In every D&D session, the dice cannot be relied upon for success. The barbarian misses three attacks in a row, the wizard’s spell fizzles, the rogue’s sneak attack gets a nat 1. What’s on your character sheet is like ingredients in a refrigerator & pantry. If you’re a terrible cook, nothing you make in a well-stocked kitchen will taste good.
Smart play wins the day.
Here are five ways that will help ensure your D&D session is a success.
Strategy Beats Statistics
You can stack your bonuses as high as you want, but the player who spots the clever workaround will always outshine raw power. Using terrain, timing, and teamwork has far better odds to win encounters more often than brute numbers or stats on a character sheet.
Smart players don’t just know the strengths and weaknesses of their own characters. They understand the strengths and weaknesses of their teammates, too. This can mean setting your ego aside and suggesting another character take a particular action when they’re better suited to it. You don’t have the kicker on the offensive line blocking a blitz attack on the quarterback.
D&D is a team sport and ball hogs don’t win games.
Turn the Rules Into Tools
Smart players look at the rulebook not as a cage but as a toolkit. They ask, “What if we use the rope, the torch, and the familiar to distract the ogre?” They use their imagination to turn ordinary gear into solutions, and that’s when D&D starts to feel like an adventure rather than an equation.
Remember the old trick of casting a Light spell centered on the dragon’s eyes? That’s an example of understanding the capabilities represented on your character sheet, no matter how humble, and using them in creative ways. If you’ve ever pulled off something creative like that in your D&D game, share your story in the comments. I’d love to hear about it.
Risk Management Is the Real Superpower
Being smart doesn’t mean being timid, it means knowing when to take a risk and when to retreat. Smart players understand consequences. They read the room (and the DM) before leaping into danger. That sense of judgment keeps parties alive longer than any hit point bonus ever will.
This isn’t about pure caution. It’s about using that grey matter between your ears to figure out when to boldly act and when to proceed with a less-risky approach. This was even represented in old-school rules where experience was often granted for circumventing a monster to get at its treasure even if the monster was never engaged and defeated in combat. That’s straight out of the old-school mindset: brains before blades, treasure over trophies.
Teamwork Multiplies Every Action
Optimized characters act alone; smart players act together. They coordinate tactics, share resources, and set up each other’s moves. When everyone’s brainpower combines, even a low-level party can pull off what would otherwise be impossible.
Again, this requires players set aside their individual egos and focus on the success of the group as a whole. What’s on your character sheet represents the set of tools available to you. It’s important to understand that the handle of a screw driver makes a terrible hammer. And the best part? When everyone uses their tools together, you build something none of you could achieve acting alone.
The Story Rewards the Thoughtful
Good DMs don’t reward high numbers, they reward clever play. Outsmarting a villain, navigating diplomacy, or predicting a trap’s trigger makes for more satisfying victories. It turns a session from “we won” into “we earned it.”
Most Dungeon Masters are rooting for the players to be successful (and if they’re not, you may want to find a new DM). They love it when players come up with creative solutions, especially if it’s a solution they themselves didn’t predict. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. DMs want to make the game challenging, but they want that challenge to be overcome. Stretch your mind, use what’s available in terms of tools and capabilities, and if things seem insurmountable, go out in a creative blaze of glory. That will always be more memorable than doing something predictable and failing anyway.
In D&D, rolling a natural 20 feels great, but thinking your way out of trouble feels legendary.
When the fireball fizzles and the dice go cold, remember: your greatest stat isn’t Strength or Charisma, it’s the mind behind the character sheet.
Have you ever sat down to run a D&D session, planning for your party to finally confront the big bad, only to watch them spend three sessions chasing after a missing chicken, investigating a side alley, and negotiating with the town cobbler about shoe prices? Suddenly you’re left wondering what happened to the main story.
Or maybe you’re a player and you can barely remember what the campaign objective was because your party keeps going after side-quest after side-quest in some sort of recursive nightmare where you’re going after side-quest after side-quest in some sort of recursive nightmare where you’re going after side-quest after side-quest in some sort of recursive nightmare.
