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Something I though of that I haven't posted. Some more obscure DM tips that have actually been very fun.

So I developed a series of small homebrew campaigns, called "Tales From the Crossed Swords" It's a varied group of campaigns messing around with different techniques and styles for me to get a lot better at DMing very fast.

The entire premise is this is a bustling and busy tavern. Adventurers gather here frequently to tell stories of their previous quests and adventures. Copying and pasting now per my notes.

"On a particularly calm night, adventurers gather together at The Crossed Swords, the foremost bar in Gamleby to drink and tell stories of things they've done. They laugh, they cry, and they just have a grand old time, telling their stories. As long as everyone has money, everyone drinks. Rounds are going around like crazy and, as usual, all the patrons will end up completely wasted before the night is through. Just a typical day at The Crossed Swords.

Khari is there to provide alcohol and food for all the patrons, along with his wife, Beari, and their son, Dorothon, and daughter, Kilmin. They are constantly moving among the groups of people as masters of their job since the pub is packed every night.

Each spot that has a commoner can be replaced with a character icon. As the story progresses, the bar will fill up more and more with people's characters."

Session 0-1 for these quests involve a few things, making the character, setting an icon up, then finally, to start off each campaign, the party (which is established already knows each other) has to find a table to sit at. Once that happens and there's some buttoning up on who's character is who's the actual campaign can start.

Instead of players experiencing everything as it's happening, they're retelling the story in a pub for other's amusement. This turned out to be a very good idea that my group likes, but involved a few rule changes.

I lost my notes for the special rules

The main things are

The party is the one telling the story, not me. I, as a DM, is just making sure there's a world they can play in and they don't break it. So the party is 100% free to add little details. Examples from the game. The party walks down the road. I describe the road. They describe there's a field with a cow in a blonde wig. They take the cow with them. Another thing that happened. One player wanted shirley temples in the pub, suddenly there's shirley temples on the menu. Also cheesy broccoli. My group has used this more often in other campaigns, mostly around food.

Another thing that happens, is we've used crit fails on nat 1s for as long as we've been playing. I decided to edit things. Instead of me, the DM, deciding what happened on a crit fail, it's a different player that does it. This would make sense in context of storytelling, because an adventurer is going to completely embellish their crits, but it's going to be their best friend that tells the pub that a dumb thing happened. This has made crit fails add a lot more flavor to combat. Before, as a DM, I would just say something along the lines of "yeah you accidentally hit your teammate" but instead a player will say "well maybe Gorum was too distracted with the slime next to him falling down from the ceiling so he completely missed attacking the guard in front of him" It makes a lot more sense and works well within the fight. This is another thing that my group adopted and has used for all future campaigns without even thinking about it. They love it.

The final thing I added, since it is a tavern storytelling setting, I have said side notes as we're playing. Like when the party does something extra epic I'll say "as you tell this, the tavern folk go wild and a round of drinks goes around for you" things like that. It really hypes them up a lot. Although this one only works in the setting it's in.

That's it for these unique campaign rules. Nothing crazy homebrewed, and nothing game changing.

Description

Something I though of that I haven't posted. Some more obscure DM tips that have actually been very fun.

So I developed a series of small homebrew campaigns, called "Tales From the Crossed Swords" It's a varied group of campaigns messing around with different techniques and styles for me to get a lot better at DMing very fast.

The entire premise is this is a bustling and busy tavern. Adventurers gather here frequently to tell stories of their previous quests and adventures. Copying and pasting now per my notes.

"On a particularly calm night, adventurers gather together at The Crossed Swords, the foremost bar in Gamleby to drink and tell stories of things they've done. They laugh, they cry, and they just have a grand old time, telling their stories. As long as everyone has money, everyone drinks. Rounds are going around like crazy and, as usual, all the patrons will end up completely wasted before the night is through. Just a typical day at The Crossed Swords.

Khari is there to provide alcohol and food for all the patrons, along with his wife, Beari, and their son, Dorothon, and daughter, Kilmin. They are constantly moving among the groups of people as masters of their job since the pub is packed every night.

Each spot that has a commoner can be replaced with a character icon. As the story progresses, the bar will fill up more and more with people's characters."

Session 0-1 for these quests involve a few things, making the character, setting an icon up, then finally, to start off each campaign, the party (which is established already knows each other) has to find a table to sit at. Once that happens and there's some buttoning up on who's character is who's the actual campaign can start.

Instead of players experiencing everything as it's happening, they're retelling the story in a pub for other's amusement. This turned out to be a very good idea that my group likes, but involved a few rule changes.

I lost my notes for the special rules

The main things are

The party is the one telling the story, not me. I, as a DM, is just making sure there's a world they can play in and they don't break it. So the party is 100% free to add little details. Examples from the game. The party walks down the road. I describe the road. They describe there's a field with a cow in a blonde wig. They take the cow with them. Another thing that happened. One player wanted shirley temples in the pub, suddenly there's shirley temples on the menu. Also cheesy broccoli. My group has used this more often in other campaigns, mostly around food.

Another thing that happens, is we've used crit fails on nat 1s for as long as we've been playing. I decided to edit things. Instead of me, the DM, deciding what happened on a crit fail, it's a different player that does it. This would make sense in context of storytelling, because an adventurer is going to completely embellish their crits, but it's going to be their best friend that tells the pub that a dumb thing happened. This has made crit fails add a lot more flavor to combat. Before, as a DM, I would just say something along the lines of "yeah you accidentally hit your teammate" but instead a player will say "well maybe Gorum was too distracted with the slime next to him falling down from the ceiling so he completely missed attacking the guard in front of him" It makes a lot more sense and works well within the fight. This is another thing that my group adopted and has used for all future campaigns without even thinking about it. They love it.

The final thing I added, since it is a tavern storytelling setting, I have said side notes as we're playing. Like when the party does something extra epic I'll say "as you tell this, the tavern folk go wild and a round of drinks goes around for you" things like that. It really hypes them up a lot. Although this one only works in the setting it's in.

That's it for these unique campaign rules. Nothing crazy homebrewed, and nothing game changing.