My Stress levels running CoS as a first time DM
Posted Apr 12, 2021, 5:41 AM UTC
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That was from session 1.. We've had 2 more sessions (with very similar stress levels) and players have finally made it out of Death House.
Running the MandyMod additions, and using FoundryVTT for maps and handouts. Syrinscape for sound effects, and Spotify for background music. PC's using Dndbeyond for sheets, and I'm using Scrivener for scripts and notes.
Happy to answer any questions if anyone has them.
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How do you simultaneously play music and sound effects? (I also use Foundry)
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Would also like to know this!
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I'll throw my hat in for really wanting OP to respond here. The only way I can think this would work is if everyone has a Spotify Premium account. That allows you to listen to the music your friends are listening to, so all of your players can click to listen to the same tunes you do.
However, not everyone in my group has Premium, so I've just been using other local/non-Spotify files with the VTT jukebox. I'm dying to be able to use my old Spotify playlists from when we'd all play in person though.
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Discord bots would also work, iirc many of them operate through Spotify anyway
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I play all the sounds and music locally on my computer, and have a software mixer (Audiometer Banana) that lets me mix my microphone, Spotify, Syrinscape, etc all into one feed that becomes my audio source in Discord. So instead of just choosing my mic as the audio source, I choose an output from the mixer. The players hear me and all other music and sounds mixed together on Discord.
Have never tried using Foundry for audio.. I'll investigate it.
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The real trick is to use Tabletop Simulator instead.
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I play all the sounds and music locally on my computer, and have a software mixer (Audiometer Banana) that lets me mix my microphone, Spotify, Syrinscape, etc all into one feed that becomes my audio source in Discord. So instead of just choosing my mic as the audio source, I choose an output from the mixer. The players hear me and all other music and sounds mixed together on Discord.
Have never tried using Foundry for audio.. I'll investigate it.
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Not OP, but i have my players turn off their foundry audio, and I share my computer audio through Zoom. So they’ll hear any sounds I play, and I can mix and match multiple sources.
I would love to hear if OP has another solution though!
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I do something pretty close to that. I have a software audio mixer on the computer that lets me mix and combine multiple audio sources (my mic, Spotify, Syrinscape, browser, etc) into one feed that I use as my audio source in Discord.
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I upload battle music/location specific/character specific music tracks to playlists on foundry and play them from there. The curse of strahd discord is an amazing source for music ideas for these sorts of playlists. I use syrinscape for the premade curse of strahd ambient music and play that from the syrinscape online player. Sound drops are done either through syrinscape or through the soundboard by blix mod on foundry. Syrinscape has a bunch of sound drops set up but you can't customize them using the online player so you get stuck with a bunch of stuff you'll never use that you can't hide from view. Setting up the foundry soundboard takes a lot of work but I've found it to be worth it to avoid the cluttered mess that is syrinscape. There are other mods on foundry that I believe will let you play stuff from youtube or spotify but I haven't tried them and can't vouch for them.
I will say that syrinscape is doing a good job with their curse of strahd soundsets but they are really expensive. Syrinscape has also been told for years now that there are serious problems with the usability of it's online player and hasn't done anything to fix them. If I hadn't accidentally left my test membership running and come back after a year of ignoring syrinscape to find I owned the strahd soundsets I probably wouldn't have gone this route. Sword coast soundscapes and many others are making great ambience tracks available for free on youtube. If you don't have the resources or patience to put up with syrinscape I'd suggest checking them out.
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Soundboard module
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My suggestion run a "screen share" "with audio" for download able soundboard app. It will have an option to run multiple sounds simultaneously. I had the same issue as I am switching to Shard Tabletop.
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I use VoiceMeeter it lets you use a vitual input for music from anywhere and mix it in with anything else.
We use discord for voice chat so I mix my voice, music, and sound effects into one stream that goes gets input into discord as my mic.
Its free and it lets you control the volume of everything.
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That's exactly what I use. It's perfect.