STOP ENDLESS SIDE-QUESTING!
That situation of seemingly endless side-quests has a name: yak shaving. I’m going to explain what yak shaving means, how it shows up in D&D, and why you, as a Dungeon Master or even as a player, should be careful not to let endless side quests take over your game.
What Is Yak Shaving?
Yak shaving is a term borrowed from the programming world. It describes a situation where you’re trying to do one simple thing, shave your pet yak, but you keep getting pulled into other prerequisite tasks.
So let’s say you want to shave your yak. You need clippers to do that, so you go to the drawer where the clippers are stored. The drawer squeeks when you open it, so you go looking for some WD-40. As you’re rummaging around in the garage for that, you realize that one of the two lightbulbs in the ceiling is burned out, so you reach for the ladder only to discover that you forgot the lower rung is broken and the ladder needs to be replaced. You get in your truck to drive to the hardware store to buy a new one and notice that you’re low on gas, so you head over to the gas station to fill up.
By dinner time, you’ve spent all day busy as hell but your yak remains as hairy as ever.
I think you get the point.
The same thing happens in D&D all the time. Let’s say the party is trying to recover a powerful artifact but they keep following detours. They help villagers, solve unrelated mysteries, or run errands for NPCs. Each step feels important at the time, but together it can stall the campaign’s momentum.
Why Endless Side Quests Hurt the Game
Side quests are not inherently bad. In fact, they can be wonderful when they add flavor, spotlight a character, or give the party a change of pace. The problem arises when they pile on endlessly. Instead of deepening the campaign, they bury it.
Momentum stalls when the main quest gets pushed so far to the back burner that the party starts to forget what it is. The tone drifts when constant tangents dilute the urgency of the main quest. Players who prefer story progress may get impatient, while others wander in circles. And for the DM, improvising endless side content can feel like they’re building a whole new campaign they never planned to run.
How to Nip Endless Side-quests in the Bud
The good news is that yak shaving can be managed at the table. If you’re a DM, clarify the party’s goal at the beginning of each session. If you don’t want to be that overt about it, drop reminders through NPC dialogue or world events that keep the central story visible.
Another method is to limit the number of hooks that show up in the game. Not every locked door or mysterious villager needs to generate a new quest. Introduce time pressure by the villains advancing their plans if the party delays – just make sure the players are aware that particular clock is ticking. And when you do add side quests, make sure they tie back into the main plot or the characters’ personal arcs, so even detours feel like forward progress.
Sandbox Play Without the Chaos
Now, some of you might be thinking:
“I run a sandbox campaign. Aren’t side quests the point?”
And you’re right—open-world games thrive on freedom and player agency to go where they will. Players want to explore, poke at the edges, and see how the world responds. The danger is when that freedom becomes a spiral of distractions that never reconnects to anything meaningful.
The key is to offer freedom with structure. Instead of scattering a hundred unrelated hooks, seed your sandbox with choices that all eventually feed into your main themes or conflicts. Let players wander, but let their wandering reveal consequences, villains advancing, or threads that circle back into the bigger picture. That way you keep the open feel of a sandbox without losing the story’s momentum, or by railroading your players.
If the players choose to pursue in-game events and clues that have a consistent theme, let them. If they ignore those tie-ins, let them do that as well.
Go Forth And Shave Your Yak!
The next time your game starts veering into an endless chain of distractions, remember this: side quests should enrich the story, not replace it. If the players begin rummaging around in the garage for ladders instead of shaving their yaks, it’s your role as the Dungeon Master to step in and guide them back to the core of the adventure. Or at least remind them that it’s there.
If you’re a player and the other players are ignoring the main quest or seem to have forgotten about it, bring it up. If the group consensus is to drop it and go on to something else, be up front with the DM about it so they don’t waste prep time preparing a Thanksgiving dinner when all the guests would rather eat frozen pizza.
I’ve been a Dungeon Master since 1980. The vast majority of the games I’ve run have been with adult players. Since late 2023, however, I’ve run the teens D&D group at my local library, with players aged 11 through 17. I still run the occasional one-shots with a small group of adults, however.
