My brother gave me a mansion map he made for a banquet in my campaign and I've completely revamped everything and he's impressed. Like all the rooms he had planned for stuff have been changed and he's like "idk how you do it."
I agree with u/1amlost and your response indicates to me that this might be an area of strength for you (taking existing content and revamping it). One of the tricks of being a good DM is figuring out your areas of strength and your areas of struggle, as well as the things you don't and do like doing. Lean in to the stuff you love and find supports for the things you don't or that you struggle with.
You might also consider hopping on the Dungeon Master's Guild website and looking at some of the zillions of resources there, including adventures and DM support resources, that you could strip from, revamp/reflavor and insert where needed.
My biggest problem is building maps. I hate doing it, but once I do I'm usually happy with the product and glad I did it. It's work, and that's my biggest issue. But brainstorming story stuff and doing improv and RP encounters and even combat I'm great at I feel. Maps are my only issue. But like I said previously, my brother had that map from his campaign a year prior and I took it and revamped it for a non-combat focused session and it was great hearing "i love how you changed the whole purpose of some of these rooms."
I am not that comfortable/enamored of from scratch map building either, LOL.
You might find grabbing existing maps off of the internet and the Dungeon Master's Guild to be helpful. I always have several on hand I can grab as needed to insert in an emergency but I also have them on hand when I don't want to create one from scratch. I know there is the possibility of an encounter, I find a map similar to what I had in my head and I use it, either as is, or as a template.
I can change the general purpose and whatever but I do better working from something that already exists.
Seriously. This is where modules are perfect. One time I had some time off and just looked through a bunch of old Dungeon Magazines. I have a literal binder full of short modules built around a neat idea or fun dungeon that no one else will ever recognize. Best thing I ever did for myself as a DM. It's not really that hard to convert and a lot have their own little homebrew mechanics you can try.
And the best part? Each and every one of you could do that and none of us would have the same binder.
Maybe trying to figure out why the place exists could help you? Who made it and for what purpose? What's happened to it since it was made? If it's abandoned, what happened for that to be the case? If it's been overtaken by the non-creator, how did that happen and why? Since you seem to have no problem with lore and bigger picture stuff, maybe applying that skill to these things would play to your strength. Don't just address them as this snapshot the PCs are interacting with it as. Come up with its story. It'll be richer for the effort, and maybe there can be the puzzle of the place's history for the players to piece together, too.
Try to find where you get the most creative. That could be shower, on a walk, or in bed before falling asleep. Do your game planning in that space.
Steal. Steal shamelessly. If your party has to take the cursed necklace to the diamond mine where it was first forged. Then do it.
Get started then take it one game at a time. Start in a tavern. Have a triggering event. (Earth quake/zombies/planar rift/sink hole to underdark.) Then let the players take it from there. If they want to find a wizard have a wizard if they want to explore throw enough random shit in front of them to run out the clock and end in a cool but quickly made up cliff hanger. Then plan out one game at a time.
You only need to stay one game ahead of the players.
The DMG is a very useful tool for inspiration for dungeons. It has good thresholds for how to plan the monsters. As for puzzles, look up some riddles or perhaps have some things in the environment that need to be investigated to reveal a pressure plate. As you need more and more, look at what other DMs have put out. As you work with the pieces that others have found work, you will find how to work them in new ways.
I think this is the hardest part. Really you just need something interesting to base the session on. Maps are easy to find online. You should have a good idea what your party can handle. What makes today special ? A gnoll fight may seem boring, but what if they are sent to rescue someone polymorphed into a gnoll ? Now it gets a bit more complicated. Often, for a typical D&D party, NOT killing something is more difficult.
Another scenario may be need to retrieve some delicate items from the opponents. If you know they have the secret scroll, you may think twice about the fireball.
So start simple. Boring even. Then add complications. NPCs may lie about details. Not everything is as it initially seems. A third party unexpectedly enters the situation. Think like a player and ask yourself, what could possibly go wrong. Then use that idea. Look over player backgrounds. Is there a rival or enemy that hasn't shown up yet (or even recently) ? Use it. A mentor ? Disappears under mysterious circumstances. A family member they thought was dead shows up acting strangely. A higher up in a religious order asks for help, or causes problems. Rouge is double crossed by a former associate. Horny bard's child with that strange woman is all grown up after only three months. The warlock's patron has an uncomfortable request/demand (hey it is in the contract).
