Procgen in RPGs

Procgen is a hot new term for procedurally generated content.  It's used by computers to create a large number of varying experiences, such as the guns in Borderlands, radial quests in Skyrim, or the worlds of Minecraft. 

It can get repetitive:  With a large enough sample size, the end user can see the way the procgen content was created.  Skyrim's radial quests become repetitive after two or three.  Borderlands players quickly learn how to assess the guns they find, and while it takes hundreds of hours, you will eventually get used to the ways Minecraft worlds work.  But in tabletop RPGs, there's a human at the helm, customizing everything, so with good procgen in an RPG, there's literally infinite variety.

I wrote a procgen Fate quickstart for a light urban fantasy campaign that I will probably share on this blog eventually.  With just a few rolls on tables, I was able to generate some urban fantasy plots with subtle twists sufficient to drive an 18-month campaign.

Wandering Monsters

RPGs have always done procgen.  Take a look a the 5th edition Dungeon Master's Guide for procgen NPCs, plots, dungeons, and encounters.  Take a look at any D&D content, going back to the 1970s.  I recently ran the original, 1980s-era Ravenloft module in 4e D&D, and enjoyed its procgen -- it has random encounters with various monsters. 

But good procgen isn't just a wandering monster table.

The OSR and storygames communities have expanded on procgen content in exciting ways.  Forbidden Lands tells GMs not to prep anything for their first session, except perhaps to pre-roll a settlement or keep or legend, or choose a pre-made adventure site or artifact and use its legend. 

Blades in the Dark also urges GMs not to prep for their campaign.  It has nine pages of tables that let you procgen NPCs, a score, locations, and even demons.  Because a Blades in the Dark campaign starts in the pre-made setting of Doskvol and is meant to be driven by how the PCs interact with that setting, the GM really shouldn't prep anything ahead of the first session. 

Example of New Procgen

Here's an example of the new kind of procgen I'm talking about, from Blades in the Dark.  The setting built into the game is integral to the game -- a common feature of good procgen:  Mix a detailed setting rife with conflict  with procgen tables to create exciting conflicts, characters, and locations.  The type of details in the setting matter.  The details of trade routes and food production, long lists of noble houses, etc. aren't as important as conflict.  The setting has trade routes, but only the ones that push conflicts.  The setting has nobles, but only the ones involved in conflicts.  Et centera.

Because of that, I'm using the book heavily here.  It takes a lot of work to make Blades work for another setting -- to the point where, if you do that work, you should publish it. 

Blades also relies on the PCs' decisions to drive story, so we're going to make a few statements about our hypothetical PCs' actions.  Let's say our PCs already decided they're broke and need to pull a score.  They're skilled at heists, being Shadows, so they reach out to a contact from their crew sheet to set one up.  All the sheet says is "Fitz, a collector" -- the sort of person who might know of something valuable to steal, and might pay the crew to steal it. 

All I know at the start is that they're going to meet with their contact, "Fitz, a collector," and ask about opportunities to pull a heist.

So we procgen Fitz using the NPC chart. 

She's Akorosi, likely from Doskvol. She's a woman. She's old.  That's her look.  So we imagine an Akorosi woman with short-cropped grey hair and a wrinkled face. Her drive is Achievement.  That makes sense for a collector!  Her preferred method is subterfuge.  The sort of person who prefers to hire deniable assets and ask them not to make a lot of noise.  Perfect.  If I had rolled "Teamwork" she might want to come along on the job. 

Her profession is either Tanner (common) or Composer (rare).  She has to have enough Coin to pay crews to help her collect rare items, so I'd jump to Composer, except that Tanners can be successful, too, and our Crew is Tier 1, so they're not exactly hobnobbing with the rich and famous.  But they could be.  Hmm...  What would a tanner collect?  Probably not leather or chemicals -- they have access to that stuff all the time.  Maybe fine wines made with real fruits - a rare thing in the Dusk.  What would a composer collect?  Possibly rare music or instruments.  Maybe the imprisoned ghosts of skilled performers. 

Given those options, I get to decide what themes I want to push.  If Fitz wants the imprisoned ghost of a dead performer, I'm pushing the occult themes of Blades in the Dark -- the dead become ghosts unless their spirits are destroyed.  It's grim and bleak and spooky.  If Fitz wants fine wine, I'm highlighting the "punk" part of steampunk, with poor criminal scum (the PCs) helping a middle class person aspire to the trappings of the wealthy that are denied to poor people like them.  I like that better. 

I decide Fitz is a well-off tanner.  She's old and rich, so she owns and operates an established company known for quality work.  She employs many people in the PCs' neighborhood, and they get along because she's a relatively ethical employer. 

Fitz is brash.  Though she prefers Subterfuge, she isn't a coward.  She takes what she wants, and doesn't like to wait.  Her interests are architecture and furnishings.  She's proud of her well-furnished office and probably talks about the history of the Skovlander architecture of the old brick building she has her office in.  She probably snaps at people who get her cushions dirty or write on her desk without a blotter.  She's a drug or alcohol abuser, often impaired by her vice.  OK, her interest in fine wine isn't purely aesthetic.  She can get drunk on cheap swill, but now that she runs a powerful company, she wants to get drunk on the good stuff.  She probably drinks like Mallory Archer.

OK!  Now we know a lot about Fitz.  Let's roll up the score. 

The target... I have to decide between civilian, criminal, political, or strange.  I'll go with a civilian.  I get a doctor or alchemist.  A doctor has some fine wine.  So does an alchemist.  Let's figure out what that means as we go.

And the work?  I have to decide between skullduggery, violence, underworld, or unnatural.  Skullduggery for sure.  It seems obviously a burglary, but I roll anyway I get "sabotage or arson." 

Interesting!  I could just override that, but it offers a chance to take me away from the obvious.  So how does arson or sabotage get us a bottle of wine?  Procgen tables often lead us to these challenges. 

I brainstormed two ideas:  Sabotage a train so it breaks down, then sneak into a boxcar and steal a case of wine (and anything else you can carry!).  Or set fire to a poisonous night-tree in spooky-beautiful Jayan park (pulled from the book setting writeups) and steal the wine of picnicking rich people as they flee the toxic smoke.  I'm a sucker for a train job, but the deathlands are deadly for a Tier 1 group.  And we've established that this score's theme is all about economic disparities, so let's spoil the rich people's picnic!

Now for a twist or complication: The job furthers a city official's secret agenda. 

I remember seeing that the Ministry of Preservation wants to Seize Control of the Leviathan Hunters (a 12-tick project clock that I can use if I want).  To do that, they would benefit if a Leviathan Hunter died in a criminal arson at the park, right?  I think the Ministry of Preservation has an NPC following a wealthy Leviathan Hunter.  I choose Lady Clave (captain, daring, cruel, accomplished) from the Leviathan Hunters faction description and Captain Lannock (mercenary commander, shrewd, ruthless) from the Ministry of Preservation faction's description. 

The Ministry meddling will also involve the Leviathan Hunters' clocks: Discover New Hunting Grounds and Surplus Runs Dry, both 12-tick clocks.  I think I'll tick the Seize Control of the Leviathan Hunters three times if Lady Clave dies and once if she doesn't.  I'll tick Surplus Runs Dry once no matter what.  Once I start using that clock, I'll commit to ticking it at the start of every score.

Sometimes a procgen table sends you off to other stuff in the system or setting that brings in a lot of story, like this.  That one "job furthers a city official's secret agenda" result really colored in implications for this score. 

The next table tells me that the job is connected to a PC rival.  Every Blades PC has six NPCs they know, one of whom is a friend, another of whom is a rival.  The crew Lurk has pissed off Roslyn Kellis, a noble.  Roslyn Kellis will also be at the park and recognize the Lurk if any roll introduces a complication.

The last procgen table is what factions the score is connected to, but since I already have two factions involved, I'm cautious.  I have dice left that let me choose between Sparkwrights (26) or Sailors or Dockers (62). 

I think our Tier 1 crew setting off chaos between two Tier 5 factions is great, but it's going to need a lower-tier faction for them to deal with until for the time being, so I like Sailors or Dockers.  The Dockers support the Leviathan Hunters, according to their faction description; so they're going to be mad if a Leviathan Hunter gets killed.  I notice that the Ministry of Preservation has the Billhooks -- a Tier 2 faction -- as an ally.  So let's drag those in on their side on top of everything else.  Now the Tier 1 PCs can get involved in a proxy war between the Leviathan Hunters (via the Tier 3 Dockers) and Ministry of Preservation (via the Tier 2 Billhooks). 

OK, so here's what we've got! 

Fitz, a brash, wealthy, elderly woman invites them in and offers them some wine.  Nothing too valuable, but a rare treat for our Tier 1 crew.  She starts off with small talk about the history of the old building and fine furniture in her office.  Then she explains that she's a wine collector, and wants to get her hands on the fine wines that the rich and powerful drink.  At the end of each month, on the Moontide holiday (pulling this monthly holiday from the setting info in the book), wealthy folks congregate in Jayan park (also pulled from the book) to picnic and drink copious amounts of wine.  The most wealthy compete to show off the wines they drink, using it as a proxy for their wealth and power.  There will be cases and cases of wine.

Now, Jayan park is beautiful, but its trees are poison to touch -- and just as bad to inhale.  Burning just one tree will send the picnicking rich people scampering, and cases of wine are too heavy to carry off when fleeing toxic smoke.

"I don't want anyone dead," Fitz will say.  "That will bring too much heat.  They should run at the first whiff of smoke.  If you bring gas masks, you can walk right through the smoke, grab all the unopened wine you can, and conceal your faces all at once.  Don't put the masks on until the last minute, or you'll tip your hand."

She'll buy any wine from them that they bring back.

