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Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/15 13:18:07


Post by: Paradigm


Thought it was about time we had a thread like this, just a place for general discussion of DnD in all its forms. Share resources, tell us about your tabletop exploits, throw ideas around and chat about anything related to Dungeons and/or Dragons! Player or DM, newbie or veteran, all are welcome!

And since this is a good a place as any, here's a selection of useful resources for DMs and players that you may not have come across.
Spoiler:


The basics: You probably already have these, but still worth mentioning. Free core rules, character sheets and
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/character_sheets


DnD Beyond: This site/toolset is very useful for beginners, especially the character creator which can help you set up a character in minutes, useful if you're overwhelmed by the Player's Handbook or need to quickly set up for an extra player. Once you've created one, you can then manage them in an interactive format, activating spell slots, tracking HP and XP, resetting with Rests ect. It also has a rules reference section and the opportunity to buy specific race/class/archetype rules without buying the whole book which is nice. You'll need a Twitch account to access it, but that's free to set up if you don't have one.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/


Roll20 Compendium: Lots of you are probably familiar with Roll20's game-hosting functionality, but it also has a compendium of all the freely available rules, which is handy to keep open while you play in case you need to look something up without flicking through the books.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/BookIndex

DM's Guild (useful for players as well though!): This is essentially a collection of free homebrew material, from adventures to new classes, maps to whole new mechanics. Loads of it is free as well, so if you're stuck for ideas for a session or want a new experience at the table, you'll find something here ready to go.
http://www.dmsguild.com/

Kobold Fight Club: An encounter builder that lets you create and track combat encounters, handy if you're new to DMing and haven't got to the point where you can confidently balance encounters yet.
http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

Critical Role: Not so much a resource as it is just highly entertaining. Short version, voice actors playing DnD with a heavy focus on narrative and character, so if you're into the RP side of things then it'll be right up your street. And if you don't have around 400 hours spare to watch the first Campaign, they just started a new series which is currently only 5 episodes in, and there are plenty of one-shot episodes as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-p9lWIhcLQ&list=PL7atuZxmT954bCkC062rKwXTvJtcqFB8i

A couple of video series for DMs:

Geek&Sundry's DM Tips with Matt Mercer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XikjjQok5Y&list=PL7atuZxmT9570U87GhK_20NcbxM43vkom

'Running The Game' from Matt Colville:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8&list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_


Thanks to Talizvar for this extensive list of resources:
 Talizvar wrote:
I will apologize now, the list got huge but this is pretty much all I found to hit the ground running as a newbie DM.
The more experienced folk could point to better stuff I hope to improve this list.

Played D&D and the AD&D way back when.
Did the 3rd edition, gave 4th a pass.
I was "forced" into DM'ing 5th edition for a group of 6 which was a challenge.
I will say I like the detail of 5th edition and everything seems to make a degree of sense.
I picked up "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" and in our one session we got through the first 2 "Acts".

I decided to go with the Act leveling up as a crutch... I am new!
BUT this guy makes a great deal of sense on how every second level and specific levels for that matter need more time since they start getting hairy to balance and adjust to.
http://theangrygm.com/how-to-xp-good/

So I had to "crash course" for a couple weeks to get going.
Some things I would suggest:

"Baisc Rules"
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
Overall reference aside from the actual player book and DMG.
https://5etools.com/5etools.html
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#content

OrcPub is my goto for character creation:
https://www.orcpub2.com/
I had to touch-up a few things but making links to images on the net and stuff to flesh-out the sheets was a boon, it even makes out some spell cards.

Speaking of Spell cards:
Just bit the bullet and grabbed the "Spell Cards Arcane" it covers pretty much everything.
https://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13327
There are free ones on the net I am sure you can figure out.

I found what I view as a good player (or beginner DM) reference "cheat sheet":
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwCtO5aw9n2LRl9CekVsZjJUd1k
Nice production of this one too:
https://gameslaboratory.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DD-Player-Cheat-Sheet.pdf
A bit dense text but worthy as well:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Fbq7v8pucJa293M2huakphRDQ/view

I feel this is the most useful reference sheets as a DM, I had found and I laminated them:
This is the most efficient for space and ease of reference:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1141
This is fast and gets the job done:
http://swshinn.com/dnd-5e/rules-summary/
Another good alternative:
https://olddungeonmaster.com/2016/06/17/dd-5e-dm-screen-portrait-version/
For having the tablet or laptop in front of me, this one has it all:
http://ceryliae.github.io/5edmscreen/

DM general physical "tools".
http://dmdavid.com/tag/photo-guide-to-dungeon-masters-tools-2/

I have a large kitchen table (seats about 8) with a galvanized metal surface (With a "pretty" distressed wood frame around it) so I have been creative with magnets and dry erase markers.

I STRONGLY suggest allowing and awarding use of "hero points" it allows heroic moments and allows the DM to avoid some really hard decisions when you think you may have "killed" the party.
It really helped award good gameplay as well (I had to write out my rules of what the merit would be and not be accused of any favoritism).
Some notes on their use: https://d-d-5e-road-test.obsidianportal.com/wikis/hero-points

An amazing "everything" use site for the overwhelmed DM:
http://donjon.bin.sh/
Yep, took a look again and got "lost" for 15 minutes.
This site is perfect for VERY quickly making a fast and dirty adventure in under an hour (I could see 15 minutes with some screen grabs) with lots of detail.

Party tracking sheets:
https://simplednd.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/dd-5e-party-tracking-sheet/
NEVER ask for "passive perception check" again unless you want to make the players nervous intentionally.

Encounter management (on-line)
http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

I dug into much more but pretty much got what I needed with lots to spare.
Anyone have anything better to add: please let people know, I am trying VERY hard to keep my newbie DM work as painless as possible and I can focus on the narrative and less on the mechanics.
I found just getting crib sheets together and encounter tables figured out and the key NPC characters ready to play makes it go smooth.
Balancing combat with splitting parties, "forcibly" joined NPCs, "pickup" players joining or not showing up for combat and whatever else balancing act is brutal and an art form of it's own.

Many players were using their phones to keep track of their characters but found we all migrated to the some form of physical spell cards to keep in front of us.





I'll add more to that as I come across stuff, feel free to suggest any additions!

But a discussion thread needs some discussion, so to kick things off, throw some ideas at me! This weekend I'm running a one-shot that takes place amidst a siege battle, and I'm working on a few features to help immerse the players in that situation. So far, I have the following:

Command (Bonus Action)- Once per turn, a single character in the Party may spend a Bonus Action to command the troops fighting around them. They may issue the following commands:
- CHARGE! Troops rush forward, battering the enemy defences. For the remainder of this round, all Attacks made by Allies have a +1 modifier (I was considering advantage, but that might be too strong)
- HOLD! Troops rally to their leaders, pressing in close and raising shields. All allies gain the benefit of Half Cover for the remainder of the round.
- VOLLEY! Archers rain arrows from on high, immediately inflicting D10 damage to a chosen enemy.


Battle Effects Table: DM rolls a D6 at the top of each Round, applying the effect immediately.
1: No Effect
2: Enemy archers loose a volley at the combatants. Each Party Member must pass a DC14 DEX saving throw or suffer d6 Piercing Damage
3: Catapults fire on the battlefield, shaking the earth. Each Party Member must pass a DC12 CON saving throw or suffer Disadvantage on any Attacks made this round.
4: Enemies surge forward, causing one enemy combatant to immediately move to the top of the Initiative Order for this turn.
5: Allies hold the line, causing one enemy combatant to immediately drop to the bottom of the Initiative Order for this turn.
6: The enemy break ranks as the battle turns against them. Each enemy combatant must pass a DC12 WIS saving throw or suffer Disadvantage on any Attacks made this round.


Any thoughts on those? My aim is to add flavour rather than slowing things down or making them any more complicated, and to make the players feel like they have an actual impact on the course of the battle rather than just being a part of it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/15 18:37:07


Post by: Alpharius


This is a good idea!

Seems to be Edition Agnostic as well?

I've been giving 5E a hard look...

I mean, I love me some 1E AD&D, but some of the books coming out for 5E are mighty tempting.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/15 19:00:24


Post by: Paradigm


Yeah, any edition, any expansion, any version, it's all good here.

I can't personally speak for anything before 5e myself, but it certainly seems to have been designed with slickness and accessibility in mind, so if you're used to a cruncher system like the original editions or Pathfinder then it might be a bit of a shift in style for you. However, having run a few other systems over the last few months, 5e is definitely the easiest time I've had on the DM side of things, partly because there's so many resources but more because it seems the spirit of the rules is very much telling you what you can do rather than what you can't. From what I've read around it, early editions were quite prescriptive in exactly how certain things had to occur, 5e is perhaps a bit more fast and loose or pares back a lot to nice, simple resolutions that keep the game moving forward (though that's not to say it can't handle a tougher stricter style of play, I just tend to be more focused on keeping things moving rather than getting bogged down in rules).

There's certainly a ton of great material for 5e. Not just the books, but there's Unearth Arcana which is a compendium of various optional/playtest beta rules to change things up, and as mentioned above, DMs Guild has loads of 5e material. Then there's the Open Game License, which allows for various conversions such as this LotR one I definitely intend to try out at some point.
http://cubicle7.co.uk/our-games/adventures-in-middle-earth/


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/16 15:40:59


Post by: kronk


 Alpharius wrote:
This is a good idea!

Seems to be Edition Agnostic as well?

I've been giving 5E a hard look...

I mean, I love me some 1E AD&D, but some of the books coming out for 5E are mighty tempting.


I am enjoying the crap out of 5E.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/16 18:59:16


Post by: Red Harvest


Get the 3 important books. As an AD&D player, you know the titles already. Volo's Guide is worthwhile, but you can skip the Sword Coast Adventurers guide and Xanathar's guide, and all the adventure paths.

5e works well enough until ~7th+ level, then the crazy hit point totals cause the combat in the game to draaaag. 5e is missing some key stuff, still, like a decent morale system. The experience point system is sub-par -- XPTS for killing monsters only. Ugh. Too video-game like. Most of these problems can be readily house-ruled by an experienced player.

Looks like someone is trying to add a warlord-esque sub-class to his game


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/16 19:39:20


Post by: Paradigm


Hmm... the one-shot I'm running tomorrow is at 7th level with some pretty beefy monsters, might have to build in more time for combat than I'd planned!

Morale and non-combat XP are missing, I guess, but I've kind of house-ruled that without really realising it; as I'll typically run 2, maybe 3 combat encounters per session max, just going on combat XP does mean the group would level fairly slowly, but I also try and be quite liberal with dishing out extra XP. A small amount for some quality roleplay or outside the box thinking, a big dump every few sessions for achieving major objectives... It's possibly still quite video-gamey, but better than just rewarding the killing of things.

As for morale, I usually just implement it if a combat is dragging on a bit. If there's a single weak enemy left, but it's going to require another full round to finish him off, I tend to just declare that he's legging it (if appropriate), allow a couple of Attacks of Opportunity as he tries to escape and usually that does the job faster than playing out another full round. And if they do get away, great, that's a plot hook I can use later as they report to their boss who might then come back for some revenge down the line. But again, this is as someone who's only come to the game recently, so I'm probably less likely to notice an overt omission over someone who's actually seen those rules in previous versions.


Not so much a sub-class, just something to add a little flavour to the battle and make the players feel like they can make a difference without getting into complex mass battle rules or extreme abstractions... Though a command-based sub-class would be quite fun...


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/16 21:29:29


Post by: kronk


 Red Harvest wrote:
The experience point system is sub-par -- XPTS for killing monsters only. Ugh.


Our GM is doing the "You should be 4th level for the part that's coming up, so DING. Level 4, everyone."

With a good GM trying to keep things balanced, that works OK for us.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/16 22:02:26


Post by: Talizvar


I will apologize now, the list got huge but this is pretty much all I found to hit the ground running as a newbie DM.
The more experienced folk could point to better stuff I hope to improve this list.

Played D&D and the AD&D way back when.
Did the 3rd edition, gave 4th a pass.
I was "forced" into DM'ing 5th edition for a group of 6 which was a challenge.
I will say I like the detail of 5th edition and everything seems to make a degree of sense.
I picked up "Hoard of the Dragon Queen" and in our one session we got through the first 2 "Acts".

I decided to go with the Act leveling up as a crutch... I am new!
BUT this guy makes a great deal of sense on how every second level and specific levels for that matter need more time since they start getting hairy to balance and adjust to.
http://theangrygm.com/how-to-xp-good/

So I had to "crash course" for a couple weeks to get going.
Some things I would suggest:

"Baisc Rules"
http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules
Overall reference aside from the actual player book and DMG.
https://5etools.com/5etools.html
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Combat#content

OrcPub is my goto for character creation:
https://www.orcpub2.com/
I had to touch-up a few things but making links to images on the net and stuff to flesh-out the sheets was a boon, it even makes out some spell cards.

Speaking of Spell cards:
Just bit the bullet and grabbed the "Spell Cards Arcane" it covers pretty much everything.
https://www.flamesofwar.com/gf9online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13327
There are free ones on the net I am sure you can figure out.

I found what I view as a good player (or beginner DM) reference "cheat sheet":
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BwCtO5aw9n2LRl9CekVsZjJUd1k
Nice production of this one too:
https://gameslaboratory.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/DD-Player-Cheat-Sheet.pdf
A bit dense text but worthy as well:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Fbq7v8pucJa293M2huakphRDQ/view

I feel this is the most useful reference sheets as a DM, I had found and I laminated them:
This is the most efficient for space and ease of reference:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/rpgdownloads.php?do=download&downloadid=1141
This is fast and gets the job done:
http://swshinn.com/dnd-5e/rules-summary/
Another good alternative:
https://olddungeonmaster.com/2016/06/17/dd-5e-dm-screen-portrait-version/
For having the tablet or laptop in front of me, this one has it all:
http://ceryliae.github.io/5edmscreen/

DM general physical "tools".
http://dmdavid.com/tag/photo-guide-to-dungeon-masters-tools-2/

I have a large kitchen table (seats about 8) with a galvanized metal surface (With a "pretty" distressed wood frame around it) so I have been creative with magnets and dry erase markers.

I STRONGLY suggest allowing and awarding use of "hero points" it allows heroic moments and allows the DM to avoid some really hard decisions when you think you may have "killed" the party.
It really helped award good gameplay as well (I had to write out my rules of what the merit would be and not be accused of any favoritism).
Some notes on their use: https://d-d-5e-road-test.obsidianportal.com/wikis/hero-points

An amazing "everything" use site for the overwhelmed DM:
http://donjon.bin.sh/
Yep, took a look again and got "lost" for 15 minutes.
This site is perfect for VERY quickly making a fast and dirty adventure in under an hour (I could see 15 minutes with some screen grabs) with lots of detail.

Party tracking sheets:
https://simplednd.wordpress.com/2016/05/24/dd-5e-party-tracking-sheet/
NEVER ask for "passive perception check" again unless you want to make the players nervous intentionally.

Encounter management (on-line)
http://kobold.club/fight/#/encounter-builder

I dug into much more but pretty much got what I needed with lots to spare.
Anyone have anything better to add: please let people know, I am trying VERY hard to keep my newbie DM work as painless as possible and I can focus on the narrative and less on the mechanics.
I found just getting crib sheets together and encounter tables figured out and the key NPC characters ready to play makes it go smooth.
Balancing combat with splitting parties, "forcibly" joined NPCs, "pickup" players joining or not showing up for combat and whatever else balancing act is brutal and an art form of it's own.

Many players were using their phones to keep track of their characters but found we all migrated to the some form of physical spell cards to keep in front of us.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/16 22:41:33


Post by: Paradigm


That's a great list of stuff, I'm just going to throw it all in the OP for now and take a good look though some of it tomorrow!

Another tool I'd recommend to all DMs is Microsoft Onenote. As someone who mostly runs games online, my laptop is my DM screen, and Onenote is the best way I've found to manage a game. If you have Windows 10 you probably have the software already, if not I believe you can get it free anyway. As it allows you to have multiple 'Sheets' contained within one 'Notebook' (and pages within those should you wish) you can have a wealth of information accessible from a single screen without ever needing to switch windows or have multiple tabs open. There's also no limit to page size, so you can plan and manage weeks worth of sessions on a single page.

I usually go with a structure like this:

Sheets:
Reference- Here's where I keep what you'd normally have on a DM screen. List of skills, reference tables, basic mechanics, that sort of stuff.

Character sheets- Self Explanatory. If I'm running more than one group or story, I'll put each set on a separate page to prevent confusion.

Equipment- Arguably could go in Reference, but I like having it as its own sheet. List of all weapon stats, gear use/hire costs, non-combat tool descriptions ect.

Bestiary- Organised into categories (large, small, human, construct, undead ect), I take screenshots from the MM of any monsters I plan to use and dump them here. Then, I convert those into smaller 'cards' which I can copy over to the gameplay sheet and edit on the fly to track health, initiative ect.