This article is a collection of observations and contrasts between teenagers and adults around the D&D table. Some of these differences are really interesting, so be sure to read to the end.
Teens Tend to be More Creative Than Adults
In the broadest and perhaps most obvious sense, teenagers are going to be more creative and random in their approach to D&D, while adults will be more pragmatic.
Grown-ups will be much more likely to pay attention to the stats of their weapons and armor, and fret a bit more about their character’s ability scores. The teens, on the other hand, would rather have a sword that looks cool and has a creative name than worry about whether it actually does more damage than some other weapon.
For example, one of my teen players runs a bard in 5th edition. He wanted his character to wield a squeegee as a weapon. I’ve described this moment in a YouTube video where I was caught off guard by this request. And, being an adult myself (most of the time) my first reaction was “There are no squeegees in D&D!” But, I realized it didn’t matter to the kiddo, so I made a ruling at the moment that a squeegee will act like a club, and assigned its damage to be the same. The player was happy, I had some stats to go by, and life was good.
To the kiddos at the table, what looks or sounds cool seems to be far more important than what works or doesn’t work in actual game-play.
Teens Tend to Show Up More Reliably Than Adults
Being dependent upon their parents or other adults for rides, teens are more at the mercy of others to make it to game night. You’d think this dependency would make them less likely to attend on a consistent basis, yet my experience has been the opposite. It’s rare for the kiddos in my group to miss a session.
Conversely, as many of us have experienced, getting adults to show up to D&D on a consistent basis is about like herding cats. One is hungry and meowing like crazy for their role-playing num-nums, another got out and hasn’t been seen or heard from for a week, a third is in the corner licking itself and a fourth shows up for three games in a row, eager and enthusiastic like they’ve got the litter box zoomies, only to ghost everyone a week later and never be heard from again.
Teens and Adult D&D Players are Very Non-judgmental
This next point is more about commonality than differences between teenagers and adults in D&D. In my experience, D&D players are very non-judgemental compared to the general population, but I think teenagers are even less judgy than adults and worry less about what others around the table think of them.
This makes sense since adulthood makes most people develop a heightened focus on the opinions of other. Teens don’t give a rat’s ass, at least at the D&D table. In fact, I’d wager that teen D&D players are one of the least judgmental and most accepting group of individuals I’ve ever known.
In the high school halls and shopping malls, teenagers can be judgmental and harsh with each other to the point of cruelty, but around the D&D table, they are super chill and accepting with their “you be you” attitude.
Adults that play D&D tend to be the same way. There just seems to be this lack of judgmentalism when it comes to D&D players, and table-top role-playing gamers in general — at least in my experience. This makes me wonder: Are non-judgmental people drawn to table-top role-playing games like D&D? Or does playing D&D make you a less judgmental person?
Adults are Quieter Than Teenagers
Let’s talk about volume and energy.
Adults are quieter and more subdued. Teens are boisterous and loud. There’s not much more to say about this particular point.
Teens Tend to be More Creative Problem-solvers
This next topic is about problem-solving. There are six stats on a D&D character sheet: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and Charisma. If there was a 7th stat for Creativity, the teenagers would have natural 18s across the board compared to adults.
With age comes wisdom, generally, but as we get older we seem to lose our ability to grab that element of raw creativity that kiddos have. Every game, I am surprised and amazed at how random and creative these kids can be with their approach to problem solving.
When faced with a challenge, the adults will be a lot more pragmatic and practical. They will often make an inventory of what they know and what they have in terms of gear, equipment, spells, and so forth. They will usually weigh out the pros and cons of different approaches to the problem. This doesn’t necessarily mean they come up with the best solution, or that they’ll notice every possibility, but they do tend to take the safest and most likely to succeed approach.
Teenagers, on the other hand, especially the younger ones, will come up with ideas that the adult DM would never be able to imagine. They also are drawn to what I call “the epic” approach. Even if it will lead to assured death and destruction, teens are inexplicably drawn to more dramatic and epic-sounding and epic-seeming actions. As long as it looks cool, they don’t care if it ends in a TPK. In fact, that would just make it all the more memorable.
