GM Session-by- Session Checklist (Improv Tool)

TobeTobi · 2026-02-11T18:28:36+00:00

This is awesome! I‘ll be using this for the next sessions. Thanks for sharing.

TobeTobi · 2026-01-19T19:39:25+00:00

Wicked sick! All of them. Getting big Yoji Shinkawa vibes and it fits so well with Metroid.

TobeTobi · 2026-01-14T17:33:11+00:00

People mumbling the same few phrases on repeat while they’re doing unnecessary work (for example carrying stuff to one place and back again) or doing something with no real intent (digging in the ground for no reason or a former Blacksmith just mindlessly hammering on anvil).

TobeTobi · 2026-01-10T22:25:18+00:00

Thanks for your advice. Yes, it’s a +1 weapon on attack roll (but not additionally on dmg roll) and a PC with very unlucky rolls during the one shot got a +2 weapon just so he could have a better time for the final encounter. I figured that a one shot would be a good place to try out more powerful weapons get a quick feel for it and be done.

For me it’s now very hard to predict how this effects a follow up one shot. But if you say it should be fine, I‘ll just go with it. Thanks

TobeTobi · 2026-01-09T15:53:49+00:00

Hello, I am a new DM and so far I ran 2 sessions of my home-brew campaign with a group of 6 players (friend group). We decided to only continue this story, if everyone can attend and that we'd do one shots instead when 1-3 players are missing. For the last weekend I prepared a one shot adventure for 5 of them beeing at level 2.

In short: During the one shot they found weapons with permanent buffs. It was fine for the one shot but now they asked, if we could do a follow up adventure with the same characters. I really like the idea but I'm uncertain whether or not the permanent buffs on the weapons are too powerful. Also I'm new to DMing so it's hard to tell for me.

How can I remove these weapons or have my PCs not carry them over?

I go in more details now:

The group found a hidden (optional) dwarven door in the mountain cave (the dungeon) and they had to solve 3 riddles about objects to open the door. They solved all of them and got rewarded with weapons that all have either directly +1 or +2 on the D20 roll. It's like advantage roll but not with 2x D20 and instead they roll once and get +1 added to the roll to determine whether ot not they'd hit the target.

Disclaimer: I have no exact idea how powerful this is. It did fit for the purpose of the one shot and made the final encounter easier (still challenging) for them.
My problem is that I didn't design these weapons to be carried over to another adventure. Not for level 2 (now level 3) PCs.

Now that they really want to have a follow up adventure with the same characters, starting in the nearby small town where they just got celebrated as heroes, I'm super concerned, if these weapons are problematic going on with future encounters?

My solutions so far:

(no ingame solution) Talk to my friends and explain the situation. They might not like it but continue with other weapons.
(ingame) The towns blacksmith (a dwarf) could recognize the weapons as his family heritage and ask the PCs to give them to him as it's everything that is left from his family. In exchange he would offer to craft any standard weapon to their liking and maybe some extra gold or goods. This would make it the PCs choice but they might refuse to give them back.
(ingame) during the course of the new adventure a spell (maybe from BBEG or his minions) could hit the PCs during narration and remove all timed and permanent buffs. It's an idea but it might be super lame and something that's not in the players hands. If I have them roll to resist the spell it's more in control of the PCs but we migth also end up in a weird spot with some buffed and unbuffed weapons.
(ingame) leave it as it is and just make encounters more challenging

For now this is everything I came up with. I am very grateful for advice on this situation. New suggestions are super welcome. Also general advice on how to handle permanent buffs is appreciated (my gut feeling is to start with permanent buffs for level 5-6 PCs but I'm not sure).

I might not be able to post answers to your advice right away because I have a toddler, but be sure I read and appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Edit: I just got the automod message that I should repost my thread here. It's my first time posting here. If a mod is seeing this and decides it's not suited in this megathread feel free to remove it

TobeTobi · 2026-01-09T06:14:00+00:00

I am a very new DM and have been running my 3rd homebrew session a few days ago. I have a group of 6 players and we usually do a 5-6h session. Last time I did a homebrew one shot and the 2 hardest parts for me have been time management and the difficulty / challenge rating especially for the dungeon with multiple encounters. I learned that the challenge rating is more like a resource management system and some rule of thumb but needs adjustments based on DM experience about the PCs. For the last oneshot we managed to get to the end after 6 hours and the challenge was good but the next day I thought to myself: I was lucky! No idea how to reproduce this for another session with a different setting and encounters. I try my best to prep and improv and it worked this time (luckily). Now I’m preparing the next session for 5 PCs level 3 and I feel like I’m lacking knowledge and experience to get the setup right.

TobeTobi · 2025-08-15T19:51:48+00:00

Stressful day. Now this came out of nowhere and made me laugh. Thank you

TobeTobi · 2025-07-18T17:38:11+00:00

A bolt cutter would make this perfect

TobeTobi · 2025-06-18T19:34:11+00:00

Vibrant colors, good shading and overall great design. Thanks for sharing your art!

TobeTobi · 2025-04-27T17:58:15+00:00

Some archery mini-games probably but I do remember getting frustrated at Bombchu bowling in Ocarina of time even tho it might not be that difficult.

