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Sometimes, I do really wish there was a down-vote button around here. Only sometimes though.

Excellent! I don't know any of the players, so looking forward to seeing how they roll.

Princes of the Apocalypse has many small and large-scale dungeons with excellent maps. Are they "interesting"..? Yes, mostly, some more than others. Plenty of material for you to mine though.

Opening the box and finding something on fire when you expected to find gold is not the same as the whole table jeering at you when you roll a 1, and the DM gleefully unrolling his six page fumble table and demanding a d%. That's the difference the author is arguing, not some subtle point of...

I don't have fumble tables or anything of the kind, but I must admit the temptation to throw a curve-ball at someone who rolls a nat-1 is impossible to resist, in the same way that turning a nat-20 into something memorable is impossible to resist.

Yup, I agree. You have to be aware of your audience.

Let me save you the trouble of further reductionism or veiled insults: I don't like the kind of gameplay evil PC's get up to, I don't like putting myself in a position of arbitrating it, and I don't allow it. If you think that makes me a lesser DM, I won't lose any sleep over it.

A nice sentiment, but as a DM, I'm effective when I can clearly imagine and narrate what's happening in the world, and I neither want to imagine, nor narrate, the actions of evil PC's. I don't draw many lines, but that's one of them.

RPG's for many people are as much a social event as a gaming event. Whether that's a "wise" use of time isn't really anyone else's call, but it certainly doesn't make for good entertainment. :)

As a DM I do not want to be adjudicating the kind of crap that evil characters get up to. Simple as.

1. Yes. 2. Several from this list, as well as watching the superlative Critical Role every week. 3. Much as it pains me to say it, low-tech roleplaying podcasts are often very difficult to listen to, so I prefer a degree of production. 4. Not in general, and not at all if I can see the...

I like your marketing. :) Glad you got to the bottom of things (although honestly, a dozen people here could have told you that publishing with WotC's trade dress was asking for trouble!), and good luck.

It comes with time and familiarity. We DM's always put ourselves under too much pressure! Chapters 2 and 3, and maybe the appendix that describes the cultists of Air and Earth, will do just fine for your next few sessions. It really is. :D

I simply said to my players: "This is a campaign that starts you with no gear in a prison cell, are you okay with that?" They were all fine with it. All I did then was ask them to come up with the circumstances that led them to that prison cell, and those backgrounds will hopefully provide me...

Agreeing to DM is never anything except the best possible course of action. :) If there isn't a quest or NPC written into the adventure, that's where you as the DM step in. Who will be at the Wagonworks when the PC's investigate? Will they be nervous at someone sniffing around, or boldly tell...

Off you go then.

I only use a grid in 5E for the larger combats, or where positioning is important (due to terrain effects, for example). This is about 1 in 5 combats, in my current games. So, not only would I happily play in a game without mini's, I happily run one too. :)

Can I be cheeky and fork the thread ever-so-slightly? Any DM's here who have run city-based campaigns, did your players ever yearn for more open country/exploration/travel? What did you do to keep the campaign fresh and give the players that sense of discovery that seems so vital to a happy table?

Then she simply can't swim, or attempts it instinctively at Disadvantage. Your example being such a rare corner-case is exactly the reason why "Strength (Swimming)" should *not* be in the skill list.

I seem to spend half my life as a dog when I'm playing my druid. Insane fun. I think the designers did a fine job with the class. The utility is undeniable, and in combat the forms are interesting but nowhere *near* as powerful as a regular PC, or the druid in normal form. Their resilience...