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I play all the sounds and music locally on my computer, and have a software mixer (Audiometer Banana) that lets me mix my microphone, Spotify, Syrinscape, etc all into one feed that becomes my audio source in Discord. So instead of just choosing my mic as the audio source, I choose an output from the mixer. The players hear me and all other music and sounds mixed together on Discord.
Have never tried using Foundry for audio.. I'll investigate it.
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Wish you all the best! I'm currently preparing my campaign :)
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Good luck! Death House didn't provide a lot for roleplay, so I'm excited they've made it out finally. Now the fun begins!
One of my PC's is a Damphir, so this world will be very interesting for them.
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Have you imported sheets and music into Foundry? Or are their rolls appearing in Foundry?
I find Foundry sheet better than Beyond. We have narrowed down the needed apps for the group down to two - discord and Foundry. Discord for chat and the occasional GroovyBot music joke, and Foundry for the rest.
Might help reduce your stress levels if you reduce the pressure you put on yourself for the production value. Fewer knobs to turn might help you relax more and focus on the player actions instead of feeling like you need to maintain a Perfect Experience © for your players.
I speak from experience here.
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No, I'm only using Foundry for showing maps and handouts. Not really using any of the other features. The players are using Dndbeyond for rolling, but they're starting to use physical dice more now. It's more fun rolling dice haha. We use Discord for video chat.
I use the dndbeyond encounter builder and combat tracker as well. I liked how they worked, though they still need to add some important features in the combat tracker like player HP from their sheets.
We're taking things more in the theatre of the mind style I guess. I don't have the players moving their tokens all around the screen.. I just use a simple fog of war to show larger complex areas, and then drop tokens in once any combat begins.
Good tips, thanks!
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Just had our first session, and using Tabletop Simulator myself. A lot of the community already has given 3d maps.
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No wonder you're so stressed! You're running your game like you're still at work.
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😂
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That’s interesting...what are you using to measure your stress levels?
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It's a Garmin fitness watch. Vivoactive 4 I believe. Tracks a ton of stuff and is pretty accurate.
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Also interested in this
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Me too me too
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What is this app? Me like it.
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Same, looks helpful
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It's a Garmin fitness watch, measures all sorts of stuff. The stress one takes into account changes in heart rate and breathing.
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Oh man, good luck. I'm a fairly experienced player with medium levels of experience DMing, and have two very experienced DMs, two very experienced players, and a completely new player in my group. I've managed to keep the stress fairly low by trying to have fun with NPC voices and decent prep notes, but if I think about it too much a bit of stress still creeps in.
What has been the most exciting for you? What has been the most challenging? I might not be the best person to ask for DMing advice, but I like to think I'm experienced enough to provide it if there's something you're particularly stressed about.
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Good questions! Most exciting so far was seeing the players get visibly upset upon discovering the remains of Rose and Thorn.. slightly sadistic of me, but I was happy knowing they were invested enough already to feel that discomfort. They ended up spending extra time in the house to gather remains and make sure they were placed in their coffins.. and said some nice words. One character read a poem from Edgar Allan Poe.
Most challenging is the timing of everything. I'm using sound effects, ambience, and music.. making everything work together and timing it well, along with appropriate descriptions from me can be challenging. It's like a one man theatre production.
I also decided to try and read from two different binders. Switching between the main source book and the changes MandyMod presents in their material. Going forward, definitely combining them into one document.
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I absolutely feel your stress, I am that way too. That said, here are a few things that help me reduce some of it using FoundryVTT and might help you too:
Combining the source 'books' into one document is a good idea to reduce cross-referencing. I combine all needed info from the book with the changes by MandyMod, Lunch Break Heroes, and my own into journal entries in Foundry. (This is esp. helpful since I have to translate box texts because we aren't playing in English.) That way I barely have to reference the physical book and other documents at all - but increases prep time.
Music I play directly from within Foundry: set the playlist once for each scene and then I don't have to think about it anymore. Battle music starts itself upon starting an encounter (though this might be one of the modules).
