16 things every good D&D adventure MUST have

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1. 0:16 A compelling story 2. 4:15 A good plot hook 3. 6:08 An intriguing villain 4. 8:55 A subservient lieutenant 5. 10:53 A twist 6. 12:59 enemies that do more than just attack 7. 15:21 A piece of lore 8. 17:04 Balance among the three pillars 9. 20:57 Interesting encounters and combats 10. 22:06 Variety of encounter difficulty 11. 23:15 Escalation and rising action 12. 24:29 Climax and boss fight 13. 25:28 Resolution 14. 26:44 Rewards 15. 28:18 Stakes for the world 16. 29:46 Stakes for the characters

Oh ya. Forgot something. I never do a standard "random encounter" table. I use what I like to call "scouts". They are random in a sense, sure, but they are usually smallish groups that must be dealt with quickly, or they run and get friends. Great for tension. Sometimes it's not a small group of things. Instead it's just a big critter nosing around looking for dinner. It's best used during a normal encounter, and doesn't care which side it eats. Great for livening things up. Honorable mention: Rolling dice behind the screen for no reason, pretend to study them for a second, and say "hmm" quietly. Usually this leads to someone saying "Oh great". But nothing really happens.

I tick off my players by having the monsters drink the potions of healing in the adventure. I still let them find the potions but it does throw them.

I try to do most of these. I had a group in my 3.5 game convert a fire giant to their side and now he helps guard their stronghold.

Great tips! I definitely shy away from exploration too much but I've been making an effort to include it more. I just get nervous when it's time to describe environments.

I love watching your video's while putting together/planning new adventures for my step-son. He's got really good "theater of the mind" but loves having physical maps and tokens he geeks out about. So while printing maps, cutting out paper tokens, enemy sheets and planning, just having it playing in the background, and listening, while doing the other work I constantly get new idea's. He loves using "home brew" characters. Making a back story of how a 5 Nights at Freddy's clone character meets my character "King Kick Ass" (Yes, I stole that from Robot Chicken), or my friends classic wizard can be hard sometimes. Listening to your "Old Chimera" character on our new campaign I've been planning. Trying to make a new beginning was confusing me until I heard that. Now I have my opening.. (Opening) In this world, an old dragon who's life force that is the source of the mage's power realizes his dragon, and his power, are at an end. The dragon only has one, at most two, hours of life left. The mage (who has been the protector of this world) will not be able to protect the people against this threat any longer, so he makes one last hail marry spell opening up a dimensional rift in time and space pulling said characters into his world. The characters, when warped in, will see a large dragon as it dies being comforted by the mage. The characters will see the dragon take it's last breath as it's life force disappears as it's body starts to turn to ash. The mage stumbles, dropping a piece of paper as the nose of the dragon he was holding crumbles in his hands. The Mage lifts his hands and see's it starting to turn to ash as well. He reaches out towards the adventures, his arm crumbling as it moves, the mage says (Clue #1), "I'm sorry for the sacrifice one of you must make." He helplessly gazes into their eyes as the blackness spreads to his face, before the blackness engulfs him, the mage's last words are a plea to save his world. Now, Only a black ashy figure stands where he once stood, his last words echo's through the chamber. Once the echoing stops, it collapses into a pile of dust leaving no trace he, or a dragon, ever existed. They will have to adventure to learn the land and try to figure out who the main villain is before it's too late and hopefully find a way back home. Only by adventuring and exploring will they find a way to make it back home. If they don't adventure and find it, none of them will make it back home, but, If they make it to the end, AND they found the way. They will possibly have to make a critical choice(s), 1 person may have to stay behind, be greedy and let the world die, attempt to save yourselves and this world, or leave the world to fate. As it takes one person outside the circle to cast the spell (the Mage, a 5th person, originally cast it) as the person casting the spell can not be inside the circle, as the final words spoken must be spoken after the dimensional rift has enclosed on the others. If the final words are not spoken at this time, the spell ends up sending those stuck inside into oblivion. (Clue #4)comes from the final boss as he dies. "Fools, ( he laughs as he coughs blood), With the Mage gone, only I could get you all home." The final clue (clue #5) will be hidden from them until just before they enter the area they will find the final riddle engraved on the door. "4 have entered, that took 5 to achieve, if only 4 you have, 1 will not leave." Why couldn't they just ask a towns person? Well, only a person of magical abilities, or one of those affected by the spell, may reverse it. Seeing as how the Mage died at the beginning, and if the group killed the boss, who was the only other enemy with magical abilities able to perform it and get them all home. (Clue #3) comes from interacting with the towns people at the beginning to learn that, in this world, only those effected by the magic, or one of magical abilities, may reverse the spells. This is a good backup clue if your adventurer's don't explore the starting area so you can give them a second chance to figure out how to get home, or if they find the paper the mage dropped, but not the book to put it together. They could possibly figure this out with the towns people's help. (Clue #2) comes IF your observant and search your starting area, as the paper the mage dropped was part of the spell you find to get you back home, I like this clue because it gives the adventurers two paths. If they are avid explorer's they could find the ripped paper dropped by the mage and by being observant, notice a spell book in the corner and put the two sections together in the book right away, giving them a heads up on the fate that awaits one of them and instant meaning to the mages words. By doing this, They have multiple paths. Either be greedy and convince the boss to cast the spell to send them home and he can take over this world. Beat the boss within an inch of his life, try to force him to cast the spell and hope he doesn't screw them over. This is where a saving throw by the DM could determine the fate of that world, as being greedy adventurer's could end with negative results against other people, Bad throw, he lives and takes over the world but your home, Good throw, he bleeds out and dies effectively saving this world and getting everyone home, or you may not want to leave the lives of millions to fate and just kill him, ultimately one of you being stuck in this world (which might not be a bad thing), getting your friends home, but saving millions. If you don't explore, hate exploring, or just kill everything you see, the fate of 1 is sealed unknowingly.

