Tabletop RPGs

[velvet ingot]

We have a lot of Measartha to worldbuild actually...

There's a nonzero chance I'm going to try to make a city map...

[sleek sluice]

Akita’s trying to ignore her evil demon patron who is still insisting that Iris Grey is evil and shouldn’t be trusted…

[tall steppe]

It's tough because I'm in the best part of my book to revise so I may just like... Do that and you won't see me at all

[velvet ingot]

This is what happens if I'm left on hiatus for too long

[compact marsh]

Btw what stat spreads to lacksleigh and aerin have? Cause those are very MAD builds from the looks of them

[tall steppe]

Oh also the premise was like this is the all spellcaster party

[velvet ingot]

I'll let @livid geode and @languid halo answer for them if they like!

[tall steppe]

We have been very effective xD

[low gorge]

that wasn't the premise

that's just what everyone ended up wanting to play

[velvet ingot]

We just happened to all take them, yeah

[golden flame]

whats MAD mean here?

[velvet ingot]

Lachsleigh can kinda regular tank and Meijin's a dodge tank even if he has no hp

[compact marsh]

Sorry I meant aerin and not serillion

[golden flame]

not an answer

again what does MAD mean here?

[compact marsh]

Multi ability dependent

[tall steppe]

Well, I certainly wasn't going to break the streak of spellcasters as the 7th PC

[velvet ingot]

Aerin is @teal acorn

[golden flame]

okay but like why does it matter if they are multi ability dependent i dont see the reason to call that out or what the context is i havent heard that term used in dnd before

[compact marsh]

I’m asking how the build works?

MAD builds are harder to make because you need multiple good stats

Also Im surprised you play DnD and haven’t heard the term MAD used before

[low gorge]

I've never

I don't go on dnd subreddits

[sleek sluice]

I only came across it really recently

[golden flame]

ive never really engaged with dnd online because every time i do its disgusting and turns me off

so like yeah all i really engage with is the books and websites like 5etools

and my friends ofc

[compact marsh]

Well that’s a you thing I guess

I love dnd online theorycrafter communities

[low gorge]

not just latter tbh

[velvet ingot]

Yeah I think I saw it when I was reading up about the 2024 Bladesinger changes this year, that Bladesingers became more SAD (single ability dependent) but that's the only time

[thorn prawn]

MAD just generally refers to builds that are restrianed by the fact it needs to build up multiple ability scores in general you want to be SAD but its not a huge deal

[low gorge]

besides my group, I might occasionally look up use cases for a spell or something or a ruling on some wording but I don't go into the communities anywhere and dig into build crafting

[compact marsh]

Yeah paladins are MAD but they’re still one of the best classes

[thorn prawn]

I mean the best paladins aren't MAD they just max charisma

[golden flame]

i would assume a pretty large majority of poeple who play dnd dont engage with online communities or online theorycrafter communities specificly

like they might watch crit role or engage with something like this community

[compact marsh]

Lacksleigh I’m curious about because it seems you need high dex/ str, int/wis and high cha?

Unless you accept int warlocks

Which tbh are a banger idea

[golden flame]

honestly i love the idea of con locks

[compact marsh]

Okay that’s actually broken LOL

[golden flame]

or con sorcs sorry *

not con locks

[low gorge]

my unrequested life cleric stats just because

STR 7 19 (about to be 29)
DEX 13
CON 15
INT 13
WIS 20
CHA 14 (aiming for 16+ if possible with feats and upgrades later)

[thorn prawn]

I like the idea alot if you just take 2014 sensibilities but in 2024 if you switched it woild be meh

[thorn prawn]

Im assuming you rolled

[golden flame]

what level are you guys

[sleek sluice]

8

[compact marsh]

You godrolled those stats

[velvet ingot]

There's something weird about Lachsleigh's CHA I recall because Ian didn't want Lachsleigh to be charismatic at all because he's kind of a creepy half-undead guy

[low gorge]

oh I did not

I just fixed one more thing on there

[velvet ingot]

(he's Dhamphir mechanically, but not really)

[thorn prawn]

Im also assuming you got miscellaneous stat boosts periodically

[sleek sluice]

I know I have a stat boost from an item

[low gorge]

with my natural elf stat boosts plus ASIs... I want my CHA higher 😭

[velvet ingot]

CHA is one of those stats I think are fudgeable with RP for different vibes

[low gorge]

if anything, aerin godrolled

[sleek sluice]

Iirc I rolled well, as well. But it’s a hazy memory at this point

[velvet ingot]

Like Meijin is not actually spec'd into CHA because he's a wizard but he's a very pretty former honeypot clinically trained in seduction. So it's like, his CHA is low because he doesn't like to use those skills and hates the idea of people liking him but for story reasons he does have those skills

[compact marsh]

Crazy how everytime I roll I get 8 8 8 8 14 5 or something along those lines

[low gorge]

I'll go into the builder at home to see my original numbers

oh, our DM allowed a minimum total threshold

like if the total of all our stats was really bad

too long ago to remember the nuances of how it worked

[velvet ingot]

I would love some more Dex on this boy 😭

[sleek sluice]

It’s impressive you remember that much, I’ve blanked that entirely grey

[compact marsh]

Wait you did not godroll

[peak cedar]

pity rerolls are pretty common

either min total or min highest stat

[low gorge]

my memory is a funny thing and it might turn out to be wrong. like maybe it was the other game

[peak cedar]

or both

[sleek sluice]

Seeing as we’re sharing

[velvet ingot]

I think we just did straight up 4d6 keep highest 3

[compact marsh]

Wait you actually godrolled wtf

[velvet ingot]

We've had ASI's in here too, these are not starting stats

[low gorge]

plus the racial bonuses to start

[peak cedar]

-# since we're sharing

-# I jest

[velvet ingot]

I think this was the original for Meijin:

[sleek sluice]

Good to note: I have an item that raises my dex. It’s a 10 without it.

[thick whale]

😌

[velvet ingot]

... Okay I need to awaken Sinnafex so I can get stat bonuses out of her or something, clearly :p

Y'all all got extra stats!!

[sleek sluice]

Oh okay yeah here’s my starting rolls

[peak cedar]

-# that is actually my character, though

[golden flame]

you guys are quite the charaismatic group

[low gorge]

oh figured out how to do it on my phone

I should never have asi'd CON, wtf was I thinking

[velvet ingot]

7 rolled strength to 29 is going to be mad

[low gorge]

teehee

I need to go back in time and shake old grey by the collar, get her to put that point into cha

[velvet ingot]

Con is HP and concentration tho, it doesn't hurt!

[low gorge]

but I don't think 14 to 15 changes the modifier

[velvet ingot]

Ahhh yeah that's true

[sleek sluice]

It doesn’t 😦

[low gorge]

back then I was intending to build into it more with the intent of taking Tough for an ASI but not any longer, my plans changed

and that con 15 is a monument to my sin I can never scrub away

[sleek sluice]

It’s the problem I’m running into with upgrading and doing my ASI/feat 😔

[low gorge]

while Mattie is going to have a hard time with this in character, I'm personally so so excited to wield a flame maul with 29 strength and move Mattie into the frontlines

[livid geode]

Lachsleigh stat spread currently

Starting stats

[brazen tendon]

Very clear dump stats here

[livid geode]

You might be asking hoe his CHA got so high, and the answer is "the artifact sword he started thr game with"

[low gorge]

it is hysterical that our party went "no strength" and then there's Mattie who gets magic gauntlets to cover the lack

just a wee elf and his magic gloves, holding the world on his back like Atlas

[shell cargo]

I love the image of an elf with noodle arms putting on some gloves and turning into Popeye

[livid geode]

The plan was always to multiclass into warlock eventually and Matt and i did discuss doing an Int-based warlock but he decided to just make it so Sliver sets Lachsleigh's CHA equal to his INT (if the INT is higher...)

Slightly balanced by us hardcoding that Lachsleigh gets disadvantage on Persuassion checks because he's creepy

[low gorge]

so max wisdom for my spellcasting needs; ENORMOUS strength so he doesn't have to use spells to be effective in combat; and then straining and scrapping for charisma and associated skills because I kept ending up having to put my little sad persuasion +1 to the test and being disappointed at the result

now at least I have a +5....

[livid geode]

The more fun discussion is hit points because Lachsleigh has like twice as many as some other members of the party.

Though now i am remembering that i rolled a /2/ on our last level up and i am in pain again...

[velvet ingot]

Yeah I'm like, ah yes my highly trained expert seductor with a +1 persuasion

[shell cargo]

Always take average smh

[low gorge]

I have rolled 2s and 3s for HP level ups for the LAST TIME

Taking the average for the rest of time

[tall steppe]

Average is the way to go

[velvet ingot]

At least he has a +4 deception... for a guy brainwashed by the deep state to erase his personhood and allow him to adopt any identity required of him...

I am not defined by Meijin's charisma score and I don't care

[livid geode]

https://tenor.com/view/max-meladze-the-recruit-i-like-to-live-dangerously-im-reckless-living-life-on-the-edge-gif-10747252466035659914

[shell cargo]

It always makes me giggle when I remember that average is above average

[velvet ingot]

I shoulda pitched that the seal should set his charisma to 18 or something

I didn't think to ask about it!!!

I was too busy thinking of ways to make it suck!

[teal acorn]

Aerin's current stats

Unlike the rest of the party I did in fact godroll, my rolled stats were the best of the group

[low gorge]

and your HP rolls at every single level have been absurd too

[vernal oxide]

Built different

[shell cargo]

Godrolling gives you so many more options on builds, it’s so fun

[teal acorn]

i think I finally got below average this past level up

Rolled stats

[compact marsh]

Bruh

Literally built different

[teal acorn]

That said I've largely been playing Aerin as a support caster/skill monkey, I won't level up rogue past reliable talent and the main subclass feature I wanted was the bonus action Help Glamour Bards get

[velvet ingot]

Aerin was CLEAR mvp for the relocation assistance in the Aravall fight

[golden flame]

okay but as a bard

do you voice act singing or music or something

[teal acorn]

I will describe song vibes but I haven't sung in session

[languid halo]

My boy

[sleek sluice]

We really did all dump strength huh

Well almost all of us

[velvet ingot]

i have never once played a character that didn't dump strength and i refuse to start now

[livid geode]

Gotta level up to 8!

[teal acorn]

This is the character that the rest of us were convinced for a long time that Jebus wanted to die as part of some twist

[languid halo]

Been putting it off cause I wanna redo a lot of spells

[velvet ingot]

i play exclusively twinks, waifs, and agile dex users 😤

[languid halo]

I've gone so thematic and then I feel kinda useless when I'm not doing my one big incapacitate spell

[languid halo]

Were but not anymore? 😏

[sleek sluice]

Tbf your incapacitate spell was clutch in the Maleida fight

[languid halo]

It was VERY good for that scenario

[low gorge]

and she didn't make a single save

[languid halo]

We did use our wish to let me keep my +3 bloodvial which is an insanely strong item as thats +3 to my spell save

[low gorge]

THAT'S how. got it

[golden flame]

again 🍿

[languid halo]

Yeah lol, I have no idea what you guys got because I was like "I get to keep? This? For me?" grabby hands

[golden flame]

this is so much new lore i lvoe it

[low gorge]

I can't think about Maleida too hard

but the dice... told a story

[velvet ingot]

Meijin: got rid of the Wish that he did not trust (and burned out his ability to ever Wish his seal away, whoops)

honestly carrying the Wish around was giving him hives about this party's capacity to accidentally rip reality apart

[sleek sluice]

I was listening to the aftermath this morning on my way to work, Grey and ended up tearing up about it all. That was solid rp’ing

[low gorge]

🥰 thank you

[sleek sluice]

Then there’s Akita wanting to use it even though she knows it a bad idea and no one would let her

[livid geode]

Lachsleigh got to keep an ioun stone and a ring of mindshielding (that /was/ supposed to be for Gale but he didnt want it...)