As a dungeon master, when I present a challenge to the players, I usually have an idea for the possible ways it can be overcome. I’ve seen more adults fail to grasp the obvious solution, while kids will come up with an idea that is completely out of left-field. I’m put on the spot as the DM to find a way to run with it, sort of like the squeegee as a weapon situation.
Teenagers Think Outside the Box
As a Dungeon Master, I don’t usually pull my punches. I throw the same kind of challenges and opportunities at my teens group as I do my adults group. If anything, I’m less worried about wondering what the possible solutions are because, as I stated a moment ago, the kids are able to tap into creative problem solving energy more directly than I am.
I have found that when writing adventures for adult players, I need to make the challenges they face just that bit more straightforward to overcome than I would for teens. This doesn’t mean the grownups are playing on easy mode, it’s just that I can’t get as clever with their obstacles as I can with the teens.
Adults Are More Serious
I have found that because the kiddos are more into creativity than pragmatic play, I can behave as a DM more like a kid than I can when running a game for adults. This means I can be silly and say off-the-wall things and use funny voices and behavior, whereas I very rarely do any of that with adults.
This goes back to what I was saying earlier about how, as adults, we worry more about what others think of us. This even takes place around a D&D table where everyone is accepting and non-judgmental. This may be my own personal experience, but I can honestly say I worry a lot more about what my adult players think of me, and I check my behavior accordingly, way more than I do when I’m DM’ing a teens group. When the kiddos are at the table, practically anything goes. It’s quite freeing, actually.
What is Your Perspective?
My journey as a dungeon master has encompassed a lot of different players of a wide range of ages. Every player is a unique personality and the combination of personalities you get around your table can vary widely, even when just a single individual in that group changes.
If you’re a teen player, what has been your perspective about playing with other kids your age versus playing with adults?
If you’re an adult, have you ever sat at a D&D table with teenagers in the party? What have you noticed about the contrast and similarities between kids and adults in table-top role-playing?
In this article I’m going to discuss our problems. No, not those, I’m talking about our problems around the D&D table. Players have habits the DM wished they’d break, and DM’s have certain behaviors that players would rather do without.
So, this is a ranked-list article of the top 10 things DM’s wish players would change, and the top 10 things players wished DM’s would change. Plus, be sure to read to the end for a special list of 5 things all of us would rather do without at the D&D table.
Here goes.
PART 1: 10 Things Players wish DMs would change
To begin, here is my list of 10 things Players wish DMs would change.
10. Be Transparent About Homebrew Rules
Players love creativity in their DMs, but don’t let house rules be a surprise mid-combat. Set expectations early so no one feels blindsided. Remember, creativity is good. Random and arbitrary is not.
9. Give Everyone a Spotlight
Most players want at least one moment to shine. Pay attention when you see a player fading into the background or never getting a chance for their character to really do their thang. This is especially important if a character gets a cool magic item or weapon — give them an opportunity to use it.
8. Say “Yes, and…” More Often
When players come up with wild or clever solutions, reward that creativity if you can. The answer doesn’t always have to be “There no squeegees in D&D!” See my video, “There are no squeegees in D&D!” to learn what I mean.
7. Build Around Backstories
Players spend time crafting their characters’ histories. Even small nods to those details go a long way if that’s what the player is into. Again, know your players. And players, remember it’s not a requirement that the DM do this, so don’t get butthurt if they don’t author an entire six-month long campaign around the poem your tiefling sorcerer wrote when they were six.
6. Use Session Zeroes
In your session zero, talk about tone, table rules, themes, and preferences before the campaign starts. It sets the whole group up for success. This is an opportunity for everyone to get to know each other better, player and DM alike. It also helps to run a quick 15-30 combat session at the end so everyone gets used to the process.
5. Be Consistent with Rules
If an enemy can disengage and attack in the same turn, let the rogue do it too. Consistency builds trust. Above all, the DM is a referee and everyone expects referees to be fair. Unless you’re a former Major League Umpire and then all your bets are off — except for when you’ve rigged the game, then all your bets are winners.