Campaign- Used to track everything in game. First page has campaign background, world lore, character histories ect. Then there's a page for each Chapter which I'll use to plan the session, run it, and refer back to when writing up the summaries for the players. I then keep another tab for one-shots and other smaller adventures, that way I can refer back to them if I ever want to run the same game again with different players, but they don't get in the way of the campaign tracking.


It takes a while to learn the ins and outs, but if you're able to have a laptop handy while playing, I find it a really neat way to run things, adapt them on the fly and keep everything in one place rather than having eleventy billion sheets of paper or word docs.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/17 21:29:11


Post by: Paradigm


Well today's game was mental... Not sure what the odds are on 2 7th Level players taking out a CR15/10k XP Warrior Vampire (an encounter that's considered Deadly to 5 PCs at that level!), but I'm going to guess they're pretty long!

Oh well, it was rather epic throughout and as the one-shot was a prequel/prologue to our main game, gives me plenty to work with for future sessions. All in all, rather successful.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/18 08:18:35


Post by: Manchu


 Alpharius wrote:
I mean, I love me some 1E AD&D, but some of the books coming out for 5E are mighty tempting.
TBH I don't see much to really recommend 5E over 1E for someone who already has a great 1E collection and is well-versed in 1E. The best stuff in the new books is all rules neutral so nothing to stop you from buying em and using content for 1E gaming.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/18 09:52:22


Post by: Syro_


I'm glad I found this thread, I'm usually only in the P&M blog section. I haven't played since AD&D and 2nd ed. time frame, I've been playing other RPGs and of course wargames. Some of my friends have been showing some interest in D&D of late, so I bought myself the 5E starter "Lost Mines of Phandelver". I'd personally like to have minis to represent everything you can encounter in this, so I have a lot of work ahead of me

Along with Critical Role which was mentioned above, I also like to watch two other streamed D&D games on youtube while I paint and craft. They are "Team Four Star: at the table" and "Dungeons and Cosmonauts". I think they would be worth checking out.

I'm impressed with the resources shared on here, thanks. I'll need to find the source again for some really nice paper pawns I found about a month ago to share here.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/18 18:50:28


Post by: Red Harvest


 Manchu wrote:
 Alpharius wrote:
I mean, I love me some 1E AD&D, but some of the books coming out for 5E are mighty tempting.
TBH I don't see much to really recommend 5E over 1E for someone who already has a great 1E collection and is well-versed in 1E. The best stuff in the new books is all rules neutral so nothing to stop you from buying em and using content for 1E gaming.
Accessibility. Bringing in new players, and bringing back old players who do not want to deal with the AD&D cruft. An AD&D veteran can use the 5e framework and add in AD&D stuff (like the morale system and a few other bits) far easier than adding 5e stuff to AD&D. There is quite a bit about AD&D that is just clunky, and poorly implemented. Initiative system anyone?

I enjoyed AD&D when it released (well, when the PHB did.) but I would not play it nowadays.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/18 19:16:23


Post by: Manchu


AD&D is from a time when RPGs weren't just played "out of the box" like board games. Rather, good DMs used the rules as a basis for guiding how they made calls while running the session. Someone like Alpharius, who has a lot of experience with 1E, already knows how to make rulings as opposed to just applying mechanics out of a ruleset. Changing to 5E won't make his sessions less "clunky" because they aren't clunky to begin with.

If 'accessibility' really means, can I go to the store and buy a new copy of the book? then yes 5E is more accessible. But players in a 1E game don't need any books. They don't need to know any rules. Alpharius already has whatever he needs to run 1E sessions, bookwise. If 'accessibility' means, can people easily understand the game? then 5E has no benefits over 1E generally and certainly not for a 1E vet like Alpharius.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/18 20:00:06


Post by: Red Harvest


Thanks for the "manchu"-splanation I was a DM at that time, and a little bit before too (OD&D times). Apparently I knew nothing.

AD&D was intended for tournament play, so it was very much meant to be played 'out of the box'. It was not meant to be used with lots of DM rulings. Gygax railed against that sort of thing, something about not playing AD&D anymore, IIRC. Nobody paid him any attention.

Accessibility means easy to learn, and to find people to play with. AD&D is not easy to learn (grappling rules anyone?), unless one already has a wargaming background, and good luck finding new players. It is an anachronism.

What you've described -- "But players in a 1E game don't need any books. They don't need to know any rules"-- is the OD&D of the 3LBBs and the supplements. Players needed nothing but pencil, paper and imagination. And a good DM. 5e is easily brought closer to that than AD&D.




Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/19 00:15:39


Post by: Manchu


 Red Harvest wrote:
Apparently I knew nothing.
Why stop at past tense?

AD&D is self-evidently a toolkit. People who got to wanting a unified system out-of-the-box went hunting elsewhere. People who didn't kept playing their versions of AD&D. By all means, ask Alpharius which category he falls into.

If you are looking to join an IRL game as a player then yeah it is probably easier to find a 5E game. But if you're gonna DM then why not DM whatever you know best (i.e., the ruleset least likely to intrude on the gameplay)? Players in a 1E game need not know any more rules than players in a 5E game (assuming you choose to run 5E in the 1E/Basic rather than 3E/4E style).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 02:21:46


Post by: Red Harvest


 Manchu wrote:
...Players in a 1E game need not know any more rules than players in a 5E game (assuming you choose to run 5E in the 1E/Basic rather than 3E/4E style).
Oh dear no. Not true at all. I've seen this movie. It does not have a happy ending. I wonder if you have even played AD&D, and not that abomination called 2e AD&D either. Players do need to know the rules. The basic sets were for learners.

 Manchu wrote:
AD&D is self-evidently a toolkit. People who got to wanting a unified system out-of-the-box went hunting elsewhere. People who didn't kept playing their versions of AD&D.
In 1979, when AD&D completed with the release of the DMG, there was nowhere else to hunt. Tunnels & Trolls? Runequest? ha-ha! Pull the other one. AD&D was the only thing that was supposedly unified. Unless you wanted Sci-Fi. Then there was the monstrosity that was Traveller. Gamma World was fun but limited.

Your opinions are very much at odds with my experiences. A hard argument for you to win. One last answer. DMing the same stuff for decades can get dull, tedious, etc. So try a new system that is familiar enough to learn quickly and will be fun for years to come.

So back to 5e. The not moribund version of the game. The only warning is the Adventure League play. I do not hear good things about that. Too much cultural warring going on to just focus on the play.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 03:10:08


Post by: Manchu


 Red Harvest wrote:
I wonder if you have even played AD&D
People who do not like [some edition of a game] ALWAYS end up saying this to people who do like [that edition].

I'm not interested in edition wars. 5E is fine and 1E is fine, too. The only reason for someone who loves running 1E to flip over to 5E is they want to run a 5E module without doing any conversion work. I get that you don't like 1E and don't want to bother with 1E. That's clearly why you gave it up for editions with a unified system. Nothing wrong with that. But my comments are addressed to someone who actually loves 1E.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 05:44:45


Post by: Talizvar


Sticking my toe into the "version wars".
I have fond memories of AD&D, my best fun was playing "Against the Giants" module which oddly enough is reincarnated in 5th edition.
I had the added perspective of playing "Rolemaster" or "Rulesmaster" to some, made D&D in general seem highly accessable in comparison.
The damage charts we tended to use for "fun" in AD&D for natural 20 results.

Anyway, I see elements in 5th edition which has some lessons learned in it.
I was a huge fan of "James Bond" with it's "hero points" so it was nice to see included in 5th.
I still have all my books from 3rd edition as well, it was pretty good and see no issue with continuing on with it as well.
I heard and saw a bit of 4th and... it was not for me, it really depends on the person I guess.

I look at the latest edition similar like any game system I play that gets an update: new industry "standards" that come up and work are worth incorporating in.
Just like with our lively GW/40k discussions, the latest and greatest is the easiest to find players for typically and sees FLGS support more-so than a "dead" prior version.
As I had listed, the support for this version is fabulous and seems easier to go the way the wind blows so to speak.

I very much agree that yes, play what makes you happy!
I find 5th so much more accessable than trying to explain Thac0 or other fun stuff of that nature so teaching my kids and their friends (and their parents!) so much simpler than past rules.
The ideas no matter what version is ALL GOOD.
I am just happy that with D&D I have my kids reading the original Conan books, the Drizzt novels, Dragonlance and even "The Witcher" novel I have: they have found this land of adventure where anything can happen yet it has a known "physics".

Heck, anyone who can point me to a "Pool of Radiance" module I would be in their debt (the original IS out there somewhere).
Fond memories those goldbox games of old by SSI.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 06:04:27


Post by: Manchu


Are you talking about the Ruins of Adventure module? It's on DriveThru but original copies go fro reasonable prices.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 14:55:54


Post by: jmurph


Meh, this is a pretty tame edition war. It seems like a lot of OD&D fans actually like 5th ed. I don't have a dog in the fight as I am no longer of fan of D&D's choppy mechanics, but even I have to acknowledge that 5th cleaned up a lot of cruft. D&D was a clunky system that worked because of the work of DMs willing to hack it and the fact that most other systems were either obscure, derivative of D&D or even more unplayable. Streamlining things like saves and advancement and bringing in consistent mechanics is a clear improvement. And it only took 40+ years!

I think alot of the OSR is really about bringing together the old style of play (randomized encounters, asymmetric encounters, exploration, etc. v. neatly balanced story/linear) buy with the more modern improvements on mechanics. By way of analogy, a new sports car is generally betther tech than it's 1970 version. But the 70s one started it all and a dedicated owner may have migrated it to modern tech with alot of customization over time. Other just want to lovingly restore the original, even if it lacks the modern benefits. All valid and all can produce an enjoyable experience.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 15:07:24


Post by: Manchu


5E is WotC's attempt to un-screw itself. The fallout over 4E came in two major categories of OGL-based brand defection: dedicated 3E players lining up to buy Pathfinder products and 3E-skeptics jumping on the OSR. So 5E was designed to bring both kinds of customers back into the fold. It helps that both post-4E "movements" were starting to get burnt out when 5E finally debuted.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 15:14:44


Post by: SlaveToDorkness


What's OSR?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 16:03:40


Post by: Manchu


Old School Renaissance - generally speaking, players who wanted to focus more on narrative and less on mechanics.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 16:31:21


Post by: Alpharius


 Manchu wrote:
 Red Harvest wrote:
I wonder if you have even played AD&D
People who do not like [some edition of a game] ALWAYS end up saying this to people who do like [that edition].

I'm not interested in edition wars. 5E is fine and 1E is fine, too. The only reason for someone who loves running 1E to flip over to 5E is they want to run a 5E module without doing any conversion work. I get that you don't like 1E and don't want to bother with 1E. That's clearly why you gave it up for editions with a unified system. Nothing wrong with that. But my comments are addressed to someone who actually loves 1E.


 Manchu wrote:
Old School Renaissance - generally speaking, players who wanted to focus more on narrative and less on mechanics.


I think I've got the answer I was looking for!

I'll just pick up the books that look interesting to me (Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes and maybe Volo's Guide to Monsters) and go from there.

For my gaming group, they just want to play "D&D" and don't really know or care much about editions and such. And since I'm going to be the DM, 1E offers me just about everything I need to tell the story they want to participate in.

For the record, initiative never really bothered me too much, but I'm sure I'm using a slightly different version of it that anyone else, as everyone else was/is!

On top of all that, I've got a somewhat expensive 'hobby' of buying lots of RPG books just to read and enjoy, knowing that I'll almost never actually play a game with them!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 18:58:22


Post by: Red Harvest


Get Volo's first. It is the nicest of the two that you mentioned which are available. I found Xanathar's to be disappointing. I'd recommend the Players Handbook too. Or is it Player's Handbook this time

Nobody played initiative 'right' IME. Don't worry about it. I think people are still squabbling over it. If you poke around, you'll find that the mechanics for 5e are really easy. ( and dumbed down in a few cases like, yes, initiative.) This makes focus on the play, rather than the 'crunch' or w/e that is, very easy. And not referencing charsts all the time is a convenience.

 Manchu wrote:
 Red Harvest wrote:
I wonder if you have even played AD&D
People who do not like [some edition of a game] ALWAYS end up saying this to people who do like [that edition].

I'm not interested in edition wars. 5E is fine and 1E is fine, too. The only reason for someone who loves running 1E to flip over to 5E is they want to run a 5E module without doing any conversion work. I get that you don't like 1E and don't want to bother with 1E. That's clearly why you gave it up for editions with a unified system. Nothing wrong with that. But my comments are addressed to someone who actually loves 1E.
Eh? This has nothing to do with edition warring. Your statements are those of someone with little familiarity with AD&D. I enjoyed AD&D for many, many years, right from its start. But it is a museum piece at this point. Semi-seriously http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/news/toy-hall-fame. RPGs have come a long way since 1979. (And even farther since 1974)


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 19:17:48


Post by: Paradigm


Yeah, there's some good stuff in Volo's. Lots of fun monsters types and quite a bit to expand the likes of Gnolls, Goblins, Kobolds ect so that when you use those guys, it's not necessarily just the usual suspects of 'regular dude, boss dude and mage dude'.


Speaking of monsters (and moving back towards talking about the actual game, rather than editions of the game! ), how do you guys employ random encounters, if at all? I'm in two minds on them at the moment, on one hand they're a decent way to make the world feel a bit more alive, organic and dangerous but on the other hand, I'm not sure my players (or myself, to be honest) would be happy with combat that's not in service to moving a storyline along, be that a personal story, a 'side quest' or the main plot of the campaign. I see that there's still stuff to learn from them about the world (just by dint of what you encounter, you can piece together a picture of the world you're adventuring in), but I'm not sure that'd be enough to satisfy my players and it might just seem to them like I'm stalling while I figure out a 'proper' set of encounters.

Of course, there is a compromise to be had whereby I build a plot around a random encounter after the fact (for example, a random encounter with a Wyvern lair around which I concoct a plot featuring an unhatched egg the party find there after defeating the mother) but then, is that really random? If I want that plot, why not just build that encounter in the first place rather than leaving it to chance? I think it comes down to the difference between a setting and a story; in a setting, those Trolls are going to try and eat you because that's what they do, in a story they're going to try and eat you so that you can go to their cave and find some magic Elven swords...

So, anyone want to make the case for purely random encounters (tables and all) that don't explicitly lead towards a narrative?



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 20:02:56


Post by: Manchu


Yes, narrative arises out of random events.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 20:34:58


Post by: Paradigm


You see, I get that in principle, but it's a matter of degree. How random is random? For instance, I just plugged some numbers for my party into a Random Encounter Generator and got the following:

1 Goblin Boss
2 Wolves
2 Goblins.

Now, with that, I could...

A) Roll this randomly at the table, and as the fight plays out, come up with a narrative to follow it up. Maybe a map on the goblin boss to an undiscovered location, or something off about the wolves that bears further investigation. This relies on me being able to improv rapidly while also running combat, and means I don't have any maps/stat blocks/notes prepared for whatever other encounters this needs to.

B) Roll this randomly at the table, and run the combat. Nothing comes of it. The goblins attacked the party because it's a band of goblins coming across a group of travellers in the wild, taking their chance and launching an ambush. It's just what they do. This is the most authentic option, and the most truly random one, but perhaps the least interesting.

C) Roll this randomly ahead of time. Make some notes on where the encounter is going to lead should the players choose to investigate further. Prepare future encounters based on that outcome. But at this point, why did I bother rolling randomly in the first place? It's the way that leads to the most coherent and interesting story, and one that I can thoroughly prepare, but any element of randomness is pointless, and I might as well just design it as a bespoke encounter and narrative path like I would anything else.


Ok, I'm playing Devil's Advocate here a bit, there are probably a dozen interpretations in between those three. But at the moment, basically, I need to be convinced that randomness actually adds anything (more specifically, adds something my players will actually want and respond to) that just creating specific sets of encounters wouldn't, and that it's not just creating more work for me at the table for little or no narrative return for myself or the players. I'm fully open to the idea if someone can convince me why I should use it, but at the moment I'm just not seeing what advantage a random element adds over a bespoke encounter that I can seed, plan and be fully prepared for, given that my players (and myself) aren't likely to enjoy a combat that happens 'because that's what [insert random monsters] would be doing' and builds the world but doesn't advance the story, even if it's more 'realistic'.





Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 20:39:57


Post by: Alpharius


"Random encounters" are quite important - and quite often aren't all that "Random" either!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 20:55:01


Post by: Manchu


Improvisation is a basic skill of DMing so it can hardly be an objection to random encounters.

I think you are starting from the notion that "the story" is something that preexists the actual play session. In my experience, this is asking for disappointment (leading to the classic addage that no DM plan survives encounter with the players).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:06:54


Post by: Alpharius


Ha!

Exactly right!