[velvet ingot]

REASONS WHY MEIJIN WAS WORRIED ABOUT US RIPPING REALITY APART

adea also not trustworthy with the wish. or serillion. or... most people who aren't Mattie, in his eyes 😅

[low gorge]

I think I'll make a ring of mind shielding when I have my sacristy next level

[sleek sluice]

Honestly, Serillion carrying around a vial of blood is VERY Serillion

[low gorge]

this pedestal Meijin has put Mattie on is so shaky, I wonder what happens if/when the pedestal crashes to the ground...

[sleek sluice]

Just thematically

[teal acorn]

Hey, Aerin would have no idea what to do with a Wish

[golden flame]

i kjinda wanna see what adea and aerin do with a wish

[compact marsh]

Genuinely curious about the warlock blood hunter build

Was not impressed by Molly but my understanding is they buffed bloodhunter

[compact marsh]

What do you mostly do combat wise? Eldritch blast? And how punishing are the bloodhunter abilities cost

[upbeat forge]

I rolled pretty high in my most recent campaign I joined (albeit we rolled 2 stat spreads and picked which one we liked. I liked this one)

[golden flame]

i need to thank cam for spurring on this conversation to begin with, go so much quality lore and info out of the dnd game that yall are running

[golden flame]

thats QUITE high

[upbeat forge]

Yeah, multiple people in that group rolled high too. I think the worst anyone ended up with was still above average

[golden flame]

this is the distribution

so like

85 is VERY high

[livid geode]

"Hit thing with sword" mostly

[low gorge]

you also use... hex? is it hex? a lot

[upbeat forge]

We're also playing a heavily homebrewed setting and all the classes and races are busted too. My race, instead of +2 +1, gets +2 +2 -2, and one of the subraces can optionally give another +1 and/or -1

So very possible I end up with 20 in 3 abilities if we ever make to level 20 lmao

[compact marsh]

So hexblades curse + melee + blood rite?

[teal acorn]

Aerin would likely do whatever the safest thing is. I would not call him jaded in the same was as someone like Meijin, but he is fairly risk averse, in part because he has already had the "I got everything I wanted and it wasn't all it cracked up to be" experience, and I think something like Wish would ping those instincts hard

[livid geode]

I honestly dont remember what the version of blood hunter that Tal played was like. But i think it actually reduced max hp? Which is no longer thr case.

To activatr crimson rite i take a couple points of damage (equal to 1d6 currently) but its pretty much always balanced out in terms of getting an additional d6 of damage per hit with my sword.

Also im only putting crimson rite on one weapon wherr Molly used two, so thr hp reduction was brutal in a way that doesnt apply.

Then if i can get a hex off, i pump out a decent amount of damage, particularly on a crit

What feels real nice is when i can kill something when they proc an opportunity attack.

[livid geode]

No hexblade curse

[vernal oxide]

Bloodvials are so dope

[velvet ingot]

okay talking about dnd all day was a mistake because i am now consumed with The Longing™

threads... save me threads... we need 20ccs of rp stat... we're losing her... she's fading...

[thick whale]

critically acclaimed videogame The Longing™?

[low gorge]

saaaame I started missing the game intensely....

[livid geode]

the solution is for more people to run games

[velvet ingot]

~~i gotta finish edits before i can commit to time things 😩 ~~

[livid geode]

True

[light meadow]

Something something free trial something something no restrictions on playtime

[velvet ingot]

oh wait i need to log in tonight so i don't lose my house, i was gonna do that

[light meadow]

You're welcome

[velvet ingot]

everywhere i go... i see his face...

[low gorge]

I see why people become GMs though, if it's like, the only way I'll get to try x system is by running it yourself

[low gorge]

that was Mattie and Maleida for me

[light meadow]

This is unbelievably real

[velvet ingot]

he would make such a face at being called "Meijin Ellesti" though

[tall steppe]

As for how many skeletons to have, honestly I am being cognizant that my turns take forever. So I will likely just be at 5, one free Animate Dead to maintain and then I have a magic item for the fifth one

[sleek sluice]

Big same

[upbeat forge]

I've thought of running a couple systems for this very reason but haven't actually done it 😭 GMing is so intimidating, never tried it before

[light meadow]

Start with a very silly oneshot

[rare fable]

A big help with turn times is prerolling your numbers and just telling the DM what you got when your turn comes around 🙂

I always reward doing that with half a point of inspiration

[light meadow]

Very much helps if you set the expectation up front that it will be a clown show, because when it is a clown show you have met your players exactly where you said you would

[tall steppe]

True

[light meadow]

Worst case scenario you have some laughs with the homies. Best case scenario is it spirals out into an unexpected campaign and you have a great time for years to come

[tall steppe]

I haven't had too much of an opportunity to use them yet, so we will see. I want to get them weapons and armor to be really set

I wouldn't be opposed to doing a second animate dead to have a good horde

[sleek sluice]

It’s good that you didn’t get a chance to get this set weapons and armor in the end

Otherwise you would have lost it all

[tall steppe]

True

After SiSG and my natural tendency to want to be very plot focused I am trying hard to not take over the plot and be annoying in turns in combat though xD

So I feel like nine skeletons is just... A lot

[low gorge]

take over the plot? with skeletons?

[tall steppe]

I'm kind of combining two concerns that are unrelated there

[low gorge]

oh ok

are you concerned about taking over the plot tho?

[tall steppe]

Historically yes

[low gorge]

ah, historically, gotcha

[tall steppe]

But it is why I let other people do more things and try not to be too front and center in sessions yeah.

But Adea is intentionally designed so I don't get too absorbed in everything

I got books to write xD

[sleek sluice]

But what if you DM’ed something Eric

[golden flame]

What if Eric dm'ed something we could watch 👀 👀 👀 👀

That wasn't cosmere

[brazen tendon]

That's definitely not happening

[thorn prawn]

Wepp time to run a session with zero prep

[golden flame]

Shhh

Don't ruin the copium

Dam so many appropriate brandon emotes for that

[tall steppe]

DMing is a thing I would enjoy immensely that, like Brandon, would sap a lot of my creative energies

So I must never do it

Like when Brandon explained how DMing meant he didn't have the energy to write because it used the same sort of stuff to do... I was like yup makes sense

[rare fable]

DMing charges mine

[tall steppe]

I physically do not have time to do both

It is impossible

If I didn't work full time and was full time author, sure

[rare fable]

At least that's how it feels, but I also started DMing around the time I burned out from other stuff so who knows how the correlation goes

My DMing prep is mainly just my head spinning while I'm trying to sleep :p

You don't have to have a plot prepared if you just have a solid idea of what fits in your world

But then again I run a Sandbox campaign

So while I'm trying to sleep I just think about what the improvisational prompt of the next game is gonna be

Like next game my players are gonna meet Jolkien Rolkien Rolkien Tolkien in the shadowfell, and he's gonna have a way to get back to the material plane

Who knows where it goes from there

[tall steppe]

I would need to do a lot of prep as a first time DM and I am inherently a planner and bad at improv

[peak cedar]

I freaking love GMing, but even as a light preper it's something I find hard to fit in my schedule. Not because of time, but because of what Chaos said first

Not that GMing would get in the way of my work, but the opposite

I already need to use my brain for work the entire day, in the evening it's really hard to just keep using it at full throttle

Which I certainly need, specifically for improving. I improve way worse the more tired I am

[rare fable]

You get better with practice 🙂

I tried the meticulous planning style and my utter inability to predict the decisions of my party of chaos gremlins kinda disincentivized it, so I just focused on world building and making sure it was the kind of world I could improv in

Like most names I steal from Heroes 3 and I try to lean on those vibes for inspiration in the moment if the unexpected happens

Which it always does

Set up a murder mystery? They decide to flee into the underdark. Elaborate political maneuvering? Sequence of nat 20 persuasion and insight checks clear everything up before it can really get going. Offhandedly kill an ogre during exposition? They use their one Wish to time travel so they can save the ogre and name him Shrek.

They later eat Shrek.

After two years of the supposed "war campaign" they have managed to get an actual orcish diplomat to visit the marquis for negotiations, and instead of attending the negotiations they decided to go on a weeks long side quest to look at a tree on the other side of the country because it sounded like an important tree. And they're taking a shortcut through the shadowfell because otherwise they might accidentally interact with the plot.

I love my players but man it is hard to write plots for them sometimes :p

[peak cedar]

I've been practicing for a long time, it just sucks to GM tired

mentally tired *

The more tired I am, the worse I GM...then I feel guilty I didn't provide as good a session to my players as I know I could 😔

[tall steppe]

It's more for me the fact that worldbuilding could be just on my books, so I should do that

[rare fable]

Tiredness is real tho

[peak cedar]

I learned very early actually to not trust my players

[rare fable]

Maybe I wouldn't be tired if I didn't spend every night from 12 to 3 am prepping in bed :p

[peak cedar]

first longer game I ran, very early in it, I explicitly asked them at the end of a session where they were planning to go next, listed out some of the open threads they had but also told them they were free to not do any of those and do something else that interested them. They discussed it in our group chat, decided to go to this dungeon, I spent the week mapping out the dungeon, prepping encounters/npcs/treasure they could find there, etc. Night prior to game day they send a message asking if it'd be too bad if they hiked up these mountains to chase a lead on one of the player's backstory hooks and I was like "uh...no, you guys are free to go anywhere 😭 "

they never went back to that dungeon

well, I lie, like 50 sessions later they were back in town and asked "hey, we should go clean out that place for the town" and I was like "guys, the town put together a troop months ago and took care of it"

[rare fable]

I have been asked by 2 players if I can railroad them a bit harder recently

Which is really hard

I tried offering them a castle encounter with motivations that should've appealed to all but one character but that player managed to convince everyone to leave it alone

So then my brand new ghost dragon mini didn't get an opportunity to get used

So I'm gonna have that go back to their base and cause havoc

But it's hard to railroad players who reject the call to adventure as a baseline

[compact marsh]

DMing is definitely exhausting but my sessions are also kinda combat heavy and rules heavy

And by combat heavy I mean that

Sometimes there’s wayyyy too many people in the turn counter

[balmy coral]

DMing is definitely scratching my creative/storytelling itch to the point I don’t feel super driven to write outside of that. In a good way though.

