First timing Running as DM, Plan too ambitious? (Also a Campaign Journal of sort)

[TechnoWarforged]

*** Please note: Stop reading this thread if you are in Toronto and either played in "Jay" Joseph Keeping's campaign, or have an allergic reaction to corn syrup. ***



My Group of D&D Geeks have a great DM, but I suspect that he maybe experiencing burnout and is itching to play as a PC. I was never really that good with D&D mechanics but was tempted to try to at least DM once.

Anyways I am planning to run my campaign this Sunday: Mostly I've used "Keep of the Borderlands" as backbone but chanced the setting to Innistrad. I also plan to run the campaign like the Darkest Dungeon (Just the mood, not the game mechanics)... where the adventurers start off by being sent to an old town in the Moorland Haunts. Except being a well fortified & safe town, it'll be under constant threat of bandits, undeads, starvation, and and other sinister monsters due to some history of a PC's ancestor. I'll also have a PC's childhood love interest being the antagonist necromancer. Also I'll try to mix some of WoW's quest line into like Legend of Stalvan & Sister_Pamela and her Doll.

1. Am I getting way over my head here? As a first time DM i'm not sure about my skills at improvising and feel the need to write and rewrite the module just to fit everything in.

2. I envisioned this campaign to be a very dark setting. I'll try to to keep the combat fair and balanced as possible (and these are seasoned PC I'm dealing with here, althought two of the players really aren't that effective) but most of the plot doesn't have a good endings even if they are successful at the encounter... How do I go about this?

3. Any general advice as a first time DM?

[Theodred theOld]

Try not to plan too much and keep a few encounters stashed away for when your players inevitably go off the reservation.

[Honest Tiefling]

Are you being ambitious? Probably...But I just cannot find it in my heart to deter you. You seem to have a good background of settings to plunder for ideas, without going overboard and ripping them off directly. You're also not going to do good if you don't have a love of the game you are running. I'd keep in mind it might not go well, and try it anyway.

To aid in not preparing too much, I suggest sitting the players down, explaining you are a new DM and you want to run something. And toss out the plot. In my experience, players are more willing to be railroaded if they have a choice and can suggest input on the tracks. This prevents you from having to figure out the next town over, because everyone has agreed ahead of time to stick to the plot and stick to what you have prepared.

I think I should recommend speaking to the players also about the tone. Ask them how they would feel about a Ravenloft/Innistrad (That's the MTG gothic horror setting, yes?) type game where victory is a mite harder. If they seem interested, run it. If not, tone down the inability to win and figure out a workable compromise.

My advice for being a first time DM is to speak with the other guy. He might have burnout, but he knows your players inside and out. He can give you personalized advice we cannot.

As for my own advice:

This (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule) has saved my butt many times. It is a good rule of thumb, and helps I think, to encourage DMs to flesh things out so they have plenty of hints to hand out.
Don't be afraid to communicate, or to take a quick break. Many people will need a smoke or munchie break, or to check up on mail. A quick five minute break might help you figure things out if things go awry.
Master not saying no. This doesn't mean handing out meaningless victories, but finding ways to say 'Yes, but...' in such a way that recognizes their effort and creative thinking, but keeps the setting and story intact.
The players will NEVER do what you expect. Prepare what the enemy/other NPCs do, not the players.
Have some helpful NPCs on hand. NOT DMPCs, but NPCs who have a few skills to aid the party in a pinch. Healers, scholars, and low level guards do wonders here. Not having every NPC be worthless or the enemy can really help people
Read their backstories! If you are involving one of them, read them over for hooks and even vague mentions such as NPCs trying to make conversation. I personally love this sort of thing, and some people really enjoy having it be a factor in the game.
Know what play style to cater to. Your former DM can help here, but strike a balance between what you want and what they want.


Perhaps if you feel overwhelmed, you can post the story here for some advice?

[ZamielVanWeber]

Try not to plan too much and keep a few encounters stashed away for when your players inevitably go off the reservation.

First off this is insanely useful. It has saved my posterior on many occasions across multiple systems.