The engagement roll (how Blades cuts to the chase) will tell me how well it goes when the PCs start the fire.  It could go as easy as starting with them standing in the smoke, wearing masks, with the sounds of alarm bells in the distance... or as bad as Bluecoats catching them as they douse a tree with oil.  After that, we want to introduce:

• Lady Clave, who the PCs will discover unconscious and dying of the toxic smoke.  Captain Lannock hit her on the head with a wine bottle and dazed her so she couldn't get away in the chaos.  This is an opportunity for the PCs to intervene.  If they save her, she'll owe them a favor!  But they'll make powerful enemies, too.  Procgen details:  I rolled that she's a Dagger Islander, but they approach Leviathans in a unique way.  So I just went with Akorosi.  She's a woman, since the book calls her Lady Clave.  She has to wear glasses.  Her goal is revenge (or will be if she survives!).  She prefers brave methods (no roll -- this is what we know from her super brief NPC description from the book).  She's moody, she likes fine wine (lucky coincidence), and is fanatically loyal to a group, ideal, or tradition.  I think she's loyal to the ideal of free trade.  She's a fanatic libertarian.  Since she's technically the person who has wine to steal, we'll make her the doctor or alchemist we rolled earlier.  I think she's an alchemist, educated in the process of refining Leviathan blood.
• Captain Lannock, just at the edge of the smoke, tossing a cracked and bloody wine bottle into a fountain and looking back to wave a cruel-eyed "thank you" to the masked PCs.  He'll notice if the PCs rush to save Lady Clave, but without a gas mask, there's nothing he can do about it except try to track them down later.  His procgen details:  He's Akorosi and male.  He's disfigured or maimed.  I think he's a one-armed man.  His goal is wealth.  Mercenary captains tend to have that goal.  His preferred method is study, which makes sense since he's shrewd. He's suspicious. His interest is hunting and shooting. He's shooting pistols, since he has one arm.  Maybe he has a steampunk cyberarm?  That's badass.  I write that down.  He's also surrounded by toadies.  
• Roslyn Kellis, who I'm keeping in our back pocket for the first time the PCs get a complication while not wearing their masks.  I rolled "ambiguous or concealed" for gender.  I think she's mostly nonbinary, but she uses she/her pronouns given that she goes by Roslyn, a traditionally femme name.  She's a Skovlander.  Being a noble, she probably keeps that secret.  She's stooped.  Her goal is pleasure.  Like Lannock, her preferred method is study.  This is dangerous, as she's going to meddle if she catches on to what the Lurk is up to.  Her profession is noble, obviously.  She's dishonest.  That includes concealing her origins, pretending to be Akorosi when she's a Skovlander.  She's interested in antiques, artifacts, and curios. And she's a celebrity, popularized in print / song / theater.  That means the other PCs will know who she is.  I think she's beautiful and single, and the papers love gossip about who is courting her and who she's courting.  If this was more than hypothetical, I'd email my Lurk play about this and ask if maybe their rivalry is a bitter break-up or jilted lover.

I also want to think up a few conflicts, obstacles, or dangers that fit our procgen content.  You have to make it all fit together. 

I want to ask the PCs how they find the best wines to take.  Finding better wines might earn them more profit from the score, but it comes with risk -- I'll call for an action roll. 

I want to ask them if they'll sacrifice carrying wine for stealing other stuff.  I want to ask them if they're looking for other stuff, use Fortune rolls to see if it's around, and call for some other action roll for them to hunt it down without getting in trouble.  The fortune roll will be just one die, unless it's the kind of thing you'd bring on a picnic and easily leave behind.  Military equipment or dangerous / illegal items won't be available.

I need to look up bluecoats, since there's ample opportunity for bluecoats to catch them.  I'm also interested in Captain Lannock's mercenaries.  I decide they're not Tier 5 like the Ministry.  I'll make them Tier 3 -- still well above the PCs' tier, but low enough to drag them into any ongoing conflict that could brew. 

I want them to have to roll an action to save Lady Clave, but I decide ahead of time that if they roll a 1-3, I'll use a fail forward approach -- they can save her, but there will be a nasty complication. 

I also figure out how to reward them for the score:  They can make 10 Coin, but carrying Lady Clave instead of cases of wine will cost them 4 Coin worth of wine.  Stealing other stuff of any significant weight will cost them 1-2 Coin as well.  If they try to bring a cart, it will raise their take by 4 Coin, but raise their Heat by 2 as well, since the cart can't be hidden on the way in and out of the park, even though the gas masks can.  If they don't bring back at least 3 Coin worth of wine, Fitz will be annoyed.

Depending on what happens, the PCs could be blamed for killing Lady Clave or Captain Lannock could be mad at them for saving her.  Dockers or Billhooks or Lannock's mercenaries could be coming for them in Entanglements, later.  If Lady Clave dies, Fitz will be mad at them, too; in addition to the increased heat from a death during a score.  Fitz didn't want any deaths.  This may mean she withholds 2-3 Coin, paying them less for the wine than she might have.

Instead of drawing a map and deciding a lot of what the space is like, I'm going to lean on procgen tables as well.  I need to procgen the street upwind of the picnic -- where the PCs will escape to.  It's bright and lively (for now). lit with lots of spark lamps. It has crackling electricity, wires and mechanisms (for those spark lamps!). Sounds of laughter, song, and music (at first anyway).  Smells of the ocean carried in on the winds today.  Good thing there are winds!  The street's use is shops.  That's probably cafes and consumer goods.  It's a narrow lane.  There's an ancient ruin here - the columns of an enormous acropolis-style building, around which cafes and shops are built, their patrons and tables spilling into the cluttered, narrow lane.

When to Procgen

Could I do all this during a game session?  Yes, in a pinch, but not all at once. 

It took me an hour, including refining it and writing it up for a blog.  I'd say it would take 15-30 minutes to do all at once, which is too much time to make the players wait if you do it in the middle of a game session.  It would be really easy to do as prep for a session, though.

I could do it during a game session, but only if I didn't do it all at once.  I'd generate Fitz and the score when they went to meet her.  That would take 5-10 minutes, but that's an acceptable amount of time for a break.  This is also a good reason to learn the setting details for a game like Blades in the Dark or Forbidden Lands:  These games make procgen work by packing a lot of conflict into the setting, so if you learn the setting, you get a lot more out of these sorts of tables.  Because I studied the setting, I could remember details like "there's a park somewhere - let me look that up" and "there's this cool conflict between the Leviathan Hunters and Ministry of Preservation.  Let me go pull those details." 

I wouldn't generate my details for Lady Clave, Captain Lannock, and Roslyn Kellis until the first time the PCs met each of them, taking about 1-2 minutes each.  And I'd generate the street when they came to scope out the area.  That would take about 1-2 minutes, too.  So it's doable.

But it would be better to generate it all before the session.  Doing this much prep before a session, especially in a game like Blades in the Dark, can be dangerous.  But here again, procedural generation comes to our rescue:  Because this is all just junk I rolled on random tables, if the PCs hare off in an unexpected direction, I'm happy to toss it and roll up some new stuff.  It just makes me pause the game for 5-10 minutes to roll a new score or new details.

Let's say the PCs decide not to set fire to the trees, but instead disguise themselves as bluecoats and seize some of the wine in a fake raid.  That's fine!  I just have to think up if and how that action "furthers a city official's secret agenda."  Maybe nobody attempts murder here, but instead Captain Lannock drops a murder weapon into Lady Clave's wine case, framing her for a murder his men did.  Only, the PCs aren't actual bluecoats, so the twist is that they find a bloody knife in one of the boxes of wine!  It's a mystery they can follow up on or not.  If they don't, I don't mind dropping all that story potential, because, again, I didn't spend hours on it.  It's just random die rolls!

Benefits of Procgen

• Less Predictable:  It forces you to make choices you wouldn't normally make, pulling you away from patterns you may not even know you have.  When I had to make the score about arson or sabotage instead of my first instinct of burglary, it took me out of the obvious and in an exciting direction.
• Inspiring:  Table results jump-start your creativity by giving you neat prompts to expand on.
• Use Setting:  It hooks you into setting details, especially for games where the setting is ripe with conflicts to hook the PCs into
• Flexible:  It's easy to throw out procedurally generated prep, because you can just generate all new stuff in a few minutes if the PCs do something unexpected.
• Efficient:  The biggest benefit of this stuff is how time-efficient it is.  There's an initial investment of time to learn the setting and all its conflicts.  Once you have that, the tables are quick to use, and bring in a lot of content with a single die roll.
• Improv, without Having to Improv so Much:  Procgen has many of the benefits of fully improvised GMing (flexible, efficient, leans on setting) without forcing you to come up with everything on your own, without prompts or aid.  Improv GMing also tends to lean on disclaiming decision making, but some groups of players aren't very comfortable being asked to improvise setting details, just like some GMs aren't.  Procgen helps there, too:  You can still ask the players to contribute, but it's easier for a player to answer, "Fitz is an old and runs a successful tannery.  What does an old, wealthy tanner look like?" than "What does Fitz look like and what is her profession?"

How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Monster Manual

A Primer on How to Run 5e D&D

5e is a great RPG -- probably the best edition of D&D -- but it's not great at telling you how to ::looks at camera:: run a game.

A major challenge that new and experienced GMs alike stumble over is encounter design.

Encounter design is the art of setting up a discrete, relatively isolated conflict with NPCs or monsters.

Because the conflict in D&D is usually with NPCs or monsters, there's a high risk of a fight breaking out.  At least a third of D&D encounters featuring monsters or NPCs wind up in combat, and the system for challenge rating (CR) makes estimating how hard these battles will be very difficult.

Monsters within the same CR vary wildly in lethality.  Dragons and undead don't match other monsters at their level, for different, intentional reasons.  Worse, the math you're supposed to use to determine if your encounter is Easy, Medium, Hard, or Deadly is messy, challenging, and produces wild results.

Finally, 5e D&D assumes the party will be facing two or more encounters per short rest, and more than eight per long rest, so challenge ratings are averaged out between encounter #1 and encounter #8, when we all know that the PCs have an easier time when they're full on resources than when they're down to their last spell.  Since most DMs don't create time pressure plot that demands the party fight through eight encounters a day, that assumption is broken.  It's a mess!

But that's OK.

Breathe!

You're going to be fine.

