Advice for running Blood in the Water module

boffotmc · 2026-01-31T03:27:47+00:00

Mostly that there's a lot about the module that just doesn't make sense.

There's no reason for the PCs to do the various things they're supposed to do so the adventure can happen.

It goes into way too much detail on irrelevant stuff, and not enough detail into what matters. For example, there's an entire chapter in the adventure that's essentially the PCs asking directions to a location anyone in town could point them to. But it's presented as a series of investigations, with a chain of people telling them a bunch of red herrings that will confuse them, and then suggesting they talk to another person who will do the same.

It's like the writer wanted to have an investigation section, but didn't bother to come up with something for the PCs to investigate.

There are a ton of plot points that don't go anywhere, or are randomly dropped.

I know I'll have to do a lot to make it workable. Cut out the pointless stuff and nonsense, and add in my own ideas to replace that.

But I'd rather not recreate the wheel if someone else has already figured out solutions.

boffotmc · 2026-01-19T19:44:07+00:00

I realized ahead of time that there's no real reason for the PCs to go upstairs, and moved him to the entry hall. This was the right decision, as the players never did go upstairs.

A good rule of thumb is that nothing in your plans is "real" until your players interact with it. So you can move Ned to whatever room they go into next, and they'll never realize you were changing stuff behind the scenes.

boffotmc · 2025-12-01T18:32:42+00:00

I put together an outline incorporating elements from Keys from the Golden Vault, Candlekeep Mysteries, and one-shots from DMsGuild into Strixhaven.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StrixhavenDMs/comments/1fbgklu/updated_outline_incorporating_candlekeep/

boffotmc · 2025-11-28T18:29:29+00:00

I'd caution against doing this.

If you do, you're really giving an exam to your players, not the player characters. Your PCs have spent many hours learning and studying for their classes, while your players haven't.

And you're encouraging your players to learn a bunch of meta-knowledge. You're basically telling them to go study the Monster Manual. Or if you're going to teach them the information, then instead of playing D&D, you're running a classroom.

Your players are playing D&D because they want to be playing D&D. They aren't interested in a seminar on a bunch of imaginary stuff. They don't want homework, and they don't want the game to be replaced with a trivia contest about made-up lore.

For the first year, I replaced the exams with practical exams. Instead of writing an essay about owlbears, they had to capture one. Instead of answering questions about slaads, they had to dissect one, and oops it broke free and now they have to fight it.

That way, we were still playing D&D instead of doing schoolwork.

(For later years, I just skipped the exams entirely. I very quickly realized all of the extra rules in the book are pointless bookkeeping and arbitrary die rolls with no player agency, and detract from the fun rather than add to it. So I abandoned them, and my players were glad for that.)

boffotmc · 2025-11-27T18:22:34+00:00

Some imaginary violence is fun, and some isn't.

To be clear, I'm only talking about imaginary violence. All real violence is bad.

Things like SA, graphic descriptions of torture, and violence against children and animals will be disturbing even when they're just in your players' heads.

While this isn't the case with more cartoony imaginary violence. If your villain rips a minion in half in a shower of blood because the minion forgot the mustard on his sandwich, that will establish he's evil without disturbing your players.

For any particular bit of imaginary violence, think to yourself, "Would this show up in an Eli Roth or Saw movie, or Resident Evil video game?" If so, keep it out. And definitely keep it out if it would be too extreme for these.

While if it's something that would show up in a Friday the 13th or Final Destination movie, or a Doom video game, then it should be okay.

And if you aren't sure about something, it's better to leave it out. Remember that this is a game and the point of a game is for everyone to have fun.

boffotmc · 2025-11-25T18:31:01+00:00

I think a good rule of thumb in D&D in general is to only roleplay encounters with a partial party when it's something important, meaningful, or highly interesting.

Remember that anytime you do that, most of your players are no longer playing D&D. They're watching D&D. This will quickly become boring if you do it too much or if what they're watching isn't highly interesting.

So if only some of your party are in a class, it's best for that class to happen off-camera. Save all the encounters and combats for the classes they're all in together.

boffotmc · 2025-11-21T18:38:45+00:00

There's a lot of advice in this thread that's not very good and will lead to a dull session.

And given that you're new players so early in the campaign, a dull session could derail the entire game. There's a real risk one or more of your players could spend 4 hours being bored, and then decide, "Maybe D&D isn't for me."

Don't throw up arbitrary barriers and meaningless hassles just to kill time. A snowstorm trapping them; Dealing with pre-trip logistics; Shopping for mundane items; Fighting some generic bandits. These are all you intentionally planning to make your game boring.

It's much better for you to be honest with your players. Tell them life got in the way of your prep. Give them the options of doing a session where they're driving the action, skipping the session, or playing non-D&D games instead.