Next:
1) Avoid open world mechanics. Having to try to constantly make stuff up on the spot is taxing as a DM.
2) KISS is a great thing to remember. Overly complicated plots will make you miserable unless you are extremely adept at handling them, which tends to be more of a learned skill.
3) Have a good handle on weird rules interactions or have a way of handily looking them up when they rear their head (and I promise you they will rear their head).
4) Don't be afraid to limit subsystems that you don't have a good handle on. Limiting to core only is practically mean, but incarnum is decently complicated and the books organization does not lend itself to easy reading (for example). The subsystem I would highly recommend are: psionics, both XPH and Complete Psionics (it is poorly edited but ardent is a cool class) and Tome of Battle (for those juicy useful mundanes).

[TechnoWarforged]

Game planning is going smoothly as I've decided to just abandoned most of the module: it never explains how the players can catch the bandits and finding the cave is by chance...

I'll still let my players come up with ideas on how they can track the bandit and the camp down.. but if they are out of ideas I'll take the Defias Brotherhood quest line from Westfall and have the Deadmines become the end game.

That also gave me an idea... I ended up taking the westfall map, and copy and pasted some assets from other WoW map to make my own map of the area. Since the old Legend of Stalvan quest have parts of it in Westfall it'll go well.

Another thing I don't like about the keep of the borderlands is how there's so many tribes inside the cave. I still wanted different factions in the area: mainly zombies created by a mysterious necromancer, swine-folk, bandits, tucker's kobolds, and maybe even werewolves thrown in. Not sure how it'll work but I hope it won't have to get into that in the first game session. I just want the game to start of by having players escorting a wagon full of goods being ambushed by bandits , and shall they survive, enter the town and interact with the folks a little. I still got some of those minor quest in the module to fall back on if they get really that far.

So Far the Usual DM's wife is playing an inquisitor, and the Usual DM is playing a human Gunslinger. His character concept is Ash from "army of darkness" and he wanted a gasoline chainsaw... I said sure why not. the Other player hasn't email me anything yet, but I'll hand them a letter I've already prepared... he/she is the heir of the manor ruins just like how it was in the intro to "the darkest dungeon"!

Anyways since I got nothing else to update. I'll put here some of the house-rules I've made for this campaign:

General:

- We are playing D&D 3.5, but with Pathfinder Skills point systems.

- We are playing with Action Points.

- Both 3.5 and Pathfinder feats are available. For clarification, Cleave will now be either 3.5 Cleave or Pathfinder Cleave. Either version of the feat will qualify as perquisite for whatever feat you take later.

- For any crafting and/or spells that cost exp, this will be converted to Pathfinder’s version of the cost. If the pathfinder’s version doesn’t exist, then the cost is 1 exp for 5 gold conversion.

- We are using the Pathfinder spell system for Level 0 spells. (cast an infinite amount of level zero spells, Cure Minor being replaced by Stablized, Etc)

- We will also be using the Pathfinder’s cost of scrolls and scribing spells into one’s spellbooks.

- We are using Pathfinder’s level progression (medium speed) and feat progression

- We are using Pathfinder’s version of the Spell and only 3.5 if the pathfinder’s version of the spell is not available. (This will including Pathfinder’s polymorph series replacing the 3.5 polymorph as well as Alter self.)

- Divine Metamagic is banned.

- All Exotic weapons are covered in the Martial Weapon Feat.

- Also half-anything race is really rare. There are no natural mixed race in this world because the genes don’t mix (you are welcome to have your character come from another world, or from some sort of unnatural experiment gone horribly wrong… cough cough half Devil/half Asaimar )

- We are not banning any class (in fact I will suggest a few chances to class that’ll buff them). However it is your responsibility to understand how your class works. I will defer to your expertise (unless I’m the one who added buffs to the class) should there be any questions regarding your class mechanics.