4. Be Descriptive, Not Just Functional
Describe the feel of a dungeon, not just its layout. The narrative flavor matters as much as the mechanics. I like to describe not only have a setting looks but how it smells, what the temperature feels like and so on. One of my favorites is, “You open the door to the secret chamber and instantly smell what could only be described as an orc’s loin cloth cooked in garlic and shallots with a hint of capers and paprika.”
3. Ask for Player Feedback
Players want to feel heard, even if you don’t actually listen to anything they say. But seriously, a simple “How’s the pacing feel to you all?” mid-arc can open important dialogue. Again, this goes back to knowing and understanding your players, and that requires dialogue and active listening. Also, don’t be thin-skinned. If players are willing to give you constructive feedback, pay attention. That’s much better than the alternative of them just not showing up.
2. Have Fun at the Table
Players love when their DMs laugh, roleplay NPCs with flair, or say “Yes, and…” with the chaos. When the DM is having fun, the players will, too. Above all, be yourself but don’t be afraid to put yourself out there a bit, too. Be open to the moment.
1. Allow Player Agency
Let players make their impact on the world on their terms. Their choices should matter and they should be allowed to make their choices, for good or bad. Don’t railroad the plot in spite of of their choices and actions. The worst is when the DM says, “I can’t let you do that because that’s not how I planned everything.” I made that mistake once and made a whole video about it. “Railroading Killed My D&D Campaign”
PART 2: 10 Things DMs wish Players Would Change
Okay, now for part two. Players, this one is for you. Here are the top 10 Things Your DM Wishes You’d Change.
10. Meta-Gaming Like You Have Google Brain
Just because you know the monster’s stat block doesn’t mean your character does. Stay in character. Remember the difference between what you know and what your character knows. I will speak from personal experience that this is not always easy to do, but it really does add more than just garlic and paprika-flavoring to the game if you can pull it off.
9. Playing the Lone Wolf
If your character refuses to cooperate with the rest of the party, ask yourself why they’re traveling with a party at all. D&D is cooperative and somewhat democratic storytelling, so don’t deviate too often from the consensus of the group. If you have a cool idea or a different way of doing something, share it with the other players and get their feedback. They might say yes, but remember that no matter how great of a quarterback Justin Herbert may be, he still needs an offensive line that runs the same plays as him.
8. Treating the DM Like the Enemy
This isn’t PvP. The DM isn’t trying to kill your character. In fact, they want you to succeed. If they present challenges to you, there’s usually a reason and a reward. Don’t take it personally and don’t get antagonistic with the referee unless your DM is Dave, in which case he probably really is out to get you.
7. Fighting Over Loot
Please, we beg you … don’t spend 20 minutes arguing over who gets the +1 long sword. Work it out like adventurers, not greedy little toddlers fighting over a cookie. Otherwise you’ll all get sent to bed without any supper.
6. Acting Like a Rules Nazi
There are a LOT of rules in D&D, and DMs have a ton of things to think about and remember during game-play. If they forget a rule or get one wrong, you can bring it up but don’t grind the game to a complete halt over it, especially once the DM has made a ruling on it. There are already too many nazis in the world as it is.
5. Always Choosing Combat
If you attack the guard instead of talking to him just because it’s “faster,” I promise the game gets flatter. Being assigned the title of “Murder Hobo” is not a compliment. I’ve run games with players like this and trust me, it gets old real quick for everyone at the table, not just the DM.
4. Derailing Serious Scenes
Know when to laugh and when to let a scene breathe. Don’t go off on an unrelated tangent in the middle of intense play, especially about real-life stuff. Read the room. Think of it like a play. You wouldn’t want to go into your best Robin Williams impression in the middle of the Diary of Anne Frank.
3. Min-Maxing Without Flavor
Look, power-gaming has its place, but if your character has zero personality, it’s hard to write a story around them. It’s okay if you treat your character as just a collection of optimized stats and gear, because it’s your character and you can play them how you prefer. Just remember that it’s a character sheet, not a spreadsheet.