Is this not something that the 'modern' DM has in his skillset?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:11:11


Post by: Red Harvest


No. Ever since the crap the Hickman's churned out, there is too much story-based adventuring -- read 'railroading'-- where characters are just roles in someone else's story. DMs are expected to poke and prod the players along towards the denouement. See every Pathfinder adventure path, ever. IIRC, The old Dungeon Magazine used to include those terrible things.

Wandering Monsters are always a must have. And so what if they are not "level appropriate" challenges. Players ought to know when to run away...
...which is most of the time in a game about resource management.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:19:50


Post by: Paradigm


You make fair points, I accept that improvisation will always be required. But I do generally like to have a (very loose) plan and improv from there rather than start with nothing more than random rolls. I'll have certain scenes, enemies, lines of dialogue ect in mind before the session starts even though I fully expect to have to adapt based on the players' actions. Even just having the stat blocks for an encounter ready in a document rather than waiting for the players to start a fight before prepping those, or a few notes on what events a certain conversation or action might lead to down the line. It's inevitable that any 'plan' I have is going to become something vastly different, but I'd still rather have something to deviate from rather than making it all up on the fly.

To be honest, I do think the story does exist in some form that exists before a session. Not the outcomes, but just from their actions and choices and backstory they've provided, I know what my players are working towards, what they want to achieve and what obstacles it would be appropriate to put on their path towards that. If they end a session approaching a town, I think it's only appropriate that between then and the next session, I prepare several encounters within that town, set up a few quests they might want to go on, have certain NPCs in place they might conflict or cooperate with. I believe it's my obligation as a DM to provide them a narrative experience that they can work through and engage with, and one that is a direct product of the choices they've made in previous session, rather than just sitting there passively and breaking out the monsters when they decide to get into a fight or doing a voice when they decide to talk to someone.

Maybe this is just coming at it from a video game background, but I essentially think it's the DM's job to create a world for the players to play in, and this means you have to have certain things in place. A narrative arc, ideas for events the players can choose to involve themselves in (or not), characters they might interact with, stories that they can become a part of. Even the most sandboxy of RPG video games, something like Skyrim, still provide stories that the player can choose to engage with. Though perhaps something like The Witcher 3 would be a better illustration of the way I look at things; the start point of a quest or storyline is a pre-arranged, the end of it more often than not comes about as a result of choices made by the player. The difference being that where a quest in TW3 has 3, maybe 4 endings, a storyline in my DnD game can have infinite variable outcomes limited only by the players.

Which brings me back to my aversion to true randomness. I can roll an encounter with a group of bandits, and while that plays out I can think up a story that will result from that, OR I can plan that in advance, set to be triggered if the players make certain choices, and still have a story that's going to result from it, but one that's more thorough, more coherent. I can link it in to a character's backstory, or a piece of world lore, or use it to set up events that can occur later. The former option sees me making things up on the fly, jumping from one thing to the next, the latter me a framework to act within that I feel will ultimately create a more rewarding experience for my players, which is the point of being a DM to my mind.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Red Harvest wrote:
No. Ever since the crap the Hickman's churned out, there is too much story-based adventuring -- read 'railroading'-- where characters are just roles in someone else's story. DMs are expected to poke and prod the players along towards the denouement. See every Pathfinder adventure path, ever. IIRC, The old Dungeon Magazine used to include those terrible things.

Wandering Monsters are always a must have. And so what if they are not "level appropriate" challenges. Players ought to know when to run away...
...which is most of the time in a game about resource management.



I'd say my players aren't roles in 'my' story, but that I do have a duty to provide them a story (or stories) to take part in. What is the point in them handing me pages of backstory for their character if I'm not going to set up an arc, triggered by the actions they take in game, that continues those plot threads? What is the point in them deciding 'I want to do this thing' if I don't prepare a fitting narrative that allows that thing to happen?

For the record, my current campaign is entirely freeform. Not based on a pre-written adventure and using a homebrew setting within the multiverse with its own nations, politics, cultures ect. Once our first 'meet the party' arc wraps up this week, the players will be entirely free to choose what direction they want to go in. But once they've picked a direction, I'd argue that it's my role as the facilitator to reward them for that choice with a story to engage with, given that my group is very much RP over G.

For instance, they're currently at the border between several nations, each with its own characteristics. If they decide to hop into one nation or another, I will then go and plan some plots or stories that suit that area, that reflect the characters and the backstory the players have given me. For instance, one of these nations has a civil war going on. If they decide to go there, I'll plan some events around that war for them to be caught up in, then perhaps link that into one of their backstories by having an old friend of one of the characters appear on the other side to the one they choose. This prompts drama, it fuels narrative, and for us, that's what the game's about.

Wandering monsters is all well and good, but for a group who treat combat as an excuse to do some cool things with their characters rather than as a tactical exercise, it doesn't really gain them anything, and thus I've not done the job they want me to do. This can be offset by having some narrative result from that encounter, but that narrative is going to be stronger if at least the beginning of it is prepared ahead of time rather than pulled out my arse as the fight unfolds.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:33:08


Post by: Alpharius


"True" randomness isn't ever something that 'has' to happen though - unless newer editions (5E included?) somehow tried to say that it...was?

I don't think that's a 'rule' they'd ever go for - ultimately they always seem to say that the 'DM Knows Best' or some variation thereof?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:41:13


Post by: Red Harvest


Wandering Monsters present opportunities to role play. Not all monsters 'attack on sight'. Or should. That's video game thinking.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:41:27


Post by: Manchu


As a DM, I like to go into each session with two things only:

- quick review of my notes on what happened previously

- one vivd image

The vivid image isn't a preconstructed plot point. It's just an arresting item of sensory perception - like walls oozing slime or a distant tuning-fork like hum, etc etc etc. It can be something a bit more self-coherent, too: thick mist rolling through grape vine trellises.

I use the image as inspiration during the session when the players seem to hit a lull. It's like having a "and then something happens" without preparing anything too specific, so it won't contradict whatever the players are interested in exploring.

I always let the players' interest guide the play sessions, so one vivid image is just there to give them another thing to be interested in. Sometimes it turns out to be a plot twist, for example.

NOTE: I also do not accept character back stories before the session. This is a trap for players. Players come up with a character and then get disappointed when what they play isn't like that. Character, like everything else in roleplaying, comes out of the play itself. I find players are more interested in their characters if they get to "discover" rather than just create at the outset.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:43:34


Post by: Paradigm


 Alpharius wrote:
"True" randomness isn't ever something that 'has' to happen though - unless newer editions (5E included?) somehow tried to say that it...was?

I don't think that's a 'rule' they'd ever go for - ultimately they always seem to say that the 'DM Knows Best' or some variation thereof?


No, it's not a rule as such, I'm just aware it's a tool there for the DM to use and wanted to discuss the potential applications of it; at a glance, it didn't seem of any use to the kind of game I'm running but I wondered if there was something I was missing out on by not using it, or whether I might as well just leave it to one side and focus on in-game 'random' rather than actual random (ie. events that occur without being a result of the player actions, and thus appear 'random' to the players from a narrative standpoint, but ones that as a DM I have fully prepared to spring on them at the right moment).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:45:34


Post by: Red Harvest


 Alpharius wrote:
"True" randomness isn't ever something that 'has' to happen though - unless newer editions (5E included?) somehow tried to say that it...was?

I don't think that's a 'rule' they'd ever go for - ultimately they always seem to say that the 'DM Knows Best' or some variation thereof?
5e doesn't. It does allow for wandering monsters. Even the Starter box module, Lost Mines of Phandelver has some. It still has the silly Challenge Rating system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Paradigm wrote:
thus appear 'random' to the players from a narrative standpoint, but ones that as a DM I have fully prepared to spring on them at the right moment).
Beware the Quantum Ogre.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 21:51:03


Post by: Paradigm


 Red Harvest wrote:
Wandering Monsters present opportunities to role play. Not all monsters 'attack on sight'. Or should. That's video game thinking.



True, but I'd argue the potential of that might be fairly limited with the kind of players I have, basically coming down to either 'something seems interesting about that, let's get involved' (which is more likely to occur if I've deliberately created an interesting encounter) or 'that's a big -off monster, we're not getting involved' (in which case I've basically 'wasted' the players' time with an event that didn't go anywhere). They're far more likely to respond to, say, an NPC recognising them, or walking in on an argument between two characters (which I'd typically like to at least partly prepare beforehand) or finding a person or creature in unusual circumstances that prompt them to investigate further.

And in any case, it's the random element that I'm not seeing the point of. I can see how good RP would result from coming across something unexpected, but I think I'd get better result having pre-arranged that than I would just creating something on the spot as I can think more about the consequences, the potential outcomes, how to make it something they'll take an interest in, ect.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Manchu wrote:
As a DM, I like to go into each session with two things only:

- quick review of my notes on what happened previously

- one vivd image

The vivid image isn't a preconstructed plot point. It's just an arresting item of sensory perception - like walls oozing slime or a distant tuning-fork like hum, etc etc etc. It can be something a bit more self-coherent, too: thick mist rolling through grape vine trellises.

I use the image as inspiration during the session when the players seem to hit a lull. It's like having a "and then something happens" without preparing anything too specific, so it won't contradict whatever the players are interested in exploring.

I always let the players' interest guide the play sessions, so one vivid image is just there to give them another thing to be interested in. Sometimes it turns out to be a plot twist, for example.

NOTE: I also do not accept character back stories before the session. This is a trap for players. Players come up with a character and then get disappointed when what they play isn't like that. Character, like everything else in roleplaying, comes out of the play itself. I find players are more interested in their characters if they get to "discover" rather than just create at the outset.


I think possibly you and I just take very different approaches to the game. Take the character backstory thing, that's something I usually insist on as I find it incredibly useful for planning both long and short term. While the long-term goal is that a combination of party dynamics and world events are enough to keep the players hooked, I like having backstory to drawn on to keep them interested in the early stages. Lost relatives, mysterious lineages, unusual lifestyles, that's all fuel I can use to engage them, and I find it also helps them get into their character's headspace better if we've discussed details of their backstory and how they fit into the world. They're far more likely to talk to a character if that character recognises one of them, or belongs to a group they have connections with ect.

Perhaps my players just aren't the most proactive (at least half the group are very new to RPGs), so I kind of need to have plenty of potential plot hooks to keep them moving on, otherwise it'd take them an hour to get out of the tavern they were staying in, and I'd probably have to declare it was burning down around them to prompt that! But I don't see that as a problem, they're here to be part of a story and I'm happy to provide that as storytelling has always been a passion of mine.




By the way, this discussion is fascinating! I know I might be being a bit contrarian, but it is really interesting to see how my approach differs from others. Keep it coming!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 22:09:00


Post by: Red Harvest


..".That's a big -off monster, we're not getting involved' (in which case I've basically 'wasted' the players' time with an event that didn't go anywhere)."

...Go anywhere that they are aware of... yet. It's the DMs choice to follow up on things like that. Sometimes it's just nice to know that there is a big monster in the area. For future reference. Presenting players with choices is never a waste of time, theirs or the DM's.

No DM can think of everything. Let the dice do some 'thinking' for you sometime. Don't try to control everything. It's too stressful.

No worries about contrarian. Nobody is saying that you're doing it wrong. Or implying that. It's a different style of play.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/20 23:07:29


Post by: Talizvar


Random events... or a means of "controlled chaos"?

1) I like to make selected / planned encounter tables, each may have some plot line or item to plant in front of the players. (They may or may not bite on it).
1a) They need to make sense according to the environment.

2) I like to use some of the tools I found of populating an "open world" within certain confines of an area that is reasonable unless they figure out a way to fly or shift planes.... (universe, not winged aircraft...).

3) Cities, towns, villages, ruins, dungeons, camps.... there are enough robust tools for making these VERY fast with a bit of tweaking.

4) Some means of advancing the party's notoriety which can increase some perk or event I would like to drop on them (and also seem to have a logical reason for it).

If the players seem to be getting into it a bit, best not to interrupt... I have had the oddest and some of the best role-play with the players ready to camp and slipping into character "off-time".
An encounter interruption of a minor sort sees a great deal of FURY on the poor creatures that dare interrupt (and I have to point out they were getting loud enough to be heard for miles...).

The players very much write their saga, I am finding as a DM I only have to prepare the book/canvas and flesh-out the responses to their actions.
I find if I have a "stable" of stuff I can draw from (named NPC's, wandering bands of critters, the local militia, Hunters and trappers... opportunities for trade or information of local areas... maybe point them to a shrine or ruin?).
Some NPCs become a well liked "hangers-on" for the party and have had a couple used to fetch and carry (for a price) and generally make role-play have more to it than killing and collecting stuff.

Really got my players latching onto the idea that the DM is not an opponent: he is there to help you write your story, presenting rainbows and fluffy clouds and candy will make for a different kind of game.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/21 01:25:35


Post by: Syro_


Nice Talizvar, it's great that you've gotten your players realizing you're not their opponent. Do you have any past examples of advancing the party's notoriety increasing a perk or event? That sounds very interesting


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/21 03:50:32


Post by: Talizvar


 Syro_ wrote:
Nice Talizvar, it's great that you've gotten your players realizing you're not their opponent. Do you have any past examples of advancing the party's notoriety increasing a perk or event? That sounds very interesting
Usually a way to try to make them "play nice" with the population I look at any witnesses to their exploits (that survive) or even enemies that escape that fill a pool of points till certain thresholds are met (talk about them in bars, to friends... they ARE small towns).

Again, I am starting a bit new with this edition but:
10-Free round at the tavern and a tip for "good" work for a group as well as a night stay..
20-Merchant found the area easier to travel largely due to them (reduced cost like 20%).
30-Local bigwig wants to help "sponsor" their efforts (give travel supply and horse/pony to help carry), but would like to check out something for him...
40-A local Paladin comes by to look at the party to understand what the fuss is all about while he is his way to deal with a quest... ("No, no, no, you will only get in the way...")
50-Intelligent critter/pet seeks them out and becomes a beneficial "hanger's on" (sometimes the party kills it out of stupidity despite best efforts). Usually a separate chart for what it is... damn folk killed the Fairy Dragon... it meant well (best roll ever!).
60-Local cult/gang tries to shake them down and is woefully unprepared but have good stuff on them after shaking down others.
etc...
This would be from the "good" tree while the "bad" would have it's counterpart:
10-Tavern brawl "We dont like you folk around here..." (great chance to loot some money)
20-Local merchants only let you speak to their hired body guards. BUT some local ruffians have some stuff to sell for a price or a favor.
30- Local bigwig has something a bit shady that needs being done BUt cross him and it will be... very bad.
40-Paladin tells you to tow the line or he will "deal with you" after his quest is done (maybe he needs some "help" with it... hehe)
50-Some critter that got it's mate killed by the party starts messing with them.
60-Local cult/gang is rather insistant on you joining their merry group... maybe an evening visit is in order.

OH! almost forgot, have the odd encounter where the "enemy" takes one look at them and runs... funny as heck the first time you do it... not to be repeated much.

I believe everything should reward and offer a carrot for some prepared adventure (rails with junctions?).
You do not have to have a cast in stone point system, it could just be a logical point in the story to the next level of escalation.

The DM guide itself can let you hand craft stuff, I am a bit of an ace with Excel so I am tempted to make some tables with some "=Rand()" statements.

Best story crutch I every had played: having the DM make for you your "nemesis".
My Thief started to get mental issues when it came to a certain Paladin (me: lawful evil), "You hear, chink, chink, chink.." GAH!!! He found me!!! RUN!"

Most creative split class ever: The character had a split personality. Needed two different character sheets. (same physical stats but mental stats were much different).
DM allowed it as well as it was played in a believable way, no regrets.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/21 10:37:40


Post by: Paradigm


Oh, I do like that Fame/Notoriety system. I'd not necessarily use anything as formal as points, but those do seem like great ways to have the world indirectly react to the players. Consider that stolen!



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/21 19:54:42


Post by: gnome_idea_what


Talizvar the “enemies immediately run away” encounter only works as comedy when the party diesn’t block the exits and slaughter them while the nooks try to flee. Then it just creates paranoia for the players as they worry that they missed something, because “there’s no way the encounter is this easy.” Nemeses are are fun, but one for each player is a lot to track at times, and banding them together is contrived when each nemesis has different motivations and alignment.

Any ideas on what to do when my players end up completely destabilizing a city? Military disrupted, government leaderless and in shambles, and civilians scared and angry?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/21 20:15:08


Post by: Paradigm


I do love a good nemesis villain, especially one that goes down like a punk early on and is a bit of a joke but comes back with a real mean streak and some new ability or backing that makes them a genuine threat.

I think having a kind of 'villain teamup' with a few of the Party's major enemies is something that can work a fair way into a campaign; as a trope it's not that uncommon (take every comic book villain teamup ever, it's almost always group getting together to try and take down people they couldn't defeat on their own). Once the Party's fame has grown, the initial grievances of the villains might well be forgotten in favour of just taking this gang of do-gooders down a peg or two. Obviously it takes some work to set up, but I think the narrative payoff could be awesome if done right.