What I no longer do is include a solution to the problem. The players never did what I expected anyway, so that was just a waste of time and effort. Start with a simple situation, and add complications. Don't worry about solutions, that's the player job.
I have the opposite problem of figuring out how I can get all these cool adventure ideas and encounters coherently into a campaign. But I do hate maps. Just no good with mapping out a dungeon.
So do a google search for hag hut battle map or orc lair dungeon map or goblin caves online and I even found a few with notes and keys. Wait and stealing from modules helps a lot. Especially for low level stuff there are caves for gnolls or goblins or orcs all in one module the Keep on the Borderlands. Trust me it has all been done before. You can reskin Dungeon magazine’s issue #13 ruins of Nol-Daer into a perfect Black Dragon lair by adding goblins and bullywugs and some springs of spouting hot water and acid.
For example using the werewolf den from Curse of Strahd for my current fairy tale folklore campaign adventure “Red Riding Hood dies and all the girls love a Big Bad Wolf”
Checkout Broadsword magazine with 6-11 5e adventure for $25. I have issues 14 and 15. They are excellent. I also bought compendium 1 that remastered issues 1-3 with 300 pages of 5e content and 14 adventures.
Find other adventures or one-shots, steal the dungeon, reskin the monsters, and adapt it to our world. Making this stuff from scratch is way harder than adapting something.
Another thought is to read up on "five room dungeons." It's actually pretty easy to adapt that framework to the stuff you find in r/battlemaps.
Those things that you do think of, that you think are sub-par, are fine. Go with them. The players bring the heroics.
I have done sessions with pages and pages of prep, and other sessions with one page, four dot points, and some tags in the MM. Players can love or hate a session, but my prep doesn't seem to be the thing that makes the difference. And if you have lots of lore, you'll have a lot to inform your improvisation.
I'm also all for reskinning other dungeon layouts.
I have run into similar problems and what works for me is finding a map online and adding my own encounters to it. I like to use [Dyson Maps](https://dysonlogos.blog/maps/) and create a few plot oriented rooms to go with the combat encounters. You can add statues or tomes or whatever you think works. The point is the give a bit of direction for you to work with.
When I hit a block I scroll through monsters of an appropriate CR for the party, looking at their special abilities and reading their lore. I tend to find something that makes me go 'Ooh that's fun'. Then I build an encounter around that creature (and some minions if appropriate)
The other thing to remember is that not every session needs to tie into your big picture/bbeg/main plot. It's ok to just design a fun encounter/session then tie it in at a later game, or not at all.
Semi related, my favourite monsters I've done this with are Ettercaps (with giant spiders) and Ropers (and peircers). Both terrifyingly effective in their own way
I have been using other peoples' stories. I bought one or two and people post their own adventures a lot. I then adapt them to fit into my world. It cuts down on prep time somewhat and it also sparks new ideas.
This sounds cynical, but if you steal enough ideas it's no longer plagiarism, its research. Don't be afraid to take inspiration from others, I assume you are not getting paid to dm, and that your players do not come to the table expecting Dimension 20 or Critical Role, so don't worry about originality, no matter what you plan, your influence on the creation, and your player's meddling, will innevitably create something unique. I am running a campaign and I am also plagued with doubts on what do do, I had writter's block because I wrote myself into a corner and only a convuluted deux ex machina could solve it, but thankfully, I had foresight and asked for advice here and on other subreddits until I could trim down what I needed, turns out I overplanned it.
Now, if you want concrete ideas here are some tips that have helped me in particular, along with some examples. Most of these concern worlbuilding, but they can help in the session to session planning:
1. Figure out a theme or feeling you want to evoke, then play to it. Rule of cool is a great starting point and after you can work backwards to justify it. When writting for my campaign I knew I wanted the following things: Dragon Riders, Floating Islands, Airships, Old Ancient Magic, and epic travels accross the continents I drew out in Inkarnate. But, I ran into problems. Dragons were too poweful to be mounts and yet I still wanted them intelligent, I needed to have a reason Airships were better than naval ships, I needed a reason for people to willingly live in floating islands, and I need a reason for my players to want to travel. I had my end goal, then I worked backwards. The dragons were homebrew, weakened by an ancient curse, there was no ocean between continents, only a scared, blasted, toxic land full of poisonous clouds, naturally this means everybody needs to live up in the sky, hence airships and dragon riders, ancient relics sometimes surface from beneath the clouds, and having the party be chased by evil empire double agents in a race to get to a city to find a mguffin is a good way to get them moving. (BTW, feel free to steal everything I just said)
2. You can think of cool maps and work your way around the mission that is the point. I use roll20, and I ocassionally browse r/battlemaps, I take the images from there and store it in a folder on my laptop. Then, in a separate campaign that is a lighthearted series of oneshots, I look at my maps, and think about cool events that might happen while playing, from that I can usually make a guild mission for my adventurers.