[thick whale]

Agreed nod nod

[balmy coral]

Less of a sapping creative energy and more a fulfilling creative drive

[tall steppe]

Yeah, I'm not allowed to lose that xD

I will exceedingly depressed if I don't write my books

[wheat moat]

I know at least Chaos and I have talked about this before, but they def. draw from different wells for me. I've not stopped running games in the two years since I started writing again.

[thorn prawn]

turns out roll20 doesn't have a character limit on names and one player is playing as the declaration of independance and another is playing as way of kings chapter 1

[peak cedar]

I wonder if that's what my player was playing with for his "1 shot" (more like a medium-length adventure) character 🤔

Zaharandoréa Alquimíaz Solvidestra Celestiván del Carmín de los Altos Reinos

and here I thought that was a mouthfull

wok1 is so funny

[golden flame]

Okay but at least way of kings chapter one starts with a name

[peak cedar]

codename Zazá

[light meadow]

Which chapter 1 though

[wheat moat]

@full oriole https://www.unwrittenrpg.com/

[full oriole]

gasps

Wow

Welp

That's something that's getting bought eventually

And there's a timeline supplement with more lore?!?

Ugh I need to go to bed but this is getting revisited tomorrow

[wheat moat]

I am waiting on the latest supplement to actually be finished following the crowdfunding...

[golden flame]

this is how I imagine chaos's dnd character

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTr58xwbf/

[languid halo]

That's so literally on point

[golden flame]

Yaa it was too on point not to share lol

[velvet ingot]

That is... not inaccurate

[balmy coral]

Accurate yeah

[balmy coral]

@tall steppe I know you are busy at nexus but didn’t want you to miss this

[tall steppe]

Lmfao

[tall steppe]

That is very accurate xD

[thorn prawn]

My new game (out of the abyss) is finally out of the starting area and the party managage to save 6 NPcs which means I still need to roleplay 6 Npcs as the party of 6 travels

[low gorge]

every PC gets a friend 😜

[thorn prawn]

I wish more would have died but the players did a good job escaping so only 4 npcs and 1 player died in the opening section

The players have pretty much adopted 1 communal npc they will protect at all cost and then a couple of them have their 2nd favorite npc

[compact marsh]

Ohhh I remember out of the abyss

DMing it was painful

I whittled down the NPCs real fast to make combats manageable

[thorn prawn]

I like it a lot but when it says do not be affraid to kill npcs it’s not a joke. It’s great in that it’s shockingly replayable becuase of those options and makes the first area pretty complex and fun

[compact marsh]

OotA ||I killed off the extremely OP quaggoth, the orc, the dwarf girl and the crazy serial killer, sent the two wererats away at the first opportunity, and then had the fish and the deep gnome die at the Kua toa village. Then Sarith and the shroom kid made it all the way to fungal village before dying||

[compact marsh]

It gives a lot of flexibility to combat difficulty for sure

But the early combats took waaaay too long lol

[thorn prawn]

It’s also got a fun built in difficulty reward as the best npc’s for utility have the lower healths

So if you keep them alive they benefit you more

[compact marsh]

Which NPCs do your players like best?

[thorn prawn]

Stool, jimjar, and shoushar are their current favs. One player is warming up to the twins and so far the only thing keeping them from killing sarith is he and stool are friends for reasons

Ront, Eldeth and buppido are dead

The also like derendil

[compact marsh]

Oota ||I made sarith really pathetic so they’d keep him alive||

||I needed him to have his head blow up||

||that was iconic||

[thorn prawn]

it really is

Yeah im gonna work on endearing him to the party but rn hes taking a backseat to the other three. Shoushar is gonna leave soon so having jimjar, stool and him around will be the mainstay for most of the campaign with the potential for the twins to stay around as well

[compact marsh]

||buppido I wish lived longer in mine cause I wanted to do the serial killer mystery but oh well||

||he died valiantly I guess||

[rough karma]

I kinda get why they do it, but it annoys me Beyond isn't putting the playtest for 2024 in the VTT

when it's 99% of the reason I even use Beyond

[velvet ingot]

okay this feels like it could print some money https://youtube.com/shorts/C8bzEOHxq2g?si=Rdqu3ZVLtsgxJ9vv

[thin spindle]

https://fey-earth.itch.io/lyrics-of-legends

KPDH RPG

[brazen tendon]

It literally did print money

they instantly blew past their crowdfunding goal and had to end it early because they already had far more than enough

[compact marsh]

Also does anyone know of an actually good honour + sanity system you can port into dnd

The variant rules in DnD lowkey do nothing

[light meadow]

Not sure if its quite what you're looking for but I like the Zweihander system for that kind of thing a lot

[peak cedar]

I like it fairly well, though without thinking too much about it I imagine you'd have to do some work to port it into dnd? It seems to me like a lot of the ways you dole out corruption is baked into the other systems

though I guess if you're an experienced dnd gm you can maybe just straight up use some of the Zweihander tables for afflictions and stuff and roll on them and improvise a dnd-esque interpretation of each result

[light meadow]

I've only played the 1.0 version of the game and a lot of the corruption was really just GM fiat in disguise

Don't know how it is now

Moreso than I was ever comfortable with tbh, but I like the idea of it

[compact marsh]

Wait zweihunder looks sick

[light meadow]

Looks sicker than it is in practice unfortunately

[compact marsh]

You can get syphilis?????

[compact marsh]

The stuff with the drawbacks for despair/ fear/ horror do seem very dm fiat-y

[peak cedar]

ig you're right, there is a ton of fiat in the doling out of corruption (but there is also a lot of places where it just tells you to gain corruption based on the outcome of some mechanic), but then the way corruption affects the game afterwards would have to be adjusted for dnd, I assume?

like, you gain corruption, so now your chaos rank goes up at the end of session instead of your order rank, cool

what does that mean? xD

there are (admitedly extremely few) mechanics that play around with where in the order/chaos tracker you are

but I think the big kicker is when you get to 10 chaos ranks you gain an affliction

its a big ol' d100 table iirc? and those effects are somewhat linked Zweihander mechanically

[peak cedar]

sorry, disorder, not affliction

[compact marsh]

Yeah the system seems kinda vague

What I do like is the long term madness thing

Which has a mix of boons and banes

It’s also hilarious you can legit get syphilis

[thin spindle]

Early RPGs literally ripped DSM diagnoses for those kinds of tables

So you used to be able to go gay

[light meadow]

I also just like the idea of "alignment" being a virtue that is defining of a character that twists into that character's primary vice

[rare fable]

Someone broke into my local games store and stole all the MTG cards. Very specific heist.

[vernal oxide]

Honestly if you're gonna steal anything that or pokemon cards is legit your best option

Mind, shouldn't do it

But it tracks

[compact marsh]

I like the idea of a “honour” stat or system (for paladins for example)

[wheat moat]

This week on Invisible Sun...

The party finding a key in a room full of ... muder ... which grants them access to an art gallery, and immediately attempt to shoot the curator. Still, they turn up again and swap some painted canvas eyes and one of the party's magic items to give one of the PCs "the Eyes of the Child".

They discover a courtyard that has a roiling black sky and a giant hand that tries to snatch them away. They also meet Father for the first time. He tries to kill them.

The party remains unsure if the PC with the Eyes of the Child is just hallucinating or not, but goes along with it for now.

Also, one of them actually leave the Darkest House and decides to come back in anyway. This splits the party again...

They actually open the coffin this time. It still contains the corpose of one of the party, but he wasn't here this week so is off walking the Backrooms somewhere and therefore unaware. Until he arrives back next week right as they open the coffin.
-# Minimal spoilers for The Darkest House where possible.

I managed to forget about the screaming robot child with the evil murder knife...

[vapid depot]

I have a passive perception of 20 [=

I'm a rogue

I don't have darkvision tho

I don't understand how i have this passive perception

[solar ruin]

jesus! is that Alert?

[jaunty saffron]

is it stuff that happened in your game? or something general about the setting?

(or like some published campaign or something?)

[uncut cape]

Is this the right place to ask a dnd-related question?

[fallen mango]

Yep

[uncut cape]

So, some of my friends are interested in starting a dnd game. Most of us haven't played before, myself included, but I have a bit more time and familiarity so have offered to put together something quickly summarising some of the character creation options

How would you describe orcs simply to someone who may not be familiar with the concept?

And what is the actual difference between gnomes and the other small races

[light meadow]

I think those are more setting-specific questions than you might think

[thorn prawn]

assuming you don't mean mechancially and just going off of traditional dnd descriptions Gnomes are more fae around the edges. They tend to love tinkering or craft work like cobbling. Where as Halfling's have dedicated living areas build into a burrow for example their homes tend to be more intuned with entwined in nature. A halfling disguises a home as nature, a Gnome uses nature as home. They tend to have more of a magical bend with more inate magic they might use in tinkering or other works. They have pointy ears and are more long lived. Which means they may lack the perspective that some of the younger options do. In terms of general cultural personality trends id imagine a dwarf would be a lot more responsible with strong familiar or communal connections that drive a sort of ambition ( more honor based I guess) ,or a halfling to be leisurely ( more homely) with strong affection for its home and the elements of its community in comparison a gnome might be more fickle.

[light meadow]

Tolkien's orcs are expressly elves twisted by Sauron into expendable meat shields. A lot of modern depictions of orcs are not that, but often (yet not always) retain the "tainted by an ancient evil" idea in some other form

[uncut cape]

I'm kind of just going for sentence-or-so descriptions at the moment

[light meadow]

In vaguer terms, they're generally bigger than humans, generally some kind of green, and generally less urbanized than humans

Commonly come with tusks

[uncut cape]

This is sort of what I've got at the moment

[light meadow]

I'd start there and then get more specific if your setting demands it

[thorn prawn]

Yeah i'd say the most prominant thread that isn't related to a specific setting for orcs is they tend to have a more muscular build and endurance, tusks, a general proclivity towards violance wether it be cultural or geneic ( depends on setting), Greenish brown skin, a general sterotype of being dumb or agressively simplistic view of the world ( the latter doesn't imply dumb merely a pragmatic sense of brievety), they tend towards the archaetype of a berserker

Orcs I think are the most varied based on setting as they are perhaps the most tied into a prexisting setting stereotype

Dwarves, gnomes, elves, etc exist in multiple slightly different mythologies. Orcs on the other hand mostly exists in a tolkeinized canon of soldiers of evil/a god that were design to fight as its soldiers

[light meadow]

The only place I'd be careful is, an easy trap to fall into is to take fantasy races and shove them into real world culture analogues and that can get real weird real fast even if you don't mean for it to

Actually, if you want a good example of how orcs can be handled, I really like what Brennan is doing with them in CR4

[uncut cape]

That is definitely something I was... worried about with the terms I used to describe them

I was a little hesitant to say something like "savages" or barbarians for their description because I felt like that might get too close to some irl context stuff

[light meadow]

The TLDR for CR4 orcs is, ||all the races in his setting were taken by a god and shaped for a specific purpose, sort of regardless of how any of the individuals felt about it. The orcs were molded by the god of war in that setting, and eventually they decided they didn't like that, so they killed him after a long cycle of failed rebellions, inspiring the other races to eventually kill all of their gods too||

It touches on a lot of the common ideas around orcs without really committing to some ideas you might not want to commit to

[rare fable]

The traditional D&D orcs are tribal and "god-ridden"

As in their orcish Pantheon tends to be more involved in their culture than for other races, like Gruumsh, who's basically the god of paranoia, telling them to be on guard for anyone outside of their tribe

In exchange you get a lot of orcish shamans who get special boons like truesight from Gruumsh

Depending on how much the DM likes leaning into the Orcish Pantheon thing you can get a lot of internal conflicts too because those gods don't all like each other

[compact marsh]

assuming this is based on forgotten realms lore, orcs have been kind of diluted to "vaguely tribal peoples who sometimes (but not always) like hitting things"

i actually do like what brennan is doing with the orcs but in mainstream dnd, there is no real
orc-ish identity, in part because the origins of orcs are borderline racist

[thin spindle]

the solution: play through Dawn of the Orcs and then use whatever comes of that

https://lymetime.itch.io/dawnoftheorcs

You play as the magical technocrats who create the first Orcs as weapons of war, modify and improve them over time, and tell the story of how the Orcs become their own people. It plays in around 90-120 minutes; by the end, you will have created a unique Orc people, perhaps even one you feel like using in the setting of other roleplaying games.

