Adventure Design Tips?

[AramisThe3rd]

I'm new-ish to the world of making my own stuff as DM. I'm planning on writing an adventure for my PCs. The problems that I'm having are to do with designing layouts and numbers for encounters, so... The actual non-story part. Any tips for an aged noob?

[Gritmonger]

I'm new-ish to the world of making my own stuff as DM. I'm planning on writing an adventure for my PCs. The problems that I'm having are to do with designing layouts and numbers for encounters, so... The actual non-story part. Any tips for an aged noob?

When I'm not sure in Fifth, I tend to do two things:

I keep encounters to low CR creatures in numbers - still challenging, but adjustable,
I keep friendlies around for early encounters until the characters are used to what they can do.

If it's going too well for the players, throw another "wave" of baddies at them - a group that was further away but is coming to the first group's aid.

If it's going poorly for the players, have some brave bystanders or troops step up to help, perhaps inspired by the player's example.

So, for one of the early missions, the players were brought along as extra guards for a harvesting mission (in the world the players are in, woodlands are outside their walled-in kingdom, and harvesting wood is a dangerous enterprise). The players were joined by low-level guards and a single NPC druid (first level). More targets means you can opt to not mob the players alone with bad guys.

[JAL_1138]

Run Tomb of Horrors. Original version, but fix the problem with the lootable doors.

Anything you do after they've finished it will make you seem nice, even if you TPK them every session.

[Madfellow]

For dungeon/wilderness/urban adventure layouts, see if you can find a good random dungeon generator. Myth-weavers.com has a great one in my opinion. You can use it just for the maps, and then fill it in with whatever details and monsters you want. The encounter creation guidelines in the DMG will be invaluable to you.

A couple other bits of advice, pulled straight out of the 4e DMG:
1) Be sure to include an even mix of skill-based challenges and roleplaying encounters along with your combat encounters.
2) Allow for multiple paths forward as often as possible.

[Dralnu]

For figuring out combat encounters, this is an excellent resource:
http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

On the left toolbar, set the number of players and their level. Then you can filter the monsters: for example, if your story takes place underground, you can filter just to show underground monsters. I also usually set the max CR to +2 higher than the PC's level, because monsters higher than that are usually too strong to encounter.

http://donjon.bin.sh/5e/ is another great resource for generating adventure bits.

If you're looking for maps and such, google image search for "D&D (location) map" and you'll probably find a few dozen. Caves, castles, inns, they are common.

For general DM'ing advice:
- Don't overprepare. A page of notes on how you want the session to go is more than enough. Players are unpredictable and that visit to the blacksmith that you had a single sentence for (or not even that) can turn into the focal point of the session itself. Who knows.
- Saying "yes" is more preferable than saying "no." Let your players be zany and imaginative and awesome, within the limits of your world.

[Talyn]

Mechanically, you should make sure that each combat encounter has something about it that makes it different. Fighting small squads of orcs in a series of interchangeable rooms gets boring fast.

Give each room some sort of gimmick. Maybe (to keep up the orc example above), one room has a raised platform where an orc archer can rain down arrows, but there is a scaffold where a dexterous character could climb up and attack him - or an imaginative player might throw a smoke bomb to smoke the archer out.

Have the next room be around a big blazing firepit, and have orcs try to bull-rush the players into the fire.

Have the next room have a bunch of big dangerous animals in cages (with bars wide enough for the animals to attack through). Maybe the orcs open one of the cages. Maybe the PCs pin an orc to the cage and let the hungry dire wolf do their dirty work for them.

Have the next room be the garbage pit, and have fleeing orcs cut the rope bridge over the pit as they run. The PCs will have to wade through or find some other way around - but be careful! There is some sort of unusual danger in the pit itself - an otyugh, or carrion crawler, or family of ghouls, or something. If they can defeat them, though, a waste tunnel in the pit might let them sneak into the back of another room and get the drop of the orcs there.

Basically, every encounter should have something about it that makes it memorable. It doesn't have to be fancy, but enough that the players, when they are thinking back on it later, can clearly distinguish the different encounters in their minds.

[Safety Sword]

Run Tomb of Horrors. Original version, but fix the problem with the lootable doors.

Anything you do after they've finished it will make you seem nice, even if you TPK them every session.

Oh God JAL, that's evil. Of the chaotic variety.

[JAL_1138]

Oh God JAL, that's evil. Of the chaotic variety.

To quote Vincent Price, "Muahahahaha!"

[goto124]

Run Tomb of Horrors. Original version, but fix the problem with the lootable doors.

Anything you do after they've finished it will make you seem nice, even if you TPK them every session.

If you're wondering how to fix the doors issue, make sure they're all hungry blood-thirsty mimics.

[JAL_1138]

If you're wondering how to fix the doors issue, make sure they're all hungry blood-thirsty mimics.

But of course! This is a Gygax module, after all. But appearing to be made of precious metals until looted. Let them think they've pulled a fast one for a little bit, and then the Mimics come to life.