Here's why: I'm going to tell you how to GM 5e D&D without freaking out about challenge rating.

1. Encounter stakes should almost never be "kill or be killed"
2. Have "encounters" not "fights"
3. Don't make running away hard
4. Warn them about deadly foes (it's OK!)
5. Learn how to make easy encounters scary
6. Threaten things they care about, OTHER than their hp or gp
7. Start each PC turn with stakes narration

1. Encounter stakes should almost never be "kill or be killed"

Source: Pexels

It takes an enormous, personal hatred for someone to try to murder another person, at risk to their own life.  That's even true for non-sapient creatures like snakes or tigers.  A rattlesnake might kill, but only in self defense or to hunt.  It will run away and give warning before it strikes an attacker, and it will flee prey that turns out to be able to fight back.  A tiger might kill a human for the cruel sport of it, but if the tiger's life is in danger, it will run away.  People are even more thoughtful about killing each other.  Even serial killers, terrorists, and assassins avoid fighting to the death except in very specific circumstances. 

If all you use are the D&D equivalents of serial killers, terrorists, and assassins, the horror of their single-minded violence will get old, fast.  Most encounters in your adventure should be about things that one or both sides care about, and they should care about practical things connected to the antagonists' plans.  Serial killers, terrorists, and assassins care about bizarre fantasies, zealous ideologies, and political extremism.  They make great main antagonists, but to populate a dungeon, they need the fantasy equivalent of paid soldiers, faction loyalists, friends, patsies, and guard dogs.

Characters and monsters that work for your antagonist are rarely mindless killers.  And even the mindless killers have specific instructions.

Example:  Some goblins are holed up in a ruin on a ransom scheme.  They're trying to get rich trading a wealthy captive for a lot of gold.  If adventurers show up to rescue their captive, the goblins will try to chase the adventurers off; but those goblins won't die for a cut of the ransom!  That's insane!  Goblins aren't that stupid.

Example:  A necromancer has animated some skeletons to guard the crypt where she prepares the dark ritual.  She has tasked them to stay in the antechamber and then to kill any living being that enters it other than her.  PCs can split up and have a fast Rogue attack the skeletons and draw them away, or shout past them to get the necromancer to come out.

This tip is all about what the antagonists care about.  But sometimes GMs need to frame encounter stakes around what the PCs care about - see #6.

2. Have "encounters" not "fights"

When you prep your adventure, you might be tempted to think "for this fight, we'll have three bugbears."  Stop!  How do you know it's a fight?

When you're GMing, don't push to roll initiative.  Bugbears don't spend all day laying in wait, hoping some adventurer stumbles upon them.  Unless the bugbears are specifically ordered to prepare ambush (an unusual thing to do, unless there's an immediate reason), they will be acting normally.  Describe what the PCs encounter, then ask "what do you do?"  Sometimes someone will say "I charge the nearest bugbear!  Leeeeerooooy Jenkins!"

But since fights drain their resources, the PCs are more likely to try a different, smarter approach first.  You can frame that approach as hard as you want, because failing the Stealth or Deception check probably will lead to a fight.

3. Don't make running away hard

There are no less than three different systems for retreating in 5e D&D.

1. You can use the combat rules, stay in initiative, and have the players declare Disengage actions and movement to escape their enemies.  
2. You can use the optional chase rules in the DMG.  
3. Or you can narrate the result of a PC action, without using dice.  All three of those are "rules as written" ways to handle retreat.

The chase rules are pretty good.  They're a fun mechanical way to resolve a chase, which is what a retreat is if the enemy wants to pursue the PCs.  But see tip #1 - if the monsters' goal is to chase off the PCs, they win if the PCs run away. They don't have to run them down and slaughter them!

Narrating the retreat is even better:  You look at the encounter stakes (see #1 and #6) and decide what happens if the PCs forfeit by running away.  Then you narrate the result and make some notes as to what's happened while the PCs fled.

The combat system, however, is lethal.  If the PCs know the fight is too hard, staying in initiative will probably kill them and the players know it.

Example:  The PCs have to choose between Move and Dash (and eat an opportunity attack) or Disengage and Move.  If they Move and Dash, the enemy can Move and Dash and continue getting free opportunity attacks, unless the enemy is slower than them.  If they Disengage and Dash, the enemy can move and take an Action against them every turn.  Unless the PCs have faster movement speed than the monsters, retreat is suicidal.

So tell your players that your official DM policy is never to force them to use the combat system to retreat.

"Here's my policy:  If you all agree to retreat, we will drop out of initiative and either narrate the retreat or use the chase rules in the DMG.  This means retreating is a lot easier for you."

If you do that, the players will know they can run away, and so will you.  But they won't run away unless they know they're out-gunned.  So...

4. Warn them about deadly foes (it's OK!)

In real life, there is no animal that cannot be killed by a reasonably fit "first level" person with chain mail and a spear.  A "10 in every stat" human with no special combat training can kill a tiger or a hippo or a grizzly bear if they've got a spear and chain mail armor.

The "classes and levels" system of D&D introduces "high level" threats that no mere mortal can defeat.  A Commoner with chain mail and a spear has effectively zero chance to defeat an Adult Red Dragon -- or even a Dire Wolf.

Well sure, that's just how D&D is, right?

You should feel comfortable warning your players about deadly foes. Gary Gygax was! In original Dungeons and Dragons, the depth in the dungeon was the challenge level! Every time you went down a level, the monsters got harder. You knew you were facing bigger risks if you were at Dungeon Level 6. And if you were Character Level 2, that was a reason for caution. Why should the 5th edition be MORE antagonistic and secretive than the first? Just tell them when a fight is Deadly (according to the DMG's rules).

Example:  A level 1 PCs might attack an assassin, not knowing that the assassin is the Assassin from the Monster Manual -- a CR 8 foe with 78 hit points.  She can outright kill most level 1 PCs with a single blow.  She can singlehandedly "TPK" a level 1 party in as little as two rounds.  But how would your players know that? You. You need to communicate that.

You need to make it clear to the players, out of character, that this CR 8 Assassin is way out of their league, because it is not realistic that they could all beat on an assassin with greataxes and spells for twelve seconds and have approaching zero chance of killing her.

Then, ask them how they know this information, in character.

"Hey folks, OOC, this is a CR 8 foe with more hit points than you have combined, and she can do 40 damage per attack with multiple attacks.  Engage at your own risk.  How do your characters know that?"

You recruit the players to help create an in-game justification for why they know the assassin is too deadly an Assassin for them to fight head-on.  That way they have buy-in, which supports verisimilitude:  If they come up with an answer, the answer will seem more plausible to them.

If the players (A) know how hard the foe is, and (B) they know you won't make them use the combat system to retreat, then (C) they won't feel forced to fight for their lives against a foe they can't handle.

But both A and B are necessary for C.

5. Learn how to make easy encounters scary

Sometimes the story calls for an easy encounter.  Sometimes you thought the encounter was going to be hard, and it turns out it wasn't.  No biggie!  Learn how to make encounters seem harder than they are, then always use those tricks.

Let's face it -- your PCs will probably have one or two hundred fights in a long D&D campaign.  That's a lot of fights!

Even if you're running a "killer" campaign, only 10% of them are going to be literally lethal.  And most of us aren't running "killer" campaigns (it's not a popular style).  So if 90% or more (probably far more) of the fights aren't really a threat, your job is to make them feel scary.

This is an imagination game.  Everything is make believe.  If a monster feels scary, it is scary.

There are several ways to do that.

1. Act! This is where you try to get all Matt Mercer on your players.  Menace them.  But maybe you suck at acting.  (That's OK, so do I.)  Luckily there are a few other ways to make monsters scarier than they deserve.
2. The second way is to describe the monsters as way scarier than their stats deserve.  Part of this is revealing as little as possible about monsters' stats before battle begins.  And when you do give away the monsters' secrets, reveal their weaknesses before you reveal their strengths.  That sounds backwards, but it's not!  Something that's unknown is way scarier than something you can predict and prepare for.  
3. When you describe the battle, do the opposite:  Never describe a PC OR a monster as weak or fumbling.  If a PC misses, it was because the monster was tough, quick, or skilled.  If a monster misses, it's because the PC was tough, quick, or skilled.  And don't make a hit draw serious blood until the monster is low on hit points - below half at least.  (This is the book's official advice on describing damage.)
4. The last way is Tip #6...

6. Threaten things they care about, other than their hp or gp

Remember, even a "killer DM" is only going to kill a PC off once every couple of sessions, and you're probably not a killer DM.  So you can't try to kill the PCs every encounter, or they might notice that you're not killing them.  Then things will get boring.

So threaten things the PCs care about, other than their hit points.  Threaten things that you're willing to follow through on.

Each encounter, the opposition has a goal, and that goal should very rarely be "kill all the PCs or die trying" (see Tip #1).  Choose goals for the antagonists so that if they achieve their goal, it will make the story more interesting. The most interesting goals your villains might have are goals that directly threaten things your PCs care about.

Here's a list of encounter stakes to use as inspiration, split into ascending tiers of severity.  Your monsters can win most of those stakes, and it doesn't end the campaign like "kill or be killed" stakes do.  That list has fifty encounter stakes options, none of which is "slaughter all the PCs or die trying."

But take it a step farther:  What are the monsters after?  Whatever it is, make it personal.

That's what I mean by threaten something they care about other than their hp or gp.  The thing that drives your plot is your antagonist's plan.  Make your antagonist's plan directly conflict with things each PC cares about.

If your antagonist's plan is in direct conflict with things the PCs care about, you're running a "character-driven campaign."  If not, your campaign is not driven by the things the characters care about.  Sure, they might be saving the world -- we all care about the world -- but it's not personal.  If you want the easiest way to run a character-driven campaign, here's how to do it.

In a character-driven campaign, you set the antagonists' goals in conflict with things the PCs care about.  Look at the PCs' backstories (and in a 5e D&D game, check their Personal Characteristics) for this information.