As for the question, I think a lot of that depends on context. Obviously there's a world of difference between the accidents of a low-level party causing chaos (in which case, the best recourse for them is to get the hell out of dodge and start over somewhere else) and a deliberate set of actions by a more experienced and famous group (if they took out an oppressive local power and that's where the destabilisation is coming from, this is a good chance for them to step up, restore order and actually make their world a better place, if they're interested in that).

Of course, leaving a chaotic wreck of a town somewhere in the group's history can be a great prompt for character development, it gives them a common tragedy and a reminder of the cost of failure/lack of foresight (depending on how accidental the events in question were) that they can look back on in future before doing anything else like that.

Equally, it gives you the chance to really let them shape the world if they choose to stay, rebuilding the town, setting up new leaders, maybe even changing the culture or society. If they've disposed of a vicious tyrant and his cruel right hand men in the local military, there's heaps of potential there for them to build something better. Help slaves become workers, have those who helped them in the uprising step into political roles themselves, even let the party be directly involved in the new local politics, building a stronghold there or taking formal roles in the army. It could drastically change the pace of the campaign and give them something to really invest in.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/02/21 22:27:49


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for sharing Talizvar, I really like those fame/infamy suggestions. And I love that event of the enemy recognizing the PCs and running for it. Those two stories at the end are really funny.

@gnome_idea_what: I'd probably try to come up with a bunch of competing factions in the city they destabilized, and have they see the city fall into a mini civil war. RP townsfolk very untrusting of the party, have all prices in stores skyrocket since they wont be able to get supplies as easily, and have random encounters of roving bands of thugs and looters within the city.

@Paradigm: I like what you wrote about letting players really invest in the world they are in and influence/rebuild the town. It sounds like a campaign I'm writing right now, where the very first session the only true city on an island is assaulted by overwhelming force, and they are told by a veteran to flee. Their only options are to stay and fight a losing battle, try to hide in the forest that covers most of the island, try to take refuge in a small mining town at the center of the island, or make a mad dash for a boat and try to abandon the island totally. If they hide in the forest, they'll have a chance to build a secret frontier town in the woods, and have lots of mini missions of going out trying to find other refugees, especially ones with special talents, as they fight or avoid patrols of the enemy.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/03/02 23:35:23


Post by: Talizvar


 gnome_idea_what wrote:
Talizvar the “enemies immediately run away” encounter only works as comedy when the party diesn’t block the exits and slaughter them while the nooks try to flee. Then it just creates paranoia for the players as they worry that they missed something, because “there’s no way the encounter is this easy.” Nemeses are are fun, but one for each player is a lot to track at times, and banding them together is contrived when each nemesis has different motivations and alignment.
Like I said, not something to do much more than once.
Though, you do raise the idea "The party hears one of them say before they run: "The boss said not to hurt them!!"".
Any ideas on what to do when my players end up completely destabilizing a city? Military disrupted, government leaderless and in shambles, and civilians scared and angry?
Escalation.
A more powerful regent comes looking for his vassal that had not reported in.
Completely and utterly outclass them and give them the "The way I see it, you owe me... I hate wasting resources." speech.

There is always someone more powerful it is just a matter of attracting their attention.
Oh look! A possible "Nemisis" thing AGAIN!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/21 18:13:53


Post by: Da Boss


Cool, this is a great idea for a thread. I've been away for a while (very busy again) but intend to getting back to posting more regularly. For a few years I had only been playing online, but now I've got an in person group, and we're playing with minis. Gonna resurrect my old blog and focus it on this rather than board games.
Here's a cool thing; one of my players commissioned a picture of the party.

Left to Right:
Euphemia, Halfling Hermit and Arcane Trickster
Vola, Half Orc Acolyte and Paladin of Tyr
Vadania, Half Elf Outlander and Druid of the Circle of the Moon
Loop-Mottin, Gnome ex-Soldier and Frenzied Berserker
Darman, Human Entertainer and Beastmaster
(The mysterious face in the background is ... me, the DM)

We've started off running an old school style dungeon called Barrowmaze, and I've set it in a fairly modified version of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy setting from the Judges Guild. Having a great time so far.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/21 18:19:16


Post by: Paradigm


Gnome Berserker! That's a whole lot of awesome! Cracking piece of art as well.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/21 18:22:06


Post by: Da Boss


Heh heh, yeah. Loop-Mottin is a pretty hilarious character. Most bad ass moment so far is getting eaten by a Frogemoth and killing it from the inside out!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/22 15:35:45


Post by: Syro_


Awesome Da Boss, I'm glad to hear that you're getting to play with an "in person" group again, I find that to be the most fun. I'm have to check out your blog and see what you're up to.

I don't want to steal your thunder, but I just started DMing the D&D starter set with some friends, so we're both getting back into gaming in person. I've also devoted most of the time and posts on my blog "Syro's projects" to the minis and dungeon pieces I've been making for the campaign. I hope you'll check it out.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/23 10:33:08


Post by: Da Boss


Cool! I love seeing other people's blogs. I'll get mine up and running shortly, I've actually painted a pile of stuff, but haven't been photographing as much, I guess because my time has been taken up with playing.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/24 11:24:12


Post by: Syro_


I'm looking forward to seeing all your stuff too, it's cool you have a bunch of painted minis waiting to be revealed to us. Also being too busy playing is the best reason to not have time to photograph your stuff, that's going to make a lot of us jealous


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/24 14:39:29


Post by: Mrs. Esterhouse


Have played since the mid-80's. 1st and 2nd editions are my favorites but 5th is really solid and fun. Only thing I miss is the oldschool dungeon crawl, where one player has to act as mapper and map out the dungeon on graph paper as you go from room to room, level to level, marking what was in each.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/24 14:53:14


Post by: Paradigm


To be fair, there's nothing to stop you doing something like that in 5th; it's not as necessary nowadays and I don't think the dungeon crawl is such a big part of the game nowadays (I certainly avoid running them where possible, 3-4 combat encounters in a session is excessive for me! ) but I could see a DM easily setting up something like that.

Perhaps the players are tasked by a local archaeological society to not only clear out an ancient ruined temple, but to produce a map and note anything of interest as part of the job. Perhaps there's a labyrinth-like structure that's going to require the characters to make a map if they ever want to get out. There are ways to set up things like that if it's what you/your players want to recapture.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
On an unrelated note, I actually got to play the other week rather than DM! Certainly a different experience to what I'm used to behind the screen, and a valuable insight on the players' perspective that will come in handy.

I also learned that the UA Artificer class is boring as hell, so if I ever reuse that character I'll rebuild him using Matt Mercer's Gunslinger archetype for the Fighter, which appears much more interesting way to play a firearm-based character than the constant shoot-reload-shoot-reload-shoot ect you get with the Artificer. Needs some work before they publish that class, I think... which is probably why it wasn't included in Xanathar's Guide now I think about it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/24 19:25:39


Post by: Da Boss


My players have kept a mqp in my game because barrowmaze is a pretty good name for the location. They did it without prompting too. But the module was originally written for OD&D as part of the OSR. I will snap a picture of if tomorrow.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/25 05:35:01


Post by: SlaveToDorkness


Where my group plays is a buddies house who owns about $5k worth of Dwarven Forge dungeon sets and accessories. So we have a "grab this piece/that piece" gopher. We play with all painted minis as well (extra XP for having your character painted up!). Our setup is on a ping pong table so we have lots of room. It's glorious!

Needless to say a good crawl is a big part of our game still!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/25 07:09:19


Post by: Da Boss


I would love to see a picture of your stuff in play! I mostly use a flip mat that I draw on with markers, but I'm a stickler for only painted minis in use. I paint them all myself though.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/25 12:52:13


Post by: SlaveToDorkness


Cool. Whoever DMs usually paints the NPCs and monsters if it's not in the usual store of painted stuff we have. I'm running a game soon so will be painting a lot of new stuff. I'll get some shots next big layout we have. Our current DM has been partial to maps lately so it may be a while.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/25 19:27:59


Post by: Da Boss


Hey, whenever you get a chance would be awesome. I've rarely seen anything with those kits at a "real" gaming table, so I'd just be fascinated by them. The temptation to pick them up is always there but I find dungeon tiles fiddly enough, so I worry that Dwarven Forge would drive me crazy.

I'm thinking of pulling out the tiles and 2.5D props for a big battle my group are planning to have with a beholder and a lot of his minions soon, so I'll try and photograph that too


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/27 20:24:30


Post by: Da Boss




This is the player map of Barrowmaze I was talking about. Scale is 1 box = 10ft. The players have at least briefly visited most of the areas, but the overall map is absolutely huge and sprawling, it's a 1 level dungeon with 8 separate areas getting generally harder as you head west-to-east. You can access the dungeon from multiple barrow mounds on the surface. I've been running it for newbies to the game for a few years now, and I've always found it a great location for some old fashioned tomb robbery.

(If you zoom in on the map you can read my players notes and little illustrations!)


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/28 22:38:28


Post by: Inquisitor Lord Katherine


Alpharius wrote:"Random encounters" are quite important - and quite often aren't all that "Random" either!


I don't like random encounter tables. They are a waste of my time, and my players time, because they contribute next to nothing.

However, tailored random encounter tables are generally fine to aide unimaginative GM's, if tailored well, to truly flesh out an environment and present a sense of it's relative danger. However, I prefer to improvise and decide what happens as it's appropriate to do so.

Red Harvest wrote:No. Ever since the crap the Hickman's churned out, there is too much story-based adventuring -- read 'railroading'-- where characters are just roles in someone else's story. DMs are expected to poke and prod the players along towards the denouement. See every Pathfinder adventure path, ever. IIRC, The old Dungeon Magazine used to include those terrible things.

Wandering Monsters are always a must have. And so what if they are not "level appropriate" challenges. Players ought to know when to run away...
...which is most of the time in a game about resource management.


I highly disagree. Resource Management is not what Dungeons and Dragons, or most roleplay games, is about. Roleplaying games are about playing the part of another person in another world, exploring who they are and how they overcome the challenges they face in their lives.

Resource management may be an applicable component, if, for example, the party are explorers hacking through unexplored rainforest in search of ancient ruins or revolutionaries plotting the overthrow of a government, but it's equally likely to be entirely non-applicable, for example, a game about courtly intrigue.

Roleplaying Games are generally what's referred to as "collaborative storytelling". The GM creates a world and gives life to it, and the players [players' characters] live within it. There is always a story in a RPG, but it's about the players' characters and driven by the players.

If the game ceases to be about who the characters are [their personalities as defined by the players], and instead becomes about what the characters are [the mechanical numbers on paper], it's ceased to be a roleplaying game and started becoming a wargame. A video game can capture the dungeoncrawl experience just as well as a real GM, but what they can't do is imbue into the world a sense of life and true verisimilitude, and offer the requisite freedom for the players to explore their characters.

If the game ceases to be about the players chose for their characters to act, you have a railroad.


Generally, as a GM, I consider my role to create and populate a world, and decide how it reacts to the players's character actions with a degree of verisimilitude.

I also don't like "dungeon crawls", in the classic sense, where the party goes into an old crypt/dragon lair/abandoned city and fights the monster there to get treasure for no reason other than to get GP and XP. I prefer the party to interact with people, do things for people, and primarily strive against people. Of course, the party may decide to enter such environments and conduct combat against the inhabitant's thereof and strip them of their valuables, but it had better be for reasons better than and exercise in die rolling. Perhaps the party is broke and turns to tomb robbing to make ends meet, or perhaps the party has been contracted by archaeologists to make overrun ruins safe for study, or perhaps they want to flush out a dragon that's terrorizing the countryside, but the players' characters should always have reasons for doing so.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 09:00:31


Post by: Da Boss


I disagree with your statement about random encounter tables. I particularly think your judgemental attitude towards them is inappropriate.

I use random encounter tables like improv seeds. I could just come up with stuff off the top of my head in those situations, or I could plan it out, but I like rolling on the table and being forced to be creative with what comes up. I enjoy "not knowing" and discovering a bit of the world along with my players. In a way, it allows me to "play" my dungeon according to the hand I've been dealt. Though, I think Dungeons and Dragons should include dungeons most of the time, so perhaps there we differ. That's alright - sub in "wilderness" or "city" for dungeon and you've got the same idea.

If the random encounter is fun, then it's not a waste of anyone's time. Some of my players just like to bust heads, and a random encounter gives them a chance to do that.

Last session I rolled 2 random encounters as my players were backtracking through the megadungeon. This plays two purposes - it makes the complex feel "alive" and it also discourages the players from endlessly backtracking and makes them have to push on and experience new things.

The first encounter I rolled said "gargoyles" and I rolled a d6 to see how many - 1 gargoyle. I decided that it was a lone scout from the main colony of gargoyles in the Forgotten Crypts area. It was looking for easy prey, and would not attack the group until they were nearly all past, when it came alive and grabbed the halfling at the back of the group and tried to carry her away. This created an interesting tactical problem, as the groups fighters were at the front and they had to try and stop the gargoyle before it could disappear into the darkness with their friend.

The second encounter I rolled was a Shamblng Mound. I thought this would not make sense inside the dungeon so I put it at the entrance, roaming around, having just been brought to life by the chaotic magic leaking out of the barrow mounds. The druid saw this shambling plant and immediately kicked in "speak with plants" and began to talk to the (admittedly very stupid) creature. She eventually convinced it to follow her, feeding it rations and various foodstuffs. She's managed to retain it as a sort of unpredictable ally and is going to try and use it to disrupt the Cult of Orcus by luring it into their area and letting it wreak havoc.

I could have come up with my own encounters, but they likely would have been in service to my "plot" - some cultists of Orcus, or some creatures of chaos spawned by the evil magic of the barrows. Instead, I was encouraged to introduce the gargoyle faction that the players have not met yet, and gave the druid player a chance to use her powers in a creative way.
I don't think either result was a waste of time.

Secondarily, I think however you run your game is fine, but if Alpharius likes resource management and considers it part of his game, then it's not "wrong". Lots of people enjoy that stuff. ikewise, some people just like busting heads and exploring, and character motivation is no big deal for them. That's also fine, as long as everyone is having fun at the table.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 09:11:02


Post by: Paradigm


@Inquisitor Lord Katherine: It seems we're very much on the same page regarding the role of a DM; I fully believe it is to tell a story with the group and to do more than just roll for monsters in a dungeon crawl.

My campaign very recently hit a perfect example of my aversion to random encounters. We'd finished early, the players wanted to go for a bit longer so I threw together a quick scene in which some Gnolls attacked their camp on the road... Which as a Random Encounter would have been fine, but I ended up leaving a map on one of the bodies that has now kicked off a whole arc as these Gnolls seemed more organised than most (which our Bard has quickly dubbed The Gnollpocalypse). Now, that could've just been a random fight to fill time and get them some EXP, but with the simple addition of that map I have a set a story in motion that's probably going to take the next 4-5 sessions to fully resolve.

There will undoubtedly be a lot of fights along the way, but crucially, none of them will be without purpose.And yes, sometimes that purpose might just be that the party take on some merc work to afford a new magic item, but there's still a story to be told there beyond 'go here, kill stuff, take loot'.

I wonder if this is something that is simply less common in those who have been playing since the early days, since (to my understanding) the earliest versions of the game did largely centre around dungeon crawls (hence the name) over narrative, so I can see how that might have set a certain expectation. I think 5e on the other hand really encourages that narrative element, the rules being loose enough to allow for a lot of interpretation and the character Backgrounds adding a lot for the players who want to use them. I appreciate a heavily story-driven game is not for everyone (I get the feeling that one of my own players would rather talk less, kill more, but that's not the game the rest of us want to play) but it's certainly the way I like to do things, and I think if there's ever a 6th edition it'll lean even more into that. I can see any 6e basically being the 'Critical Role edition', which would be just wonderful.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 09:38:17


Post by: Da Boss


Paradigm: I want to be clear that I think your approach is perfectly fine. I've used it myself many times.

However, over the years, my game has evolved to be more of a pure sandbox than a narrative. I now create a world, with antagonists, potential allies, and a lot of interesting locations to explore. The narrative is whatever the players do - I don't plan out any "plot". Little details like your map or note with the Gnolls also arise in my game, but the players can chose to ignore it and do whatever it is they are interested in. Fighting monsters in a dungeon can be their narrative if they want, or (as one of my groups actually did) they can brick up the entrance to the dungeon and put up signs warning people against entering. It's totally up to them.

If players want to talk to NPCs and get involved in the politics of the setting, they can, but likewise, they can ignore it, buy a pirate ship, and become reavers if that's what they want to do.

The thing that keeps it satisfying for me is that there will be consequences for their choices. If they choose not to deal with the evil cult of orcus, eventually an army of undead will over run that town. They can fight the army, or just leave and go elsewhere.