-# would I run a series of oneshots to worldbuild a setting I'd never actually run a game in? in a heartbeat

[compact marsh]

Yo, that game actually looks sick

[thin spindle]

it's neat

hell yeah Branch Riders is ordered

maybe I'll run that for the ttrpg club

the shortlist is currently Slugblaster, Animon Story, Crescent 2e, and Fantasy World

[languid halo]

Killed a dragon in DnD last night 🥳

Slightly suped up adult blue/white dragon (because we're a party of 8)

We're also level 8 so while we had people go down (Including the two clerics very early), we had enough healing in general to keep everyone going

And also we have a t rex we can summon and the GM revealed at the end that the t rex (which does two attacks, 4d12 then 3d8) did nearly half the total damage

So rexy really came in clutch there for us

[wheat moat]

This week on the Darkest Sun.

The party attempts to do Science! to the House, which resists; they talk about doing some things which would give them more info and then decide against it; mysterious curses are encountered; they get trapped in a painting of a pyramid for a while; they find a magic candle; they leave the House and come back in - but this time via a window!
It doesn't make a difference to how awful everything is...

[thorn prawn]

About to play my first game with a similacrum in a while

[rare fable]

I have a bunch of potion vials and I am tempted to put baked beans in one and convince my party that it's actually boba. And when they need healing and accidentally pick the one vial that has beans I reveal the potion mimic.

[supple totem]

So, I think I finally was able to create a D&D character that can replicate a kandra.

[karmic bear]

Our western themed campaign is having our first cowboy duel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9EZGHcu3E8&list=RDJ9EZGHcu3E8&start_radio=1

I insisted everyone play this music to help set the mood. Then I rolled a 3

BETRAYED BY THE SPAGHETTI WESTERN THEME MUSIC

[karmic bear]

My friend’s cat, meowing for all he’s worth during our pathfinder session:

https://tenor.com/view/salem-i-will-not-be-ignored-genie-in-a-bottle-talking-cat-witch-craft-gif-10724834

[thorn prawn]

My Dm is sending us threats

[fallen mango]

Hmm… I could splurge on TTRPGs for Christmas…

My Lancer rot is taking over so I might grab Lancer: Battlegroup

[languid halo]

I saw the "ability checks don't auto succeed on a nat 20" debate on reddit again and realised that I stand on the side of, they basically do, because if a Nat 20 doesn't succeed, then it's impossible for that player to succeed on that roll so why are you making them roll?

[thin spindle]

it's not impossible with bonuses

But also "crits only count in combat" is so unfun

[languid halo]

Yeah

Player sees Nat 20 and goes yay

Lean into that

[wheat moat]

I assumed you meant with bonuses anyway?

[languid halo]

Pretty much. If I want something to be so difficult that they need to hit a nat 20, I'd set it at a high number like 30 and tell them, in which case they'll go "Oh I can't get that" or the players may find ways to stack bonuses through spells etc, or I'll just straight up ask what their modifier is

I cannot imagine internally going "DC 30", telling a player to roll, have them roll a nat 20 and then going "Okay I have +7 so a 27 must succeed?" and being like ooooo sorry no buddy

That just feels very unfun to me

[wheat moat]

Yes, those are situations where you def. shouldn't roll in my book. :)

Only roll when both success and failure are both possible and interesting/drive the story/etc.

If you can't fail? Don't roll.
If failing means the story can't progress? Don't roll.
If there's no jeopardy to succeeding? Don't roll.
Etc.

[thin spindle]

-# if you think they can't fail you aren't catastrophizing enough

[languid halo]

Exactly, if a nat20 doesn't succeed, the player shouldn't be rolling

[wheat moat]

For me there is a difference between "The roll auto-succeeds" and "The roll mathematically cannot fail on these numbers", but also I dislike the need to make a 20 have special and additional results.

The inclusion of an auto-success mechanic (whether in combat in pre D&D 5th Ed or everything in 5th Ed) is part and parcel of the fact that DCs are set too high and success is only possibly by basically saying "There's a fluke of fate that means your actual ability didn't matter".
-# And a consequence of the lamentable probability "curve" of a single dice...

[vernal oxide]

Well a nat 20 on a skill check, to me, is less "luck of fate" and more "your character was EXTREMELY locked in", you know? You can be good at a task and still fail spectacularly, same is true for succeeding, you know?

[wheat moat]

Not if because the only reason you succeeded was because it was a 20. Like Jebus was saying above, if you needed a 30, and you only had a +7, then the "Nat 20" is just to me the vagaries of luck, because you skill literally can't help you succeed. The N20 makes someone with +7 succeed just as often as it makes someone with -7 succeed.

[thorn prawn]

Eh there’s actually quite a few reasons to roll when you can’t succeed. The two that come to mind is when 1 person in the party can succeed but not everyone if you don’t allow a roll the first time then they won’t know it’s possible to roll at all. 2 when your rolling for how bad a failure it’s gonna be

[wheat moat]

I don't agree with either of those. :)

[thorn prawn]

I mean you can explicitly say only x has the modifier to meet the dc but that’s immersion breaking

[wheat moat]

Immersion is a deeply subjective line.

I almost always tell players what they need to succeed, and if they cannot mathematically achieve it (which varies from system to system) then they don't attempt it.

[thorn prawn]

I don’t explicitly know what I’m getting but I’m fairly certain I’m getting vaesen, cosmere rpg, and a few others

[vernal oxide]

Does life not involve some degree of luck?

[wheat moat]

Yes, which why a dice is involved.

[thorn prawn]

Also for the record nat 20’s do not auto suceeded in the official rules that’s homebrew

[wheat moat]

It's edition dependant.

[peak cedar]

Agree with Gneiss, rolling to see how bad a failure something is can be fun. I always tell my players before the roll, though. It in particular comes up with persuasion rolls, when they are being cheeky with an npc trying to get something out of them, I'll sometimes ask for a persuasion roll even if there is no way that npc would comply to see if they are at least charming enough to not antagonize them

[wheat moat]

That's a different thing.

[peak cedar]

It's not, really. Their goal is to get an outcome, I ask for a roll even though it's impossible for them to get the outcome

[wheat moat]

You're not rolling to see if you succeed at changing their mind. You're rolling to see if you succeed at not offending them.

[peak cedar]

From the players pov, they are rolling to succeed whatever they were trying to do, it's why I have to tell them they are not rolling to succeed on their intent

And that logic can be applied to other rolls as well if you want, I just recall it coming up more often in RP because my players were cheeky ass mfers

Trying to bust down this door? Roll atlethics even though it's actually impossible for you to bust it down to see if something really bad happens or at best something neutral happens

to your point earlier, yes, the roll is only interesting if there are different outcomes

and not if no matter what the result of the roll is the outcome is literally always the same

[wheat moat]

That's just a case of defining what success and failure are before the roll. The player cannot roll to succeed at the task they attempted, so you don't roll for that; instead they roll to see if they can fail with style or not.
Imprecise success conditions just muddy the waters.

[peak cedar]

but the player's goal is getting through the door, there's no number that's going to be a success in their eyes

sure, that's the success/failure of the roll, I don't think that's what the player cared for when they declared their action. I'm talking about the success/failure of the character

[wheat moat]

Right, and if the roll won't change the character's success then it doesn't need to happen. The success is what it is.

[peak cedar]

And I'm saying it can happen if the failure of the character can take the story in different directions depending on how the character fails

and you want to randomize it because rolling dice is fun

and it helps reinforce that being really good at certain skills matter even when you fail, you can mitigate the worse of it

[wheat moat]

Right, which is not what the roll is about. I'm not saying the character can't fail, but you don't roll to see if they fail.
You are rolling to see how they cope with failing. It's a different roll, one that has options for both success and failure.

"The Duke remains impassive and unmoved by your words, but you can give me a roll not to have gravely offended the Duchess while you're at it."

That's not a roll about persuading the Duke, it's a roll about not offending the Duchess. It might use the same skill, but the framing of what is being rolled for matters.

[peak cedar]

You are completely stripping player intent out of your thought process, which doesn't help

[wheat moat]

No? The player intent was to convince the Duke of something, which as we have established cannot be done.

That is covered in the first part of the response to the action.

If they don't care about offending the Duchess, they don't have to make the second roll and we can assume they did badly.

[compact marsh]

Okay I don’t think it’s reasonable that a highly skilled person (like +12 or something) fails 5% of the time at something

So I don’t like nat ones very much

For the same reason I don’t like nat twenties although they can be clutch

[wheat moat]

I mean, that's why I don't like d20 systems, yep...
Probability "lines" are not interesting.

[thorn prawn]

Nat ones especially on combat actually punish you for advancing in martial classes

[peak cedar]

Im trying to think here but... how often would a nat 1 roll on an attack roll even hit if you ignore auto failure? 🤔

I think very few enemies have low enough AC at different tiers of play for that to really come up with any appreciable frequency ?

Im not saying that to say the rule thus makes sense, Im just thinking about it

[thorn prawn]

So ability modifier+ proficiency +1(x) ( x is tier of play)

[dense mulch]

Assuming max level with a +3 magic weapon and 20 of the relevant ability, you'd have a +14 to hit something, meaning it would only apply to an enemy with an AC of 15 or lower

[thorn prawn]

So level 5 a 7 hits pretty much misses everything that’s not a slime

[peak cedar]

I think it does maybe come up more often in higher tiers of play when there are minions

[thorn prawn]

Minions in high tier, massive objects, oozes

Pretty much the big three of low ac

Also that one homebrew thing where you have to hit under the AC to hit a bunch of people design

[peak cedar]

Well, I never really played at lvl 20 so idk how much you'd be using AC 15< against lvl 20 players?

outside my wheelhouse

like, are lvl 20s fighting oozes?

[thorn prawn]

You end up with a lot of ads

[dense mulch]

Yeah but you can have the wizard cast spells to get rid of those while the fighter goes after a big dude

[peak cedar]

do you scale the adds? Like instead of a bunch of crappy goblins defending the bbeg, it's an elite force with AC like 16 or something ?

