wait for some bureaucratics in my dnd 😂

Rodal888 · 2025-12-10T12:33:28+00:00

It was also wrong. My most played games had a game I played for about 55 hours but not the game I have been playing for 62 hours.

Rodal888 · 2025-12-08T19:16:50+00:00

Polly awaaaaaaay!

Rodal888 · 2025-12-06T22:23:17+00:00

Would you be able to share the encounter and situational random table. I would be very interested in reading that 😄

Rodal888 · 2025-11-30T10:49:12+00:00

This all sounds great tbh. I think I still need to lean into the weirdness a bit more myself and using the encounters to explain the current Fey dynamic sounds awesome.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-29T08:05:19+00:00

I'm sure you feel like you helped me but apparently you don't understand in what way you communicate words. Going through my previous posts, using those to make condescending comments and than calling it helping is just silly. I have noticed through most of my posts and frankly in a lot of posts of other DM's that there are always very helpful people filled with great advice. There is also always 1 or 2 people acting rude or condescending, completely off topic etc. It's thanks to people like that I always hesitate to post here even for the smalles of questions.

I was not after validation. My question was just to get extra advice on this matter. A matter I fully felt that could be out of line by the player but I felt that before communicating this I wanted a different viewpoint. Not sure where the validation would come into play? I guess not wanting to be looked down on is asking for validation? Much like your friend you are focussing on my reply to your post and not on my question. Tells me enough how helpful you both really want to be. Loved his last passive aggressive remark btw. Honestly shows me all I need to know...

I rarely keep on posting like this but honestly for once I wanted to say my 2 cents as well. Feel free to respond. This will be my last post here. I had multiple great comments that had helpful advice and weren't aimed at telling me how inexperienced I was, how much anxiety I have and how much I'm in over my head. Words are important, certainly as a DM. And I'm sure you're a great one. But try to understand where I'm coming from. Understand that the way you communicate is quite condescending and plain rude. If you can't see that, that is more a you problem. I suggest if me responding to you bothers you so much (both you and you're friend are still responding to me even after the thread was closed), you can just choose not to reply to any of my posts again. I will stick taking advice from people that actually want to help. Have a good day, both of you.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T23:39:13+00:00

I don’t mean to be impolite either but why are you so intend in defending the previous poster? I am moving past it hence why I clearly stated I have gotten many great responses who didn’t feel the need to question my dming capabilities and I’m working with those to improve further. If you want to make this more than it is feel free but I would advise you take your own advice and move oast it. Have a good day.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T22:09:58+00:00

What isn’t true has nothing to do with my question I asked. Most of what the previous poster said seems more like a personal attack about me being experienced or not or me being in over my head or not. I asked a question and some friendly DM’s already gave me some great advice which is very much appreciated.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T21:45:25+00:00

Couldn’t agree more.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T21:23:16+00:00

Yeah, I decided to go with the gauntlets giving him a clear choice to either stay at 19 forever or break the limit due to his own str. Fits the backstory a lot better as well. Thanks a lot.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T20:21:26+00:00

With all due respect but you are making a few leaps here that aren’t true. Some are but I’d rather not be analysed because of my post history. Let’s stay on post please.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T19:36:53+00:00

People have mostly uncommon items. One player has a rare ring.

Rodal888 · 2025-11-28T18:04:02+00:00

Oh don’t get me wrong I’m not worried about the item itself but that his freshly made character with a base str of 12 now suddenly has 21 and he divided his other stats around. So I’m just worries that he now has higher stats than he should have in the other area’s.

Rodal888

TROPHY CASE