Random tables are very useful to me in this sort of set up as they help me to generate content that is sufficiently different and untethered from my own preferences and biases.it helps to prevent me from becoming formulaic in my approaches.

Just as an example - I find that if I'm creating encounters myself, I'll usually (but not always) make encounters that are "winnable" by the PCs by the guidelines. Sometimes, I might make one that's obviously not winnable, to make a point. But this is less organic and to me less realistic than having a random chance of having a fairly easy encounter or if you're unlucky, a really difficult encounter, and then some that are in the middle where the players are going to have to think carefully about how they interact with it.

Anyway, that's my perspective. I think all approaches can be valid and fun, but that's why I've moved more toward what is sometimes pejoratively referred to as a "crawl" structure for my game. But just because it's a crawl, doesn't mean there's no roleplaying or story.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 09:59:55


Post by: Paradigm


Yeah, that's fair. The beauty of the game is that both of these types of game can exist within the same framework, and no one can ever do it 'wrong' unless it's spoiling other people's fun.

I think the key is catering to what your players want. My group is on the whole very keen for a story-led game that lets them impact the world in some significant ways; they have freedom to go wherever they like, but once they're there, I'll make sure there is something to engage in, and if they choose to ignore it, there will be consequences.

But all my stories and adventures basically exist to further the character's own stories; most will draw on some detail of their background to make it nice and personal, or put them in a situation where a player faces something that forces them act in character, work with their morality and attitude, essentially to 'test' their character the same way combat 'tests' their stats.

My combat tends to be fairly low-threat, as ultimately I don't want these characters to die, as I want to keep telling their story. I also tend to find protracted fights really dull to actually run. So in general, combat is a comparatively small part of my game, and a 'proper' dungeon crawl pretty much unheard of. The mechanics as a whole are a really secondary feature, which is why I strongly discourage my players from pursuing specific 'builds' or taking things for mechanical rather than narrative reasons. For instance, if someone wants to take a level of Druid on their Rogue for some new features, they better have a damn good reason for it.


But like I say, there's no 'wrong' way to do things so long as everyone is enjoying themselves.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 10:33:35


Post by: Da Boss


I think that style, where you think about your characters personal stories and try to create a very satisfying narrative arc for the character is something some of my players (2 in particular) really expect and want too. I know they are having fun, but I do actually find myself thinking sometimes "Jeez, when am I going to tie in that Vadania's father is a prominent member of the Winter Court?"
Because in my normal style, that could never come up if they don't go to the part of the world where he is active and happen to bump into him. But I think Vadania's player is very interested in this and she left who her father was ambiguous on purpose. She sees her ancestry as a major part of her character as a young half-elf. So I can totally see the advantage of your approach and will probably end up making some tweaks to my approach to satisfy Vadania's player because like you say, it's about everyone having fun.

Equally, you should give the ole Dungeon Crawl a try some time in the future. You might be surprised at how fun it can be


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 10:59:24


Post by: Paradigm


I think there's a knack to nudging players in a certain direction even in a more sandboxy game; in general, if you can give them a reason to go somewhere they will, even if it's not their original destination. So maybe a traveller on the road shares a story of someone who resembles this character's father, seen in [insert part of world here], or the party (once they reach a certain level of fame and influence) are summoned to a certain place to discuss a discreet offer of employment. You can keep the sandbox feel while still highlighting certain points of interest that you want to expand on, and if you are careful to make sure it's something that should appeal to a certain character, you should be able to prompt them in a certain direction without taking their freedom away. They're still going because they want to, not because you've made them.

My hesitancy to run a proper dungeon crawl (aside from the fact I personally find combat gets boring to run after about 45 minutes or so tops) is that the makeup of my group means in any protracted set of fights, half the party is going to limp through while the other half remains totally unchallenged. Despite all being the same level, 2 of the players are incredibly powerful in combat (level 5s that fight like level 7s) so are hard to actually challenge, while the other 2 are much weaker (though happen to be the best roleplayers in the party) and would tire of a dungeon crawl very quickly as their utility dwindled. And yes, they could play more cautiously and stand at the back, but that's entirely out of character for at least one if not both of them (level 4 Warlocks probably shouldn't charge Mind Flayers, but he did and it was awesome).

I have a fairly combat-heavy arc coming up, but it still won't be a classic dungeon crawl, as there's not going to be a linear progression from one room/fight to the next, just a lot of fights in fairly close proximity but with a heavy investigative and politically dramatic element in between.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 14:38:23


Post by: Syro_


Out of curiosity what kind of random encounter tables are all of you using, and where do they come from? I'm a first time DM and just started running "Lost Mine of Phandelver". So are we talking random encounter tables from pre-made campaigns, or are they pre-made tables applied from somewhere else, or did you create the tables yourselves?

I like to play with miniatures, so I wrote down the max number of every monster that can appear in this campaign. Often the random encounter table has a chance of twice as many monsters of one type appearing than they would anywhere else in the game, and many won't show up for several chapters after they could show up as a random encounter, or only appear in a side quest that might get skipped. So that part of the random encounter table bothers me a bit, being that I have to make and prepare a lot more miniatures for that session than I would have to otherwise. At the same time, and as mentioned above, I like the random encounter's table also, because it does make the world feel like more is happening in it than just the current quest.

@Da Boss: Making a completely sandbox style game must be exhausting and a lot of work on your part, but it sounds like so much fun for your players to have so much freedom. I'm guessing your players have some experience to fully understand everything they can do in your world, a brand new player probably wouldn't realize.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 14:46:20


Post by: Paradigm


This is a handy resource for randomising things, anything from tavern names to encounter setups. Even if (like me) you don't like randomly rolling for encounters at the table, it can be handy to use pre-session to save you working out what to include in an encounter. For instance, if you know you want a fight with goblins, keep generating until you get a goblin-based encounter.

https://donjon.bin.sh/5e/random/


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is another good one, letting you set environment, monster type, difficulty and player level.
http://tools.goblinist.com/5enc


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 16:23:55


Post by: Da Boss


 Syro_ wrote:
Out of curiosity what kind of random encounter tables are all of you using, and where do they come from? I'm a first time DM and just started running "Lost Mine of Phandelver". So are we talking random encounter tables from pre-made campaigns, or are they pre-made tables applied from somewhere else, or did you create the tables yourselves?

Most often, I'm running a location that someone else wrote that I've plopped into my game with alterations to make it fit in. So if the location comes with random encounter tables, I'll use that. If I've made my own dungeon, I'll usually make my own table, which is time consuming, but I find it worthwhile. I don't really like generic tables that much, but I would use them in a pinch. I also make encounter tables for the various wilderness regions to give them a bit of character. I might take a pre-made table and just alter it a bit to fit what I need.


@Da Boss: Making a completely sandbox style game must be exhausting and a lot of work on your part, but it sounds like so much fun for your players to have so much freedom. I'm guessing your players have some experience to fully understand everything they can do in your world, a brand new player probably wouldn't realize.


I'm actually running with two groups of total newbies at the moment, and they cope well enough. They don't always fully grasp everything they can do, but when they start to realise they get very excited.
There is a fair bit of front loaded prep, that's true. But I cheat in several ways. I use a campaign setting (The Wilderlands of High Fantasy) that has pretty detailed hex maps, with some suggested adventure hooks in many of the hexes. Then I drop pre-written adventure sites and towns into other hexes, and write my own stuff for others if I don't have a pre-written that fits nicely. So if the players go to a hex, I pull out the relevant stuff for that hex. The hardest part is keeping an overview of what's happening in the different locations - post-game note taking is important for that, otherwise I forget. The other secret to this sort of game is that you only need to prep the starting area in a lot of detail - if the players head off for somewhere else, dangers on the road, random things they find and so on can give you time to prep the next area. The key to doing this well is never let the players see you laying the rails as they go. For my current campaign, this is the world map:
https://goo.gl/images/9bQsm5

But I'm zoomed in in the top right corner on the region of Valon:


And even on that map, I'm mostly in the Downland Plain area, on the left side of the map in the middle, with the Marsh and the River.
So I put the Barrowmaze on the edge of the Marsh, and the town of Helix 1 hex away (each hex is 6 miles). The players started in Helix. The only other stuff I really had to have ready was some stuff for the large forest to the west, where I put a settlement of wood elves, a green dragon and her kobold minions, and an ettercap lair. The cursed, ruined city of Sotur is on the coast, and I've prepped that myself, and the pirate haven Canospaur is north of Sotur on the coastline. Near Helix is the feudal fort of Ironguard Motte. My players have so far (22 sessions) been exploring Barrowmaze, with one excursion to meet the elves in the forest and travel into Faerie. They plan on exploring the ruins of Sotur next, or possibly taking a ship to an island they've heard about with a large town on it.

btw, here is an example of a random encounter table I made for the city of Sotur, which has a gate to the Abyss inside it that spews demons into the area, where they batter themselves into oblivion against the magical shield around the city.
Spoiler:

Sotur (Far from Gate)

1-5 1d4 Bloodletters, 1d4 Goat Daemons
6-10 3d4 Dretches/Manes/Varighoulles
11-15 1d4 Dretches and 1 Goat Daemon
16-20 1d4 Manes and 1 Bloodletter
21-25 1d10 Spawn of Yustus
26-30 1d4 Spawn of Yustus, 1d4+1 Goat Daemons
31-35 1 Ape Demon
36-40 1 Ape Demon, 1d4+1 Dretches
41-45 1 Succubus
46-50 2d4 Goat Daemons
51-55 1 Chasme
56-60 1d3 Ape Daemons
61-65 3d6 Spawn of Yustus
66-70 1 Ape Demon, 1d10 Goat Daemons, 2d8 Manes
71-75 1d3 Bloodletter
76-80 1d3 Bloodletter, 2d6 Dretches
81-85 1 Succubus, 1d3 Bloodletters
86-90 1 Succubus, 2d6 Varighoulles
91-95 1 Vrock
96-100 Roll Again Twice

Sotur (Close to Gate)
1-5 Roll once on the Far From Gate table
6-10 Roll Twice on the Far From Gate table
11-15 Roll three times on the Far From Gate table
16-20 1d4 Ape Demons
21-25 3d6 Spawn of Yustus
26-30 1d4 Ape Daemons or Babau, 2d6 Goat Demons
31-35 1d3 Bloodletters
36-40 1 Vrock
41-45 1D3 Vrocks
46-50 1 Hezrou
51-55 1 Chasme
56-60 1d3 Chasme
61-65 1 Hyena Demon
66-70 1d2 Hezrou
71-75 1 Meladaemon or Hezrou + 1 Roll on the Far From Gate table
76-80 d4+1 Babau or Ape Daemons
81-85 1d4 Hyena Demons
86-90 1 Devourer
91-95 1 Glabrezu
96-100 Roll Again Twice


tl,dr: when sandboxing, cheat like a mofo.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 20:39:57


Post by: Inquisitor Lord Katherine


Da Boss wrote:I think that style, where you think about your characters personal stories and try to create a very satisfying narrative arc for the character is something some of my players (2 in particular) really expect and want too. I know they are having fun, but I do actually find myself thinking sometimes "Jeez, when am I going to tie in that Vadania's father is a prominent member of the Winter Court?"
Because in my normal style, that could never come up if they don't go to the part of the world where he is active and happen to bump into him. But I think Vadania's player is very interested in this and she left who her father was ambiguous on purpose. She sees her ancestry as a major part of her character as a young half-elf. So I can totally see the advantage of your approach and will probably end up making some tweaks to my approach to satisfy Vadania's player because like you say, it's about everyone having fun.

Equally, you should give the ole Dungeon Crawl a try some time in the future. You might be surprised at how fun it can be


So, from my experience, my 3 worst D&D experiences have all been straight-up dungeon crawls, where the party just sort of arrives with an excuse-quest-lead-the-GM-decided-for-us to plow through a maze of traps and monsters. 2 of them were pre-written modules, which also lends to my dislike to using pre-prepared material. I try to avoid running straight up crawls too, and haven't really enjoyed any of the ones I've run.

At some point, most parties will have to pass through a "dungeon", whether it's an abandoned dwarf fortress occupied and fortified by shadar-kai as a forward outpost, a sewage treatment complex in the underhive being used by Chaos Cultists, or a 15000t artillery cruiser that's been capture by space pirates and is extorting local systems. However, there's a difference between that and a dungeoncrawl, at least in my mind.

My other 2c on the matter is that a straight crawl is basically a tactical wargame. If I wanted that, I would just play one of the many I own.

Da Boss wrote:Secondarily, I think however you run your game is fine, but if Alpharius likes resource management and considers it part of his game, then it's not "wrong". Lots of people enjoy that stuff. ikewise, some people just like busting heads and exploring, and character motivation is no big deal for them. That's also fine, as long as everyone is having fun at the table.


It's dependent upon the theme of the game, as I said.

In my Deathwatch game, I require the party to track every bolt shell they bring with them. When my D&D party trekked off into poorly explored high-sierra backcountry, I made them track food down to packages of crackers and strips of dried meat. However, on the flip side, playing as Samurai in Lot5R we almost never bothered with supply on the grounds that our servants dealt with provisioning or our horses were swift enough to ride between our castles where meals would be provided and day-to-day operation managed by stewards.

I was primarily contesting the point that resource management is the focus of, or even a major necessary part, of the game. It's a supporting element that can be used to enhance the experience of the game and contribute to the construction of a coherent atmosphere and theme, but is equally likely to be entirely unnecessary or detracting. D&D is a generic and flexible system to boot, though it's specific balance of mechanics tend to emphasize combat>social>exploration.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Syro_ wrote:

@Da Boss: Making a completely sandbox style game must be exhausting and a lot of work on your part, but it sounds like so much fun for your players to have so much freedom. I'm guessing your players have some experience to fully understand everything they can do in your world, a brand new player probably wouldn't realize.


I find it fairly easy to run, that way. As long as I know what major players are up to, and general characteristics about an are, I can fill in the rest of the stuff when the players interact with it and logically extrapolate how characters react to the player's actions. I generally run D&D games with a lot of player latitude, and I think it works out well.

 Da Boss wrote:
I disagree with your statement about random encounter tables. I particularly think your judgemental attitude towards them is inappropriate.


Yeah, I'm a little judgmental. Other people do their own thing, for sure.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 21:00:46


Post by: Paradigm


To my mind at least, the defining feature of the 'Dungeon Crawl' is that the dungeon itself is the point of it all. The reward is the XP and loot, the challenge is progressing from room to room, and the end goal is to clear the place out and discover all its secrets. (though perhaps this is overly simplistic)

That's how I see the difference between a Dungeon Crawl and just a series of linked fights in an interior location, and why I don't really go in for them; I like to have something more at stake than just a reward, and I like the combat encounters I run to have some kind of dramatic payoff. If my party are fighting through a location, it's usually to reach a specific place/NPC/event at the end, or to get them talking to a character or each other along the way ect. It's all about the use of combat to further drama for us.

Combat for combat's sake isn't really part of the game I run, which I think again comes back to catering to your group. Nothing wrong with a hardcore dungeon crawl if that's what the players want. It's been a part of the game's DNA since the beginning, so it's a great way to run the game, just not for me.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/29 22:25:58


Post by: Syro_


Da Boss, Paradign, and Inquisitor Lord Katherine: Thank you for the responses to my questions, the examples, and the resources.

@Paradign: Thanks for those links, I've bookmarked them both. Where and how I usually play right now, I don't have easy access to a computer, but in the future if that doesn't change I may even pre-generate some of those tables and print them for future use.

@Da Boss: Wow, those maps look like they could keep your groups busy for many years to come! Now am I understanding you right that one of your groups is adventuring in the top right corner of the Valon map and a second group is in the center left of the Valon map? Any chance of them meeting eventually? I may have already mentioned this, but I may have a second smaller group that wants me to DM for them (although it probably won't actually happen). I was thinking once my main group finishes Phandelver and move onto adventures I make myself, I thought it would be cool to have both groups in the same world, far away, but close enough that big events and changes in the world would affect both games. Any thoughts?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 07:34:45


Post by: Paradigm


I think a shared world is definitely doable (especially if you have a homebrew setting), there's scope for some really cool stuff if one party's actions have a significant impact that changes the world for the other. The only issue comes when it gets in the way of what one group wants to do. You don't want both parties to look at a map, pick the Lost Ruins Of Arr-Karazon and both decide they want to go and loot them! Unless you can bring both groups together and run a single larger game for a session or two, which would in itself be really cool, but would require a lot of legwork to get it set up.

I run an entirely homebrew setting and I've already decided that any other campaigns I end up running will be set in the same world, far away that the various groups don't interfere with each other, but close enough that a lot of my worldbuilding in terms of nations, factions, cultures and the pantheon will be transferable.