[thorn prawn]

Eh only if the play area is small for high level DnD that unlikely

My advice for level 20 dnd is 500x500 foot grid or more

Otherwise everything is locked down in the second round

[peak cedar]

legit questions btw, I've not DMed above lvl 10 because I dont really enjoy the kinds of stories at that tier of play

[thorn prawn]

Depends there are certain low level enemies with affects that are just annoying enough that they matter. Often time you can swap the goblin for a higher cr version without honebreweinh

[peak cedar]

alright, so it's a large space and there are a bunch of weaker enemies. Would those enemies be like CR 1-5 enemies or stronger?

[thorn prawn]

Like a big reason to include the little guys is to block movement and trigger con Dave’s

[peak cedar]

ugh, con Daves are the worse

[thorn prawn]

Yeah but they are necessary at high level dnd if you let spellcasters do their thing everyone dies

[peak cedar]

oh, I was just memeing on the typo xD

[thorn prawn]

A good example is even at 20th level this is still a threat

[thorn prawn]

Oh lol

[peak cedar]

and they have AC 12, ok

yeah, so I guess the nat 1 rule would become more relevant in tier 4, maybe 3?

interesting

exactly at the tier of play where failing to hit a goblin would be the most stupid thing ever

I am convinced, auto failing an attack on nat 1 makes no sense

[thorn prawn]

It doesn’t make sense

Tier 4 monk should not be getting a crit fail every 4 turns

Halfling is a eh species but in crit fail games it’s the only martial option on non rogues lol

[peak cedar]

It not only doesn't make sense, the alternative makes the game way more fun

you can skip the attack roll altogether for these small enemies

that's really cool and badass

"I attack the goblin"

"Alright, roll damage"

[compact marsh]

I mean, that’s how it functionally is without the nat one rule

Nat twenties for crits are really fun though especially for paladins

[peak cedar]

I guess you'd have to roll the attack to see if you crit 🤔

althought depending how small the enemy is you don't even need to roll damage, you just 1 shot them

[thorn prawn]

We have just learned natural disasters are just gods reacting to deeze nuts jokes in our campaign

[thorn prawn]

I’m playing rn it happened 5 times so far into 1 hour into the session

[iron hamlet]

Today in GM discretionary choices, I made one character’s mother into a genocidal maniac after she abandoned him at the age of ten.

[peak cedar]

what lvl is the party? 🤔 and what are they fighting?

[thorn prawn]

Gestalt level 16

[solar ruin]

I once again forgot there's a swear filter, hold on

yeah, like- I could see the argument for high-tier martials still missing on nat 1s since it's like "technically even for smaller enemies, there is a chance the enemy gets some blind stroke of luck and DOESN'T get immediately decapitated"
but I'll never be amenable to crit fumble tables, because yeah, high-tier martials shouldn't be at risk of breaking their weapon or other stuff like that every turn, that's just unfun

[languid halo]

Rerolling 1s in attack rolls should start being a standard high level martial ability

Like critting on 19

[solar ruin]

I could go for that, yeah

[thorn prawn]

Got vaesen in physical

[thin spindle]

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/DIEtheRPG

[thin spindle]

this pleases me

[thorn prawn]

yesah it salmost filled out

oh wait this is missing Forgotten realms it would be filled out then

[thick whale]

i was like what kind of twink hunk bear table is this

[thin spindle]

all bears are CON

and probably STR

[wheat moat]

What is this?

[fallen mango]

A terrible animating energy suffuses me once more (I want to revive my Stormlight TTRPG where you ✨talk about your feelings✨)

[thin spindle]

D&D 5.5 Backgrounds by stat bonuses

[wheat moat]

Ahhh.

[cyan cape]

I recently got the old gods of appalachia RPG which uses the cypher system

It's weird, but not as disfamilar as some systems are.

[wheat moat]

Cypher isn't too bad, no. I have the whole set of genre books for it as my standby for "I want to run a thing with short notice".

[thorn prawn]

finsihed my write up of what happened in my last session. Funniest moment is the characters having to run through the training area of all the wizards they know and being incredulous that any of them have beaten it. So we might do a one shot of the known wizards doing their sophmore exams just to prove it is in fact possible

[wide frigate]

Is start playing website a good place to find games? What if you want to do discord D and D? What's a good place to link up?

[thin spindle]

Observation: a lot of GM-less oneshot games are tragic or fatalistic. I wonder if that's just because that's what becomes popular or whether it's partly mechanical

[wheat moat]

What to even say this week...?

The party does an explore in a lift and finds: a "Dark Souls boss", the Backrooms, a party that's definitely happening they just can't see it, a room full of mannequins, and a music room.
They decide the mannequins are the best option and then have to blow them all up when they come to life.
They also find a definitely not haunted sewing room (don't worry about it), a perfectly ordinary kitchen (except for hte power that turns you into a monster and the window that looks out onto cow murder), and a sitting room with the man that asks for your deepest fear and then offers to make a trade to take it away.
The party, not quite understanding how trading usually works, make a bad deal and now the battlemage war veteran combat character with explosion issues (in that he causes them, and that's an issue for everyone else) can no longer remember the faces of his family and pets. And is a little angry about that.

Then they meet a personification of violence whose gaze is literally knives (doesn't roll to attack, just rolls damage if they look at you).

It was fun. For me, and the players. But not the characters. :P

The party is definitely too high a level though, I think, to really get the best out of the Darkest House. There's so much that tries to happen that they just bounce with successful defence rolls consistently.

(The Darkest House works by converting characters from any system into a 1-10 rating, and the party has a 6, a 7, two 8s, and a 9... So they're quite powerful.)

[thorn prawn]

My players fought 9 giant spiders at level 2 today. They then preceded to roll a bunch of encounter tables they absolutely decimated ( like single turn instant kill).

There is a charm to playing some of the adventures as written becuase they just end up being a bit less climactic

Like every combat is not tailored to their level.

[scarlet cloak]

I'm planning to start an online campaign (5e specifically) with some family soon, and I am wondering about online software that people recommend. I've heard a lot about Roll20, but I don't really want to pay and I don't know how good it is without a subscription. Are there other good softwares for online campaigns that don't require a subsciption to be useful?

[golden flame]

Honestly roll20 is the best free software

But if your willing to spend a bit foundry is worlds better

[wheat moat]

Foundry is a one-off payment if you are capable of self-hosting, or a subscription otherwise.

[golden flame]

And foundry isnt even that expensive

[scarlet cloak]

What do you mean by self-hosting?

[wheat moat]

Someone has to run a "server" for Foundry: which you can do on your own computer and have your players connect to it (self-hosting) or pay one of the handful of companies that provide that service for you (the Forge I think is the main one?).

[scarlet cloak]

Ah, I see. It shouldn't be too difficult for me to self-host, I think?

[golden flame]

Self hosting foundry isnt very hard

Afaik they explain it well how to do it

[wheat moat]

Generally as long as you have some technical knowledge, and can follow the guides, you'll be fine.

[scarlet cloak]

Sounds good, thanks. I'll look into it

[golden flame]

Good luck. Dnd with family is lots of fun

And a great way to keep connected

[light meadow]

I'll second Foundry, or third it or what have you

Its $50 up front, which is to me far preferable to a subscription

[golden flame]

It also just in the moment to moment gameplay works so much better than other options

Its clean and crispy for players

[thorn prawn]

Roll 20 if free foundry if you have time and are willing to spend a little

In agreement with others

[scarlet cloak]

How much time?

[thorn prawn]

Not to much but I do think foundry does take a bit more time to prep with though is generally faster once set up

Also while foundry is good about it sometimes it does update or just self destruct occasionally. It’s rare but when it happens it’s annoying

[shell cargo]

The modules are also insanely good

It’s far more polished and intuitive than Roll20 too

[scarlet cloak]

That's very nice, since most of my players aren't super dedicated to the game I think

[shell cargo]

It’s also nice because only the DM needs to pay

[thorn prawn]

Honestly what I do reccomend is split the price between the
players it’s so low in price if you do that there’s really no reason not to imo

[scarlet cloak]

That's likely what I'll do, yeah

[rare fable]

Tabletop simulator if you want to also emulate the chaos of practical tabletop rather than immersionmaxxing the narrative

[fallen mango]

Shouting out Owlbear

[thorn prawn]

Its very funny on dndn beyond that the voices for red and blue slaad respectively are marisha and matt

[thin spindle]

I may have gotten myself in over my head

I am now planning to run an Animon Story campaign involving two competing trios

[thorn prawn]

So officially my players are immortal for one session becuase their characters have already done something in the future in a separate campaign so technically they can’t die

I have politely asked them not to Leroy Jenkins through the final boss tho

[wheat moat]

Only if you don't allow paradoxes...

[thorn prawn]

Unfortunately I do but them failing creates a worse paradox that ends the story

[wheat moat]

No no. The paradox is them dying now, but still being around for whatever is happening in the other story. It's fine, the universe will cope. >_>

[thorn prawn]

Yeah but then the bad guys turn back time

[wheat moat]

That is, presumably true, regardless of the paradox of two campaigns being out of sync?

[golden flame]

You control the bad guys tho

[thorn prawn]

Bad guys: we want to turn back time.

Good guys: die

What do you think the bad guys would do?

[thin spindle]

if they die and the bad guys turn back time aren't they no longer dead?

[golden flame]

You can take time travel shenanigans in lots of directions

[safe smelt]

https://tenor.com/view/timeywimey-dr-who-david-tennant-gif-7863239

[orchid heron]

Dudeee me and some folks from my church are gonna start up a ttrpg in February

I'm hyped

I've never played anything longer than a one-off

[golden flame]

Which setting you gonna do and which version

Like is it dnd 5e

Or something else

[orchid heron]

Nah it's not gonna be dnd

Our GM has ran quite a few different games, he hasn't decided which one he wants do this time

[thorn prawn]

Ngl these two features on the new magic stealer are really elegant

empower sneak attack working on allies makes it work in any campaign as long as you have a full caster but it works best in a high magic campaign as an anti magic specialist

[thin spindle]

just realized that for Animon Story, RAW, reaching a new level takes 3-4 sessions and reaching your first evolution can take up to 10

I have maybe 12 sessions before the end of the school year. gonna make them level up every 2 sessions instead

[dense mulch]

Correct channel now:
My brother when he can't cast Heat Metal

https://giphy.com/gifs/spy-lecturing-BwP6IiUZZlpS0

We haven't played this campaign much yet, but so far his character's main contributions have been Heat Metal nonsense and using an alchemy jug to make mayonaisse

[safe smelt]

I'm sure the mayo will be plot relevant

[summer perch]

Oh I had a funny interaction two weeks ago. Two weeks ago I was playing my pompous character and asking a npc if she wanted to eat lunch with him, so what I was trying to ask is "Would you like to attend with us to lunch?" but I accidentally said "Would you like to attend us at lunch?". 🤦‍♂️

It was such an in character freudian slip.