Example: Let's go back to the goblin sentry example, from Tip #1.  The goblins care about guarding a ruin where they're holding a hostage they're trying to ransom.  In a non-character-driven campaign, the PCs are hired to go save the hostage with the promise of a reward.  The hostage's life isn't worth the ransom (or the goblins miscalculated and asked for too much), so they've offered the PCs a lower amount to rescue them.  Losing the fight or running away means the PCs' reward is in doubt.  But it's just gold.

In a character-driven campaign, you play off of their passions.  The Criminal wants to become the greatest thief in the world.  At the start of the adventure, a character-driven GM insinuates that the hostage is a priest who can help spread word of their prowess.  The Acolyte cleric owes her life to this priest who took her in when her parents died.  The Soldier's honor is her life.  She promised the Acolyte cleric that she would save the priest, so retreating from this fight is dishonorable.  The warlock is wanted for a robbery from his days as an Urchin, and the character-driven GM has insinuated that the priest's influence could get him a pardon, if he can keep his dark patron a secret.

All of a sudden, fights are exciting not because of the chess game tactical challenges, but because something the characters care about is on the line.  You can screw up encounter design and wind up with a fight too easy or a fight too hard, and it doesn't matter, because what makes it exciting is that the PCs' actions could get this priest killed.

7. Start each PC turn with stakes narration

The last problem with the CR system is that the rules assume an adventuring day with a few encounters per short rest, and more than eight encounters per long rest (fewer at lower levels, and more at the highest levels, of course).

However, in practice, having ten battles a day is not how most DMs run D&D.  The only way to do that is to create a plot with time pressure, and then put ten violent monsters in the way of achieving the plot before the clock runs out.  That can be fun, but you don't want to do it every single time.

Consequently, character classes designed to make players carefully ration a dozen spells over the course of a day usually kick ass most days, because most days, the DM doesn't actually make you face more than a few encounters.

The reason it's a problem at all that the Wizard spells and the Rogue just has the same old sneak attack is that the Wizard's highest level spells are game changers that are supposed to be limited to once every handful of encounters.  They steal the spotlight.  If the Wizard doesn't have to ration their best spells, they can use their best spells every turn.  So how do you balance for this inherent problem without becoming a master encounter (and adventure!) designer?

When the daily-refresh classes don't have to budget their resources, every encounter goes like this:  The fighter and rogue did some damage, and then the Wizard cast a big spell that turned the tide, leaving the fighter and rogue to mop up what little opposition was left.

So you don't have to give Rogues powerful spells.  You have to make every PC turn feel like a critical moment in the story.  The way you do that is to start each and every PC turn with narration that focuses the action on the current stakes, in terms of that character's perspective.  Here's a thread on how to do that in detail.

RPG Combat Gamerunning Thread

Today let's talk about a technique I learned to use to make combat more exciting.
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— Jon Lemich (@RunAGame) September 13, 2018

In this way, the DM can make the cleric's 4 hit point Healing Word or the Rogue's missed attack into a critical moment in the story.  Sure, the Wizard's Fireball and the fighter's big Action Surge turn are what really turned the tide, but look at this example:

DM:  Rogue, two hobgoblins are attacking Bard while Ragnar is poised to finish off the direwolf.  You can finish off the direwolf pretty safely, or go take some heat off of Bard before the hobgoblins kill him.  What do you do?
Rogue: Ug, my Flaw is I don't take risks for others, but I can't just let him go down.  I go try to take out one of the hobgoblins.  Crud.  Eight.  I miss.
DM: Hobgoblins' turn.  The one you attacked swings at you...  19 to hit for 13 damage.
Rogue: Ouch!  Down to three hit points!
DM:  You have a big gash on your sword arm.  Blood is running down your hand, dripping all over the ground.
Rogue:  I think, 'That's what I get for sticking my neck out for people!'

The DM framed the turn as a choice between self-preservation and heroism.  The Rogue acted against his nature to try to help someone, and suffered for it.  It's a character-defining moment, and also a relationship-defining moment for Bard and Rogue.  I mean, Rogue tried, right?

Summary

1. Encounter stakes should almost never be "kill or be killed"

• Problem: Need more realistic antagonists, are you willing to follow through on TPK threatening encounters?
• Skill: Creative stakes setting, worldbuilding

2. Have "encounters" not "fights"

• Problem: Jumping to combat too quickly, 
• Skill: Scaffolding encounters with multiple routes to success, improvising to accommodate creative actions

3. Don't make running away hard

• Problem: retreating in D&D while staying in initiative is suicide
• Skill: Good communication, setting table expectations, rules awareness

4. Warn them about deadly foes (it's OK!)

• Problem: CR is artificial
• Skill: Good communication, trust building

5. Learn how to make easy encounters scary

• Problem: Too-easy encounters can be dull
• Skill: Acting, description, and stakes setting

6. Threaten things they care about, other than their hp and gp

• Problem: Story is more exciting if it's about the characters - less exciting if they're just along for the ride
• Skill: Stakes setting, worldbuilding, character-driven GMing

7. Start each PC turn with stakes narration

• Problem: D&D is designed and balanced for long adventuring days, and we don't want to be forced into those, so classes get unbalanced
• Skill: Put little story decisions in every turn, when you can, to distribute spotlight more fairly

One final example 
(Regular readers know how I love examples!)

Let's say you make a mistake, and you make the goblin sentries too hard.  You use two hobgoblins against a level 1 party.  Hobgoblins happen to be way too dangerous for their 1/2 challenge rating; thanks to their 18 AC and their Martial Advantage trait, two hobgoblins (not a Deadly encounter, per the rules) can kill two first level PCs in the first round of a fight if the dice go even a little in their favor.  Here's an outcome set for all possible outcomes of the too-hard encounter:

• Clear victory (unlikely):  All the PCs survive, and they kill the hobgoblins and save the priest.  A happy reunion!
• Mixed victory:  The PCs kill the hobgoblins and save the priest, but one or more of them sacrificed their lives for this.  If the goal was just to get some gold, this is a lame outcome.  If the PCs saved the priest, but the Acolyte sacrificed her life to save a man who she owes everything to, it makes a tragic, but fitting end.
• Mixed defeat:  The PCs killed one of the hobgoblins, but had to retreat.  Now they have to find out if the hobgoblins killed the hostage or just moved them somewhere more secure.
• Defeat (unlikely):  The PCs failed to save the priest, and some of them died in the fight.  The survivor(s) escaped, and will have to recruit new allies and make another rescue attempt before the hobgoblins give up and kill the hostage.
• Close TPK (incredibly unlikely):  For the encounter to end in a "total party kill," the last PC standing would have to have had enough chance to win on their last action that they thought it was better to take one last shot than to retreat.  The dice didn't go their way, they didn't beat the last hobgoblin, and they got killed by an unlucky roll.  Even this outcome is exciting, because of how close it was and how personal it was.  Also, this situation is very unlikely:  In our example, the Acolyte might die for the priest, but the Criminal and the Warlock won't die for their goals.  And the Soldier may die for their honor, but might decide it's better to retreat and try a different approach than throw their life away.
• Brutal TPK (impossible):  If the PCs' attacks are easily rebuffed and they're getting slaughtered, thanks to #3, above, they could just retreat.  There's no reason to stick around:  The hobgoblins' goal is only to guard their hostage.  There could be other chances to mount a rescue.  There's no reason for all the PCs to die here.  A brutal TPK is not possible.

See?  I just described how a lethal fight is all-but-guaranteed not to end in a TPK if you follow my advice.  You don't even have to figure out how hard the fight is.  You don't need to know that the hobgoblins are way too deadly for CR 1/2.  You don't even need to use Kobold Fight Club or a CR calculation system.  You just pick some monsters and roll with it.  The safeguards you have in place keep things fun.

Using Common Games for RPG Puzzles

Puzzles help you keep your game exciting.  They vary the action, so there's something different to do every scene.

When you're putting together a puzzle for your RPG, there are tons of ways to handle it.  A really easy and supremely adaptable puzzle to use is Mastermind.  Wikipedia tells me it's also called Bulls and Cows and goes back a over century.  It's similar to Twenty Questions, Hangman, or Guess Who?, which make good puzzles for RPGs as well.

You can adapt Mastermind to a lot of different situations.  It can be numbers or letters in a password; words in a passphrase; potions on a rack; symbols on tumblers; or colored marbles in bowls.  Fallout uses a variation of it for hacking terminals.

As a reminder, never make it possible to fail to continue the game.  If the puzzle guards the door into the dungeon, then failing to solve the puzzle has to cause some problem other than preventing the PCs from getting in.  If you're familiar with my article on skill challenges, you can use some of the same hazards from those in guessing games.

Here are the basic rules of Mastermind:

• There is a secret code.  It's usually fairly short.
• The code is made from elements drawn from a set.  The set can be fairly large.
• The player(s) get to make a pre-determined number of guesses.  They don't have to know how many guesses they get, or how many are left.  In D&D, you can also cause them some other penalty on a failed guess.
• The way the players make guesses can have additional rules.  A passphrase should be a grammatically correct phrase (Praise to Tiamat instead of Tiamat Praise Praise), repetition may or may not be allowed (If you have one icon of each color of chromatic dragon, you can play black, white, red; but you can't play red, red, white), and length may or may not vary (if there are three bowls to put liquids into, the length is always 3; but guessing a password might involve words of varying length).
• After each guess, they get feedback about how close their guess was to the secret code.  There are a few ways to give feedback.  If length is a factor, there must be length feedback. 
• Length:  Too Long, Too Short, or Correct Length (always use when length is a factor)
• Correct:  The number of correct elements in correct positions
• Wrong Position:  The number of correct elements in incorrect positions (optional)
• Omen:  If the code has meaning, a fourth feedback option is to give a hint as to how close to the meaning the guess is.  For instance, if the passcode is a word of six letters, "DEFILE" the puzzle feedback could deem hopeful or positive words weak and cowardly.
• Difficulty varies based on the above factors:
• Giving more feedback makes the puzzle easier, 
• Giving more guesses makes the game easier, 
• Using a smaller set makes the game easier, 
• Using fixed length makes the game easier, and 
• Using a shorter code makes the game easier.

