Hi,
I have played value for quite some time and wanted to start DMing T0 adventures.
Is there a collection with resources for new (and in my case returning after a years long hiatus) DMs?
If not, I just wanted to ask a few questions to experienced DMs:
1.) How many encounters would be appropriate to run in a 4h game?
2.) At T0 encounters would be quite deadly - are character deaths ok?
3.) Is there a collection of adventures I could run for new players?
4.) Can I use official adventurers league adventures - or have you found out those are rather not suited for value?
5.) What kind of rewards are suitable? are there rewards tables?
6.) Is this kind of post suited to the forum or should I have asked on discord?
7.) Are there some topics that are usually not run? (I was thinking some players might have arachnophobia, for instance)
8.) Are mystery adventures a good fit for value evenings or do they only work with an established group?
… keeping some space in case I think of something else.
Check out the rules in the forum on top of every Value post for information regarding loot and the DM channel for any questions on the fly.
Character deaths are okay but encounters at T0 aren’t necessarily deadly, it just depends on the creatures really.
For things like arachnophobia, best to just write a short summary in the forum or ask before the game to make sure everyone is comfortable.
Combat can vary but on average expect a medium difficulty encounter to take 30-45 minutes. Some DMs run 3+ and some run 0-1. It is what you and the players make it.
Regarding adventures: there’s
No collection but several suggestions are already lingering in the forum. Unfortunately I can’t remember much about them Basically you can run whatever you want. Bear in mind we are on 2014 rules - if you want players to create 2024 characters and balance around that, you need to tell your players and write in the forum.
Fairly new dm here, (4 one shots + home campaign) but i thought that i might as well share what i learned so far. Ive found that dming combat is easier than roleplay in the beginning. The adventures i run are always 80/90% homebrew (meaning the goal and setting), makes it easier for me to tone down encounters based on the players (lvl, class) i get. I can only talk about T0 as a player and ive been playing for a year now, ive had no characters die on me (yet). Ive had games where we almost died and made it out on the brink, those i remember most fondly. Some were simply impossible (i ran away in one to save my skin, all others were dead- dead.) or way too easy (not a single creature could even touch us).
So, i think its up to feels, sometimes you may strike your party too hard and sometimes too soft. You want it to feel rewarding and not like they dont stand a chance.
That’s the problem, isn’t it? We want challenging battles that lead to those on the brink moments, as you said. But at the same time, we want the players to overwhelmingly win those battles.
Merric Blackman put it this way:
A lot of people resolve this by fudging or otherwise putting a finger on the scales, but then you’re not playing a game any more.
What works for me is making encounters for the average level (example: T2=7-8) and have options to lessen or bolster the difficulty based on what level characters are at my table. This is more work but in my opinion it really pays off.
both are fine; discord is better if you want a quick answer to a quick questions
if you have something in your game that might hit people the wrong way, just post a note when you are pitching in the weekly thread that you are running something (to bring your example “will include spiders”)
yes works well - they are more difficult to pace though
Only including questions where I have anything to add to Darthbinks.
1.) How many encounters would be appropriate to run in a 4h game?
table size is another big factor - more players are more likely to win encounters because they bring more attacks but each player has less to do because everyone has to go each round - less players are going to have more excitement even from a small encounter because they are more at risk (less PCs to soak any damage) but get to act more quickly since rounds will be shorter
my approach is to set up ~4-5 encounters, assume players will negotiate or out-maneuver their way around ~2-3 of them and only actually fight 2 major combats a night
watch the clock and judge by that - assume a combat is going to take ~45mins - so if it is coming up on 11pm, you want to be finished by midnight and you still have the big fight ahead of you - maybe have that second-to-last monster be distracted so you can get to your finale.
skip the clean-up - if the party of six has chewed through a warband of 24 goblins and only three are left on their feet but in cover and at range, declare victory for the party rather than burning time on a forgone conclusion
2.) At T0 encounters would be quite deadly - are character deaths ok?
yes, and I would suggest print off some pre-generated characters and let people know if they die, they can continue the game as a pre-gen. Avoiding having someone twiddle their thumbs for three hours because their PC died is a good tool to have in your pocket
3.) Is there a collection of adventures I could run for new players?
I have gotten great mileage out of the Spelljammer Academy 4 part adventure - part 2 in particular has been a go-to.
The freely available 'A Great Upheaval’ first chapter from Storm Kings Thunder is also good - again there are four bits that you can use for four different sessions - two (Nightstone & Dripping Caves) that can be completely cold-start stand-alone and then two bits that follow on from those that could be sequels
8.) Are mystery adventures a good fit for value evenings or do they only work with an established group?
Mysteries can work really well - as long as your players have not all used intelligence as their dump stat and are intending to roleplay that. If you want to run a mystery/investigation, I would suggest flagging that when you say you are going to run a table so people can bring sharp PCs to it
Basically you can run whatever you want. Bear in mind we are on 2014 rules - if you want players to create 2024 characters and balance around that, you need to tell your players and write in the forum.