[livid geode]

https://www.youtube.com/live/dPW8P3a_1kw as a huge high rollers fan I am so hype for this

[uncut cape]

Had my second dnd session with my irl friends today. I've realised I'm definitely not playing my class/alignment, but I think I can make it work. I think we're slowly getting the hang of the game, and more people are starting to get to do stuff

[peak cedar]

this your first time playing?

[thorn prawn]

"i would like to teach the mushroom how to have hands"- lines from dnd today

[uncut cape]

Basically, yeah

I've played a few very short sessions before, a few people in the group have played other editions, but this is all of our first proper 5e game

[peak cedar]

exciting!

[uncut cape]

Yess

[uncut cape]

Had my first session today with a slightly different irl group, playing 1st edition I believe?

It's interesting to see where the mechanics are similar and different

[fallen mango]

First Edition? 👀

[uncut cape]

In other news, I think my 5e group may be gaining a new player who may be our first evil player character. Im sure our few poor, long-suffering lawful good characters will love that

[uncut cape]

I think that's what it was? Our dm arranged most of it, I think that's what he said

[fallen mango]

Playing two sessions of D&D 5e for, as I understand it, your first TTRPG, then jumping into 1e is… it must make a fascinating case study, if you were a test subject

Do you know what your race and class were?

[uncut cape]

Yeah that's basically been the experience 😅

Though I've had my hands on 5e rulebooks for a few years, so I'm not 100% new

[wheat moat]

If it was 1e, then it would have just been class, no? Elf was a class.

[uncut cape]

Elf magic-user, I believe

Ah maybe not 1e then

One of the early ones though, I think

[wheat moat]

Mmm, I can't remember exactly when it changed between D&D and AD&D, and the numbering gets all complicated for the first couple of editions.

[uncut cape]

I think the biggest difference I've picked up on so far (aside from how some of the numbers are calculated) is that the older edition seems to have far more limitations in character creation, and a lot more encouragement built in to build certain ways

[fallen mango]

Looking through the Wikipedia article, it seems like Magic-User was used exclusively in, um, pre-2e

[uncut cape]

...huhhh

So is it... 1e, pre-2e, 2e?

[fallen mango]

No, let's see

It's original D&D, then Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, then Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, then D&D 2nd Edition

[uncut cape]

Riiight xD

[wheat moat]

As I said. It got complicated. :⁠-⁠P

[uncut cape]

I'm definitely going off memory. It definitely wasn't 5e, and the resources looked on the older side, but I don't know for sure which edition

It was interesting, it seems to have a lot more like... buffs and debuffs to encourage certain setups

[radiant canyon]

I miss dnd

[rare fable]

Not today, Mimic.

[safe smelt]

https://tenor.com/view/frieren-sousou-no-frieren-mimic-chest-mimic-blank-stare-gif-11941235161493388540

[dense mulch]

https://tenor.com/view/frieren-beyond-journeys-end-frieren-monster-chest-frieren-beyond-journeys-end-frieren-monster-chest-gif-7374738637245589748

[karmic bear]

we are fighting a spider monster named a Retriever

[thick whale]

i love B10b

[radiant canyon]

TAVERS: The Meow Wolf Roleplaying Game
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exaltedfuneral/tavers-the-meow-wolf-roleplaying-game

[thorn prawn]

the urge to make this my Gnoll token is strong even if i now none of my players have played Fe8

[rare fable]

Tomorrow I'm hosting a one-shot I've been looking forward to running for a while. The players get hired by a merchant who wants to take out a hit job on a rival, and they will have to deal with:
A low-quality copper golem
A drider weaver who's making faulty textiles on purpose because his boss scammed him into signing the contract for the job
A Clay (Tablet) Golem that deals psychic damage by dissing the players
Before it's finally time to take vengeance on the Efreet, Ea-Nasir himself.

[safe smelt]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1228035734900969584/1461376065401393182/poshanka-shakra.gif

[thorn prawn]

I just had to summarize the events of a 2 year campaign in text since we had a break and the players wanted a detailed summary of everything that happened. It took so long

[rare fable]

Ea Nasir table went well, though we went a little overtime because people understandably didn't want to buy his discounted healing potions so he kept them all for himself and kept healing with them

Even as the players started going down they refused to buy greater healing potions for 5gp each

Sure they had expired an had a DC10 Con save to get poisoned but considering they'd deny Ea-Nasir the ability to heal it would've been worth it

[radiant canyon]

My bottom shelf dnd collection

[dense mulch]

Sounds like a fun time lol

[visual knoll]

I'm reading through Fabula Ultima to potentially GM it. I'm trying to classify all the classes on the STR/INT/DEX triangle (or in this case, a square I guess). It seems to work reasonably well so far. I hope this will make sense for visualizing adjacent classes.

[radiant canyon]

What’s y’all’s collection like?

[tawny whale]

Aight I'm coming up with my D&D campaign idea for my friends
It starts in a port city, the pc's work for a shipment company as security
Another company arrives with bigger ships and more manpower
I'm thinking of making it so this port city exports some raw materials with magical properties that this rival company wants, now I need some ideas on how to make this flow
Maybe the magical resources cause sickness or something, and the pc's will have to go on a journey to find where this all leads to and to find a cure for the city

[radiant canyon]

I forgot to prep before may but I still got time before my niece and her bf drop down

(I’m having my third attempt as a new dm to run heroes of the borderlands)

[rare fable]

I recommend the karteuffel kartell, a tiefling cartel that ships magical potatoes

Any german speakers in your party will have reactions I'm sure

You can take inspiration from the historical introduction of potatoes as a wonder food from the Americas but make them magical

[visual knoll]

The famous “put the potatoes on a field, guard it but instruct the guards to do a bad job so people think they are high status and steal them” story

(Assigned to Frederick the great, likely true but exaggerated through retellings, since it seemingly also happened in like 3 other places which is always a bad sign for something having actually happened)

[thorn prawn]

Very eager for tommorow. My table did a brief break to play other games but we finally return to our long running game. Left off on a big cliffhanger where one of my players is about to loss his warlock powers and make the entire party enemies of he state.

[radiant canyon]

I’m still waiting for Facebook comments recruiting me to an LGs game of DnD or other ttrpg

(since my brother has Facebook and I don’t he posted my thing)

[radiant canyon]

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/renegade-game-studios/dungeon-crawler-carl-rpg-unstoppable/launch_party

[sleek sluice]

Oooo warlock losing their powers is big

It’s something I both want to toy with as an idea and am actually terrified of happening 😅

[rare fable]

My table prevented their cleric from serving their deity in direct contradiction of the cleric's explicit promises. By way of knocking her out and stuffing her in a bag of holding then gallivanting off to a different plane of existence.

Said deity, the Raven Queen, is understandably upset

As was the party when they learned that their cleric couldn't cleric as a consequence of their actions.

[low gorge]

what the hell did they expect lmao

if i were that cleric, i'd leave the party (in character)

[thorn prawn]

most nervous ive been to dm a session in 10 years lets go

[compact marsh]

It’s table dependent but “the player know can’t play their class” is always super punishing and tbh I think it’s almost always super unsatisfying

[safe smelt]

I mean, i think its fine as long as the players agree to it

[sleek sluice]

What prompted all of this?

[golden flame]

Yeah this is my deal, I would be sitting down privately with the cleric player and talking to them about this

[thorn prawn]

Summary: Player expended 30 days worth of Spell Slots in a single fight to kill their Winter Fey Counterpart who negotiated a genocide of all Summer Fey kind. He did 923 damage in one shot. The process servered his connection to the fey, but he has enough power from the smite that he can still operate for 24 hours. He is now no longer able to regain spell slots and is slowly losing warlock features every hour. Party then had to fight every NPC at the diplomatic meeting. These are the strongest characters in this part of the setting

they managed to convince one of them ( the magical advisor) to help them escape becuase they had been chill with them and he doesn't need the job anymore. Ive been keeping a running approval meter for a couple of the major NPC's in case this happened and hes the only one that they befriended enough to switch sides

the people attacking them are mostly good people tho they just commited an act of treason and assasination in the Princes palace which tends to provoke the police on you.

Hopefull they survive the combat is tough one guys already died twice

he took 115*3 damage in one hit at level 5

[rare fable]

Raven Queen wanted them to kill some vampires at a Castle that was on the way to their new distraction (they abandoned the main plot to go see a tree) and they decided they didn't want to go fight the Vampire so hard they kidnapped their own cleric to prevent plot from happening.

[rare fable]

Yeah the player is my gf and she got to switch from war cleric to battle master fighter

Then last session, as they finally arrived at the tree and I was prepped to start a new plot there, they changed their mind and are now backtracking to the Vampire castle.

[shell cargo]

Idk about yall, but if a hot lady called the Raven Queen told me to do something I’m gonna do it

[rare fable]

The Raven Queen even gave the party a blessing to hide the party from the threats in the Shadowfell, then they decided to betray her.

[peak cedar]

they abandoned the main plot to go see a tree
ah, yes, peak player behavior

[vernal oxide]

Me fr

[rare fable]

Once upon a time they were trying avert a war. They were pretty successful and escorted a diplomat to the Marquis for negotiations to defuse tensions... then they decided "Hey there's a big tree on this map, let's go look at it he wouldn't have put it on the map it if wasn't important" and then decided that the fastest way to visit the tree was to take a shortcut through the shadowfell.

Oh except for one player who in the process of fighting Nilbog managed to banish himself to the Feywild so he's now playing his son instead. Common Nilbog W.

[thorn prawn]

Out of the Abyss really is how many NPC's do you want? Answer: Yes

[thorn prawn]

Welp time for my second game where my ambition is to have one of my players die of embarasment and social awkward ness

[radiant canyon]

That would be the funniest monster to put in a dnd campaign

[karmic bear]

It’s got a stand. It is meant for you to do that

[thorn prawn]

My players have decided to infiltrate a civil rights organiztion to steal all their cash

[radiant canyon]

Even. Better

[radiant canyon]

I miss playing dnd

[tawny edge]

I need to make a cleric (dnd) for tomorrow and idk what personality to give him. Any ideas? I've had the thought of making him dumbly trustworthy but nothing past that, and even that it was just a vague idea cause I'm coming up kinda blank

[fallen mango]

Keeps doing things and insisting that he's not trying to convert people

Like healing allies but assuring them that it's totally not because he wants them to join his religion

[tawny edge]

Hmmm, I've seen that too many times

[fallen mango]

A cleric who claims to be a priest of a different god in every village they visit. It’s probably not a profit-making scam, since they don’t take payment or solicit donations unless doing so would be in character for whatever priesthood they’re impersonating this week, but they’re clearly up to something.
https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/640051082600611840

I like this one

[tawny edge]

Lol, that's interesting

But what are they up to

I need to understand why tf they'd do that to rp it

[fallen mango]

Study on the lived experience of each religion

[thorn prawn]

Alt cover aquired

[thorn prawn]

have every 2024 source book+plaer supllement alt cover rn

[uncut cape]

Had my second session with my early-edition dnd group today. We finished off our first dungeon and got going on the next plot thread. Our party has become extremely paranoid about opening any doors, thanks to a trapped room we ran into earlier

[thorn prawn]

Have they bought a chicken yet?

