DM Advice

>implying my players don't metagame with OoC knowledge normally.

To deal with that sort of thing I usually just have people text me what they're doing that sneaky behind the scenes and I'll roll perception checks for players in the room if they could be caught and text people what they saw of they passed
This only works of your group has good phone discipline though and your a quick texter.

It might work the best as a short campaign with a set number of sessions. That way the players know when it's about to end and it's time to go for the win.

How do you run a campaign with a very clear start and end point. IE: "You're all members of x knightly order, The Emperor has tasked you to stop the Archlich before the eclipse next year or shit gets bad" without turning it into a massive railroad?

Here's the problem with my group and metagaming; the hate it. Unreasonably so. They hate it so much that they handicap the fuck out of themselves if they have knowledge their characters don't.
They're pretty clever normally. If they walk into a room that seems suspicious, they'll always check things carefully. UNLESS they accidentally saw a lot of notes on my map in that room in which case they'll go "Oh no. I know there are traps there, but my character doesn't. I'll have to walk straight into it without checking to avoid metagaming. Wouldn't want an unfair advantage."
I can see them handling this sort of situation by willfully ignoring that anything suspicious is going on, even if they'd normally have reason to be suspicious.

You kind of can't. In my experience, these sorts of campaigns are best when they're short.
On the other hand, some railroading isn't always the worst thing ever, as long as your players are into it. With the lessened breadth of their choices, though, you'll have to increase the impact of said choices. Make sure that whether they decide to back up the elves or the dwarves MEANS SOMETHING, for example Maybe the elves are reclusive, and so having them as an ally will make befriending others tougher, while the dwarves as allies would make getting the gnomes easy, but first you have to help them with the orcs.

>we had new players come in and it takes them time to get set up
How much time are we talking about here?

>but we haven't moved on much with the people who have been waiting for this opportunity
I don't know what this means.

>people seem interested in the game but bored with the new people.
The new people are not there to be dancing monkeys to amuse the older players.

>Should I forge ahead and not keep the training wheels on for the new people, or do I keep focusing on the players who put up with that bad player's shit to give them a good game, even if the new people might feel a little left out? Is there a better third option?
Oye, man. You presented that as one option.
I'm not sure what you're doing in general.

In my opinion, it is always better to return to the game as normal as soon as possible after introducing new players.
Teaching the new players to play at a slower pace, or whatever, does them a disservice as it teaches them a game that the others are not used to and not expecting.
By teaching the new players to play differently than you normally do, you are just forcing the old players to change how they play with the intention of later forcing the new players to change how they play.
It is far, far better to teach the new players normally and occasionally pause to help them when they need it.

Does that help?

One of my players made a paladin. He's new to 5e and so he spent a good amount of time researching things, which I think is good, and happened upon a Paladin guide that says to multiclass quickly on the class, otherwise it will fall off compared to full casters. He wants to multiclass into Bard, should I let him do that?

I do agree with him in that Paladin sucks major dick compared to any of the casters later on, but I don't want Paladin/Bard to be gamebreaking. Anyone have this happen in their game?

Nothings going to be gamebreakingly bad or good. Doesn't exist. You won't get past level 7-10, balance later on doesn't matter. Balance between PCs doesn't matter either. It's a game

Okay this post makes more sense.
It sounds like the old players are unsure of how to proceed without the driving force of the booted player and none of the new players are sure enough yet.
It is not "railroading" to add direction.
Inject a catalyst that presents an immediate danger that will force them all to react and respond and then link it to their characters in someway.

First thought off the top of my head is a stampede of monsters.
Immediate threat.
Can't be ignored.
Affects everyone.
Cause of stampede or resulting damage can link to PCs in a variety of ways.

As a writer, I can tell you that sometimes the best way to "figure out what you want out of the story" is to just get started on the story and see where it takes you.

>How do you handle the party being split up?
First, generally metagame to find excuse not to split the party up, because it is boring and rarely beneficial.
Second, if the party must split, rejoin them as fast as possible. Within minutes is ideal.
Third, if metaknowledge is the way to keep the game from becoming boring or slogging down to a crawl, I find an excuse or deus ex machina to convey the idea.

fun game > pure game

As long as he isn't aggressively eclipsing another player's niche, then balance for PCs doesn't matter a lick. For instance, if clerics had everything about them nerfed to being half as good except their healing, they'd still be valued by the party just as much. A righteous holy herald sounds pretty boss, though.

>How do you handle members of the group that can't make it to about 1/3 of sessions?
Always try to end the session in a place like camp or a town where a PC might be able to go off on their own or rejoin the group at the beginning of the next session.
Failing that, the PC becomes an NPC with low-level plot armor. No death or permanent change to the character or non-essential expenditure of non-renewable resources.