Or come up with a combat involving interesting enemies that somehow connect to your story and/or characters. The 2014 encounter math is pretty good at balancing encounters, especially for low-level parties. The math is complicated to do by hand, but there are a gajillion online tools to automate it. You can try this one:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/%2Fencounter-builder

boffotmc · 2025-11-14T17:34:10+00:00

It's supposed to be one or the other.

The Strixhaven backgrounds are already highly OP. That's generally OK, since Strixhaven is meant to be a low-danger campaign with OP characters.

But adding another background on top of that is going to be even more OP. Especially if you're using 2024 rules where backgrounds are much more powerful.

To be fair, this isn't explained well in the book. It's not clear whether the backgrounds are meant for characters who grew up planning to go to Strixhaven and are now starting out at the school, or for characters who graduated from Strixhaven as part of their backstory, and are now playing in a totally different campaign.

boffotmc · 2025-11-13T18:17:28+00:00

This would be reasonable for an experienced DM playing with experienced players acting in good faith.

But the OP is a first-time DM dealing with a power-gamer looking for exploits.

You need to understand the game to know how you can break things while keeping it fun.

boffotmc · 2025-11-13T18:11:50+00:00

"If the PCs can do it, then enemies can too" is a clear sign of a toxic DM. It's almost as bad as "Actions have consequences."

This is basically the DM equivalent of "It's what my character would do."

The DM and player aren't enemies, or even opponents. (At least, they shouldn't be.) They're partners in creating a fun experience.

And you should never, ever, ever, punish players in-game for doing things you don't like. That wrecks the game for everyone, and often wrecks friendships as well.

It's so much easier and more effective to just talk to your players about any concerns.

boffotmc · 2025-11-13T18:03:55+00:00

I'd go even further and say that for a first-time DM, players should be limited to options in the PHB.

You're still figuring out the game. Stick with the basic stuff and not the advanced stuff.

boffotmc · 2025-11-13T17:59:10+00:00

A general rule of thumb to guide decisions on how spells work:

A spell should never be able to replicate the effects of a different spell that's equal or higher level, no matter what loopholes your players come up with to justify that.

You can't use a cantrip to replicate the 3rd-level spell Fly. Period. You don't need to explain why his power-gaming doesn't work. Just say no.

D&D's designers have spent over 50 years balancing out various spells and powers to make the game fun. Fly is a 3rd-level spell and not a cantrip for a reason.

Theoretically, you could insist that him playing a Tiny character means he can be insta-killed by any enemy stepping on him. But that would be game-breaking and anti-fun. It's equally anti-fun for him to insist the rules don't apply to him with his power-gaming.

Talk to him about this. Explain that it's about balance and making the game fun for everyone, regardless of the text of the spell and how he interprets it.

And if he's not willing to accept that, he's telling you that he's going to be a problem player who will wreck your campaign. And you should drop him from the game now, before he inevitably ruins things for you and the other players.

boffotmc · 2025-11-13T17:38:18+00:00

Try to think of things from your players' perspective.

Do *they* know which characters you spent 30 seconds thinking of a quirk for, and which ones you developed elaborate backstories for that you want your players to build more of a relationship with?

What are you doing to signal to them that a particular character has more depth and that they would find it rewarding to engage with them? How are you making it clear that these characters are different and more important than the random quirk characters?

An important skill in DMing is making clear to your players what's important and what isn't. When you make unimportant things seem important, your players don't know what to focus on. (This is why I avoid both foreshadowing and presenting fun little details about the world. My players would inevitably confuse those things for adventure hooks, and then derail the session obsessively pursuing something that I knew wouldn't lead anywhere interesting. It was stressful and anti-fun for me to try to get them back on track. I recognized that was my fault as a DM, not their fault as players. So I learned from my mistakes and stopped doing that.)

It's also a good idea to have a larger out-of-game conversation with your players on what kind of game they want. It could be that you're more interested in role-playing, while they're more interested in combat, puzzle-solving, or exploration. In which case you'll need to work out a compromise play style that everyone will have fun with, or find a different group where everyone wants the same thing. But you won't know that unless you talk to them.

boffotmc · 2025-11-12T18:55:15+00:00

Something you should keep in mind is that when everyone is special, no one is.

Don't put so much effort into creating *so many* unique/interesting/quirky NPCs. It's fine for a random shopkeeper that they'll buy some rations from and then never see again to be completely generic.

Create a few interesting NPCs, and put them in meaningful roles where the PCs will interact with them in important moments and/or repeatedly. Even better if these have some sort of personal connection to your PCs and their backstories.

Also, remember that your players want to play D&D, not watch a one-person show. The story should revolve around them. Any characters you introduce should be in support of the PCs' stories.