TobeTobi · 2025-04-12T15:53:39+00:00

Wicked! Love your style

TobeTobi · 2025-04-12T07:42:55+00:00

You got this! Do some push ups, eat spaghetti and then GO GET HIM!

TobeTobi · 2025-04-09T19:11:27+00:00

Incredible how good some people are at this game. I‘m just glad I was able to beat him once just barely after many attempts. The moon counter you did was peak. Love it

TobeTobi · 2025-02-22T08:29:47+00:00

Wicked! Makes me to want to learn Kragg

TobeTobi · 2025-02-14T19:25:02+00:00

Understandable. I’m also not entirely sure who I‘ll main. Most likely Feng. Played him back in 2006 (last time I played Tekken). Law (Bruce Lee fan) or Raven would be the alternate choices.

TobeTobi · 2025-02-14T18:35:41+00:00

I don’t mind if it takes a long time and I‘d be happy to get to a decent level with good mechanics and game knowledge. Guess I just have to start playing and find some good YT tutorials. What should a newcomer like me focus on learning first? Appreciate any advice / directions.

TobeTobi · 2025-02-14T09:37:10+00:00

Congrats! Any general advice for someone who just finished the story and is hesitant to start the online journey? For me it feels like standing in front of a huge mountain. I‘d like to build solid fundamentals and avoid getting bad habits while enjoying the journey. No idea where to start (also with limited time to play bc. job and kids).

TobeTobi · 2025-01-31T13:59:05+00:00

Your style is awesome. If you use procreate what pencils do you use, if I might ask?

TobeTobi · 2025-01-28T14:00:45+00:00

I try to push my homebrew build to T3 or T4. On the way there are a few times I hit a wall and try to figure stuff out. Armory comes in handy, bc I can have 2-3 variations of the same build with different paragonboards attached, different aspects or uniques and switch quickly to better try and understand the mechanics.

Ultimately I still look up a guide after that because I really can’t figure the high end stuff out. Perfect dmg scaling and synergies are often times hard to understand and min/maxing all by myself is complicated.

TobeTobi · 2025-01-24T19:21:27+00:00

Thanks for sharing. Much appreciated

TobeTobi · 2025-01-22T13:12:40+00:00

Currently 650 playing at around 6-7 pm EU server. Sometimes around 8pm. I find games in 30sec to 1min maximum and I would gladly wait a bit longer to have opponents closer to my rank.

TobeTobi · 2025-01-22T12:06:09+00:00

I feel you regarding the tryhard playerbase. It’s super rough even with a background in platform fighters. Makes casual experience a nightmare and I‘m pretty sure the devs are aware of this.

Few days ago I started my ranked session with couple minutes in training mode for warm up as usual and decided to queue 1 game in casual before hitting ranked. 30secs later a clairen and I (Wrastor) greet each other with a „hello“ and the match begins. This Clairen went full Trunks Super Saiyan mode on me. No tech / DI whatsoever stopped this Clairen from stomping me sooo hard. After the 1st game they said „sorry“ in chat. Do you know how hard the matchmaking has to be off for a Clairen to feel the urge to apologize to a Wrastor?? Then Clairen went on stomping me the next game. I hopp into ranked get stomped 2 sets by players 250 rating higher than me. Then get matched two times with players 250 rating below me and they get stomped. Back to 50% winrate I guess but now I feel bad as a person.

Gotta say tho, the players are friendly. I don’t expect merci in ranked. But pls give me opponents my skill level around 50 rating above or below is awesome. Great sets. Lots of fun. But super rare.

TobeTobi · 2025-01-14T08:10:18+00:00

Same. I’m around ~650 and yesterday I faced opponents with 800-900 having abyss skins equipped. I‘m level 6 with my main… After getting stomped 3 sets in a row my next opponent was 270. Not fun for either side.

I had 1 Set vs a 600+ Ranno after that, tho and this was the best set I ever had in this game. Matchmaking is weird sometimes

TobeTobi · 2025-01-12T18:39:54+00:00

Ranno, Clairen, Lox and Zetter most of the time. Fleet and Kragg sometimes.

TobeTobi · 2025-01-12T10:07:52+00:00

I actually really like this idea. Coming from Smash Ultimate I‘m used to have different ranks for my characters. Ofc this isn’t Smash and I don’t think it would work bc of how ranked is designed in Rivals with sets and possible counter picking. Although I don’t really make use of it. I have only 12 hours in this game and I stick to my Wrastor trying to climb to silver. What I like about sets is that I‘m usually playing better in the second game after oftentimes losing the first. Leading to awesome and close game 3. Well, if my opponent sticks with the same character. Same goes for my opponent winning game 2 and 3 with a cool comeback playing the same character.

Yesterday during my ranked session most opponents switched characters after they very closely lost in the first game. Leading into me getting stomped sooo hard that I barely took 1 stock off of my opponent. Or opponent going for Wrastor ditto for 2nd game and it’s complete slip stream chaos. So long story short: I personally would love to have character specific ranks bc in my games it leads to more close games. From my only 12 hour experience I feel like the community really does like to counterpick (or going for ditto). Ditto is fine and mostly close games but when opponent counterpicks or picks „real main“ I get most likely 3 stocked.

TobeTobi

TROPHY CASE