[uncut cape]

...not yet, no

[thorn prawn]

They will or some other cannary for their coal mine they always do in early editions

[tawny whale]

I want my campaign to end on a classic fight with a Lich but I don't know if my players will play long enough to reach such levels, so I'm thinking of pivoting to something simpler

a giant ape

https://tenor.com/view/godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire-gxk-godzilla-x-kong-kong-king-kong-gif-8440807518121509731

[gritty crane]

You should give the giant ape access to one singular spell, with no reason as to why. Just let him throw out one singular forcecage just for the lols.

[tawny whale]

You know that's actually a really good plan

I can tweak this giant ape to make him a worthy final boss

https://tenor.com/view/spongebobgorilla-spongebob-gorilla-spongebobgorillarip-gif-1575645958113859881

[livid geode]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rollandplaypress/high-rollers-altheya-the-dragon-empire

So happy for the High Rollers crew, absolutely insane that the first day of their kickstarter did so well!

[karmic bear]

Was invited a Stormlight rpg group and this is what the discord is named

[rare fable]

Fitting considering it's about mentally ill glow-in-the-dark people who weaponize therapy

[thorn prawn]

It’s official I have all the 2024 alt covers again

[thorn prawn]

Welp time to practice an Italian accent to play a slime named gabagool

[thorn prawn]

Players just ended up in the combat of their lives and one player just dipped off leaving the rest to almost die. They got over 1500 feet away while the rest of the party was fighting for their lives.

[thorn prawn]

Thoughts

[thorn prawn]

6th level spell btw

[karmic bear]

My group is starting a new campaign that is horror themed and three of us (!!!) are having the evil rich psychic vampire chancellor as a dad

[fallen mango]

Sibling time

[karmic bear]

I’m playing the eldest child who is illegitimate, another friend is playing the spoiled lazy brat heir and I’m not sure about the third but I think they’re playing a ghost of our dead sibling

The other two in the group have created a pair with a seperate but “intense bond” so everyone knows everyone before hand this time

[karmic bear]

You’ve heard of dnd to make a found family now let’s do dnd nuclear family therapy

[shell cargo]

VtM?

[karmic bear]

No the pathfinder module Blood Lords

[shell cargo]

Smh pathfinder

[vale quartz]

It's an interesting idea, and pretty unique having a spell where the effectiveness builds up over the first three hours then declines again afterwards. Tracking the hours could be a little annoying, unless you're already doing so or happy to just say a number when it's relevant.
Does the final insect in the jar last until the end of the 24-hour duration? And if so, does the health and damage stop increasing?
Damage output may be a little high at peak effectiveness compared to other summons spells, but I didn't go through looking at all of them in detail.

[iron hamlet]

So Kodaku pot?

… that just gave me an aweful idea.

[iron hamlet]

Does anyone have an initiative tracker they like to use?

[thorn prawn]

The Duration is inteneded to exceed the scaling becuase I wanted you to actually have a chance to use a maxed out insect. I made the insects as the timer yes so health and damage stops increasing after there is only one. Damage is kinda hard to balance in this case. I def need to work around the numbers but I do think its balanced around not being able to predict when you will release other than the big one which is a slightly stronger version of the summon Demon spell

summon fiend soryy

Honestly I can probably buff the final one alot

Im actually think what I might do is have the attacks start at 1 Damage and then do 2.5 per hour. Then when one remains It doubles its damage dice.

[light meadow]

I cannot believe it took me so long to hear about Blades 68

[dense mulch]

I've heard of it but dunno what it is

[light meadow]

Supplement to Blades in the Dark that flashes forward 100 years in world and has a 60s vibe

[dense mulch]

That sounds fantastic

[iron hamlet]

I need a rec

[light meadow]

It looks fantastic and the art rocks

You ever wanted to play a fantasy coded Connery era James Bond game now's your chance

The Hound art is very uh Pedro Pascal

[dense mulch]

Adding an 8th class and making it a robot is very cool

[light meadow]

The Hull?

Not new

[dense mulch]

Oh I guess there are other supplements I don't know about lol

[light meadow]

Not supplement either

From my hard copy of the original book

Hull Vampire and Ghost are all in the back of the book as sort of optional nonstandard classes

[dense mulch]

Oh I see I just never read that far lol

[light meadow]

Yeah this looks rad, easy back for me

There are new playbooks however

Some Control vibes here even

[radiant canyon]

We should make a control one shot of this system

[light meadow]

Some like Old Aperture Science going on too

[radiant canyon]

Oh portal one shot!

[light meadow]

This rules

Got a "text complete prototype" handbook

[high herald]

Gods, the artstyle is on point

[light meadow]

It so is

The whole keystone art piece is this, so you can see it is still related to Blades in the Dark

Some places they have it as "Blades 68" and others they have it as "Blades in 68". I think they've settled on the former but the latter does allude to the fact that "daylight is back, baby" according to the rulebook, so the eponymous Blades are no longer necessarily "in the Dark"

Don't want to copy paste the whole book here but this seems worth sharing as vibes text:

"A shining symbol of the promise of the future is the B.L.U.E. Array, an experimental apparatus that “tunes” Doskvol’s Bubble like a plasmovision set, providing several hours of blue skies and genuine daylight every day (along with a few hours of psychedelic colors in the sky, as the device powers up or down).
This is better than the giant glorified lightbulb that blazes over the Imperial City; this is the real deal, a real blue sky, a real sun. How it works is a matter of some conjecture. Is it focusing the shards of the sun like a magnifying glass, or is it projecting a perfect simulacrum, or is it opening a window to another place, or even another time?
These are questions for eggheads. What matters is that daylight is back, baby, and cashed-up tourists are flocking to Doskvol to soak up the rays."

[light meadow]

Hulls do appear to be a default playbook in 68

The claimed touchstones are James Bond, The Man From UNCLE, The Operative: No One Lives, The Prisoner, The Italian Job (the original), Get Carter, Ocean's Eleven (both), Le Samouraï, 1984, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, and THX 1138

Oh plus all this

On a cursory overview, they do seem to have made some improvements to the playbooks

The Leech, for example, was a weird combination of doctor/alchemist and sparkwright, and this is reflected in the advancement options which want you to do one or the other but rarely both, as that's way more advancement than you're likely to get access to. Blades 68 has made this natural divide, sticking the alchemy onto the Radical and the sparkwright onto the Intellectual

Paranormalist at first glance also appears to have a clearer vision than Whisper ever did

They got rid of Smugglers though. Not surprised, Harper always said they were the least played gang type

They look kind of rolled into Dealers (Hawkers from base BitD)

Oh no never mind, they're "Racers" now

I assumed that was supposed to be like

https://tenor.com/view/vin-diesal-nodding-gif-9964909

Racers

Cult is now "Utopians" which is an interesting angle as it specifically calls out that there are forgotten dark gods that might be preying on this kind of mentality

They've replaced "traumas" with "deadlocks" lmao

This does occupy some similar space to Deadlock

Unlike trauma, it does specifically say that deadlocks can be "resolved", so your character isn't just on a timer until you accumulate enough traumas and the character is retired

This keys and deadlocks system seems pretty cool actually

He's finally admitted that players want to plan

68 gets rid of what I think is Blades' worst mechanic

As part of the Aftermath stage in Blades, you just roll to get screwed over, and the only thing you're rolling for is how badly

Entanglements, had to go look it up

Instead, if the party is dodging Heat as a mechanic altogether, the DM can assign you a Javert to put some more pressure on

A Hank Schrader, if you will

I've always understood the need for Entanglements especially for groups that successfully do not generate a lot of Heat, and while I think this is a less elegant solution, Entanglements suck

Across the board 68 seems just a smidge less punishing. I'd have to dive into the Harm rules more but it looks like they're more forgiving than the BitD base ruleset

lmao chose the worst way to hedge that I guess

[Language] Official player advice

We're no longer hunting Dishonored demon whales for their blood, we're now running the dead through a reactor and using their soul/ghost to generate electroplasm

[light meadow]

This has some really interesting worldbuilding in it. It feels like knocking on the ideas of lower-case c cyberpunk from the urban fantasy direction, and may end up being a bit of a peek into the future of Mistborn, especially era 3

"AI exists and it is actual demons stapled to machines" is a sick idea

Spirit Wardens have transitioned into Reality Wardens. Reality seems less stable in this version of Doskvol, and they have a bit of a Netwatchy vibe but also do the "somebody died, we'll take care of it" thing from base BitD

[jade tide]

ive never seen this and its totally my jam

oh my god

Just need to get my group to remember that they liked played Blades that one time

[light meadow]

It has been up for a week

You can get the rulebook on Backerkit right now

[jade tide]

yeah i backed. to my shelf of games ill never play because my groups all love epic fantasy too much (and im bad a GM-ing)

[light meadow]

IMO Blades is a great game to cut your teeth on

For a long time (and perhaps again here with 68) it was my go-to oneshot game as well

[light meadow]

The "trouble engine" brings a lot of structure for a new GM to latch onto and the game gives a lot of narrative agency to the players, taking a good amount of the burden off the GM's shoulders

[jade tide]

i just know that one of my friends would want to play a Hull that has K2-SO vibes

[light meadow]

A handful of the suggested Hull names seemed pretty Star Wars droid for sure

Echo-5, Unit 9-K, Dot, Labor Frame 6, Hull No. 517, Series 4-A "Courier", Voidwork Loader C, Object 12, THOUGHTFORM-3, and Project: DAISY are the suggested Hull designations

[wheat moat]

Just play Triangle Agency. It's "Totally Not Control, Honest Guv"™ the RPG.

[karmic bear]

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8xN8Qct/

My pathfinder group server has a quotes channel for when someone says funny nonsense in or out of character and this was just posted in it

[shell cargo]

This is how my lancer group does session recaps (swearing)

||https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1397374905540018229/1474986679315075082/LANCER_RATING_SCALE02212026.png?ex=699c80a4&is=699b2f24&hm=94c61905f24e7f1f61ad91451c63778d09c16e115b2712f29742137877e42ad3&||

[karmic bear]

Nice

This is utter nonsense without context

[shell cargo]

Those alpacas structured me twice 😭

[karmic bear]

How????

[shell cargo]

We were down a player and she messed up the rebalancing. I essentially made the really bad choice of trying to face tank these alpacas while the rest of the team did the objective.

Turns out this was a very bad choice. The alpacas turned out to be uniquely good at countering me. Resistant to all my damage and with Shredding spit

She ended up offering me Power At A Cost to cause 4/5 of them to flee so I didn’t get structured more

They were very mean alpacas

[karmic bear]

Alpacas and llamas and other camelids are famously tetchy animals

[dense mulch]

This is the best way to recap a session lol

[fallen mango]

I see that you have a grudge against Aces

[shell cargo]

Wouldn’t you?

