Fossil summon oh yeah it's Dino Time

Neat, I enjoy more magic items so that's pretty cool

Hello, Player in the campaign Aj runs, I'm unfortunatly playing a non caster at the moment but the Items he comes up with have been very entertaining to interact with. And have playtested some of the spells on one shots that were very fun. I'll probably play a caster with my next character that has him as a DM just to play around with the spells more!

Eeeeee this got me so excited and made my damn week

A good recap of the styles of game prep. I do a little prep, but not too much. I have the NPCs have their own plans. If the players ignore the Big Bad, they go about their evil plans. They will react to what the players do and, depending on how disruptive to their plans they are, will put more or less effort into stopping, distracting, or ignoring them.

Great video as a subtle teaching method for ME in how I should lean toward my strengths and pay attention to weaknesses (who doesn't want to be an ALL STAR?). Thanks

I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Dwight Eisenhower: “plans are useless but planning is essential”. You may not use that plan but it helps you think through options / possibilities and that is useful even if the players don’t do what you thought they would.

I really enjoyed this ngl

These are some very good tips in my opinion, and I've done most of these before. I got to the point of having to take a long break from D&D altogether after I had finally forced myself to finish a a campaign I was running that lasted over 4 years with at least 2 sessions per week with mostly the same 6+ person group the entire time.

Running my first game as DM after many hours of Dimension 20 and a few false start games. Your advice helped me get over some jitters.

I really love that DM screen. I just have one I cobbled together out of a couple of old notebooks. lol. It looks like junk, but it gets the job done. Maybe one day I'll upgrade to something nice.

Really informative and really easy to watch! GREAT VIDEO!!

Very cool!

Just curious... how did you solve the issue with the PCs being more powerful than the corresponding CR of the monsters? Did you nerf up the monsters, or did you raise up the encounters to higher CR creatures in combat?

My wife's goal is to use d&d and the creative arts involved as a medium for therapy now that she has her degree. Thanks for your video!

What a unique coping skill!

It's a fantastic way to honor departed! ❤

Re: 1st vs. 3rd person. It helps to go back and forth. When your character is doing heroic things, I prefer 1st person. (“I slay the dragon and save the princess!”) But when my character does less-than-heroic things, it can feel better to speak in 3rd person. (“Gil the Rogue sneaks in to the kings chambers and poisons his water before stealing the ring of orc command.”)

If a player has been consistently not paying attention and asks for another recap, my answer is, "No, if you're not paying attention, neither is your character. You spend this round looking around confused. Who's next for initiative?"

If you're disrupting the game and your go-to response is "I'm just role-playing my character" then you need to rethink the character and-or the way you role-play them.

For Wild Shape, if we take the wording from the playtest, you should be able to max out your Temp HP every round. When you are in Wild Shape you maintain all of your class features which includes Wild Shape so at the beginning of your turn you use your bonus action to Wild Shape into a different animal (or a different version of that same animal) and that will trigger the granting of temp hp (3 x Druid level). If you are out of uses of Wild Shape you can burn a spell slot to grant you an additional use, no action required, so you still have your bonus action to trigger the Wild Shape and your action to attack. Now enemies will have to burn through your temp HP before they get to your HP pool.

Thanks for the video. It helped my friends so 10/10 would recommend.

Rich, a question / suggestion - have you tried other game systems except 5e? I'm curious about your opinion on Daggerheart and DC20 in particular. The latter is generally praised among other TTRPG bloggers and few mechanics from it seems quite curious (and possibly usable in 5e :) )

overall, i think that how ppl met the changes was how computer game's players think about mods in games - you either expect the game itself to be 100% ready and fresh and new and stuff (and do not want to use any mods to better your experience) or you use the game as a source for your own inspiration and "mod" it to better suit your preferences. For me it seems that wotc were on a crunch deadline (10y anniversary) and also decided to play it safe. They market the 2024 version as compatible with 2014 version. Basically it's 5.5e, Tascha v2. Because why would they do it otherwise - OneDnd is coming (maybe, someday). I think that ppl will play with 2024v for few months, tweak this and that and the game will be played for most ppl with like at least 50% of its mechanics homebrewed. Honestly, i'm ok with that.

well done sir. keep it up.

great video! I really found that video useful and i love your video style!