As for sound effects, I barely use any but when I do, I use the module SoundBoard. With it, one can create macros for specific sounds, which in turn can be linked in journal entries. That way, I simply can click the link while reading from the journal and don't have to fiddle with too many things at once.
Hope that helps - keep up the good work! And remember to also have fun yourself during the sessions.
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Thanks for the tips! I haven't tried using Foundry for notes at all... I just use it for showing maps, but I know it can do a lot more.
Same with using it for audio.. I just play everything locally. I'll have to do some reading!
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Oh yeah. Keep the notes all together, that will definitely help. I actually had that problem recently while running MandyMod's orphanage of St. Andrew (which is fantastic, though my demon boss had garbage luck with rolls), where I had some notes in the pdf and other notes written down,and then had the actual CoS book open.
For sound, if it's music, I use Watch Together and add all the sounds I think I might need, then just switch between them on the fly. It doesn't work quite as well when you have to invite everyone to the Watch room if you're playing online, but still helps group everything together for you for average ambient music.
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Good ideas! Adding all my notes into one place will definitely make things easier to handle. Less jumping around from book to book, pdf to pdf..
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Same happens to me, my lips get dry after an instant and I start sweating like hell.
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I've been DMing for around 4 years now and curse of strahd is still the most stressful game to DM. Being a good DM can make or break most of the pre-written modules but I feel like for Curse of Strahd it's especially important to really give it your all. I think just because Strahd is basically always present and you really have to build him up as a tragic villain.
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Definitely! It's a lot of acting, character development, and roleplay. It's not just a matter of describing a dungeon and dealing with combat.
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I'm a bot! I got triggered by language that made me think you're a new DM requesting help. If this isn't useful for you, feel free to downvote me!
If you are new to Curse of Strahd or DMing and feeling overwhelmed, the Curse of Strahd Primer is an excellent starter resource. It has a backstory on the setting, advice on how to prepare content for your players, common / avoidable pitfalls, tips and tricks, and more.
Additionally, we have a pinned Resources & Tips for Curse of Strahd DMs thread with a list of resources for every chapter in the game, where you can find more topical information.
Finally, we have an active community on Discord, and they may be able to share resources that are not in these threads or on Reddit: r/CurseofStrahd Discord
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Hey I’m looking to run CoS soon with a group of brand new people and my only DM experience is a homebrew one shot. How is it running so far? What’s been hard/wish you had done different?
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I was in the same position as you. I had done 1 one shot before starting CoS. I've played for maybe a year now, and watched tons of actual play YouTube shows. They were actually pretty decent training for this.. seeing how experienced DM's react to things, handle themselves and players..
I had a number of people try and steer me away from doing CoS as a first timer, as it's a very big and open world. I would definitely prep a ton.. start making notes, highlighting important passages or themes. I really like the MandyMod changes you can find in this subreddit. Get inside the world of Barovia, get inside the mind of the characters. Spend an hour of your day inside each NPC. Get to understand them, their motivations, and goals. That really helps when it comes time to roleplay conversations. You know exactly how they will answer, and what they want from your PC's.
Talk with your players ahead of time, individually if you can. Conduct an interview.. find out all you can about their characters story. Start making notes about how you can tie them into the world. If they desire something, like revenge or power, can they find it in Barovia? This is a dark world, and your goal should be to corrupt your players. Give them the opportunity, and see if they take it.
It's been mentioned in every guide and post I've read, but it's important... Figure out Strahd and how you're going to play him. He's complicated. He's obsessed with Ireena, but he's cool about it. He has confidence, and he won't go chasing her around. She'll come to him once she learns better. He's egotistical, but bored. New adventures are like toys to him. He enjoys tempting them, scaring them, and of course, treating them to dinner in his castle. At first he doesn't care about them at all, they aren't worth his time.. but they catch his attention and he enjoys checking in on them. Teasing them, and taunting them. You need your players afraid of him.. remember, he is Einstein level smart. His intelligence is 20. His charisma is 18. He is a scary dude, but his smile will make you want to hear what he has to say.