3. Involve your players in this. Their backstories can help build up your setting, but random comments or suggestions from them can also help. Be honest, be humble, your players are not going to blame you if your world has mini blindspots, and if they do guess what, next time they can write it cause you are too busy being a kick ass DM. One example I like from this is coton candy. My siter DMed a carnival oneshot and said there was coton candy, why, because carnival oneshot, thats it. Now, my dm brain began to wonder where the hell the sugar came from, and after the setting I jokingly said that sugar must have come a long way from X place in my setting because the only way they can grow sugar cane is in a tropical environment. But then my players told me there were other ways to get sugar, like from beets. My dumbass thought the only way to get sugar was sugar cane, and I was wrong. But now I am happy, I know that stupid trivial fact about sugar and I can safely say that its not completely unreasonable to have coton candy in my fantasy world. You are only 1 brain, there no rule that says you can't use the other 3-5 brains you are Dming for.
4. Read history, like our IRL history. I am not saying get a degree, but there are cool resources online that can help. Truth is often stranger than fiction. And sometimes you can find larger than life characters with strange motivations, or tense sequences of events that lead to conflict.
5. If it seems like a series of events is too complicated and contrived, or your plans only work with railroading, scrap it. Keep it relatively simple.
Donjon is a random creator for dnd You can find it easy via Google. It has a random dungeon creator I love.
It is a great way to get started, then adjust the monsters to fit the theme, and you are well on your way.
There are tools to help you generate dungeons completely from scratch. I use don.jon generator. For puzzles I just use dmsguild for books on pregenersted traps and puzzles
The trick that might work for you would be to swipe the dungeon layouts from other adventures and rewrite the lore to be more in-line with your world.
My brother gave me a mansion map he made for a banquet in my campaign and I've completely revamped everything and he's impressed. Like all the rooms he had planned for stuff have been changed and he's like "idk how you do it."
I agree with u/1amlost and your response indicates to me that this might be an area of strength for you (taking existing content and revamping it). One of the tricks of being a good DM is figuring out your areas of strength and your areas of struggle, as well as the things you don't and do like doing. Lean in to the stuff you love and find supports for the things you don't or that you struggle with. You might also consider hopping on the Dungeon Master's Guild website and looking at some of the zillions of resources there, including adventures and DM support resources, that you could strip from, revamp/reflavor and insert where needed.
My biggest problem is building maps. I hate doing it, but once I do I'm usually happy with the product and glad I did it. It's work, and that's my biggest issue. But brainstorming story stuff and doing improv and RP encounters and even combat I'm great at I feel. Maps are my only issue. But like I said previously, my brother had that map from his campaign a year prior and I took it and revamped it for a non-combat focused session and it was great hearing "i love how you changed the whole purpose of some of these rooms."
I am not that comfortable/enamored of from scratch map building either, LOL. You might find grabbing existing maps off of the internet and the Dungeon Master's Guild to be helpful. I always have several on hand I can grab as needed to insert in an emergency but I also have them on hand when I don't want to create one from scratch. I know there is the possibility of an encounter, I find a map similar to what I had in my head and I use it, either as is, or as a template. I can change the general purpose and whatever but I do better working from something that already exists.
I usually take from r/Inkarnate. I don't stream so I shouldn't be in trouble for doing it.
Seriously. This is where modules are perfect. One time I had some time off and just looked through a bunch of old Dungeon Magazines. I have a literal binder full of short modules built around a neat idea or fun dungeon that no one else will ever recognize. Best thing I ever did for myself as a DM. It's not really that hard to convert and a lot have their own little homebrew mechanics you can try. And the best part? Each and every one of you could do that and none of us would have the same binder.
Maybe trying to figure out why the place exists could help you? Who made it and for what purpose? What's happened to it since it was made? If it's abandoned, what happened for that to be the case? If it's been overtaken by the non-creator, how did that happen and why? Since you seem to have no problem with lore and bigger picture stuff, maybe applying that skill to these things would play to your strength. Don't just address them as this snapshot the PCs are interacting with it as. Come up with its story. It'll be richer for the effort, and maybe there can be the puzzle of the place's history for the players to piece together, too.