- There is no alignment in this campaign. For those of you who played in Jay’s campaign before you’ll be familiar with how alignment spells works: Protection from X spells just protects you/your allies. Smite X will just smite your enemies. Detect Evil/Good will just Detect NPC that you preciously encountered and are known to be enemies. Classes will have their alignment restriction removed. However if you choose to be a Paladin you are still expected to follow the honor code. Clerics will still have to be faithful to their Gods and/or beliefs, etc. However Monks (or any lawful class)/ Barbarians (or any Chaotic classes) are not expected to act according to their alignment restricts. Please keep in mind thou, just like in real life, your action will have consequences that’ll affect other will perceive you, and in the worst case there will be KARMA.

- Squishy caster rolls D6 as hp, Cleric (and similar spell casting with armor)’s HD is D8. Rogue, Bards, Monks (and similar “soft” melee) HD is D10/”hard” melee such as Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, etc gets D12/and finally Barbarians gets 2D8 as HD.

- You die at your minus con score. This world has no resurrection spell.

- We are playing with the Critical compiler! If you rolled a Natural 20 to hit, and then confirmed with another Natural 20, something really good happens!

- In order to reduce player’s down time, we’ll change how HP is recovered via res:


o If you either rest in uncomfortable ground, or gets less than 8 hours of rest, you recovered your level in hp, or up to 1 / 4 of your hp (round down) whichever’s highest.

o If you are camped and gets at least 8 hour of rest… you recovered your level in hp, or up to half your hit points (round down), whichever’s highest.

o If you are at civilized place and gets at least 8 hours of rest, you recovered your level in hp, or up to 2/3 of your hp (round down), whichever’s highest.

o If you are comfortably rested for 24 hours at a very secure place, or rested 12 hours with someone who made a successful healing check, you recovered all your hp back.



Character Creation:

- You have the follow three options on how to create your character:


Option A: Roll 5d6, reroll any 1s, and pick the best 3 number to assign them to a stats of your choosing until you’ve rolled for all your stats.


Option B: Point buy: http://1d8.blogspot.ca/2011/02/d-35-point-buy-calculator.html

Roll 10D6 and add 30 points. That should be the points you are allow be used to create your character.


Option C: The DM surprise. The DM will have a mysterious method to create your character.



- You start as level 2 with 1200 gp to buy your gear. The party started off all knowing each other and had an unforgettable bonding experience together known as “the noodle incident” which you can jokingly talk about at other player’s expenses.

- Once again we are using pathfinder’s system to determine skills and skill points.

- You are allowed to choose any race up to LA+2 adjustment. However this will come with certain restrictions:

Basically a normal dwarf start the game with one feat for the class, and a bonus feat from the DM because he’s super nice. Should you choose to play race with +2 level adjustment, you forfeit 2 feats (ending up with zero starting feat). If you play a LA+1 race, you start as normal with only one feat (the feat from your class, plus any feat you get from your race, if any.)

You may also choose any combination of feat and flaws at the exchange rate of one feat per flaw up to a max of 2 feats total. For example you maybe start out as a human with 4 starting feat and 2 really, really tragic flaw. Alternatively you can have a LA+2 adjustment character that keep all his/her starting feats but with 2 flaws.



Here’s the list of flaws you can take:



Adventure Virgin: You start out as a level 1 character instead. You are just less experienced in that area.



Never lucky: At each session, the DM may force the Player to reroll a saving throw. The Player must take the lower of the two results.



Clumsy: The Player are subjected to critical fail if they rolled a natural 1. This goes for any skills checks they make. (I’ll make a chart later on the consequence of those rolls, which will usually just be negative status effects.)



Thin blood: You can only be stabilized by magical means when you are at negative hit points. Even if you are treated with magical means of stabilization, you still have a 10% of failing to stabilize.



Born loser: The player can never seem to succeed at anything. Even if they rolled a natural 20. They must rolled another D20 to confirm if their success is a critical success.