You have to be willing to go a little dark I think. If you're comfortable with that, you'll have fun :)
Edit: I didn't even answer your questions lol. So far, it seems to be going well. Still extremely early stage. They only just left death house. There's been no time to really get them in the world yet. This next session they'll meet Ismark and Ireena and we see how they do. I'm glad I found this subreddit and the extra content MandyMod and others have written out. I feel it's a super good addition to the original sourcebook. Read the whole campaign in a very general sense, and then study and plan for the next 2/3 sessions. Beyond that, it's tough to anticipate where they will go or what they'll do.
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Holy crap dude haha I wasn’t expecting that big of an answer, thank you! I appreciate all the advice, I won’t be running it until this September or October probably so I’ve got time, but you’re right I’ve seen similar advice being thrown around. I’m still so excited to run this though, every piece of advice helps!
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Well I might test how stress I get when I run my next Tomb of Annihilation game
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Once you leave the port, it'll just be a block of orange lol
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Lol I know when I run Curse of Strahd I feel a little bit stress but I feel content that is weird I know but I am some what a fan of the gothic horror l guess
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Me tooooooooo.
I'm still prepping my campaign and I'm so damn scared.
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I’m also a first time DM that started with CoS. Don’t sweat the small stuff as long as everyone is having fun! Ive really liked running the module with MandyMod tips. I think you’ll get more comfortable with it pretty quick. I lost a few players, then found replacements, moved online with covid, and have somehow managed to keep my group of once strangers together for a year and a half! They are in the werewolf den now and will be storming the castle soon.
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I can relate
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Also first time DM running Strahd...combat is going to kill me! Why did I decide to have three NPCs join the party???
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Oh man this so much. Although at first I thought this was heart rate, and I was like, 89 seems normal for me resting... and 7... that's almost dead.
But seriously my hr gets up to 120 running games sometimes. I also have some health issues so that may be a bigger part of it.
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Yeah, if those numbers were heart rate it would be weird! The watch I wear takes into account my changes in heart rate, breathing, etc to show a "stress" level.
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That's pretty cool, I'm not sure if mine is able to do that. Not even sure how a watch tracks breathing.
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It gets easier my man. Honestly, the best thing you can do is research improve techniques. I read whatever part of the module the players might be going to and improve the rest.
My group is currently collecting an army to fight strahds army. They are having a lot of fun with it.
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That's great! Really interesting idea from your group, collecting an army! Have fun!
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As a new DM myself, whose first campaign starts with CoS, I feel this :^)
Being prepared, remembering, having info at the ready, these are all things I'm terrible at :')
My group just made it out of the Death House, and I was clearly not ready for the rest and for the NPCs afterwards
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Definitely requires a lot of prep ahead of time. The NPCs in this world are super important. Good luck going forward!
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Thanks! And good luck to you too!
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I've been DMing for almost 2 years now, and am currently running CoS (15 sessions in so far). I can safely say, I would not have wanted to start with CoS as my first DMing experience. I started with Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I was super nervous getting to the town and having a bunch of NPCs to keep track of... and that was NOTHING compared to what CoS has right out of the gate. So kudos to you guys who are just starting out!
That being said, I learned A LOT very quickly about what works and doesn't work for my DMing style and by the time we were nearing the end of LMoP, I think I hit my stride, so while the stress may be high right now, you'll get more comfortable as you go. Once you find your "sweet spot", it will be less stressful and more just pure fun.
On the technical side, I am also using Foundry VTT for maps/handouts, combat and music, and discord for voice.
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Oh gpd I feel. What do you use to mesure this?
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It's a Garmin fitness watch! Measures heart rate, breathing, etc.
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I FEEL this image. I am running a heavily modded cos and my stress shoots up every encounter. I always worry that I over did it but they always pull through.
I've never seen my stress levels this high, and I work in live broadcast television lol.
Have fun with your campaign!
As a former film student, I feel this in my very soul