The surprise twist of this episode is that there really is 17 tips!! Ironically one of the number 3s should have been the twist, since the number was repeated twice. You know, since Luke apparently can’t count😂

"Flying with a cane" made me laugh out loud for about a minute, thank you for the humor (and idea)!

If I'm not running a monster 100% as written, like if I added lair actions or special abilities or a magic item, I don't run it from the book. You can copy-paste it and put the magic item right in the stat block. Instead of "longsword" their action is now "flaming sword" and does an extra 2d6 fire damage, can't miss it. Never forget a magic item again!

This is where I differ as my two current campaigns have gone more classic and ditched the central BBEG. There's a world and each quest has an individual story but there is no epic, world-saving, beat-the-central big bad guy type of stuff.

Three pillars to the game: Combat, Exploration, & Social Interaction. Personally, I think puzzles are also a pillar. I try to balance all four together.

I get what you mean by enemies just attacking. In one encounter I opened with a sneak attack of catapult and, well, separated a goblin overseer from his head. The ones he was overseeing didn't attack, they freaked out and fled. Had another where a shaman cast an eclipse to give his allies and advantage against us, so he became one of our primary targets, we managed to break his concentration and reverse things, giving THEM disadvantage, and ended up incinerating him as he tried to cast the spell again.

Forced evolution plothooks constantly popped up in the past for my older plots, villains wanting to forcibly enhance themselves, a monster type, etc. were constant as the vinaigrette drive but I wildly varied the methods or reasons they were doing it. The players usual got the classic start of getting good at beating natural threats and arena fights, then some externalised or foreign body stepped into the bigger picture gradually, messing with stuff until they got discovered and yeah it varied how involved the player characters were with that villain from there. One villain Mike is creator and enslaved their followers and made a war proclamation against the second home of the player, and the player used a battle of wits and patience, to which the player totally destroyed that villain. Then discovered a much deeper plot that never got expanded upon, as life went elsewhere.

So you are essentially saying that variety is the spice of life. What else has spice, CHILI! And where can you find a variety of chilies? A chili cook off! 1: (Interesting Story/Goal) Their goal is to taste them all, but also to see if they can handle how hot they get!. 2: (Motivation)Their motive is to win a bet that they are able to try them all without wimping out. 3: (Plot Hook) Where should you have them start? They need to get to a different Land, but don’t have enough money to get there. So they have to ask one of the characters super rich boss, Charles Van Scorchers, who wants to make a haunted house theme park. Good job Luke in your ability to count😆 3: (BBEG) The Big Bad is head of the city watch Sargent Wiggum’s, who makes the hottest of the hot chili. He makes it with the (not so) secret ingredient, The Merciless Peppers of Quetzalacatenango 🌶️ 4: (Lieutenant) But first they need see if they can handle last years winner in the spiciest category Sargent Wiggum’s son Ralfus. He named this Brew “It Tastes Like Burning” 5: (Twist) When they go to the booth of The Nettles of Flanders expecting a real challenge, they find out that the 5 alarm chili is really just a 2 alarm chili. 6: (More than Attacking) Every Chili doesn’t need to be spicy, it also should have some interesting tastes to it. “Is that cinnamon I detect?” 7: (Lore) Did you know that the super hot peppers that Sargent Wiggum uses are also called the Guatemalan Insanity Peppers that are picked by the inmates of an insane asylum?! 8: (3Pillars)You should have a balance between talking to the cooks, exploring the interesting tastes, and trying find ways to combat the spiciness of the different chili’s. 9: (Interesting Terrain) It would be boring if every Chili is just served from a crock pot. Sargent Wiggum has a cauldron to serve them with and a spoon with serrated edges. 10: (Variety challenges) Make sure you have a good variety of chilis. Some players like to eat different levels of spiciness. You should have mild, medium, spicy and super hot ones. 11: (Progression) You should have them progress from the mild to the super hot. They need to be able to try them all and should still be voting for favorites in each category. 12: (Boss Battle) The final tasting of Wiggum’s insanity hot chili should be very challenging and the players might need to be creative to win, like coating their tongues in wax. 13: (Resolution) After winning their bet they find out that their is a national chili tasting challenge that you can win some big prizes like a new 70” TV for their Dungeon. 14: (Reward) If they win their bet they get to go to the Land of Itchy and Scratchy. 15: (Consequence for the world) If they fail, they have to stay the night in a haunted house. When they do they will share that the house is actually a mimic and kill it. This saves the town from being destroyed by Van Scorchers to make a theme park. If they win and go to the land of Itchy and Scratch, they will potentially save a lot of lives from metal golems. 16: (Make it Personal) If they the fail they will also be laughing stalk of their town!

Me, running a sandbox: step 1 👀

I think this is great advice! One thing I try to do, is think of at least three different ways for the players to solve a problem. They usually don't end up doing any of the three, but it is helpful to think of. It helps the GM react to different scenarios and prevents the GM expecting the players to come up with whatever answer popped into their heads. The players aren't psychic and aren't supposed to be.

Your channel has been very helpful to me, I am currently playing in a campaign my friend is DMing, but I am the go to DM for our group, so now I got more to plan our next adventure. Point is, so far I have just run official modules and longest campaign only went until lvl 8, so now I am planning a very ambituous campaign that I hope goes at least until lvl 10.

This content is so useful! Thanks Luke, for enriching the lives (and untimely deaths) of my players.

I give my player's characters ties to the bbeg's lieutenants. It works. They have recently stated that will enjoy them getting to kick their asses. They are invested.