A Mastermind Example

In the cult's library is a scroll on metaphysics.  Some of the words on the scroll have been circled in charcoal pencil:  "Curse, Praise, Glory, All, For, To, Tiamat, Harpers, Tharzidun."  There are three puzzle rooms, each with a statue of a robed cultist standing in front of a door.  You can't get through the door unless the statue animates and moves out of the way.  An Insight check tells you that the nine words make up the passphrases to each puzzle door, but which words for which doors?

The code phrases are...
North:  ALL PRAISE TIAMAT
East: DEATH TO HARPERS
West: THARZIDUN FOR GLORY

This is a fairly easy puzzle:  There are only 9 words in the set and 3 puzzles.  The puzzle will get easier as the players go on, because they will rightly assume the proper nouns (TIAMAT, HARPERS, THARZIDUN) are only used once.  Also they will assume the passphrases make sense (not FOR FOR TO ALL FOR or other nonsense phrases).  They might also easily guess the phrases are 3 words each, since it's hard to construct longer phrases with the words in the set.  So to raise the difficulty, we will give the players a small number of guesses.

"The cultist statue has two ruby gems for eyes"

Stealing the gems does no harm to the thief, except it means the PCs can't get any hints.  They have to speak the password.  Each time they get it wrong, some part of the statue becomes colored and lifelike.  This represents an incorrect guess.  If they get it wrong four times in a row within 24 hours, the statue comes fully to life and attacks them.  If they attack the statue or try to shove it aside, it comes to life and attacks them.  In addition, other traps in the room might activate.  Statues tend to be immune to poison gas...

The reason we're using "statue attacks" instead of "statue stops taking guesses" is that we don't want failure on the test to mean the adventure ends.  Also, we want to make the puzzle hard.  We want the PCs to fail at least one puzzle.  So we have to have the failure condition hurt the PCs a little without stopping the game.

We're only giving feedback on two things:  Length and number correct.  First, the statue gives feedback (if there is feedback to give) after someone faces it and speaks three words.  Second, the statue gives feedback about the number of correct words in the correct positions.  Its eyes will light up when you start to talk to it.  After three words, both eyes fade to dark if no words were correct.  One eye will stay lit and sparkle for ten seconds if one word was correct.  Both eyes will stay lit and sparkle for ten seconds if two words were correct.  Getting three correct makes the statue animate and open the door for the PCs.

More Puzzles for your Games

Here is a long list of other games people play that you can use as RPG puzzles.

Hidden rule games involve playing a game where there are hidden rules.  They require an active judge.  In RPGs, these work well for simulating hacking or a sphynx guardian's puzzle.  Some can go on until the rule is solved, and others end eventually.  You can play some competitively, so that one player is the winner.  And others force all the players to cooperate against a time or guess limit.  Some can work either way.

• Zendo is a really simple rule-guessing game that has pretty plastic pyramids.  It really focuses on the act of testing and guessing a rule.  Zendo is competitive, but you can make it collaborative by assigning some cost to guesses or limit to the number of guesses.
• Elephant's foot umbrella stand is another rule guessing game you can use.  Like Mao, there are one or more people who know the hidden rule.  You can use a whole village of people who keep a secret.  They carry or speak the name of an object to be let into an inner sanctum.  Lots of different objects let them in, but no two objects can be the same (so the PCs can't just copy someone).
• Eleusis is a rule-guessing card game you can use as a riddle contest against a sphinx type riddle giver.
• Mao is a card game where new players have to scramble to figure out the rules. If the PCs visit a tavern in an unfamiliar city, you can emphasize the exotic nature of the city with this game.
• Green Glass Door:  This is a simple kids' word game where you have to figure out what nouns can pass through the "green glass door."  Spoiler alert:  It's nouns with double letters (e.g. letters can, but words can't).  You can invent similar tricks.  A portal that only allows certain things to pass is very appropriate for Planescape.

Guessing games involve a secret keeper and a guesser.  Some are played competitively (battleship, guess who) while others are asymmetrical (hangman, twenty questions).  Competitive versions end when one player wins.  Asymmetrical versions end after a limited number of guesses has been used or the correct answer has been guessed.  You can turn a competitive game into an asymmetrical one or vice versa.  Ulam's game is unique in that it is a game of twenty questions where the questions and answers are already asked, but one answer is wrong.  The player(s) have to guess the solution, like a game of twenty questions, but to do so, they have to figure out which question was answered incorrectly.

• Guess who is a great way to simulate information gathering.  Each day, the PCs get to make Charisma checks (D&D) or Contacts rolls (Fate) etc. to ask a question.  As they collect answers, the picture of their suspect becomes clearer.  But each day, they have to roll for a random encounter or some other cost accrues.  Maybe they only have four days to solve the crime...
• Hangman is the simplest word guessing game, with a grim, medieval theme.
• Twenty questions is a great game to play with a sphinx.  
• Ulam's game is like twenty questions, but doesn't require an interlocutor.  The questions have been asked and answered, but one answer is wrong.  The players have to figure out by deduction which answer is wrong, then figure out what the solution is.
• Battleship is a logical process guessing game.  You can use it to simulate searching a ruin or wilderness.
• I Spy is the simplest guessing game.  It could work for a riddling NPC.

Limited communication games are great puzzles to throw into an RPG.

• Charades is a method people can communicate without a shared language.  This is a great way to put a puzzle into your game:  Introduce a potentially friendly NPC that you have to use Charades to communicate with!
• Taboo requires you to communicate a password or phrase without using the actual words of the solution.  Magic can prevent a character from saying a specific word.  But if you're careful, you can help others guess it.
• Heads Up is like reverse Taboo, and you can use an index card to play it.  

Asymmetrical information games are games that divide your players up.  Generally you give one team (or one player) a problem that can only be solved by the other team's help, except that there is information that's kept secret.

• Building instructions:  Divide the teams up.  One team gets something built from blocks or drawn on grid paper.  The other team has to make an exact copy using a set of blocks or a grid paper and pencil. The first team can't show the second team the original - they can only describe it.
• Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a video game based on this premise.  If it's not being used in LARPs as a bomb defusing simulator, it will be soon.  
• You can use visual memory in a similar fashion.  For instance, give a player a map of a maze with all the traps, secret doors, and dead ends marked.  Tell them they're not allowed to copy it or write any notes down, but they have to memorize it.  Take it away.  Then put the PCs into that maze, with all the traps, secret doors, and dead ends exactly where the map said they were.  Give them a limited time to get through the maze so they can't proceed with caution.  See if the one player can remember enough to keep the party safe.
• Similarly, you can play telephone with the map.  Hand the GM map of the maze (with all the secrets revealed) to a player.  Give the player just two minutes to copy it as best they can.  Take away the GM map.  Hand player 1's map to player 2.  Give player 2 just two minutes to copy the map player 1 made.  Take away player 1's map.  Hand player 2's map to player 3.  Give player 3 two minutes to copy player 2's map.  Repeat until you have a hasty copy of a hasty copy of a hasty copy (etc.).

Negotiation games can be used to simulate a negotiation in a bounded, circumscribed fashion.  If the GM is just no good at negotiating but wants to make a game or puzzle out of it, play Haggle with the players.  Ultimatum can turn your players against one another.

• Ultimatum game:  There's a pool of money. One player makes a single offer.  The other player can accept or refuse.  If they refuse, neither gets any money.  You would pit the players against one another in this game.  Otherwise it's no fun.
• Haggle:  This is an asymmetrical negotiation game you can use to simulate an asymmetrical negotiation.

Code breaking games and decoding puzzles can represent linguistics (deciphering ancient languages) or represent real ciphers.  They can also be "word puzzles" on floors and walls in dungeons, simulate code-breaking in modern games, and so forth:

• DitLoID:  These are neat because a person who lives in or uses the space needs some hint to remember the passphrase, say, "five fingers on the hand" so they abbreviate it to 5FotH.  See the link for a ton of examples.
• Word Ladder:  Could be symbolic.  How fast can you connect Bahamut to Tiamat?
• Word Search:  I once built a word search so that the words were the names of all the good gods.  The letters left over spelled out the passphrase that was the solution to the puzzle.
• Ciphers:  Letter replacement and Cesar shift ciphers can be solved.  The longer the plaintext, the easier the code is to crack.  Very short plaintext may be impossible to crack.  You can give the players a partial key, or let them have one letter of plaintext with a successful Intelligence check.
• A Rebus represents words as images you have to interpet to form a passphrase or plaintext solution, so it can simulate deciphering heiroglyphs.

Mathematical and logic puzzles are great for players who like complicated and challenging logic puzzles, but they have major challenges for RPGs.  They can take a long time to solve, or a very short time if the player(s) have encountered them before.  Like riddles, there needs to be some limit.  The players might spend the whole session thinking about the puzzle without solving it if there's no time or guess limit.

• Balance puzzles, water pouring puzzles, and river crossing puzzles are logic puzzles.  They require the players to think through an analytical problem.
• Latin squares are arrangement puzzles - like Sudoku, but with colors, letters, or even images.
• Nonograms are like Latin squares in many ways, except that the solution is an image made of colored blocks.  They could be used to simulate divination or other procedures that result in an image coming from nothing.  The players can stop solving once they've got enough of the picture to know the answer to their question.
• Tower of Hanoi (simple sequence puzzle) is a famous puzzle that tasks the players with moving a stack of discs from one post to another.  
• Complex sequence puzzles (Rubik's cube, etc.) are too complicated for RPGs, unless you're running a  certain weekend-long game at MIT.
• Physical puzzles (tangrams, packing puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, blacksmith's puzzles aka disentanglement puzzles) can be bought at most toy and game stores.  They were common in medieval times, so the metal ones you can get at renaissance faires can be diagetic puzzles handed to a player's character.  
• Chess puzzles are fun if the players like chess, and chess is a game in your world.  

Card puzzles can be another fun challenge.