This

Signing on to play "Murder on the Orient Express" involves a railroad, but the players accept it and go with the premise.
You don't join a Call of Cthulu game with the goal of driving to Miami to roll drug dealers.
As long as everyone is on the same page and their choices to achieve the goal matter, it's fine.

This.
This is beautiful.

A glorious holy battle herald sounds like a fucking cool character. I'm gonna have to make a Paladin Bard.

The backstory for the character involved them being a pirate, so we are replacing a lot of the standard bard flavor with sea shanties, jokes, and insults instead of gay lutes

What this user said, but also don't be afraid to do this:

>"I split off from the party"
>Okay, your character forges his own path and goes off to have solo adventures. Roll a new character who will stay with the group because I'm not running a separate campaign just for you.

Do you guys have any Idea on what kind of enchantments I could put on a ancient relic sword. I had an Idea that the sword would become stronger after one specific ritual, but the ritual requires a specific gem (so that It doesn't get out of hand). The party is going to fight a lot of demons and undead in the close future, but I'm not sure what kind of enchantement to put that makes it good, but not OP.
P.S. And yes there will be multiple rituals.

If it's supposed to be some sort of unique relic, give it a low power, but uniquely abusable ability at first.
>Example
Make it do a few extra points of sun damage. Define sun damage as harmless to life, harmful to undead, and counts as exposure to true bright sunlight on successful hit (which allows weird ass interactions).

>another (possibly too busted, depending on power level) example
Fragarach, the Answerer
Enemy melee attacks that successfully do damage provoke an immediate counterattack from Fragarach's wielder.
>and another
The swords first and weakest ability is simply that all sapients are impressed by the sword and instinctively recognize that it must be special. This one may allow some interesting roleplaying.

You could always make it an ability that scales organically based on the wielder's skill, or is a factor of the skill rather than a flat bonus.

E.g. the wielder gets to break the action economy, getting an extra action when used, but gets a (moderate) penalty on every action each time it's used until he takes a short rest.

Or a weapon that uses a person's skill bonus with some skill, in some esoteric bullshit way.

Or it gains the ability to seal Evil creatures, gaining some power every time it does so.

Or it lets the wielder add the damage he took last round, to the damage he'll do on the next attack, if successful.

Alternatively, like suggests, give it some ability that's unique and impossible to replicate. Something that sidesteps power entirely, because it cannot be compared to anything else. It does something you just won't get elsewise. Like absorb damage taken up to a threshold (let's say 50 for example) and then releasing it round-for-round once the threshold is reached, maybe 10 at a time. Or maybe it acts like a prism when exposed to sunlight (on account of the gem, depending on what it is) and can do (un)holy laser shit when outside in daytime if held up like a magnifying glass for a few rounds, I dunno.

Currently running you're bog standard medieval fantasy setting, though through player actions and involvement I'm looking to bring the tech level forward a fair bit.
Aka late renaissance>Industrial revolution

How can I do this in a way that doesn't piss off my players, and or utterly ruin balance

>How do you handle the party being split up? I'm asking more in terms of meta knowledge given. Like for example if one player goes off on his own and ends up getting kidnapped. Do you let all the players know or do you attempt to keep it hidden somehow?

I think it depends on the length of the excursion. I prefer for player and character knowledge to be as congruous as possible, but if the other players are sitting there waiting on this guy the least I can do is entertain them as spectators.

It's not a railroad unless it violates the players' agency. If they agree to the premise then you're gucci (unless they start trying to stop the archlich in ways that should work but you kibosh their ideas, then you're still railroading).

They probably have some sort of standard operating procedure for checking rooms they suspect are trapped, encourage it if they seem to be blindly walking into things because of metagame knowledge. Another solution could be to have them tell you if they accidentally see your notes, then let them know you've changed things in subtle ways so they don't have to feign ignorance.

If you think something is too strong/overpowered and have never dealt with it before, let the player run it under the caveat that if it proves to be too much trouble they will have to change their character/skill/spell/race or whatever.

Your player have the satisfaction have trying it out even if you ask them to change it. You might also learn that it's not that bad. You can also work with the player to make it more reasonable.

"Overpowered" builds/skills/spells/races/powers/etc. are only as good as you let them be. You have the final say in everything no matter what the rulebook says. An "overpowered" player character only becomes an issue if the rest of the party feels it is, or if it becomes difficult to make challenges around the party because of the power gap.

I'm running a Stars Without Number campaign, and after a couple adventures where the party was was working on an NPC captain's ship, the players have acquired their own vessel and will be able to freely explore the sector.

I'm looking for advice on running a sandbox style game, as I have never run one before. And yes, I have been looking at the sandbox advice in the core book, but I would like to hear what you guys have to say.