I think the key to a homebrew world, especially with a more sandboxy feel (which my game does lean towards, at broader level), is to make it feel alive and have that crucial verisimilitude. So even without running two campaigns, I've made sure to popular many areas with other adventuring parties and heroic (or villainous) characters so the players feel they're not the only ones going out and doing this stuff. Sometimes they'll team up with these NPCs for a session or two, sometimes they'll come into conflict with them, but in either case as the adventuring sort tend towards larger-than-life characters it can be a great way to prompt drama.

I recently used a neutral/evil band of adventurers to hold a mirror up to my PCs, kind of 'if you don't find your greater purpose, this could be you in a year's time, washed-out mercenaries with nothing left to fight for but themselves'. It actually ended up splitting the party permanently as two PCs had a major falling out over this group (prompted by some backstory elements, one of these bad guys was the only other member of their race on of the PCs had encountered, and that overrode any loyalty to the party) and the others took sides around that, but to be honest, I think that's great; there were no hard feelings between the players, just the characters, and it produced some intense high drama which was entirely unexpected but was far more satisfying a conclusion than the one I predicted (which was basically just a big 4v4 showdown between the two parties).

I know some DMs and some groups are totally against player conflict and splitting the party like that, but I'd much rather my players stay in character and come to blows than abandon their morals and principles for the sake of keeping the party together.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 08:22:06


Post by: Da Boss


 Syro_ wrote:

@Da Boss: Wow, those maps look like they could keep your groups busy for many years to come! Now am I understanding you right that one of your groups is adventuring in the top right corner of the Valon map and a second group is in the center left of the Valon map? Any chance of them meeting eventually? I may have already mentioned this, but I may have a second smaller group that wants me to DM for them (although it probably won't actually happen). I was thinking once my main group finishes Phandelver and move onto adventures I make myself, I thought it would be cool to have both groups in the same world, far away, but close enough that big events and changes in the world would affect both games. Any thoughts?


Yeah, I'm expecting to use these maps for a long time!
As you deduced from my blog, I'm a school teacher. So I have 2 groups at the moment - one is teachers who play after school. The other is a group of kids who play in lunch breaks and for a short time after school on fridays. The kids group is very loose, sometimes people show up, other times they don't, there's not much worry about that consistency.
The two groups started in the pub in Helix. They both went and explored the barrow mounds south of town. The teachers interacted with the lore and the factions and found out that the cult of orcus had opened a rift into a plane of madness. The kids looted some tombs and then wanted to buy stuff. So the teachers group has stayed adventuring in the barrows, defending Helix from a horde of ghouls etc etc. Meanwhile the kids group found out there is no "magic item shop" in any of the small villages and towns in the Downland Plain, and went to the pirate cove to find out where they might find some items. They were given a few options and decided to sail to the island of the alchemists in the middle of the sea to get them. They've since been adventuring for various shady alchemists and trying to amass gold and magic items because that is what they seem to want. Sometimes one of the kids DMs, but they feel uncomfortable running games in "my" world, so they often have a portal to another world open for short adventures, often with plots themed around the latest Marvel movie or Dark Souls game.

The kids are VERY keen to meet the teachers group and fight them. I'm probably going to do it at the end of the year in a sort of one off episode like a comic crossover. The two groups don't mix because of the fact that the teachers want a break from kids in their free time, but when both were in the same part of the world they found evidence of each other in the barrows. Like the kids killed an ogre and cut off it's head as a trophy and then next week the teachers had to fight an animated, headless ogre because the kids didn't burn the body.

I've done mixed groups myself before, and in fact run shared worlds with multiple GMs and up to 18 players. It's actually not so difficult but you have to keep a record of game summaries or you'll lose track. This also meant we had mixed levels within the group and all sorts, and it actually worked out fine. I've also played in a game as a player where there was another group of players in the same city, and we teamed up for some big events, or mixed the parties for certain one off adventures.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 12:26:48


Post by: Paradigm


The ultimate end point of the shared world sandbox game is a 'West Marches' style game, where 4 or 5 DMs and 20+ players run the same world, the parties often changing and exploring a hex map to fill in the blanks. The idea is that all the groups feed back into one overarching worldbuilding exercise, usually via a forum/subreddit/group chat ect.

Say you have a DM running a level 3 group and one running a level 7 group that have been going for a lot longer. The level 3s find a crypt that, after the first couple of levels, is too heavily guarded for them to make much more progress. But when they're back from the adventure, the Paladin of that group mentions to his level 7 Paladin buddy that there might be some good loot there, or a great evil that needs slaying, so the next session, the level 7 group go and tackle the same dungeon. This time, maybe the first two levels are still cleared from the first group's excursion, but maybe the overlord of the dungeon has doubled the defences further in, expecting a second attempt to break through.

This obviously requires A LOT of coordination (especially between the DMs) but to be honest, it does sound very cool. Matt Colville has a good video on it if you want to learn more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGAC-gBoX9k&t=1s


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 12:34:24


Post by: Da Boss


That's essentially what we did, but with a gigantic (GIGANTIC) megadungeon instead of wilderness.
It was extremely successful. I strongly recommend Ben Robbin's original blogs about it too - really nice reads.

http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 13:49:10


Post by: Syro_


Thanks guys, I appreciate the info. I had never heard of a "West Marches" style game before. Even though I watch Matt Colville sometimes, I'd never seen that video of his. I'll also check out that blog.

@Da Boss: That's really cool that both groups you're DMing for have to do with your school. I'm a school teacher too, and I'm a part of a few different gaming groups, but the one I'm currently DMing the Starter Set for is a group of my students. I'm hoping to get them into D&D for oen to help one of my students have more friends, but also to encourage their imaginations and get them interested in improving their writing and public speaking skills by teaching them how to DM. My final goal is to then step back and having them continue the group without me as they age.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 14:26:52


Post by: Mrs. Esterhouse


 Da Boss wrote:


This is the player map of Barrowmaze I was talking about. Scale is 1 box = 10ft. The players have at least briefly visited most of the areas, but the overall map is absolutely huge and sprawling, it's a 1 level dungeon with 8 separate areas getting generally harder as you head west-to-east. You can access the dungeon from multiple barrow mounds on the surface. I've been running it for newbies to the game for a few years now, and I've always found it a great location for some old fashioned tomb robbery.

(If you zoom in on the map you can read my players notes and little illustrations!)


Man that map takes me back! Absolutely love it. Way cool man!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/04/30 17:01:02


Post by: SlaveToDorkness


 Syro_ wrote:
Thanks guys, I appreciate the info. I had never heard of a "West Marches" style game before. Even though I watch Matt Colville sometimes, I'd never seen that video of his. I'll also check out that blog.

@Da Boss: That's really cool that both groups you're DMing for have to do with your school. I'm a school teacher too, and I'm a part of a few different gaming groups, but the one I'm currently DMing the Starter Set for is a group of my students. I'm hoping to get them into D&D for oen to help one of my students have more friends, but also to encourage their imaginations and get them interested in improving their writing and public speaking skills by teaching them how to DM. My final goal is to then step back and having them continue the group without me as they age.


That's about the coolest thing I've heard in a long time!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/01 22:44:53


Post by: Syro_


Thanks


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/02 18:08:53


Post by: krodarklorr


Didn't know there was a DnD thread on here. Excellent!

Greetings, fellow DMs.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/03 00:54:59


Post by: Syro_


Hey there krodarklorr


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/03 10:52:34


Post by: krodarklorr


 Syro_ wrote:
Hey there krodarklorr


What is up my dudes?

What have you guys been working on in the world of DnD? I, myself, am working on a "critical mode" sandbox campaign that I plan to start later this month after Mordenkainen's ToF comes out.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/04 22:07:40


Post by: Syro_


@krodarklorr: I'm curious to hear more about your "critical mode" sandbox campaign. I'm just starting out, so I've been building up a miniature collection from Lord of the Rings Heroclix, Magic the Gathering boardgame minis, among others along with trying to make a lot of my own stuff. I'm running the 5E starter set campaign, and have been crafting the whole thing. If you want to check any of it out, it's mostly all I've been posting about on my P&M blog (in my sig).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/07 10:31:49


Post by: krodarklorr


 Syro_ wrote:
@krodarklorr: I'm curious to hear more about your "critical mode" sandbox campaign. I'm just starting out, so I've been building up a miniature collection from Lord of the Rings Heroclix, Magic the Gathering boardgame minis, among others along with trying to make a lot of my own stuff. I'm running the 5E starter set campaign, and have been crafting the whole thing. If you want to check any of it out, it's mostly all I've been posting about on my P&M blog (in my sig).


Wow. Yeah, I've got like, 4 minis, haha. I usually use colored tokens and small, numbered D6s to represent enemies. Poker chips for larger ones.

I named it "Critical Mode" after the Kingdom Hearts difficulty setting (been playing through all of them again in preparation for the third one). The idea is that I want a game where it's the hardest 5e has to offer. Strictly enforcing carrying capacity, vision and lighting, food and water, lifestyle expenses and downtime activities, spell components, navigation and foraging, etc. In addition, I'd be using most of the variant rules to add more complexity to the game, such as combat facing coupled with Flanking and Speed Factor initiative, Spell Points, Proficiency Dice, and Gritty Realism Resting and all of the Healing and injury variants. Then toss in the smaller variant rules of Equipment resizing, variant combat actions, cleaving through creatures, etc. And lastly, magic items will be as rare as they are intended to be. If you find an item, it has a huge chance of just being the schematic to make the item, so you'll have to embark on a quest and spend precious resources to invest into making that item.

The sandbox part just fits with the game, I think. It's up the players to drive the story with their backgrounds and their ambitions. All dungeons and quest seeds are randomly generated with the DM charts, and they have to carefully plan adventures and make sure they're prepared. Then of course I'll be utilizing random encounters during adventuring days, since navigation will be strictly enforced.

Basically, the players have to be extremely careful and know how to play the game.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/08 20:15:06


Post by: Da Boss


That's an interesting choice. I think the book keeping would probably wear on me unless I developed some smooth way to do it or had players who were into it. I'd probably abstract all that sort of stuff to something easy to track.

I think when you make changes to these sorts of things though you often see interesting aspects of play emerging. We always had a house rule in 3.X that you had a "round's grace" to save someone who died.So if someone drops below -9, then you get a round to get to them and heal them before they are officially dead. When I eventually removed that rule, it really changed combat - players became a lot less complacent about dying characters, and the death rate went up, which changed how the game felt significantly.

For the same reason in 5e I make my players roll their death saves in secret and keep the results to themselves. That way, people don't artificially "know" that they have another round before they need to stabilize someone, making things more tense.

As for me, I'm working on making a special dungeon tile for the upcoming boss fight in my barrowmaze campaign. Pretty excited about it! I was inspired by seeing Syro's blog.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/08 23:40:41


Post by: Syro_


@krodarklorr: Wow, critical mode sounds intense! I'm guessing you have pretty seasoned players? It should certainly affect the pack-rat habits of so many players. I'm sorry to say that i didn't get the Kingdom Hearts reference. The game looks really good, and I've been meaning to pick up a copy and play for so many years now, but I never have.

@Da Boss: Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed my blog. I'm looking forward to seeing this new dungeon tile you're making in your blog.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/09 10:35:28


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
That's an interesting choice. I think the book keeping would probably wear on me unless I developed some smooth way to do it or had players who were into it. I'd probably abstract all that sort of stuff to something easy to track.

I think when you make changes to these sorts of things though you often see interesting aspects of play emerging. We always had a house rule in 3.X that you had a "round's grace" to save someone who died.So if someone drops below -9, then you get a round to get to them and heal them before they are officially dead. When I eventually removed that rule, it really changed combat - players became a lot less complacent about dying characters, and the death rate went up, which changed how the game felt significantly.

For the same reason in 5e I make my players roll their death saves in secret and keep the results to themselves. That way, people don't artificially "know" that they have another round before they need to stabilize someone, making things more tense.

As for me, I'm working on making a special dungeon tile for the upcoming boss fight in my barrowmaze campaign. Pretty excited about it! I was inspired by seeing Syro's blog.


Honestly, a lot of people mention the bookkeeping, and I don't think it'll be a problem. I've made an additional character sheet to go to each player that tracks exhaustion, lingering injuries, carrying capacity (and the formulas for figuring each one out), Spell points, etc. And I have a large packet of information detailing and summarizing all of the variant rules and how they interact with eachother and how they are intended to work. The players will just need to remember to use their resources sparingly and tell me who has a torch when they enter a dungeon, how much food they bought in town, who's foraging for the day, etc.. Other than that, it's just normal stuff of remembering to check for traps and secret doors and the like, but they have to be extra careful with everything.

I like the idea of not telling each player what their saving throw was. I'm putting a heavy emphasis on all skills, so I want Medicine to be used, even at higher levels. If you don't know if your friend is dying, you would run your butt over there as soon as he drops to try to save him. I might use that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Syro_ wrote:
@krodarklorr: Wow, critical mode sounds intense! I'm guessing you have pretty seasoned players? It should certainly affect the pack-rat habits of so many players. I'm sorry to say that i didn't get the Kingdom Hearts reference. The game looks really good, and I've been meaning to pick up a copy and play for so many years now, but I never have.


Well, I'll be building a new group of players through networking and the white board at my local shop. My normal group of friends are casuals and are enjoying our current campaign (they're so close to level 11 they can almost taste it). The game they play is more heroic and narrative, with Hero Points, tons of magic items, and dungeon delving. All while I'm striving for an interesting overarching plot. So far so good.

Kingdom Hearts is a lot of fun, and Critical Mode is what a lot of people say is "how the game was meant to be played", though I disagree. You can find all the games redone in HD with extra content for the PS4/PS3 for like, 25 bucks. If you're a Final Fantasy fan, it's worth it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/09 11:07:05


Post by: Da Boss


An organised extra character sheet sounds like a good idea for that sort of game. I didn't mean any criticism of the concept, I genuinely think it is interesting and I wonder how it will change the feel of your game - I expect it will make "survival" based play more important and make spells that contribute to survival much more relevant. I ran a 4e Darksun game where the number of "days" of water or food was important, but I deputised a player to manage it for me.

I just hate in game book keeping quite a bit, but that's just my own preference.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/09 11:56:09


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
An organised extra character sheet sounds like a good idea for that sort of game. I didn't mean any criticism of the concept, I genuinely think it is interesting and I wonder how it will change the feel of your game - I expect it will make "survival" based play more important and make spells that contribute to survival much more relevant. I ran a 4e Darksun game where the number of "days" of water or food was important, but I deputised a player to manage it for me.

I just hate in game book keeping quite a bit, but that's just my own preference.


I don't blame you, haha.

The goal I have is that every ability that you may possess will grant you a benefit somehow. Like, your background features that grant free lifestyles is a huge deal because it saves you precious gold in the long run. The Noble has access to higher social classes by default when it comes to Carousing, which is very handy to have. Tools can literally be used to make a living wage during downtime. Each skill and Ability Score has very heavy uses (my players typically dump Intelligence and Charisma. Like, 90% of the time).

I've also gone to lengths to make sure that Rangers get to feel awesome, while also not glossing over navigation completely. Moon Druids and other powerful subclasses are toned down because of the resting variant, and things like Land Druids or Path of the Totem Barbarians or Thief Rogues seem like much more attractive options. Heck, Eldritch Knights are pretty good because of Spell Points, and having someone else with the Identify spell is handy (magic items can't be identified just by taking a short rest in this game, as per the DMG variant).

Overall, Survival will be difficult and the players have to be smart about it, but I don't see it adding too much bookkeeping. At most, they might buy a mule and just keep track of its inventory separately for carrying capacity. And if they're in the wilderness and don't have someone with the Outlander background, someone just has to forage everyday, which takes care of their food for the day so on the paper the numbers don't change.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/10 17:21:42


Post by: Da Boss


Had a really fun session last night - probably the most fun I've had in game in months. My players are preparing for the endgame of my megadungeon, which is a maze of passages and chambers under a field of barrow mounds. They'd noticed some harpies flying around one of the mounds in an above ground area they had not explored. Fearing the harpies would intervene on the side of the cult of orcus, they went to attack the nest. The nest is a caved in barrow mound that goes 40 feet into a chamber below, with ledges around the interior. The players did well in the first rounds, killing several harpies. But then the harpies took the the air and began singing, and my players began to dash off the edge of the pit and fall 40ft. I found this hilarious
Here's a shot of the battle:
Spoiler:

(I only had 4 harpy miniatures, so the giant bats are subbing in for bow armed harpies)
(The red pen represents the above ground map, the green lines are the underground chamber)

In the pile of rubbish and offal on the floor, there lurked a giant scorpion. It ate one of the henchmen they'd brought with them. The battle ended with the queen of the harpies in desperate battle with the PCs who'd fallen into the pit, while the druid who had never failed her save got mugged by the remaining two flying harpies. They lifted her above the pit and screeched down at the PCs to surrender and retreat or they would drop her. The PCs refused, and they dropped the druid. The players managed to save her (just about) by using Tenser's floating disk. I ruled the disk could break her fall, meaning she took damage, but broken into steps rather than all at once, which would have killed her outright. Instead, she autofailed two death saves. She'd already rolled one in secret, so the tension as the players waited to see if the second impact had killed her was immense.