And thanks as always for the comment!

How did your one shot go? As for VTTs I have only played online a few times and I wasn’t a fan. My dice rolls were bad and RP was tough because we were only doing voice chat not video. We did those games over fantasy grounds. I did like how the DM was able to run the game and how everything was added automatically to dice rolls. Best of luck with the next one shot!

Hi, Rich! Thank you for the video, especially for the book recommendations. Will checkout some of them in future. Do you ever play DnD via VTT? Can you give similar list of useful platforms for online games? I completed the first ever game few months ago and now preeparing for a one-shot with randoms online (as it is the only way i can play, unfortunately). Found an amazing one-shot on arcane library and am going to use roll20 as a platform. But ultimately want to move my games to Talespire (check them out, they are amazing) Seems alright at the moment.

it's a crying shame that the simplest, most basic blunders can just completely turn people off of running games altogether, seen a couple instances of that happening. good job on the breakdowns. also, ive just noticed that peanut doll. love me some dunham.

These are really good house rules. I'd sit at this table any day!

Rich, thank you for the video. Just exactly what I was looking for :) Will have the very first game today and spent good 10h+ already prepping. Its more of a general idea on what to do than a real scenario, but will work all the same (I hope). Hope in time it will take me less hours to do such a task. My ADHD mind requires to create something HUGE with every big project I'm working on so spending a lot of time on details even though that may not be even be seen or used ^.^ Anyway, thank you for the video and your tips. Helpful as always. Wrote down some of your advices to use in the future. (and thanks for the Dungeon Alchemist!)

Solid script over all, I think you forgot to add your tags as well.

The mic help cut alot of the tinny sound. You're still getting significant reverb though.

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Great content! In the future, consider adding more content relevant tags to the video. It helps.

Great video

Hi, Rich! Thank you for great advices as always! Im so thankful that you made a video out of my suggestion and even shout out me <3 I actually found the action counter method very helpful. Will be using it with the XP book method as well to calculate the best version of the encounter. Basically double down it. It kind of not clear on which parts of abilities to focus (like when u spoke about troll) when scaling - what is too much or too little to give to a monster but i guess it will come with experience :) I bought the starter edition with premade chars and adventure. Will give my two players a choice to pick their character and will scale down the amount of enemies. For instance make it not 4 goblins but maybe 3 or even 2. Honeslty speaking, I so much enjoy your videos. Will surely write you after will complete the first game and let you know about my experience 😅

What sort of homebrew rules do you have this early in you're DM adventures? What are some guidelines for making homebrew rules fair?

Rich, thank you for honestly great advices! I'm loving your content. My wife suggested to play the very first game with her and our relative, so i'm super pumped and excited and nervous too of how this is going to work out. As a suggestion - can you maybe do a video about how to scale the game down or up depending on the number of players / their classes / their experience ? For instance, i want to start with a premade one-shot with premade characters although im not quite sure which to pick. And probably will have only two players for the very first game. Any advice on how to scale the experience for them? Im talking about how many monsters there should be, what items they should be having, should my npc give them free potions of healing at the start etc Both never played dnd and i'm kinda afraid to tpk the very first game 😂 P.s. I'm the guy who's reading the DM guidebook from the comment under previous video :)

good video. another recommendation if i may: modules for first time dms. i noticed your bookshelf, you could review Lost Mine of Phandelver or Waterdeep Dragon Heist. maybe even some older stuff like Murder in Baldur's Gate, i cant praise that one enough.

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Keep particing youre speaking. Youre doing great!

how about a video essay on player cohesion and group boundaries, those are always good insights to spread

You're a compelling speaker Rich, and I want to DM myself! You've earned a subscriber and a bell ring my friend. Can't wait to learn more.

That's actually a great advice, thank you. I'm prepping for the first rime ever DMing and currently reading the official DM guide. And what ive gathered ist that it will take me half a year to prep the game at least 😂 My friend though pointed that i should just run a one shot and see how it goes. Anyway, subbed to your channel

I don’t play, but it’s good to see you, dude!!

I have no idea what you're talking about 😂 but I am here to support you!

A solid first effort! Can't wait to see how you improve 😊

I'm here for this! 😁 Can't wait to see more!