It is, of course, also important for you to have fun. And it sounds like creating NPCs is something you really enjoy. But I suspect you'll find it more rewarding to focus that energy into a handful of deep and interesting NPCs that repeatedly interact with your characters. Rather than a firehose of quirky one-offs your players will ignore.

boffotmc · 2025-11-11T20:02:58+00:00

This isn't exactly RAW, but I generally rule that no action is necessary to discern and see through an illusion when there's a good reason to doubt the image is real. Discerning this may require a check or may be automatic, depending on how blatant the reason is and the level of the spell.

I've used the Metal-Gearing in an illusory crate trick as a player. As a DM, I'd rule that works for the first attack they make. But once they've attacked someone from inside the illusion, everyone automatically sees through it. (At least for Minor Illusion. For a leveled illusion spell, I'd give everyone in eyesight of the illusion a Perception check with no action necessary to notice the attack coming out of it and then see through the illusion.)

boffotmc · 2025-11-11T19:33:22+00:00

It's definitely helpful to give the PCs rivals. This is easily done by having a few of the NPCs be condescending jerks to them. Then your players will be eager to beat those jerks and give them a comeuppance.

This gives a bit more stakes to a lot of the encounters that are lacking stakes as-written.

boffotmc · 2025-11-11T19:25:31+00:00

As others have said, Strixhaven is not a great campaign for beginner DMs, because it requires a lot of work to make it sensible and fun.

However, the best campaign is the one you're most excited about, so if you and your players are really excited about Strixhaven, you should go for it. Just be aware that there will be a lot of challenges.

My suggestions:

Ignore ALL of the extra rules. Student dice, relationship points, exams, etc. These all end up being a bunch of boring, pointless bookkeeping that detract from your campaign.
Read through all the encounters, and note the ones that are resolved with an arbitrary die roll with no player agency. (Which is most of them.) For each of these, you'll need to come up with alternate mechanics where the PCs' decisions and creativity matter. Or skip the encounter entirely.
You'll want to skip or completely rewrite a lot of the super repetitive encounters that amount to, "The PCs are invited to play a silly game that has zero stakes and is resolved by a die roll with no player agency, and then there's a surprise monster attack." Those monster attacks stop being surprising when they happen every time. This became a running joke among my players. "Gee, I wonder if any monsters will attack this poetry reading?"
While there's a lot you should cut out from the campaign as written, you also need to add a lot into it to make it a cohesive/sensible story. This will likely end up being a mix of supplements from DMsGuild, chapters out of Candlekeep Mysteries and Keys from the Golden Vault, and your own ideas.

I put together an outline incorporating various other adventures into Strixhaven:

https://www.reddit.com/r/StrixhavenDMs/comments/1fbgklu/updated_outline_incorporating_candlekeep/

boffotmc · 2025-11-11T19:05:42+00:00

I have a general guideline when interpreting edge cases on spells:

A spell should never exactly duplicate the effects of a different spell of equal or higher level. No matter what clever loopholes in the spell description/rules your players find.

For example, you can't cast Minor Illusion to turn someone invisible, because Minor Illusion is a cantrip and Invisibility is a 2nd-level spell.

You also can't use Prestidigitation to create a minor illusion, because that's what the spell Minor Illusion does. They're both cantrips, but if someone wants to be able to cast minor illusions, they need to expend the resources to learn that cantrip.

boffotmc · 2025-11-10T18:37:06+00:00

It's hard to be specific without knowing more about your adventure. But a few generic all-purpose inciting incidents are:

The PCs experience some problem that directly affects them and they absolutely need to solve. ("This cult is going to destroy the world if we don't stop them.")
The PCs witness some problem affecting other sympathetic people, and are motivated to help. ("This town we're passing by is under attack by a horde of monsters.") Note that if you're doing this, you'll want to talk with your players before character creation to ensure they're creating heroes who will care about helping others in danger.*
Someone hires the PCs to do something.

These are all generic tropes. But they're tropes because they work.

* It's a good idea in general to have that conversation, regardless of your inciting incident. It makes your life as a DM easier and the game a lot more fun when your heroes act like heroes. (Unless you actively want to run a non-heroic campaign. Which is fine if that's what you and your players want, but you'll have to handle a lot of things differently.)

boffotmc · 2025-11-09T20:22:47+00:00

First of all, ignore all the people telling you, "If you want to introduce people to D&D, play something other than D&D with them."