Really fun and dynamic combat taking place over a pretty interesting 3D battlefield. The players have destroyed the harpies as a faction, and have found another entrance to the barrowmaze, much further into the western half than they've gone before.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/10 21:05:24


Post by: Syro_


Wow that sounds like a lot of fun, and intense. I'm glad you had a good time


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/11 09:23:08


Post by: Da Boss


Thanks. I'm looking forward to hearing how things go in your campaign. Seeing your cardboard dungeon layout got me really excited about doing dungeon tiles myself, and I'll probably run out of steam, but I was daydreaming about making a layout for the Caverns of Thracia megadungeon, which is probably my favourite that I've run.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/11 22:10:22


Post by: Syro_


Thanks, that makes me happy to hear. Making my cardboard dungeon layout was much more time consuming than i expected, but it did leave me with pieces I'm happy with (still not finished yet though). If you can find the time, I hope you do give making your Caverns of Thracia a try. The pit of chaos turned out great after all.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/12 11:27:50


Post by: Da Boss


Cheers. Yeah my daydreams are infested with the idea of tiny miniature rope bridges and faux marble patterns. Caverns of Thracia is a really fun adventure from the late seventies (early eighties?) that has death cultists, gnolls, lizardmen and minotaurs, as well as a bunch of undead and other weirdness, fighting it out in ancient macedonian/greek themed ruins and caverns. It's got some excellent dungeon design - the entire environment is really non-linear and fun to explore.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/13 00:23:00


Post by: Syro_


Because of you speaking highly of it, I'll check it out. I just grabbed one of the many free PDFs of it available online. You have a good memory for the date, it says 1979. I recently went looking for "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" and "the Village of Hommlet" that Matthew Colville talked about in a video. This one is quite a bit larger.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/13 10:41:20


Post by: Da Boss


Cool! Yeah, I'd say it's a real classic. It doesn't get as much of a spotlight thrown on it because it's Judges Guild rather than TSR. The 1979 version is pretty fun, but I would say there are some small issues with the maps. I use the 3.0 Necromancer Games re-issue, which tidies up the maps a little bit.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/14 12:02:46


Post by: krodarklorr


So, lets see if I get burned at the stake. Anyone here like 4e?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/14 12:41:37


Post by: Da Boss


It's not my favourite edition, but I think it has a lot of good design that I actually steal for my 5e games. I think some of the problems with it were the art design and some of the mechanical innovations they came up with not being close enough to what people expect.

They produced some excellent setting supplements though - I love the Darksun stuff they released and the Underdark supplement. I ran a 15 level 4e campaign in Darksun and it was a lot of fun. I also liked that they tried to differentiate humanoids mechanically.

I just found that combat got very bloated and took a long time at higher levels. To be fair, 3e also breaks down at higher levels and I've yet to run a 5e game past 7, so it may be an omnipresent problem.

I actually think it could be quite fun as a miniatures game - just take an XP budget and make characters or select monster groups to taste, sprinkle in some environmental effects and have at it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/14 13:00:33


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
It's not my favourite edition, but I think it has a lot of good design that I actually steal for my 5e games. I think some of the problems with it were the art design and some of the mechanical innovations they came up with not being close enough to what people expect.

They produced some excellent setting supplements though - I love the Darksun stuff they released and the Underdark supplement. I ran a 15 level 4e campaign in Darksun and it was a lot of fun. I also liked that they tried to differentiate humanoids mechanically.

I just found that combat got very bloated and took a long time at higher levels. To be fair, 3e also breaks down at higher levels and I've yet to run a 5e game past 7, so it may be an omnipresent problem.

I actually think it could be quite fun as a miniatures game - just take an XP budget and make characters or select monster groups to taste, sprinkle in some environmental effects and have at it.


My current running campaign (that will be going for quite some time in the foreseeable future) is almost level 11 and combat actually doesn't take as long in 5e, even at those high of levels. Then again, my players are quite powerful, but even if I maxed the health of the enemies it wouldn't drag out too much longer.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/14 13:37:13


Post by: Da Boss


In 3e it's over fast but it's a bit like a thermonuclear exchange! One side or the other is completely obliterated in seconds.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/14 14:14:35


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
In 3e it's over fast but it's a bit like a thermonuclear exchange! One side or the other is completely obliterated in seconds.


Yeah we used to have this joke about high-level 3.5e.

"I hurl this planet at him!"

"Well, he then hurls this planet back at you."


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/14 22:10:58


Post by: Paradigm


One thing I outright lifted from 4th (even though 5th was my first edition) is the concept of extended Skill Challenges; a series of player-selected skill checks with a running success/failure tally to run dramatic events that the normal combat framework doesn't suit. Tense escapes, complex interactions such as heists where people are in multiple locations, chases after/away from enemies, that kind of 'action sequence' stuff that the combat mechanics don't really cater to very well.

Here's a short paraphrasing of the rules (as I use them, I made a few tweaks), they're definitely something I'd recommend using next time you want to run a rapid, tense sequence where the players feel like they have their life and death in their own hands.

Spoiler:

- In short, the DM describes an event, but instead of asking a player to make a certain check, they let the player choose how they react and make the appropriate roll. The goal is to get X number of successes as a party before Y number (usually 3) of failures, which will ultimately determine the success or failure of the whole sequence. Note that a failure doesn't need to mean a TPK, it could mean the party just takes a few major body blows as the mine collapses around them, or their clumsy infiltration means there are more guards on alert by the time they break into the keep ect.

-The key difference between this and just a set of linked skill checks is that the players are choosing the skills they want to use, rather than waiting for the DM to ask for a particular roll- so long as the player can justify how the chosen action is appropriate, the DM should allow it.

- A character can only ever use a skill once during a single challenge. For example, if they choose to use Acrobatics to leap a chasm, they can't use it later in the same sequence to dodge an arrow so would have to use something else, such as attempting to get their shield up to block it (straight Dex) or Athletics to outrun the archer's aim ect. Thus, the 'game' here is for the players to select the skills they're best at, use them to move the party as a whole closer to overall success, and not rely on a single good stat to save them.

- Non-skill actions, such as using Feats, weapons or equipment can also be taken if the players can explain how they'd be useful. For example, if rocks begin to fall and a Warlock has already used Acrobatics to leap a barrier earlier in the scene, they could instead cast Eldritch Blast to try and shatter some of the incoming debris. Conversely, they might defer to their Fighter who has Great Weapon Master to try and smash the rocks away, or the Ranger might use Perception to spot a hidden path that leads the party away from the immediate danger altogether.

- (Optional hard mode) characters may only use skills, weapons, equipment that they are proficient in, to represent the talent and ability required to act quickly and decisively. Make sure your party has a decent range of proficiency before doing this though, if everyone has Investigation, Insight and Religion then they're not going to be much use in a sequence limited purely to those skills.



Again, I definitely recommend giving something like this a try, they're a great way to handle big set-piece action sequences in a rapid, exciting and non-clunky manner. Obviously, the DM should make it clear that they are entering a Skill Challenge, but after that it should be quick-fire, immersive action.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/15 10:34:20


Post by: krodarklorr


 Paradigm wrote:
One thing I outright lifted from 4th (even though 5th was my first edition) is the concept of extended Skill Challenges; a series of player-selected skill checks with a running success/failure tally to run dramatic events that the normal combat framework doesn't suit. Tense escapes, complex interactions such as heists where people are in multiple locations, chases after/away from enemies, that kind of 'action sequence' stuff that the combat mechanics don't really cater to very well.

Here's a short paraphrasing of the rules (as I use them, I made a few tweaks), they're definitely something I'd recommend using next time you want to run a rapid, tense sequence where the players feel like they have their life and death in their own hands.

Spoiler:

- In short, the DM describes an event, but instead of asking a player to make a certain check, they let the player choose how they react and make the appropriate roll. The goal is to get X number of successes as a party before Y number (usually 3) of failures, which will ultimately determine the success or failure of the whole sequence. Note that a failure doesn't need to mean a TPK, it could mean the party just takes a few major body blows as the mine collapses around them, or their clumsy infiltration means there are more guards on alert by the time they break into the keep ect.

-The key difference between this and just a set of linked skill checks is that the players are choosing the skills they want to use, rather than waiting for the DM to ask for a particular roll- so long as the player can justify how the chosen action is appropriate, the DM should allow it.

- A character can only ever use a skill once during a single challenge. For example, if they choose to use Acrobatics to leap a chasm, they can't use it later in the same sequence to dodge an arrow so would have to use something else, such as attempting to get their shield up to block it (straight Dex) or Athletics to outrun the archer's aim ect. Thus, the 'game' here is for the players to select the skills they're best at, use them to move the party as a whole closer to overall success, and not rely on a single good stat to save them.

- Non-skill actions, such as using Feats, weapons or equipment can also be taken if the players can explain how they'd be useful. For example, if rocks begin to fall and a Warlock has already used Acrobatics to leap a barrier earlier in the scene, they could instead cast Eldritch Blast to try and shatter some of the incoming debris. Conversely, they might defer to their Fighter who has Great Weapon Master to try and smash the rocks away, or the Ranger might use Perception to spot a hidden path that leads the party away from the immediate danger altogether.

- (Optional hard mode) characters may only use skills, weapons, equipment that they are proficient in, to represent the talent and ability required to act quickly and decisively. Make sure your party has a decent range of proficiency before doing this though, if everyone has Investigation, Insight and Religion then they're not going to be much use in a sequence limited purely to those skills.



Again, I definitely recommend giving something like this a try, they're a great way to handle big set-piece action sequences in a rapid, exciting and non-clunky manner. Obviously, the DM should make it clear that they are entering a Skill Challenge, but after that it should be quick-fire, immersive action.


Yeah, I also like the Skill Challenges, as far as the whole mechanic goes for them. As a DM, there are quite a few things I like from 4e, honestly. The Knowledge skills seem directly more in-your-face useful. Like, Arcana allowing Detect Magic, Nature being used for Foraging, and each skill having certain types of monsters they can perform knowledge checks for, with the MM entries actually providing direct knowledge for players based on what they roll.

I also like how traps are done, but that's more of my videogame side talking (I was a big WoW player)


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/15 13:03:02


Post by: Da Boss


Yeah skill challenges are pretty cool and I really liked "Arcana" as detect magic as well.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/15 13:07:53


Post by: Paradigm


To be honest, even in 5th I assumed a mini-Detect Magic was what Arcana was for anyway. In general, assuming the character in question has the necessary knowledge (if your Int 5 Barbarian rolls a nat 20 on an Arcana check, they probably still won't glean much), I'll let them use Arcana to tell if something is magic, though to get the specific type/enchantment ect they'll need to use Detect Magic or Identify as appropriate.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/15 13:49:03


Post by: Da Boss


Yeah, I think that's reasonable. I just made a very cheap magic item available that you can use as sort of a magic geiger counter to detect the presence of magic (a stone that changes colour in the presence of magic) and allow Arcana to tell more about the relative strength, something about the properties etc. Detect Magic allows you to tell the school and with a decent Arcana roll, something about what the spell was trying to do. I kinda see it like Detect Magic and the item allow you to see magic is there, and Arcana is the knowledge base to put it in context.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 02:07:19


Post by: Syro_


I just had my second session as a DM today. It went well, and my players got a lot more done than last session. They managed to avoid all the traps, but got caught in every ambush. It was a busy session so I only remembered to take a single picture, but here it is. This is near the end of the session where they just finished following a trail that goblins have been using, which led to a cave mouth.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 10:54:44


Post by: krodarklorr


Just picked up my limited edition copy of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes yesterday. Let me know if you guys have any questions!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 12:31:11


Post by: Paradigm


I'm interested to know what kind of monsters it deals with primarily. Volo's was very much an 'expansion' to the more common stuff with more varieties of the standards like Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, Kobolds, Ithillids ect. with a few new categories thrown in but not the main focus.

I seem to recall this would be a bit more focused on the humanoid stuff like Drow, Duergar ect, but I might have made that up?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 12:34:31


Post by: krodarklorr


 Paradigm wrote:
I'm interested to know what kind of monsters it deals with primarily. Volo's was very much an 'expansion' to the more common stuff with more varieties of the standards like Orcs, Goblins, Gnolls, Kobolds, Ithillids ect. with a few new categories thrown in but not the main focus.

I seem to recall this would be a bit more focused on the humanoid stuff like Drow, Duergar ect, but I might have made that up?


No, you are correct. It expands heavily on Duergar and Drow enemies, as well as Demons and Devils. It reprints the Demon Lords from OotA, and has a slew of Archdevil statblocks. There's also big baddies such as the Elder Elementals, and there a lot of stuff that resides on the Shadowfell.

I am disappointed, however, that Lolth still doesn't have stats, and the cover of this book has a Mindflayer on it, but yet not a single new statblock for a Mindflayer is included.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 12:56:10


Post by: Paradigm


Ta for the info.

More demons is handy, they feature heavily in my campaign. Is there any particular skew in terms of the power level of enemies, or is it fairly mixed? No point me picking it up just yet if a lot of the content is low level or endgame stuff, but if there's a bit more in the CR5-10 level or if it covers the whole scale it might be a handy one to get sooner rather than later.

I'm not sure what else you could do for Mind Flayers. Between the MM and Volo's, you have a fairly good mix of regular ones, magical ones (Arcanist and Alhoon), undead ones (Illithilich) and the Elder Brain... Maybe a more combat-focused one, or some lower level variants, CR4-6ish to use as minibosses?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 13:02:09


Post by: krodarklorr


 Paradigm wrote:
Ta for the info.

More demons is handy, they feature heavily in my campaign. Is there any particular skew in terms of the power level of enemies, or is it fairly mixed? No point me picking it up just yet if a lot of the content is low level or endgame stuff, but if there's a bit more in the CR5-10 level or if it covers the whole scale it might be a handy one to get sooner rather than later.

I'm not sure what else you could do for Mind Flayers. Between the MM and Volo's, you have a fairly good mix of regular ones, magical ones (Arcanist and Alhoon), undead ones (Illithilich) and the Elder Brain... Maybe a more combat-focused one, or some lower level variants, CR4-6ish to use as minibosses?


Yeah I don't know what else you could do for Mindflayers, but it's weird that I haven't seen them mentioned yet and they're on the cover. But that's just me.

As far as overall CR, I would say about 70% of the book is CR10+. The demons have CR 2, 3, 4, and 7 creatures, and the devils have a few of the lower CRs too, but most of it is high level stuff. Like, for instance, Molydeus, the demon who is apparently more fearsome than the Balor. CR21 and full of scariness.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 13:10:18


Post by: Paradigm


Ok then, one to pick up down the line then as my players won't be facing much CR10+ for quite some time yet. Cheers again for the info.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/18 13:16:03


Post by: krodarklorr


 Paradigm wrote:
Ok then, one to pick up down the line then as my players won't be facing much CR10+ for quite some time yet. Cheers again for the info.


The subraces look like a lot of fun though, so even for brand new characters it offers some cool options. But no problem. Happy to share info! Some of the new undead are definitely going into my current campaign, as the party is almost level 11.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/19 10:30:47


Post by: Earth127


I love the new Mordenkainen book. but it does have more uses as a dm than as a player.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/21 10:28:16


Post by: krodarklorr


 Earth127 wrote:
I love the new Mordenkainen book. but it does have more uses as a dm than as a player.


It absolutely does. But the good thing about me, a usual DM, having it is that my players benefit from it. Also why I invested in a copy of the SCAG this weekend. Now I can provide all player options to my players.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/23 20:19:00


Post by: Da Boss


Just picked it up with the alternate cover. Pretty cool, though I think on at least a first glance I prefer Volo's Guide.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/24 10:33:09


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
Just picked it up with the alternate cover. Pretty cool, though I think on at least a first glance I prefer Volo's Guide.


Why do you say that?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 00:51:43


Post by: Mysterio


RPGing with suits and ties - I'd never!

In terms of 5E, aside from the 3 Core Rulebooks, are there any that are considered 'must have'?

And have they released any campaign settings yet?

A revised for 5th Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 13:59:48


Post by: Da Boss


On Mordenkainens tome of foes:
Well, I like the book, but I like all kinds of fantasy bestiaries so that's a given.
I'll talk about them by section if you don't mind:
- Blood War/Demons and Devils - This section was alright. New players getting a low down on who's who and the concept of the Blood War is cool. It's nothing I don't know already but worth including.
- Elves and Drow - omg so boring. I do not like the Dungeons and Dragons conception of Elves at all. I thought they were going to go for something more interesting with the Eladrin, but nope, it's all god focused nonsense. I really dislike the focus on the personalities and soap opera of the gods in dungeons and dragons at the moment. I rather have the gods as distant and inscrutable beings, or petty tyrants of limited and localized power.
- Halflings and Gnomes - same as above, except I found the writing in this section even worse.
- Dwarves and Duregar - I didn't hate this section (I love me some dwarves) and it's cool to see Duregar getting some development, but again, too god focused and it seems to me that one clan of dwarves being the "big bad" for the rest of the entire race is a bit much.
- Gith and Githyanki - not my style either but it's a good intro for people who might like that sort of thing.
If I forgot a section here, well, then it mustn't have been that memorable.