• Solitaire can be a challenge for your game.  About 4 in 5 games of Klondike solitaire are theoretically winnable, but the probability of winning is just around 2 in 5; can be played with Tarot cards with the trumps as their own suit.
• Card games can be used as puzzles, or played at the table to represent the PCs' gambling.  An important NPC might play a game of Baccarat or poker against the PCs in a spy game, for instance.  You might see it as a roleplaying opportunity paired with a battle of wits.  Use the card game to frame the scene.  Non-betting card games like bridge are often used as frames for the parlor segment of murder mysteries in fiction.  Bridge puzzles are potentially interesting puzzles, but like chess puzzles, may be too hard if the players aren't bridge players.  Magic: the Gathering card puzzles exist, and have a fantasy theme, but again, your players need to be familiar with the game.
• Mao and Eleusis, above, are hidden rule card puzzles.
• Playing cards can be used as props in number puzzles, if your players like those.

Riddle games are the classic fantasy puzzle.  They have a single answer.  The classic "riddle door" in D&D is an animated door, so the Knock spell cannot open it (it's not locked or stuck - it just refuses to move).  A great way to use a riddle in a dungeon is to select a riddle with a simple solution, like "a knock on the door" or "fire" and leave the clues throughout the dungeon.  In one area, there's a locked door with a serpent knocker.  Or maybe it's a cold brazier beside the locked door.  Rapping the first door with the knocker causes it to unlock.  Any other action animates the serpent and poison's the character.  Lighting the brazier opens the second door, and any other action causes a Cone of Cold to attack the party.  The knocker and brazier may not appear significant unless the players recognize the significance of the clues they've seen in various places and solve the riddle they form.

• Crossword puzzles are riddle games.  Instead of using a whole crossword puzzle, read through the clues on a few to find riddles of varying challenge level.  They get easier if you reveal a few letters in the solution, of course.
• Math riddles:  See balance, water, and river crossing puzzles, above.
• Riddle trading:  Riddles have real value in a medieval world, and their value scales with the wealth and power of the person "trading" for one.  Riddle games where one party tries to stump the other are a classic way of trading riddles for riddles, but NPCs (especially dragons and the like) might give prizes or boons to characters who can stump them with a riddle.  This makes the players try to stump you, which they will enjoy. 
• Logogriph riddles are very complicated and awfully challenging riddles.  They're similar to cockney rhyming slang (see also: Planescape) where meaning is concealed behind a few steps of word play.
• Situation puzzles (minute mysteries) are some of the most complex riddles.  They often have multiple solutions, but only one simple solution.  The players in a situation puzzle usually get to ask questions, so eventually they will get closer and closer to the answer.  A minute mystery might just have a handful of hints you can choose to read or not.
• A Droodle is a visual riddle similar to a situation puzzle.  You can find them on google.  I just wanted an excuse to write "google: droodle"  
• Want the best riddles?  Reddit is the best place to find riddles because their system of upvoting moves the best to the top

Happy Halloween - Here come the Undead

Happy Halloween!  Boo!  

You've played a ton of fantasy RPGs, and you've battled undead numerous times, but have you put much thought into the undead?  Are they just a spooky monster or is there a story there?

In my quest to inject as much story and plot into everything I do as a GM, today I'm going to talk about the stories behind the undead.  I'll take a list of the most well-known undead, break them down into five categories, and talk about the plot that's out there for each category and each variant.  The five categories are:

• Incorporeal Ghosts
• Corporeal Ghosts
• Death Demons
• Animated Corpses
• The Infected

Art by Zeke Nelsons

Incorporeal Ghosts
In general, ghosts are awesome.  A single ghost or small group of ghosts makes for a unique story about an event in the past that has an echo in the present.  The connection between the past and present is great for A-plot/B-plot dungeon design, and can serve as either the A plot (the reason the PCs are here) or the B plot (something interesting that they can explore while they're here).

• Allip:  The allip is the mad ghost of a person driven to suicide by madness.  This can be congenital mental illness, extreme traumatic stress, grief, or burning guilt and shame.  Mad ghosts are terrifying.
• Banshee:  When an elf woman dies after being betrayed by or betraying those she loves, she becomes a wailing banshee.  The general idea of the "ghost of a traitor consumed by hatred" is a great story.
• Ghost:  When someone dies with unresolved earthly business they just can't let go of, they linger on this plane as a ghost.  There are countless ghost stories out there.  Ghosts shouldn't always be evil, though the kind of obsession that keeps a person from passing on to the afterlife is indicative of a dangerous person regardless.
• Specter:  These are the mad ghosts of people who died a sudden, violent death.  They're a reflection of the horror and violence of their death.  I like thinking of them as people who died in a horrible and sudden tragedy, like a shipwreck, mine collapse, terrible battle, or an orc slaughter.  Instead of reflecting the personality the deceased had in life, the spirit reflects the violence and horror they experienced at the moment of their death.  They're tragic, crazed, psychotic killers.  Specters have varied in difficulty over the years, and in 5e, they're pretty easy foes.  That's good, because unlike most ghosts, you'll probably want to use specters in groups to represent the haunt left over by mass tragedies.  Specters also make good poltergeists, as the 5th edition designers recognized.

Corporeal Ghosts

You don't have to be translucent and insubstantial to be a ghost.  D&D has a bunch of traditional flavors of corporeal ghosts - living humans who have passed on but not left this world.  Like other ghosts, each corporeal ghost is its own unique story.

• Bodak:  This ghost is the remains of a humanoid destroyed by the touch of absolute evil.  This has cool implications.  See the "basically demons" undead below for examples of absolute evil (Nightshades!) that might be good Bodak-spawners.  Bodaks are people who aren't killed but instantly corrupted, so they're a sad, twisted, hate-filled version of their former self.  In 5e D&D, there are no stats for the Bodak yet.
• Death Knight:  The Death Knight is an awesome image:  A powerful loyal warrior who served a dark god dies, and is preserved in death by the god's power.  It's the fighter's version of a Lich (see below).  Death knights are not really plots in and of themselves, like other ghosts (corporeal or not) are; instead, they're part of a greater plot about the servants of an evil god.
• Lich:  Imagine if you were so afraid of death that you wouldn't leave your body even after it died.  A lich is a wizard who figured out how to do just that.  They're corporeal ghosts of wizards who used a profane ritual to bind their soul to this world forever, through a phylactery.  The phylactery is an excellent plot device, because a lich cannot be killed without also destroying its phylactery.
• Mohrg:  The corpses of truly awful villains who died "without atonement" rise again as mohrgs.  It makes more sense to say they "died without justice" -- the villain slain by heroes to stop their evil scheme is not going to become a mohrg.  The villain who lives to a ripe old age and dies of a heart attack might be brought back as a mohrg, though.  A mass murder who dies in an accident might come back as a mohrg.  A villain killed by another villain could come back as a mohrg (but see also Revenant!).  There are no mohrgs in 5e yet, but you could re-skin the Revenant.
• Revenant:  The body of a murder victim whose spirit won't leave the corpse until their murder is avenged is called a Revenant.  They're not out for justice for the sake of justice.  They're out for bloody revenge.  So they're pretty awful monsters.  They're full of hate and resentment and insane self loathing.

Death Demons

Some creatures in D&D are traditionally (or currently) associated with the undead, but are more demons associated with death and the dead than the risen bodies or souls of dead people.  Death demons should be connected to stories about thinning boundaries between life and death, foolish necromancers talking to demigods in the shadow world of the dead, or ancient death deities awoken from slumber to consume the souls of the living.

• Devourer:  A devourer was never a human to begin with.  It's an undead extraplanar demigod who eats souls.  Because it's associated with death and the land of the dead, and it's powered by human souls, it's often categorized as undead in D&D.  Devourers are spooky mid to high level villains.  There isn't a devourer in 5th edition D&D yet, so consider using the stats for a Vampire, but re-skinning it as a soul devourer and removing the folklore references.
• Nightshade:  Half darkness, half absolute evil made manifest, a nightshade is a curse-demon that comes from Shadow.  D&D created a meta-mythology of "shadow" as the energy of entropy, death, decay, and darkness, and it began infesting every setting from Dark Sun to Dragonlance.  The Nightshade is one of the creatures made of pure shadow.  There's no Nightshade in 5e yet.  The Shadow Demon is similar to the Nightshade in theme, but not in power.  You can use a Shadow Demon's stats for a Nightshade -- just amp up its power level with more HP, higher Proficiency bonus, more attacks, and some magic resistance to make it scarier.
• Will o' Wisp: In folklore, the will o'wisp is a bad faerie.  In other editions of D&D, it's an extraplanar spirit.  In 5e D&D, it's undead.  It's not the soul of a dead person, but instead a faerie (or demon) that lures people into the swamp to kill them.  

Animated Corpses

There are a few ways corpses get animated in the D&D mythology.  First, necromancers can animate the dead to serve them.  These monsters are basically constructs, but with a corpse theme.  A necromancer plot is a story of a magical mad scientist, basically.  The undead aren't the story - they're just minor antagonists in a story about a human villain.  Second, when tombs or graveyards are violated (by tomb raiding adventurers, villagers who don't know they're there, evil cults, bandits on the run from the law, etc.), the gods of good or death will animate the dead to protect the sanctity of the tomb, get revenge on the violators, and prevent further violations.  The undead could be the villains, but the source of the problem is human intrusion into the domain of the dead.  Third, a powerful curse or celestial event could animate the dead.  The story here would be similar to the profaned tomb, but isn't necessarily linked to a graveyard.  The bloody murder of a village priest by the town's alderman could cause the dead whose funerals the priest presided over to rise every night until the priest's body is found and their murderer is punished.   The horror novel Pet Sematary is an "animated corpses" myth.