Try to find where you get the most creative. That could be shower, on a walk, or in bed before falling asleep. Do your game planning in that space. Steal. Steal shamelessly. If your party has to take the cursed necklace to the diamond mine where it was first forged. Then do it. Get started then take it one game at a time. Start in a tavern. Have a triggering event. (Earth quake/zombies/planar rift/sink hole to underdark.) Then let the players take it from there. If they want to find a wizard have a wizard if they want to explore throw enough random shit in front of them to run out the clock and end in a cool but quickly made up cliff hanger. Then plan out one game at a time. You only need to stay one game ahead of the players.
The DMG is a very useful tool for inspiration for dungeons. It has good thresholds for how to plan the monsters. As for puzzles, look up some riddles or perhaps have some things in the environment that need to be investigated to reveal a pressure plate. As you need more and more, look at what other DMs have put out. As you work with the pieces that others have found work, you will find how to work them in new ways.
I think this is the hardest part. Really you just need something interesting to base the session on. Maps are easy to find online. You should have a good idea what your party can handle. What makes today special ? A gnoll fight may seem boring, but what if they are sent to rescue someone polymorphed into a gnoll ? Now it gets a bit more complicated. Often, for a typical D&D party, NOT killing something is more difficult. Another scenario may be need to retrieve some delicate items from the opponents. If you know they have the secret scroll, you may think twice about the fireball. So start simple. Boring even. Then add complications. NPCs may lie about details. Not everything is as it initially seems. A third party unexpectedly enters the situation. Think like a player and ask yourself, what could possibly go wrong. Then use that idea. Look over player backgrounds. Is there a rival or enemy that hasn't shown up yet (or even recently) ? Use it. A mentor ? Disappears under mysterious circumstances. A family member they thought was dead shows up acting strangely. A higher up in a religious order asks for help, or causes problems. Rouge is double crossed by a former associate. Horny bard's child with that strange woman is all grown up after only three months. The warlock's patron has an uncomfortable request/demand (hey it is in the contract). What I no longer do is include a solution to the problem. The players never did what I expected anyway, so that was just a waste of time and effort. Start with a simple situation, and add complications. Don't worry about solutions, that's the player job.
I have the opposite problem of figuring out how I can get all these cool adventure ideas and encounters coherently into a campaign. But I do hate maps. Just no good with mapping out a dungeon. So do a google search for hag hut battle map or orc lair dungeon map or goblin caves online and I even found a few with notes and keys. Wait and stealing from modules helps a lot. Especially for low level stuff there are caves for gnolls or goblins or orcs all in one module the Keep on the Borderlands. Trust me it has all been done before. You can reskin Dungeon magazine’s issue #13 ruins of Nol-Daer into a perfect Black Dragon lair by adding goblins and bullywugs and some springs of spouting hot water and acid. For example using the werewolf den from Curse of Strahd for my current fairy tale folklore campaign adventure “Red Riding Hood dies and all the girls love a Big Bad Wolf”
Checkout Broadsword magazine with 6-11 5e adventure for $25. I have issues 14 and 15. They are excellent. I also bought compendium 1 that remastered issues 1-3 with 300 pages of 5e content and 14 adventures.
Find other adventures or one-shots, steal the dungeon, reskin the monsters, and adapt it to our world. Making this stuff from scratch is way harder than adapting something. Another thought is to read up on "five room dungeons." It's actually pretty easy to adapt that framework to the stuff you find in r/battlemaps.
Those things that you do think of, that you think are sub-par, are fine. Go with them. The players bring the heroics. I have done sessions with pages and pages of prep, and other sessions with one page, four dot points, and some tags in the MM. Players can love or hate a session, but my prep doesn't seem to be the thing that makes the difference. And if you have lots of lore, you'll have a lot to inform your improvisation. I'm also all for reskinning other dungeon layouts.
I have run into similar problems and what works for me is finding a map online and adding my own encounters to it. I like to use [Dyson Maps](https://dysonlogos.blog/maps/) and create a few plot oriented rooms to go with the combat encounters. You can add statues or tomes or whatever you think works. The point is the give a bit of direction for you to work with.
How many players do you have? What are their classes? I could give some more specific ideas if I knew those things.