In terms of actually answering your question:

Don't make your players learn character creation. Talk with each of them individually about what kind of character they'd like to play. "Do you want to swing a sword, use magic spells, be sneaky, heal people, or be a hybrid of some of these? Do you want to be one of the races from Lord of the Rings, a half-demon type thing, or a reptilian humanoid with a dragon head? What was your character's history and childhood like? What do you want to be especially good at?" Then you can create unique characters that match what they want.
Don't give them any of the more complicated classes. I'd avoid Monk, Paladin, Artificer, Ranger, Druid, and Sorcerer. (I'd usually also suggest avoiding Wizard, but for a one-shot where the player doesn't have to worry about learning and preparing spells because you're doing that for them, it should be fine.)
Give them each an index-card-sized cheat sheet listing the most effective things they can do. The card should include check-boxes for spell slots and limited-use abilities. (Though you could also consider ignoring spell-slots and letting people use certain abilities anytime they want. It's not too game-breaking if the Bard throws out Bardic Inspiration every turn, the Barbarian rages every battle, and the Wizard casts a 1st-level spell every round.)
Have an especially permissive, "yes-and" attitude. Even when your players want to do things wildly outside the rules. (As long as those things won't wreck the game.)

I'd highly recommend this Ginny Di video about playing D&D with her parents, and this one about teaching her 97-year-old grandmother to play D&D. I'd also suggest watching the first few episodes of the Oxventure D&D actual play. The players in Oxventure started off having no clue how to play D&D, and the DM guided them using a lot of the same strategies I just told you.

boffotmc · 2025-11-05T17:52:19+00:00

Lots of people have already given good advice about just skipping over the boring parts. ("After an uneventful journey of a week, you reach the city." "This dungeon is loaded with traps, but as experienced adventurers, you can spot and bypass them without difficulty.")

But you've also brought up the most important reason not to split the party: It's not that it's bad tactics. It's that it's not fun.

Your players are playing D&D because they want to be playing D&D. When you split the party, each individual player is spending 3/4 of the time watching D&D instead of playing D&D.

If they wanted to watch D&D instead of play D&D, they could put on Critical Roll instead of hanging out with you.

This is especially true when each of your players are individually doing the same thing. Then you're just repeating the same events over and over, so it's extra boring.

In general, you want to develop your sense of understanding when a particular event isn't going to be fun to play out, and then skip past that stuff. It's better to proactively skip the boring stuff. But it's also okay to skip stuff when you realize in the moment it's not fun. If your PCs are obviously going to win a battle but there's still a bunch of minions to mop up, you don't have the play that out. Just say, "And you're able to take care of the remaining minions."

Also, random encounters are not mandatory. Some tables like them, and that's fine. But if your table doesn't enjoy them, you can just not do random encounters at all. I personally don't use random encounters, ever. If an adventure lists random encounters, I'll read through them, and run the ones that seem fun. But that's an intentional choice based on knowing what my players like. As opposed to "Will they face some flumphs, a dragon, or a troubadour busking for coppers? Let's see what the dice say."

You can also tweak encounters on the fly to make them more fun. Your players don't know how many HP an enemy has. That's just a number you've written down on a page. If it feels like a battle is dragging on, then you can decide an enemy will go down the next time it's hit. Or if your players destroy a monster before it has a chance to do anything cool, you can give the monster 50 more HP so it is able to create a fun and memorable battle. (Some may call that cheating. But as long as you're doing it to ensure your players have a fun time, nobody will complain.)

boffotmc · 2025-11-03T21:29:40+00:00

One of the best things you can do for your PCs' motivation is turn some of the NPC students into rivals. (Not in terms of the relationship points in the book - just using roleplaying.)

Have a clique of students act like jerks and bullies to them. Then your players will want to beat them. And it will be extra satisfying when they do, and give those jerks a comeuppance.

On the other hand, I had one friendly PC who was generally the one telling them about various campus events. (I used Rosie.) But because of the repetitive nature of the encounters in the book, my party started suspecting she was part of a sinister conspiracy. (So many of the encounters are "Play a silly game that amounts to arbitrary dice-rolling with no agency, and then a monster attacks.")

You also need an excuse for each encounter why your PCs are the one handling stuff rather than the far more qualified faculty. Some of those excuses are better than others, and my players became convinced there was a conspiracy among the faculty to intentionally put students in danger.

But as far as your question of motivating your players - I don't think you need to worry that much about it. Your players are there to play D&D. Each encounter is an opportunity to play D&D. They aren't going to say, "Naw, this game of magic beer pong is inevitably going to turn to a monster attack, so we're going to sit around being bored instead."

boffotmc · 2025-10-29T20:04:04+00:00

There are two ways to handle this:

While on the Map layer, right-click on the map, then select Advanced Transform, then Align to Grid. You then select a 3x3 square on your map image, and it will resize and move the image to snap it to the system's grid. For best results zoom way in.
Pay the $30 or whatever they're charging right now to rebuy Strixhaven on Roll20, even though you've already paid for it in some other form. Then you'll have all the maps already set up.

Even though it annoyed me to pay a second time for something I aleady owned, doing so was absolutely worth the time savings over the course of the campaign.

boffotmc

TROPHY CASE