• Flameskull:  This is an animated burning skull with animal intelligence, and it's almost always the creation of a necromancer.  The gods don't like to break corpses up to make them into fire-weapons.
• Flesh Golem:  Technically a flesh golem is not an undead monster in D&D, but it is a corpse re-animated by a magic-user to serve them, so it's not really too different from a zombie.  There's a "Frankenstein's Monster" aspect to the flesh golem, though.  It's created with alchemy and naturalism gone awry, while the zombie is created by channeling necromantic energy with arcane spells.
• Mummy:  This is a catchall category of tomb guardians that protect the resting places of the dead.  Mummies are returned to unlife for this purpose by mysterious "desert gods" in D&D folklore.  But there are mummy myths in other Earth cultures.  The draugr is a norse mummy protecting a tomb, returned to unlife for this purpose by norse gods, for instance. A mummy doesn't have to be a bandage-wrapped corpse.  It can be a dried out husk of a corpse or a skeleton draped in its funerary shroud
• Skeleton:  The D&D skeleton is a set of walking bones held together by magic.  A skeleton is basically a medieval robot.  In a departure from previous editions, in 5th edition D&D, they're semi-intelligent and not mindless.  A distinction between skeletons and zombies is that skeletons are often the corpses of people who died many years ago, while zombies are the corpses of the fairly recently dead.
• Zombie:  We all know about zombies.  The D&D zombie is a shambling corpse.  It's not infectious, so it's a lot more like a voodoo zombie than a 28 Days Later zombie.  It's also like a medieval robot, but a lot stinkier than a skeleton, you'd imagine.

The Infected

Another common undead story is the idea of undeath as a contagion.  Because of the threat to D&D player characters, the game features several versions of infectious undead.  In addition to classic story hooks, infected undead are defined by their epidemiology.

Note that 5th edition seriously modified the traditional D&D epidemiology of infectious undead!  So the descriptions below are a bit longer, but they discuss those changes and give advice for DMs on how to make infected undead contagious once again.  Mwa-ha-ha!

• Ghouls:  Like the typical zombie apocalypse, Ghouls can spread fast.  They're hungry, so they're motivated to go eat.  These are your "fast, infectious zombies."  Traditionally, in D&D, when they touch you, you can be paralyzed (like people in horror movies who become paralyzed in fear).  In 5th edition D&D, ghouls aren't specifically infectious.  So where do they come from?  Well you can use the ghoul as a death demon, based on the arabic myth they originate from:  The ghul is a spirit that lives in graveyards and eats the corpses of the dead.  You could also use them as curse-spawned or god-spawned animated corpse undead (see above).  But I think it was a mistake to remove their infectious property.  Their bite should transmit Ghoul Fever.
• Ghoul Fever (house rule):  A character who dies with Ghoul Fever rises again as a ghoul.  At the end of each short or long rest, a character with Ghoul Fever must make a Death Save (regardless of their current hit point total).  On a success, the character fights off Ghoul Fever.  A failed Death Save works like normal:  The character marks off one Death Save.  After three failed Death Saves, the character dies and becomes a ghoul, even if their hit point total is positive.  
• Wraiths:  Wraiths spread incredibly fast, basically turning a village into a literal ghost town overnight, but unlike ghouls, they can't travel far because they cook in even a little sunlight.  They can't just sleep in a ditch during the day like a ghoul.  Probably a lot of wraiths created in this manner get destroyed by sunlight because the area gets a little overpopulated, and I bet they squabble with each other over daytime resting places.  So ultimately there would be a small number of wraiths haunting a vast, deserted dead area with absolutely no life:  No animals.  Maybe not even plants and insects.  In 5e, a wraith creates specters instead of other wraiths, which fits with a specter's origin story (see above) but doesn't have the infectious quality wraiths had in past editions.  Feel free to change it back to wraiths begetting other wraiths.
• Vampires:  These leeches need blood, have some serious Achilles heels, and look totally normal.  So they spread slowly and keep a lot of living humans around to feed on.  Once they become powerful enough to openly dominate a whole region, like Count Strahd von Zarovich, they stop caring as much about secrecy.  Vampires are conspiracies (dare I say... camaraillas?) hidden within human society like parasites infesting a host.  Vampires are also a darkly romantic image, with the sexual metaphor of blood drinking and relationship violence metaphor of mental enslavement.  Note that the 5th edition designers made vampires create vampire spawn, not other vampires.  You can change this:  Vampires can make other vampires, but it's a conscious decision.
• Wights:  Wights are super ghouls.  Traditionally in D&D, when they kill someone, they come back as a Wight under the killer's control.  In 5e D&D, the victim comes back as a zombie under the Wight's control.  Basically they're the zombie plague if it was smart.  And they're smart.  So they keep their spread secret, maybe form into armies or other spooky Deadite / Army of Darkness scenarios.  Maybe they rule a valley as god-kings and keep a tribe of humans as their cattle.  If you want to keep the 5e Wight epidemiology, that's fine - one Wight forms the villain at the head of a deadite army!  But you could go back to previous editions and have a feudalism of Wights, with a "patient zero" Wight controlling a second tier, some of whom have their own sub-Wights.

Understanding 5e D&D Skills

Today's topic is 5th edition D&D skill checks.  I'm going to examine 5e skill DCs.  And I'll give you a few pointers along the way.

The design philosophy for 5e D&D skill checks was to make DC 10 feel Easy, 15 feel Moderate, and 20 feel Hard. Then it gradually raises the PCs' competency in their best skills by about 6 points over 20 levels.  (You get 4 from Proficiency and 2 from Attribute increases).

UPDATE:  This article has been updated with details on the Guidance spell and the Help action.  See below.

Mathematical Probabilities and Subjective Feelings

This isn't a math article, but we're going to go over the math a little at the beginning.  Here's the refresher:  Each number on a d20 is one in twenty, which means 5%.  The probability of failure for any DC is (DC-Skill Bonus-1)*5%.  The probability of success is (Skill+21-DC)*5%.  Got it?

DC 10 is a 55% chance of success for a person with +0 in the skill.  Does that feel "Easy" to you?  Not at all!  Failing almost half the time is not easy!  But who has a +0?

Well, you do.  Consider any of the sample characters in the Starter Set or the Pregens on the DM's Guild.  Each one has many skills in the -1 to +1 range -- in fact, most of their skills fall in that range!  So how is DC 10 Easy?

That was a rhetorical question, of course.  Here's how:  The party picks the best person for every task.  Someone in the party has a decent modifier in just about every skill.  There are 18 skills.  A party of four PCs has enough proficiencies among them to have a good modifier in almost every skill, between them.  Players naturally collaborate to make their characters so there's not too much overlap.  This protects their niche ("I'm the sneaky one") and ensures the party can take on most challenges.

The core assumptions

The core three DCs (10/15/20) are designed for situations that meet the following criteria:

1. There are four or five PCs.  As a result, there are enough skill proficiencies in the party that every important skill is represnted. 
2. The characters have minimal skill overlap.  As a result, when the party is together, there's a PC with a decent rating in almost every skill.
3. The party is together so they can select the most skilled character for the task.
4. The DM calls for a single roll for a single task.
5. The party is first level

There's a PC with a decent rating in almost every skill when the party is together.

A level 1 Rogue probably has +7 Stealth.  (That's +3 from Dexterity and +2 Proficiency, doubled for Expertise).  DC 10 Stealth is Easy for that character.  The rogue has a 90% chance to succeed.  That's easy both from a subjective point of view and an objective, mathematical point of view.  DC 15 to pick a lock is Moderate for that character.  The rogue has a +5 in Thieves' Tools Proficiency, using Dexterity; so that's a 55% chance to succeed.  Moderate.  DC 20 Acrobatics is Hard for that character.  They have +5 there, too, so that's just a 30% chance to succeed - and that's pretty Hard!

Can the party Cleric pick the lock?  Assuming the cleric even has Thieves' Tools, the task is DC 15, and the cleric has 10 Dexterity.  There's a 30% chance the Cleric will succeed.  That's not Moderate.  That's Hard.  The Fighter isn't much better off, with a +2 (40%).  The elf Wizard is fumbling about with a +1 (35%).  It's Hard for three-fourths of the party but Moderate for the Rogue, so DC 15 is Moderate for the party.

So if the whole party is together when they get to the locked door, and the party contains a good mix of skills, the locked door task is Moderate difficulty.  If the party doesn't have someone proficient in Thieves' Tools for some reason, or if the Thief is off doing something else, the task becomes Hard.

Single task rolls work; multiple rolls for a single task don't

When the Rogue is picking the lock, it's just one roll.  Succeed, and the door opens.  Fail, and the patrols find you before you can open the lock.  If the DM requires multiple rolls to succeed,where just one failed check spells doom, the probabilities change.

Here's an example.  Let's take that Rogue with +7 Stealth again.  The Rogue has to sneak past six sentries.  The Sentries have 10 Wisdom and are not Proficient in Perception, making each roll DC 10 - Easy.  The task truly is Easy if the DM has the Rogue roll one time for the whole task.  The task is not easy if the rogue has to roll for each sentry.  If just one sentry spots the Rogue, they will raise the alarm, and the scouting mission has failed.

The chance to succeed at a "get 6 successes before 1 failure" task is [Chance to Succeed once]^6

90%^6 is 53%.  The challenge is not Easy; it's Moderate at best!

If the DM had set the task at Moderate (DC 15) for each sentry, the Rogue would have a 65% chance to make each check.  When we do the math (0.65^6) the rogue has just an 8% chance to succeed them all without failing even once.  That's not just Hard.  That's Very Hard.

Aside: Group Checks

Group checks are another example of multiple rolls, but they actually work, mathematically.  Using a Group Check, the DM calls for the whole party to attempt a skill check.  If at least half succeed, the whole party succeeds.  As long as the party has a diverse mix of skills, at level 1, most Group Checks work out using the standard difficulty spectrum. A DC 10 Group Check is Easy; a DC 15 Group Check is Moderate; and a DC 20 Group Check is Hard.

Tasks get easier as you go up in level

The last criterion is important.  The 5e designers didn't want a "treadmill" where the skill difficulties moved up along with the PCs' skill levels.  The skill DCs stay put.  The PCs get better.  

Your attributes improve every handful of levels, and your Proficiency bonus improves, too.  So that Rogue, at level 20, has +17 Stealth.  Very Hard checks aren't Very Hard anymore.  They're pretty easy.