2. Creating Distractions During Roleplay
Shopping sprees, long tangents and unrelated exploration into areas that are obviously unrelated to the campaign can be cool sometimes and in moderation, but they can stall the session. Know when to rein it in. To add to what I said before, don’t just read the room, read the DM. If they give you very short, curt descriptions of something and they get this little wrinkly scowl on their face when they say, “There’s nothing of interest in the goblin’s obviously empty cauldron,” move on.
And now for our #1 thing DMs wish players would change:
1. Zoning Out Between Turns
Phones, snacks, side chats… it’s okay to disengage for a second, but try to stay present. A good DM will tell you when your character is on deck during combat, but even if they don’t, keep track of what’s transpiring before it’s your turn. You’re part of the story even when you’re not rolling dice.
PART 3: Five Weird Ones
As promised, here is a special list of 5 do’s and don’ts for both players and DMs alike:
5. If you tell your romantic partner that you’re going to stay up all night watching TV because there’s an MTV’s Liquid Television Marathon and they’re going to play all the original Beavis & Butthead episodes, including the original “Frog Baseball” episode, and then your partner asks “Are you sure?” — I suggest you say, “Never mind, I’ll hang out with you instead. What would you like to watch, dear?” Trust me.
4. If you bring chips or other crunchy snacks to the game, please have some courtesy and chew with your mouth closed. That smacking sound makes the rogue roll with disadvantage on their next stealth check.
3. Take a shower this month, whether you think you need one or not. The others around the table will appreciate it. 40 ounces of Axe body spray is not a valid substitute.
2. Not every goblin wants to be your pet. Just because they might fit in your backpack doesn’t mean you get to take them home with you. Goblins have feelings, too.
Finally, number 1:
1. Don’t clip your toenails at the D&D table. Even the half-orc barbarian with 4 charisma thinks that’s gross.
After playing 5e D&D rules since 2016, I have identified three key areas where 5e lags behind old-school rules. Controversial? Maybe. Accurate? You decide. Plus, I list a bonus topic that you definitely want to hear about how 5e compares to 3rd party rules.
Most dungeon masters can use a little help from time to time coming up with adventure ideas. Here are thirty ideas to boost your creative juices, grouped into 10 categories.
Explore the unknown
A strange temple has appeared in a forest outside of town and the local lord wants the adventurers to check it out and report back what they find.
The adventurers are in a small outpost village on the edge of the wilderness. They decide to explore what’s beyond the boundary of civilization to discover what’s there. Keep on the Borderlands, the best selling D&D module ever published, is an example of this kind of adventure.
Within a dungeon, the party discovers a stairway leading to a lower level.
Get the treasure
A rumor tells of a treasure hoard within a nearby dungeon or crypt.
Lore reveals the existence of a powerful magic item or gem. Clues indicate it is hidden in the cellar of a prominent political leader or within a monster’s lair.
The party gets word of a group of evil bandits nearby that recently stole a chest of coins and valuable family heirlooms from a traveling merchant. The party seeks to infiltrate the bandits’ camp and steal it back.
Destroy an evil
A temple dedicated to an evil god has been discovered nearby. The party must enter the temple and destroy its altar.
Farmers report a marauding dragon or other monster killing livestock nearby. The party is hired by the local lord to find and neutralize it.
A band of werewolves has been attacking outlying farms. The lair of the werewolves needs to be located, and they must be killed.
Obtain or transport something of value
A lord has hired the party to escort a VIP from one place to another. The journey will pass through dangerous territory.
A wealthy merchant wants the party to retrieve a valuable item and bring it to them. The only problem is the item must be stolen from the person who currently possesses it.
A mage has hired the party to acquire a special component used in a powerful spell or potion. It is rare and difficult to find or access.
Captive
The party has been captured by foul monsters and are currently held in a dungeon cell. They must find a way to escape their bonds, find their gear, and find their freedom.