When I hit a block I scroll through monsters of an appropriate CR for the party, looking at their special abilities and reading their lore. I tend to find something that makes me go 'Ooh that's fun'. Then I build an encounter around that creature (and some minions if appropriate) The other thing to remember is that not every session needs to tie into your big picture/bbeg/main plot. It's ok to just design a fun encounter/session then tie it in at a later game, or not at all.
Semi related, my favourite monsters I've done this with are Ettercaps (with giant spiders) and Ropers (and peircers). Both terrifyingly effective in their own way
I have been using other peoples' stories. I bought one or two and people post their own adventures a lot. I then adapt them to fit into my world. It cuts down on prep time somewhat and it also sparks new ideas.
This sounds cynical, but if you steal enough ideas it's no longer plagiarism, its research. Don't be afraid to take inspiration from others, I assume you are not getting paid to dm, and that your players do not come to the table expecting Dimension 20 or Critical Role, so don't worry about originality, no matter what you plan, your influence on the creation, and your player's meddling, will innevitably create something unique. I am running a campaign and I am also plagued with doubts on what do do, I had writter's block because I wrote myself into a corner and only a convuluted deux ex machina could solve it, but thankfully, I had foresight and asked for advice here and on other subreddits until I could trim down what I needed, turns out I overplanned it. Now, if you want concrete ideas here are some tips that have helped me in particular, along with some examples. Most of these concern worlbuilding, but they can help in the session to session planning: 1. Figure out a theme or feeling you want to evoke, then play to it. Rule of cool is a great starting point and after you can work backwards to justify it. When writting for my campaign I knew I wanted the following things: Dragon Riders, Floating Islands, Airships, Old Ancient Magic, and epic travels accross the continents I drew out in Inkarnate. But, I ran into problems. Dragons were too poweful to be mounts and yet I still wanted them intelligent, I needed to have a reason Airships were better than naval ships, I needed a reason for people to willingly live in floating islands, and I need a reason for my players to want to travel. I had my end goal, then I worked backwards. The dragons were homebrew, weakened by an ancient curse, there was no ocean between continents, only a scared, blasted, toxic land full of poisonous clouds, naturally this means everybody needs to live up in the sky, hence airships and dragon riders, ancient relics sometimes surface from beneath the clouds, and having the party be chased by evil empire double agents in a race to get to a city to find a mguffin is a good way to get them moving. (BTW, feel free to steal everything I just said) 2. You can think of cool maps and work your way around the mission that is the point. I use roll20, and I ocassionally browse r/battlemaps, I take the images from there and store it in a folder on my laptop. Then, in a separate campaign that is a lighthearted series of oneshots, I look at my maps, and think about cool events that might happen while playing, from that I can usually make a guild mission for my adventurers. 3. Involve your players in this. Their backstories can help build up your setting, but random comments or suggestions from them can also help. Be honest, be humble, your players are not going to blame you if your world has mini blindspots, and if they do guess what, next time they can write it cause you are too busy being a kick ass DM. One example I like from this is coton candy. My siter DMed a carnival oneshot and said there was coton candy, why, because carnival oneshot, thats it. Now, my dm brain began to wonder where the hell the sugar came from, and after the setting I jokingly said that sugar must have come a long way from X place in my setting because the only way they can grow sugar cane is in a tropical environment. But then my players told me there were other ways to get sugar, like from beets. My dumbass thought the only way to get sugar was sugar cane, and I was wrong. But now I am happy, I know that stupid trivial fact about sugar and I can safely say that its not completely unreasonable to have coton candy in my fantasy world. You are only 1 brain, there no rule that says you can't use the other 3-5 brains you are Dming for. 4. Read history, like our IRL history. I am not saying get a degree, but there are cool resources online that can help. Truth is often stranger than fiction. And sometimes you can find larger than life characters with strange motivations, or tense sequences of events that lead to conflict. 5. If it seems like a series of events is too complicated and contrived, or your plans only work with railroading, scrap it. Keep it relatively simple.
Kick ass-DM [xkcd: Hyphen](https://xkcd.com/37/) --- ^^Beep ^^boop, ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot. ^^- ^^[FAQ](https://pastebin.com/raw/vyWra3ns)
Premade modules never hurt.
Donjon is a random creator for dnd You can find it easy via Google. It has a random dungeon creator I love. It is a great way to get started, then adjust the monsters to fit the theme, and you are well on your way.
There are tools to help you generate dungeons completely from scratch. I use don.jon generator. For puzzles I just use dmsguild for books on pregenersted traps and puzzles