Alien environment: You are obviously not from this world and suffer from this strange new environment. You are always subjected to a -1 penalty to all your saving throws, skill checks, and your HD is one category lower. (For example: D6 become D4s)

Elemental vulnerability: Choose an elemental pairing (Fire/cold), (Acid/Electric) or (Magic/Sonic) you take an extra dice roll of damage when damaged by your vulnerable energy type. (For example: if you are vulnerable to Fire/Ice and you get hit with a 6D6 fireball, you take 7D6 damage instead. If you get hit with a 1d6+1 ice sword… you take 1D6+2 ice damage instead)

Skill-less n00b: You start off with half your starting skill points, and at each level you need to spend 2 skill points to increase your skill for one rank.

Raistlin’s Curse: You take a -6 stat penalty to your Con score, an addition -2 penalty to Save vs disease, and a +2 to your Int score. You require a successful heal check to recover your HP naturally each night. Also everything you see is decaying around you to supposedly teach you humility. Cynicism, General Bitterness, and having a God Complex is optional.

Reckless Combatant: You are subjected to critical fail table for any natural 1 you roll to hit in combat.

Allergic to Magic: In addition to any stipulation in casting a spell, you must roll a percentage dice in order to successfully cast a spell. You have a 10% chance of failure to cast that spell. In addition, you have a 10% chance of resisting any positive magical affect (this include magical/Divine healing). Also harmful spells have a 10% chance to affect you before any saving throw, miss chance, or spell resistance is made. You are also treated as if you have a -10% spell resistance against any harmful effect spells.



(Oh a special note: (A player who's really got bad luck in rolling dice, let's call him "C") gets a special feat which he cannot trade in: Once per session, he’s allow to reroll ANY or ANY part of a dice roll. He’s allow to take the higher of the two results, He also gets an extra Action Point per level.)

For example: "C" cast magic missile and roll 10d4 resulting in 10 s’. He may have the option to reroll 10d4 again… and if for some reason he ended up with a 9 total, he may choose to keep his first result instead, or keep the 1s from his former roll resulting in only 10 damage from a level 5 missile massacre.


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As no surprised. As far as I know, no one want to take any flaws. :(

To the poster that suggested I limit Sub-system... too late cuz I already sent this out three weeks ago. I've played with these players for years and I'm sure any mistakes are honest. My monsters will be haplessly slaughtered by weird special abilities thou, but at least it'll be spectacular.

[TechnoWarforged]

So I finally had my First experienced as a DM on Sunday. We were supposed to start at 5pm but one guy showed up an hour later. Another person emailed me earlier saying she can't make it and also wasn't sure what type of character she wanted to play. I told her she's welcome to join in at any time and suggested she could be a female ranger with favoured enemy as Undead.

Anyways the one hour of wait wasn't really a waste as I get to talk to the characters individually about their motivations into heading toward the town where everything was supposed to take place. My DM really wanted to play "Ash" from Army of Darkness, fall from the sky with a car and everything. So I told him there was a powerful spellbook somewhere within the Manor close to that town. If he could get his hands on it, just read a few words, and he would be returned to his own time. Easily enough. Surprisingly My Dm Actually took a flaw and it lets me reroll one of his saves per session.

Dm's wife "Y" wanted to play an Aasimar Inquisitor, and some sort of subtype as a bird that lets her fly later... and giving her like +9 Initiative! She wasn't sure the God of this setting "Avacyn"'s favorite weapon so I let her have martial weapon proficiency, which by my own rule, lets her have access to exotic weapons as well. She's always a powergamer so I'm sure she got something in mind later. She also ended up taking a flaw, but doesn't like the elemental pairing. So we negotiated and say since she's so pure, she would be vulnerable to negative energy damage instead... and just negative energy damage and not level drain or ability damage. Also she suffers from a -2 penalty to diplomacy because as an inquisitor she's very judgmental.

I guess I learned something here: people's perception of their strength and weakness affects their playstyle more than their actual game. The negative 2 to diplomacy really isn't too much and shouldn't hamper her interact with NPCs, but her character socialize less with her general environment then what her other characters would. She's roleplays it well thou and actually picked out some details in the plot due to how well she roll with her perception and her general nosing around... like how the priest of the town might be just a bit suspicious and doesn't have the full mannerism of a priest from her order... this is perfect because her "church" had wanted her to investigate this strange town in the area.