One or more of the members of an adventuring troop were captured and are being transported to be sold as slaves. The rest of the group must rescue them. (This is a great adventure when one or more players can’t attend the session – their characters are the ones needing to be rescued.)
Someone dear to a powerful VIPs heart has been taken by an evil mastermind or monster. They are being carried to a remote location for sacrifice to an evil god. The party must rescue the person before they are slain.
Pieces of a Whole
To complete a master quest, the party must locate individual items that, when assembled or gathered in one place, will be used to achieve their goal.
Four members of an evil group must each be located and killed before the group assembles and unleashes an evil plan.
A god or other powerful benefactor has promised a boon to the party but each character must complete an individual quest — with the help of the other adventurers — before it is granted.
Solve a Mystery
(This is perhaps the most common and versatile adventure type.)
Something or someone is killing or abducting livestock or people in a particular area. The party must find the source of these killings and stop it.
A mysterious disease has infected a small group with an unusual condition that eventually leads to death or madness. The party must uncover the source of the disease and complete a quest to make the antidote.
Unexpected clues reveal a plot to kill the king. The party must go under cover to find the individual behind the assassination attempt before it’s too late.
Betrayal
The party learns someone in their group is on a secret mission to do something very bad. None of them know who it is but they must find clues to figure it out.
A member of the party has betrayed the others. The remaining members of the group pursues them to exact revenge. This is a great adventure to run when a player has left the group.
A single individual from a group of evil monsters has “turned” and revealed to the party the location and plans of their former comrades. The party cooperates with that individual to foil the monsters’ evil plan.
Portal to Adventure
The party discovers a magical portal that transports them to another plane or place. They must survive while they locate another portal to return.
A strange portal has opened up in a wilderness near the party’s hometown. Evil and strange monsters have been seen in the area and it is suspected they are coming through the portal. The party must find the portal and find a way to destroy it.
A powerful evil has been wreaking havoc in the area. It is too strong to face directly, but a sage has revealed a way to banish the creature back to its home plane through the use of a powerful artifact. The party must find and retrieve the artifact.
Visiting a Sacred Site
The party must travel to a hard-to-reach location and visit the shaman or priest of a strange of god to get something blessed in order to fight some great evil.
Deep within a long lost library is a tome that contains the incantation required to accomplish a valuable feat.
One of the party members has died and only by visiting a holy site dedicated to that individual’s god can they be resurrected.
You will very rarely find what is hidden if you don’t tell the DM that you are searching for it.
If the DM says you don’t find a trap or secret door, that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a trap or secret door there.
Draw a map as you explore a dungeon. It doesn’t have to be specifically accurate, but must be able to lead you back out to the surface to safety.
Over-arguing about things in the dungeon draws the attention of wandering monsters. Wandering monsters sap your resources (hit points, spells, arrows, etc.) and rarely have any treasure.
Being able to creatively and constructively solve problems with efficient solutions is the greatest skill a player can have, and is far more valuable than anything carried or specified on a character sheet.
The DM often drops hints about things of value, but not everything they say is significant or a clue.
Explore and investigate your surroundings. Put things in context with other bits of information to discern what is important.
The character with the highest charisma score should conduct all negotiations with NPCs on the party’s behalf.
Most henchman won’t consider going on an adventure-for-hire with you until you buy them a drink.
Some difficult physical tasks that require great strength, such as opening a stuck door or lifting a porcullis, can only be accomplished through the combined effort of two (or more) characters.
Mirrors require a light source to work, and infravision does not apply. In fact, it is not possible to read in the dark or discern colors using infravision alone.
A torch or other heat source will prevent infravision from working when near that heat source.
If you are using a torch or lantern, any creature with infravision will likely see you long before you see them.
You naturally heal 1d3 hit points for every full day of rest (not just 8 hours of sleep).
You can become lost (and not realize it) when traveling outdoors unless you are following a known road or trail, or following a skilled guide.
Any character can search for room traps, like covered pits, etc., but only thieves can search for treasure traps. The DM rolls for success, not the player (just because the DM says no trap is found doesn’t mean there isn’t still a trap present).