[fallen mango]

FragSig…

[thorn prawn]

My players: we haven't murdered any of the kings men surely this will be alright

Me: We cut to name of their favorite NPC actively murdering hundreds of their soldiers

[rare fable]

I predict that the next session will basically be this: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVIViRjDUiR/

Instagram

[karmic bear]

Pathfinder game had a meow interruption of 10 + 1 bad meow pun

The pub was immediately followed by the ragdoll’s mrow

Our group’s fuzzy mascot

[thorn prawn]

I hate my players

[sleek sluice]

What even am I looking at? 😂

[thorn prawn]

One of my players learned how to set up a anchor in a measurement and they were not emotionally mature enough for it ( they are all legally adults)

[peak cedar]

When my legally adult players discovered that functionality, they started coordinating to draw phalic shapes on the battlemat

Because drawing phalic shapes on the region and world maps using the regular draw tools apparently wasn't enough for them

[thorn prawn]

if i moved my mouse 5 cm over you would have seen one but i didn't want to post that here

[peak cedar]

[sleek sluice]

My DM almost TPK’d my party last night with a bunch of mooks with 9HP and a not very powerful and very squishy Druid.

Sometimes the dice really want to tell a story

[radiant canyon]

Do wanna play triangle agency since I played control and Alan wake 2 last month and want to play a ttrpg before may

[wheat moat]

It does look interesting...

[radiant canyon]

The art is so good in the books

[jade tide]

i have a GM who goes deep into tying the sessions into local history/folklore and its great

[radiant canyon]

I wish I can play a ttrpg but too bad I don’t have Facebook and the LGs 20 minutes away from me is a tcg only store until they build the new location

[tawny edge]

Oh that's pretty interesting/cute

I would love that

[thorn prawn]

Only two books this year that’s odd

[shell cargo]

Ahahaha

https://dndbeyond-support.wizards.com/hc/en-us/sections/46714233564564-5-5e-Change-FAQs

Right back to 5.5e

[golden flame]

What do they mean by partnered content

Like where is the pugalist class comming from and is it like an offical class now?

[radiant canyon]

Maybe other companies/creatores wanting to make dnd content for the game

[shell cargo]

Oh my god

TMNT dnd book

It’s happening again

[golden flame]

Also how does pugalist class differ from monk

[golden flame]

Dnd beyond universes beyond

[radiant canyon]

Oh god

[thorn prawn]

No it’s not universes beyond. It’s releasing 3rd party books on dnd beyond

So Taldorei teborn, kobald press, etc

Basically first party support for homebrew

[radiant canyon]

So partnered content

[thorn prawn]

Yes.

[radiant canyon]

Alr. I do wanna play a space game of dnd

https://youtu.be/7ZZEGGHWN54?si=4miCetPHp0NpE-Ge

luckily there’s a new kickstarter coming in may from the legends of avantris channel about space

[thorn prawn]

Think old timer British boxer it’s just someone’s pet project basically

[radiant canyon]

I want to get this soon

[thorn prawn]

I’m fairly certain this was just someone on the team ( most likely on the dnd beyond side that wanted the change

5.24 would have been better he perfect mix tho

Like I think they were correct to say this isn’t a .5 nor a new addition

[radiant canyon]

TAVERS: The Meow Wolf Roleplaying Game
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/exaltedfuneral/tavers-the-meow-wolf-roleplaying-game

It launched

[sleek sluice]

This looks so cute, Chaos found it https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/acheron-games/pumpkin-spice-a-magically-cozy-rpg?ref=bk-social-project

[vernal oxide]

Gods thats adorable 😭

I'm so tempted to get thaaatt

[shell cargo]

Do it

[thick whale]

do it

[shell cargo]

Sniped

[thick whale]

play it with your gf or something

[vernal oxide]

I have done it fear not

[thorn prawn]

is everyone in this place evil are we evil?

"yes"

[karmic bear]

My friend organized a Stonewalkers campaign and his wife is playing

She set her Discord profile name for the server to “#1 elend venture hater”

She called him a pre formative male. Which is…. not wrong

[thorn prawn]

dnd quote of the day "why do all your characters fake death to get out of awkward social situations is there something you want to tell us"

[thorn prawn]

sesson death toll 2 Npcs and likely 1 player

they were not on their game today

[thorn prawn]

Uhhh i want to start designing a new setting but its supper hard to find time while running a homebrew world and a module every week

[light meadow]

Three days left on the Backerkit for Blades 68

[karmic bear]

My group started a new campaign where everyone is undead and two players teamed up

One is a low ranking ghoul priestess of the goddess of I death and the other is her dimwitted professional kiss ass skeleton attendant, who talks Gilbert Godfried

[wheat moat]

For #1404497733108236318 enjoyers.
https://bsky.app/profile/rowanrookanddecard.bsky.social/post/3mgurqheyi72f

Rowan Rook and Decard (@rowanrookanddecard.bsky.social)

🚀 NEW GAME ANNOUNCEMENT!🚀

We're absolutely over the bloody moon to be making the Children of Time RPG!

Mina, Grant and Elaine have been sequestered away with author Adrian Tchaikovsky, building a new Ark to take you to the far reaches of space.

But what (or who) is waiting for you out there?

Bluesky · Mar 12, 2026, 4:05 PM

[thorn prawn]

Welp time to find out if one of my players characters dies

[thin spindle]

I mostly want to see this to know how Mina is updating the Legacy RPG

[polar roost]

Has the “book series to TTRPG pipeline” always been this prevalent or is this a recent thing?

Children of Time, Jade City, DCC, Cosmere all in a pretty short time frame I feel

[wheat moat]

Adrian's been saying for years he wants to make an RPG of his works.

[polar roost]

I mean it makes sense for sure knowing a bit about his history with TTRPGs

Also children of ruin all || Playing as a these of we or space octopus sounds quite… interesting. If it’s supported lol ||

We’re going on an adventure

[shell cargo]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1397374905540018229/1482583016231538709/LANCER_RATING_SCALE03142026.png?ex=69b77a88&is=69b62908&hm=8c17c669a11b78bf175d8ea98fc72de676ce27c860b47579429ed35f950b1a76&

New Lancer session

[junior rose]

Soooooooo what’s the Magnus Archive Character Creation/Sheet even look like?

[junior rose]

@gritty crane

[wheat moat]

A bit like this: https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/the-magnus-archives-character-portfolio/
(There's a free download option for the character sheet.)

[gritty crane]

This would be correct^^^

I haven’t actually filled mine out yet, I more or less just have notes for when I do fill it out.
-# hopefully later tonight 😅

[wheat moat]

chuckles

[gritty crane]

players be players

[wheat moat]

This is why I do char gen as part of Session 0. :P

-# It also stops people going off on concept tangents without taking the premise and group into account...

[gritty crane]

The rest of my group was doing character gen for Session 0, but I was working overtime that night, so I couldn’t be there. Im the only person in our group who has played this system thought, so my GM trusted me to build on my own. She sent me premises and concepts as they did which is partly why I haven’t actually made the sheet yet, I’m still trying to make sure I understand what the general idea of our GM’s game will be 😅

It doesn’t help that we’re playing a Magnus Archives game without the Magnus Institute. In America. At a tourist trap in Nevada.
-# it’s giving more Gravity Falls, than Magnus Archives lol

-# This is not me complaining

[junior rose]

The general notes are what you sent to the artist, right?

Then if you don’t mind, could you walk me through the TMARPG character creation process and the options you’re considering?

[gritty crane]

That’s what I sent the artist, yeah. As well as my GM.

So, the main setup for the Cypher System (the game set that the Magnus Archives is using) is instead of “Race/Class/Background” like D&D, you have “A (Adjective) (Noun) that (Verb)s.”

So your noun is what you are, your adjective is like your personality, and your verb is what you do. For example Carmen is a (Adj undecided) Elocutionist that Works the Back Alleys.

An Elocutionist is essentially TheTalker™ Carmen is an ER Nurse and this “noun” offers intelligence buffs. And in the Cypher System, that also means charisma skills. So Carmen is very good at putting people at ease, as well as aiding them medically.

Someone who Works the Back Alleys is typically a criminal of some kind. As you know, Carmen isn’t really a “criminal” she just helps them via back alley doctor visits. So she’s used to “working the back alleys” meaning she has street smarts and the know how to act like a criminal might. Lock picking, casing a building, etc.

All of these attributes then offer you a pool of talents, abilities, and expertises that relate to your character choices. So as you level up, you pick and choose new features from the lists of your Noun/Adj/Verb.

[junior rose]

Elocutionist is a word I haven’t heard in two years when I was playing a halfling bard who was essentially a priest with no God

Ironically having a crisis of faith

[junior rose]

So Carmen is a lot like Night Nurse from Marvel Comics

[junior rose]

What options are you juggling as far as adjectives go?

[gritty crane]

I don’t know who Night Nurse is, but I will trust your judgement.

[junior rose]

She stitches up daredevil and friends on the down low

[gritty crane]

Oh! Then yes, I do know her! And yes, Carmen and her would get along!

[gritty crane]

The one I think I’m gonna go with is “Caring”, which gives an Int boost and skills in healing. Which is really just what I want. There are many other fun options, but this one is pretty much just exactly what I want, so I think that’s where I’m headed. I
It’s or less just want to be sure. 😅

[gritty crane]

I think the main difference is that Carmen doesn’t stitch up Daredevil, but gang members and other individuals that Daredevil would likely pummel lol

[junior rose]

👀

You running with a bunch of criminals?

[gritty crane]

Correct!

[junior rose]

https://tenor.com/view/what-well-confused-huh-really-gif-9466573

[gritty crane]

Carmen is the kind of person to see all people as people, regardless of morality or health insurance. So if there are criminals who are needing access to triage and ER, but can’t get to said healthcare, Carmen is their girl.

She’s like a sunflower who hangs out around venus fly traps.

[junior rose]

Truly egalitarian

So are they the tourist trap or are they conned by the tourist trap? Or mix of both like a Soos situation

[gritty crane]

Carmen is the tourist trap, unfortunately. The idea is that there is a ghost town in the Middle-Of-Nowhere, Nevada, and a tourist trap (something, something Mystery Shack) runs tours there. The fun part is that there is actual spooky stuff happening there. Through one way or another that my backstory will soon explain, Carmen is indebted to the people who run this tourist trap, and she is now trying to repay them.

So she ends up working with them, and thus, the campaign can occur.

[junior rose]

Debt. The classic rpg motivation

[gritty crane]

I’m thinking that - since it’s Carmen - the debt will be more emotional than it will be monetary.

[junior rose]

Oof

That sounds more tenable considering her Caring nature

[gritty crane]

I need to actually sit down and write it all out, but I’m feeling it’s a “someone from the tourist trap is dead because of my actions (or because they sacrificed themself in my stead), and now I have to do everything in my power to make up for that lost life, even though that is something one can never truly repay”

And boom character arc

[junior rose]

Agreed

Like it could as dramatic as a medical error or miscalculation to something as simple as, unaware of the actual dangers about, person A died in the process of helping you avoid your fear

[gritty crane]

This is also a Magnus Archives game, so I need to include something spooky. So I’ll likely binge listen to a bunch of the podcast for inspo, then add that in.

[gritty crane]

I really like the idea of involving all parts of the backstory, so a little bit of medical emergency that gets complicated by CriminalElements™, which is them further escalated by TheHorror™, which then results in death.

[junior rose]

First Aid might be a good episode to relisten to then

MAG 12

[gritty crane]

Ooooooo valid points