Now the level 20 Rogue has an Easy time at Elaborate Stealth challenges, and a Moderate to Hard time with Impenetrable Stealth challenges.  That makes more sense.

This also means that if you obey the other three criteria, you need to use more and more complex tasks.  Don't just raise the DCs you use -- make the tasks harder first, then give them higher DCs to reflect the greater challenge.

• At levels 1-7:  Most tasks you set before the PCs should be Easy and Medium challenges.  You can sprinkle a few Hard challenges in when there are good stakes for a "you'll probably lose" wager.  
• At levels 8-12:  At level 8 or 9,  the party will be able to succeed almost any Easy task even if they roll a 1.  Practically speaking, the PCs will still encounter Easy tasks, but you won't be able to build exciting encounters around them.  You'll need to use mostly Medium DCs with occasional Hard and even a few rare Very Hard tasks where the stakes are good for a "you'll probably lose" wager.
• At levels 13+:  When the party is all together, use a mix of Medium and Hard tasks, with occasional Very Hard tasks and even a few Near Impossible tasks that play to the party's strengths, when the stakes are right for them.

If there is no Wizard, go easy on Intelligence skills

It's generally acknowledged that 5th edition D&D is the "dumbest edition" because the Intelligence attribute has so little value to every class except Wizards.  Most characters take Intelligence 8 or 10.  You rarely see a non-Wizard character with Intelligence higher than 12.  Consequently, a level 20 Cleric will likely have Religion at +5 or +6.  

This means that you can continue to use easier tasks for Intelligence skills for all 20 levels, unless the party has a Wizard.   (Note that Knowledge Domain clerics and College of Lore Bards may also have good Intelligence skills, even if they don't have high Intelligence attributes.)

Everyone should have a social skill

Every class in 5th edition D&D gets at least one useful social skill.  Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation are the most commonly used social skills, but you can use History or Insight as well.  Between those five skills, any character should have one, if not two, skills that are useful in a social scene.  

In this case, it's good for the PCs to overlap.  It would be terribly dull if only one character took Persuasion, so only one player ever attempted to persuade NPCs of things! 

Because the skill you use depends on the approach you take, social skills are often interchangeable.  Intimidation might be the most obvious approach for dealing with goblins, but you can use Deception if you try to trick them or Persuasion if you try to bribe them.  

In social scenes, it's tempting to call for individual task rolls.  But that encourages the Sorcerer, Warlock, Paladin, or Bard to do all the talking.  Instead, encourage everyone to participate by using group checks (see above).  Everyone who participates gets to make a check using the skill relevant to the approach they used against a DC based on the NPC's social savvy and how much leverage the PCs have (or how much leverage the NPCs have over them!).  

When they split the party, go back to easier tasks

You've heard the cry:  "Don't split the party!"  But it happens all the time.  When the party is split, use simpler tasks to challenge the PCs.  

For instance, if the level 16 Rogue is scouting ahead in the forest, and has to find the hidden goblin lair, an Easy Survival check might be enough of a challenge for the poor city kid.  The Rogue probably has only a +1 in Survival, even at level 16.

Justify your Skill DCs!

Remember, your task DC choice should always be justified by the game-world conditions.  This isn't just a D&D thing - this is a GM core competency, even in more narrative story-focused games!  If climbing a stone wall was Easy at level 1, it should still be Easy at level 14.  Yes, I know there's no way the Proficient characters can fail an Easy skill check at level 14.  But either call for a roll and let the PCs feel powerful for being able to succeed even on a 1; don't call for a roll at all; split the party so the non-proficient characters have to climb the wall unaided; or change the conditions:  If there's a rain pouring down and the PCs have to rush up the wall, maybe it's not Easy anymore.

If you justify higher DCs, the players feel like they're growing in ability.  If you just raise the DCs arbitrarily, the players feel like they're slipping backwards on a treadmill.  You don't want that.

Guidance

The Guidance spell is a Cleric and Druid cantrip that adds a d4 to the result of any ability check during its one minute duration.  That means it can aid skill checks with the following criteria:

• The cleric is present, willing, and able: The cleric is near enough to touch someone and can give them verbal guidance (the verbal component), and is able to concentrate for a minute or as long as needed.
• The task is one minute or less: The spell only lasts a minute, so the task has to be a short one.  Guidance doesn't help in disguise scheme, for instance, because the Deception check represents a lot more than one minute of disguise. 
• Nobody is watching for magic users: Obviously you can't cast Guidance in the middle of infiltrating the necromancers' ball, where casting a spell would be noticed and remarked on. You can't cast Guidance to aid a Fast Talk if a cleric casting a buff spell and giving advice on lying would spoil the deception.

Still, this is D&D, and it's got a lot of quick skill checks in isolated dungeons where the party has stuck together.  If you have a Guidance-happy cleric in your group, you can assume the party will have +1d4 (2.5) on every skill check made under the appropriate circumstances.  That's halfway from Easy to Moderate.

The Help Action

When a character takes an action to Help another character, that character gets Advantage on their ability check.  Advantage is basically enough to bump you up a tier of difficulty.  It's mathematically equivalent to a +4, more or less.  The PCs will use the Help action whenever they can.  It requires the following conditions:

• The Helper isn't busy:  If the PCs are all climbing the cliff, the Fighter can't Help the Bard, because the Fighter is too busy climbing a cliff.  Keep this in mind.  You can break the rules and allow the Fighter to help the Bard, but you should charge them time, if you're putting them under time pressure.  The Fighter can help the Bard, but they go up half as fast, because the fighter has to stop and help the Bard catch up, every three or four feet.  
• The Helper can Help: This seems obvious, but when the Barbarian tries to Help the Wizard translate runes, you have to say no.  The players involved need to make it clear how the helper is helping, and the help can't be trivial.  "I hold the candle so she can see better" is not enough Help for translating ancient runes!

Absent time pressure, the party will always Help each other as much as they can.  Even with time pressure, they'll Help each other very often.

I like the Help action, because it lets me speed things along in my game.  But it also makes skill checks easier.  When it's possible to use the Help action, consider bumping the difficulty up a tier (Medium to Hard) if you want more tension.

Skill monkeys

Bards and Rogues will dominate your skill scenes if you let them.  They get all kinds of bonuses to skill checks.  They're often called "Skill Monkey" classes.  There are two ways to avoid that.

1. When you want to design a longer exploration scene, choose multiple opportunities and threats within the scene that relate to a variety of skills, then get everyone to participate.  If the PCs find themselves in a corridor with strange runes along the walls, odd tracks in the dust, and a rumbling sound ahead around a corner.  The Rogue goes to scout the rumbling sound, the Wizard reads the runes, the Cleric helps interpret the religious prophecy the runes spell out, and the Ranger tries to learn something from the tracks.
2. Typically, the Skill Monkey is going to leap in on every skill scene with a useful contribution.  That's OK - their character is designed for that.  Once the Skill Monkey gets to work on their part of the scene, turn to another player and say "While Darkblade VanRogue scouts the hallway, what is Wizard Wandsworth doing?" 

A few details about high level 5e skill monkeys...

• Reliable Talent:  At level 11, Rogues treat all rolls below 10 on a d20 for the skills in which they have proficiency as a 10.  Bards of the College of Lore get Peerless Skill which also dramatically improves skill rolls.
• Expertise:  Expertise (which Bards and Rogues get) doubles Proficiency for a limited set of skills.  This balloons fast.  

Spells solve skill scenes

Many utility spells effectively negate skill checks.  Invisibility and Dimension Door make sneaking past sentries a snap.  Clairvoyance makes scouting easy.  Charm Person can handle Persuasion for a brief scene.  Spider Climb and Fly can make it easy to get over and past obstacles.  If the spell obviously resolves the challenge, it resolves the challenge.  But if there's any question, use this guideline:

• A spell-caster's spells can be classified as follows:  Their best spells are the spells of the highest level they can cast.  Their second-best spells are the spell level below the highest level they can cast.  Their cheap spells are their spells of two or more levels below that.  
• Spellcasters' cheap spells should provide bonuses to skill checks.  
• For instance, a 9th level wizard may use Feather Fall to make it easier for her to walk across a narrow ledge, reasoning that if she's as light as a feather, it's easier to balance.  The GM might let her claim Advantage on the check in exchange for using the spell in a creative manner.
• Spellcasters' best and second-best spells may resolve the challenge entirely.  
• For instance, the 9th level wizard could use the Fly spell, cast at 5th level, to let three characters fly.  That would get herself, the cleric, and the fighter across the narrow ledge.  The rogue can easily make the Acrobatics check to cross it.  The spell basically solved the challenge for the whole party.  That deed cost her the only 5th level spell she can cast today, and one of just four spells of 4th-5th level she can cast today.
• Level 6-9 spells always count as a spellcaster's best or second best spells.  Even a 20th level Wizard doesn't get a lot of them.

Some spells directly affect skills (Guidance was mentioned above).  Pass Without Trace gives the whole party +10 to Stealth for an hour.  That's nuts!  They don't gain invisibility, but if there is cover, they can sneak around with impunity.  You'll probably quit calling for Stealth checks eventually.  The solution here is the same as any other spell:  Use time pressure to force the party to adventure longer than an hour and conserve spells.

Summary

• The 5e task DCs work best when the group is all together.  At low levels (1-7) use a mix of Easy and Moderate tasks, mostly.  Use slightly harder tasks at mid levels (8-12).  Phase out Easy tasks and mostly use Moderate tasks.  Use harder still at high levels (13+).  Mostly use an even mix of Moderate and Hard tasks.
• Group checks work!  Use them in social scenes to encourage everyone to participate.
• If you call for multiple rolls to achieve a single task, where failing once is catastrophic, use easier DCs.
• If they split the party, use easier tasks.
• Use more complicated scenes to let the "skill monkey" shine while giving other characters something useful to do.
• Justify your skill DCs!
• Spells can "solve" exploration scenes.  If it's not obvious how to handle it, the rule of thumb is the better the spell slot sacrificed, the more effective the spell should be.