Another one of my player, "F" also wanted to be an Aasimar! I guess it was because of the setting and they fear the unholy and the undead. It looks like he's using a charglidin build, lance and warhorse and all. I hinted at him that the order might be just sending them away to some backwater town just to be rid of the two Aasimars as well as this problematic human that came out of nowhere looking very out of place. To my credit He's the opposite of the "stick in the butt" paladin, at least toward warm bodies. More on that later.

Finally there's "X". I wasn't sure what he was going to play and he came up with a Kalashtar(?) Psychic Warrior. I presume he was going to do the "King of Smack" Build. This is a very different party then I've expected because in the other campaign we all played as a caster or some sort (Magus, Archivist, Magic Missile Mage, Cleric, Factotum. Meanwhile this party has no full caster and the only caster was the inquisitor! Anyways "X" is a "Johnny" and plays with builds that he thinks is fun. He also still plays MTG so I could consult him on the Innistraad setting if needed. Always for "X" I handed him a letter which is the intro to "Darkness Dungeon". Surprising he didn't share any of the knowledge, or his identity to the rest of the party.

TL;DR. My players are all powergamers and their characters are outcasts. Perfect I guess. Also it looks like I won't be dealing with any spell casters. On one hand it's a positive because spells are somewhat complicated, however, it would mean that I wouldn't be throwing too many spells at them either or else it won't be fair.

Prologue (The Warm welcome to Pwnage town):

I start them similarly to how the Darkest Dungeon started... with their carriage broken down (by a man made pit in the middle of the road serving as a trap). They get ambushed by bandits (I had 3 melee guys CR2 Half Orc Barbarians and 5 CR2 human bandits shooting crossbolts from the trees. Because of how godly their stats was (thanks to my generous character rolling system) only the Paladin was surprised. I even made it fair and rolled a d4 to see who the bandit would target. The Paladin was flatfooted and actually took some damage while the bandits were throwing javelins and shooting the crossbows from the forage. I don't want the bandits to win but it should provide the PC with some challenge and adrenaline rush. One of the Bandit even made it onto the Carriage to steal some Goods, but then it was the Paladin's turn to act and he charged at the brigand who was looting the carriage. He stated he was going to do non-legal damage (-4 to attack penalty) but he rolled a 20 and confirmed the crit. With the charging lance even with it being non-legal it dropped him into the minus and doing real damage.

I guess this is where I made my first, second, and third mistake. I figured that it was such a powerful and mightily blow that the rest of the bandits were shaken and began to rout. The PC simply chased them down and only two human bandits fled. The rest were captured, and one got killed with Ash scored a crit of his own and made an orc bandit head explodes. The second mistake was that I named the first fallen bandit as "Kenny". It started the whole "OMG they killed Kenny!" "You bastard!" joke. They affectionately named the other dead Orc bandit as "Cartman" and said the world was a much better place after he died.

The third mistake was that I had these guys as simply starving peasants just trying to rob travelers for food. However their standard character template gave them Masterworked Studded Leather armor, Masterwork Buckler, and other stuff that made them pretty well equip. Still it took a while for them to start asking why these people are starving when they are blinged out with gear. I just smiled as if there was something up in my sleeves and the PCs worked it out that the bandits might have gotten it from the first shipment from the church which never made it to town. I wanted to steer them toward political intrigue where outside forces are also trying to stir trouble in the area. Perhaps when they fight some stronger bandits later they'll find some freshly minted Nephalia coin on them.

Chapter 1: How Zombies save the DM's hide.

Anyways I had them made it to town safely with supplies and captive in toll. I showed of my drawing of the town (shamelessly stolen from Darkest Dungeon, again) and was rewarded with a few aaaah and ooowwws. One PC even spotted a rabbit on a treestump and started screaming like crazy. Here's where I deviate from the module and instead of having a well-fortified keep, I had a town protected by a palisade but with recent signs of breaches in them. I actually did some research on how Romans made the Palisaide (3 feet trench filled with wooden spikes, then a short wall, and then another trench, and then a taller wall). I guess I made it sounded too formidable and the Paladin asked how the bandits could have breached that. Drawing from Darkest Dungeon (Again), I told them about the Manor's owner showing a demonstration of a cannon to the townsfolk and somehow the bandits has gotten a hand of it. I didn't exactly stated it was a canon but just described it as a huge iron tube that people stuff some weird blackpowder in, shove an iron ball in, and then lit a fuse on fire and then roaring explosion.

I guess this was another mistake on my part because apparently canons came way before guns and I allowed firearms for this setting. So I just played it off as villagers being less worldly and less knowledgeable. I also showed the PC a map I've "Made" which was just a map of Pre cataclysm Westfall, but also Copy and pasted some other assets in including some swamps, the cemetary from the next zone (darkshire?) and had stormwind sitting on a hill acting as the placeholder of the Manor.

Just to roleplay a bit I went along with the south park theme and have the person in charge recognizing one of the captive as "Stan"... (Another thing I just realized was that I never had a name for the female deputy commander and her missing commander husband. I shall aptly name them "Wendy" and "Token" respectively)

The impressing the PC gets from the tower and the guards were they are very green and still wet behind their ears. They kinda pieced together that with the recent raid, the townguards must have suffered some casualties and these are the new recruits. They also assumed that the previous commander has died during the raid, but the deputy reassured the party FIRMLY that her husband didn't fall during the raid and is still alive somewhere. He is going to be my plot hook to the Swine folk and the Swine Prince.

I guess I also screwed up by stating that they gotten to the town at 3 am in the morning. The PC presumed that nothing was opened and just went to sleep. The next say I have them report into Deputy Commander's office and she given them a simple task of going to the next town, Moonbrook, for some Lumber so they can repair the walls. Again I stated it as if it was too urgent and the Party responded with acting with every haste instead of investigating the town a bit more. I had more plot hooks and rumor for them! Still the Paladin and the Inquisitor did visit the church for morning prayers and the inquisitor found someone suspicious. I also had the forced two more encounters... one that started the "Legend of Stalvan" questline by having Brother Pious approach them to investigate on rumors about his brother Temperance. The Inside joke is that His father named his sons and daughters after virtues and Pious turned atheist.
Another NPC approached “X” and hugged him, stating they were childhood friend… at this point Ash was like “What the heck you were here before?” I was hoping that’ll develop into something but everyone just stayed quiet about it.
Anyways they head off and at this point I had to fudge random encounters... like literally fudge them as I pretend to roll dice to see if they encounter anything but the results are all made up on the spot (Yes I should have taken a poster's advice of making a random encounter table). I did say they saw a set of wagon tracks heading off road but I figured they could tell I wasn't prepared so they didn't follow the trail (they did mark the spot thou). At some point the Inquisitor PC was asking the labors if they saw anything strange going on. I hinted at them that the saw figures wandering around at night... and she asked if they were staggering. I guess I shouldn't have confirmed it because they all knew they are going to encounter zombies.
So they arrived at the place, and I described it to them... drawing inspiration on Moonbrook from Westfall (World of Warcraft) and Silent Hill. (In fact it’s kinda sad that I still remember how the buildings in Mookbrook was laid out. The PC saw a body in front of a building. They got genre savvy and turned on Detect Evil and Detect Undead respectively and found out it was a zombie. The Inquisitor did some ranged holy damage on the zombie and more zombies popped out from the ground. (I was hoping the PCs would approach the dead body and at that point the zombies would burst out from the ground beneath them and start dragging them down…alas it’s not meant to be.) Still I managed to pull another plot hook on the PC… one of the zombies dropped the head of a doll. This should start the Sister Pamela Quest.
The Paladin detect more evil inside another building, handed his horse to a labor (and yes I did made him roll a sense motive: that guy is going to high-tail out of there with his horse if anything bad starts to happen)
It was at this point that I had two ideas in mind: I’ll have Pamela’s ghost inside the house, and also I’ll draw the layout of the house exactly like the house we are in. The Paladin Charged into the house and his Detect Undead sense picked up 6 weaker ping and 1 stronger ping inside the bedroom. He went into the bedroom and saw the little girl’s ghost. I read the line out loud which the girl’s plea for her father and to find her missing doll. The Paladin’s action caught me by surprised because he still wanted to smite the ghost. (it was later explained that they had another campaign where, as level 2 characters, they had the fight a little girl vampire spawning. Yes they overcame that encounter) So “Y” came to my rescue as inquisitor have sense evil and she only picked up 6 pings of evil toward the back of the house and none inside the bedroom.
So the PC changed into room at the back of the house, which was described as a big room with a huge table, and 6 zombies was sitting around the table looking like they are performing some satanic ritual with weird text and strange dice on the table… and the PCs finally caught on that it was zombie “us” playing D&D (6, because one couldn’t make it). They killed the zombie DM first and then killed zombie version of themselves.
And then at that point it’s getting really late and we called it a night.

Few lessons learned: 1) PC can and will kill questing NPCs 2) My PC are too genre sarvy 3) While I had some monsters template printed out, I need more well-thought-out encounters, also more interesting undead then just Zombies.


I was thinking I could throw more stuff into the Mix. I’ve never played Witcher 3 before but I watched a youtube play though and always thought the Ladies of the Wood storyline as interesting. I’ll defiantly have the PC encounter some random kid being thrown out by their family for spilling milk, and then have them follow a trail of treats. I’m just not sure if I should name them Hansel and Gretel or Huckberry Fin and Tom Sewyer.

Feel free to add comment and suggestion, and suggestion on interesting Undead Monsters that’s fair for a party of 5-6 Godly Level 2 are welcomed!

[Arbane]

I'd advise you to be careful what you swipe ideas from, or at least get good at hiding your sources - PCs may have played the same games.

[TechnoWarforged]

I'd advise you to be careful what you swipe ideas from, or at least get good at hiding your sources - PCs may have played the same games.

Thanks. Unfortunately again it's all a bit too late. The guy that plays MTG already knew I'm ripping stuff from Innistraad. I even gave him a map of the world and he instantly recognized some of the names, and started screaming in horror. Apparently he also recognized the Westfall map, but he said at least I removed the serial number. I guess I'll try and I'm sure none of them played Witcher 3 yet.

Another funny titbits: While the PC are fighting zombies in the house there were in a corridor and some of the party members can't get to the zombies (since they are all melee oriented) I allowed "Ash" to use his chainsaw to cut off the wall blocking his path to the cheers of the party. Hey it's just his house that he's recking, but I did miss a punchline. I should have made him say, "here's johnny!"

Anyways the usual DM was going to run but again a player can't make it. So I'll be running again next Saturday. Wish me luck!

I also find that it helps posting here because it let me organize my thoughts, general new ideas, or just see what stuff I've missed. I also welcome and is thankful for all the advice from other posters/Experienced DM.

So far my thoughts on this Campaign:

What I envisioned it to be:
http://cdn.appcrawlr.com/imageService/aHR0cHM6Ly9saDUuZ2dwaHQuY29tL0NrNE9LZTRjRG9lUEg0ZX NCS2lsbGZWTldKZ2R4Z3J0RmdncG1lY0hIY0M0bjVUbDJLdmkx NzkyZmo4SjZCaUt6Zz1oNjQw?w=340&h=280

How I think the PC see it

https://lh6.ggpht.com/KeL8uM13GE8MnagYV4Otm3jSyZThM_gM6fw3sYLbLkFwX2hn5n j7yTqbS31ch0XVKw=h900

What we actually played:

http://cache.desktopnexus.com/thumbseg/1224/1224108-bigthumbnail.jpg

@ZamielVanWeber : Funny my DM was going to play Ardent before coming up with gunslinger
@ Honest Tiefling : I wish the PC submitted Backstories. In fact I just looked at one PC's character sheet. Also the PCs are literally wiping the floor on my Monsters right now.