I guess I just didn't find much gameable content in there. I don't find the current conception of the races as put forward by WOTC particularly compelling, so I make my own versions of their backstories which fit my own setting. So the front half of the book is essentially useless to me.

The monsters section is the real meat for me, and there's some interesting stuff in here. I liked the development of certain enemy types from 4e into something a bit more grounded and understandable, and I think the design of the monsters themselves (mechanically) is getting a lot better and more interesting. You see a lot more stuff for monsters to do that is unique and will generate a memorable encounter. I feel the original MM, great though it is, was missing some of this stuff - like the Hydroloth's memory stealing ability. On the other hand, the art was a bit hit and miss, and some monsters didn't get any art at all, which I think for a 50 quid book is pretty poor. And the monster selection was broadly uninteresting to me, with a lot of not particularly exciting stuff or weird stuff that wouldn't fit my game. I was also very disappointed that they dodged giving us statistics for the Archdevils to match the statistics already presented for the Demon Princes.

Volo's had some of the same weaknesses, but the content presented was much more gameable, and rather than just recounting the divine soap opera, the link to religion tended to be expressed in how the culture was organised. The section on Orcs is a good example of this - by using the pantheon they create an interesting lair to explore with a variety of different orcs that interact with the players in interesting ways. Each enemy type had a lair presented as well, which you could use in your game, which I think was a great idea (I saw some criticizing this, but I love a generic map I can use). And I liked the monsters presented in Volos more as well - they're more the sort of thing I would insert into my world.

I guess it comes down to taste- I like my dungeons and dragons to be fairly grounded and free of that sort of over the top interest in religions and gods, and I like monsters that fit a certain tone of game that I enjoy running.

That said, I don't mind at all owning the book and I will pretty much always buy monster books, and I approve of WOTC experimenting with different approaches to these things. It's well produced and not criticially flawed, and there's definitely someone out there for whom this is the perfect bestiary.

On campaign settings: Not really, I suppose is the answer. All the adventures bar Curse of Strahd and Tomb of Annihilation have been set in or under the Sword Coast region of the Forgotten Realms, and setting information and maps are sort of spread throughout all these huge adventures. So I guess Forgotten Realms is the default setting, but it's not been released in the traditional campaign setting way. I think this is likely a good thing though as it will encourage DMs to create their own worlds, which is a lot of fun.

Must Have Rulebooks: Hmmm. I mean apart from the core rules you pretty much have a bunch of adventures, Xanathar's Guide to Everything and the two monster books. The Sword Coast Adventurer's guide is a fun read but it is actually designed for Players I think. I wouldn't consider any of the books a "must have" apart from the core 3, and even then I'd say you can get by without the DMG. My favourite adventure so far is Out of the Abyss, which is the underdark/demon themed one and definitely the most original and fun one to read through. Volos is the better bestiary. I wasn't that blown away by Xanathar's. Not really something i'd get a lot of use out of. I enjoyed reading Sword Coast, but never used any of it for anything.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 19:25:53


Post by: Red Harvest


Nice, concise review. I flipped through a friend's copy. The book is not aimed at people like me ( who have been gaming since before there was a WoTC, or even AD&D.) I found nothing new of use in it.

Just to echo what Da Boss said; you only need the 3 core books. Everything else is quite optional. I would recommend Volo's if you are fairly new to D&D. The default campaign setting is Forgotten Realms. There is no pure source book for it, but it permeates everything.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 19:34:31


Post by: Paradigm


I threw in a couple of monsters from MToF last night and they were a mixed bag. The Venom Troll was a fun one (it dishes out a lot of AoE Poison damage, 2d8 automatically whenever it's hit by anything other than Psychic, with the option to do 4d8 via self-inflicted wounds, neat as a death throw attack) but the Battering Ram Ogres were a tad underwhelming, given the jump from CR2 (regular ogres) to CR4. They dished out a bit more damage, but with only one pip of AC more and the same rough HP means they're go down about as easily. I'd pitch them as CR3 to be honest, that seems more appropriate.

I like the fact they added some more types of Ogre though, as they are handy for reskinning as other creatures of a similar size when you want something with a bit more HP and damage than the standard options for that race.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 19:44:30


Post by: Da Boss


One of the things from 4th that I really liked was the variety of different pre-made "types" for any sort of humanoid or giant. In 3.X you'd have had to give them class levels and stat them up, but here they kinda showed that you can take a basic skeleton, slap some special abilities on it and call it a day. Really makes sense and makes planning encounters a lot easier. So I was glad to see it making more of a comeback in Volos - the main monster manual focused more on getting different monsters than multiple versions of the same type, but it's useful to have those extra types for common foes to spice things up.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 20:12:50


Post by: Mysterio


So D&D doesn't do big box campaign settings anymore?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 20:20:59


Post by: Paradigm


Not so far at least. But I daresay there's probably still a lot of mileage in old campaign settings if that's your thing, all the lore/adventures ect will still be perfectly functional, you might just have to swap in a few monster stat blocks, spells and such.

Though there is a big announcement coming soon at the Stream of Many Eyes event next week, that might be a campaign book (though I'm guessing another adventure is possibly more likely)


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 20:22:33


Post by: Da Boss


 Mysterio wrote:
So D&D doesn't do big box campaign settings anymore?


Yeah, it seems that way. I love campaign settings personally, but perhaps I'm part of a pretty small market.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/27 21:45:52


Post by: Mysterio


Well, you and me at the very least Boss!

Maybe they'll eventually revive them, at least for the FR, and possibly Greyhawk.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/28 07:42:50


Post by: Earth127


Mordenkainen gives me hope for that. It's the first 5E book to really adress the different ones. Before we had adventure modules set nominally in the forgotten Realms and 1 in Ravenloft. The DMG mentions some but very surface level.

It's been pretty much all adventures set in the forgotten realms or encouragement to make your own setting. (As I am doing using a lot of warhammer inspiration).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/29 13:36:14


Post by: krodarklorr


 Mysterio wrote:
RPGing with suits and ties - I'd never!

In terms of 5E, aside from the 3 Core Rulebooks, are there any that are considered 'must have'?

And have they released any campaign settings yet?

A revised for 5th Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk?


I would whole-heartedly recommend Xanathar's Guide at the very least. It has expanded traps, downtime activities, and rules/guidelines for tools. As well as random encounter tables, more magic items, DM tips for balancing encounters and giving out loot. And then of course all of the player subclasses and background tables (which are hella fun to roll on). It's a very useful book to have.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/29 15:54:57


Post by: Mysterio


Is there a good, detailed city supplement out there that I can adopt for use in a 5E campaign?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/29 19:06:52


Post by: Da Boss


Well, the most detailed city supplement ever produced was Monte Cook's Ptolus. It's expensive but it's exhaustively detailed, probably one of the best produced gaming books ever made.

Or for a more old school city with a lawful evil bent and a bit of a gonzo feel, the Necromancer Games remake of the City State of the Invincible Overlord is quite good.

Alternatively, if you want a pretty rules light city again with an evil feel but more exotic than the average fantasy city I like the Guide to Korvasa that Paizo did.

Of the three, Ptolus is the best, but it's expensive and maaaassive.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/30 15:49:06


Post by: krodarklorr


So, my "Critical Mode" game has had it's session 0. After planning this game for almost a year, we're starting here next week. I'm so excited.

They decided upon an intro quest they would be interested in and would give a reason for everyone to come together for adventure. They'll be investigating a northern mine that has gone silent about a month ago, but has strangely not affected the iron supply coming into the city. This dungeon will be designed for a level 1 party, but will be incredibly difficult and I expect some people will die.

The party is as follows:

- A human Rogue who works for the town guard as an investigator.

- A Dragonborn Fighter who is the partner to aforementioned Rogue.

- A Hill Dwarf Forge Cleric who is exceptionally mediocre at everything and likes to build stuff, no matter what it is.

- A human Ranger who was adopted by Orcs, became an Anthropologist, and got dragged into a war in which he became a hero.

- A Githzerai Monk who inherited a special tattoo from his master in Limbo and is now here for some reason.

- An Aasimar Sorcerer and his horse, both of which may or may not be criminals.

I'm very excited to see how they fair with these difficult rules. They'll be diving into the mines next week, and we shall see!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/30 17:01:08


Post by: streamdragon




The world of tabletop gaming was once the preserve of nervous teenage boys holed up in dark basements and bedrooms.


This stereotype hasn't died yet huh?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/30 18:13:53


Post by: Mysterio


 Da Boss wrote:
Well, the most detailed city supplement ever produced was Monte Cook's Ptolus. It's expensive but it's exhaustively detailed, probably one of the best produced gaming books ever made.

Or for a more old school city with a lawful evil bent and a bit of a gonzo feel, the Necromancer Games remake of the City State of the Invincible Overlord is quite good.

Alternatively, if you want a pretty rules light city again with an evil feel but more exotic than the average fantasy city I like the Guide to Korvasa that Paizo did.

Of the three, Ptolus is the best, but it's expensive and maaaassive.


It looks like all of those books are out of print - and are all on the expensive side of things now.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/31 06:51:43


Post by: Da Boss


Mysterio: Oh yeah, it's true they are out of print. I was thinking of the PDF versions on RPGnow or DrivethruRPG or whatever. Ptolus is unwieldy in that format but it is useable, and City State and Guide to Korvasa are small enough that you could feasibly print out the sections you need and put them in a binder.

Edit: I've also heard good things about Vornheim, never used it though.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/31 14:04:09


Post by: Mysterio




I'll check it out - thanks!

Da Boss wrote:Mysterio: Oh yeah, it's true they are out of print. I was thinking of the PDF versions on RPGnow or DrivethruRPG or whatever. Ptolus is unwieldy in that format but it is useable, and City State and Guide to Korvasa are small enough that you could feasibly print out the sections you need and put them in a binder.

Edit: I've also heard good things about Vornheim, never used it though.


I do prefer a nice printed copy of things, but you bring up a good point about getting a PDF of the City State stuff and just printing out what's needed and making my own 'book', so to speak - thanks!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/31 15:30:58


Post by: Da Boss


I have a big binder with the entire Wilderlands setting printed out and it's honestly more useful than a book as I can take chapters out as a need them and scribble notes on them without worry. I also have Barrowmaze done the same way, and it suits me for the same reason - I can edit and write notes everywhere.

I wrote up the huge battle in my game a fortnight ago on my blog, hope people don't mind me plugging it here with a link:
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/180/670478.page#10002327


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/05/31 22:31:20


Post by: Syro_


@Da Boss: That was a nice write up and quite the epic battle, I think everyone here will enjoy seeing it on your blog.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/05 10:56:18


Post by: krodarklorr


So last night was the first session of my Critical Mode 5e game. 2 of the 6 players couldn't make it, which upped the difficult another notch. The into/tutorial quest was to investigate the Iron Baron mine, which they found was abandoned/everyone was killed. Also something that eats metal is chilling somewhere.

Overall the game went better than expected. The party got along, actually attempted to roleplay, spent time considering how they were gonna get food and water, and so forth. They made it to the mine and began delving inside and cleared a total of 3 chambers, encountering 2 Magma Mephits and 8 Kobolds total so far. The Mephits are ridiculous for CR 1/2 creatures and knocked out 2 PCs during the fight.

After recouping over night they headed back in and fought the kobolds, luring them into a cramped hallway to limit their attacks. 3/4 of the party were knocked unconscious by slings and daggers, and the Githzerai Monk, who blocked some attacks to the cleric and stabilized the sorcerer, ended up dying. The last member conscious was the Ranger, who was using the light of the torch dropped by the Githzerai's mage hand to see the remaining 2 kobolds charging down the hall at him. He survived and killed both, with only one-hit's worth of hit points left. It was super intense. Everyone remaining is now retreating back to town for a week's rest (and to bring the other PCs with them next week), and they got out with only the Ranger having a grievous burn on his face.

Overall I like the mechanics of the variant rules. The players had to really budget their gold for tavern and food expenses, they spent half a day at camp outside the mine simply foraging, and had to not be dumb when it came to every decision they made. They even invested in a cart for the riding horse the sorcerer was given for free (via XGTE background rolls).

I'm certainly confident this group will do well, and it'll be a more rewarding experience overall. However, now the monk character needs to figure out what he's playing. He's a little sad he had to reset his experience.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/05 18:10:15


Post by: Mysterio


Interesting to see that PCs can be Githzerai this time around!

I'm guessing that Githyanki are still off limits though?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/05 18:11:27


Post by: krodarklorr


 Mysterio wrote:
Interesting to see that PCs can be Githzerai this time around!

I'm guessing that Githyanki are still off limits though?


No, they are available options.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/05 20:24:07


Post by: Mysterio


Ha!

So if you go Githyanki you kinda have to all be Githyanki?

I'm confused...


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 09:14:43


Post by: Earth127


No, you can create a char that is githyanki and write a backstory for it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 10:32:21


Post by: krodarklorr


 Earth127 wrote:
No, you can create a char that is githyanki and write a backstory for it.


Yeah, what this guy said. It says they normally lean towards lawful evil, but again, those are guidelines.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 12:06:51


Post by: Da Boss


I think how people see that sort of thing varies quite a bit from group to group.

The game sounds like a lot of fun though - I love that sort of gritty, low level stuff.

I was playing for the first time in a couple of years on monday, one of my players took her first run at being a GM. She killed my Dwarven Cleric! Got surrounded by 8 Bullywugs with spears and probably should have surrendered, but it is just not the Dwarven way! So I survived for 4 rounds as my party were ineffectual at killing any of them. AC18 and the Dodge action can only get you so far though - eventually one rolled a 20 and down I went. Went the full 5 death saves before dying too - 2 successes and then 3 failures. Next character I think a Wizard.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 12:17:19


Post by: Mysterio


My old school roots are twitching at the thought of a Githyanki PC, but...I'll be OK.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 12:21:48


Post by: krodarklorr


 Mysterio wrote:
My old school roots are twitching at the thought of a Githyanki PC, but...I'll be OK.


I mean, if you're playing an evil campaign it works. There are also evil races within Volos. I'm not sure what the issue could be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Da Boss wrote:
I think how people see that sort of thing varies quite a bit from group to group.

The game sounds like a lot of fun though - I love that sort of gritty, low level stuff.

I was playing for the first time in a couple of years on monday, one of my players took her first run at being a GM. She killed my Dwarven Cleric! Got surrounded by 8 Bullywugs with spears and probably should have surrendered, but it is just not the Dwarven way! So I survived for 4 rounds as my party were ineffectual at killing any of them. AC18 and the Dodge action can only get you so far though - eventually one rolled a 20 and down I went. Went the full 5 death saves before dying too - 2 successes and then 3 failures. Next character I think a Wizard.


That sounds like a lot of fun. The Ranger in the session the other night was shaking. I recommended he take into account that his character can run and probably make it out alive, but would leave everyone else for dead. He turned his hat backwards, stood up to observe the table more clearly, and began shakily rolling dice. He was like "Nah, my character wouldn't run away. I got this". And I was on edge wondering if he would succeed or not. Because of him, only one person has to reroll a character, not 3/4 of the players.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 12:39:31


Post by: Mysterio


"Evil Campaigns" just straight up don't work for long, if at all.

And some races just shouldn't be available as options - they should remain antagonists, or else we're going to get dual wielding Nalfeshnees.

You don't want dual wielding Nalfeshnee PCs, do you?!?

But overall, there is no 'issue', just 'opinions'.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 12:44:11


Post by: Da Boss


I think back in the old old days, wacky PCs were pretty common. I think Gygax even addressed it in one of the books.

Generally, I keep things to PHB core because it is easier for me to keep things suitable to my imagined world, but every so often I do a short "gonzo" campaign (usually Planescape) that runs for like 8 sessions of madness where literally anything goes. In long running campaigns some people get annoyed if the balance on one of those gonzo characters is screwed up.

My favourite gonzo game was:
- Tim the Maug, a sentient construct who was a middle manager in the mercenary company
- A half dwarf half minotaur barbarian
- A paladin of Tyr who became and Blackguard and got reincarnated as a Bugbear
- An evil ranger who got reincarnated as a Lizardman
- An evil artificer with multiple wand bracers.

It was pretty mental! But fun.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 16:56:18


Post by: Paradigm


I've not run one, but I think an evil campaign can absolutely work, and I'll probably try one at some point in future. It just requires a shift in perspective; instead of bandits or assassins or warlords, your main threats become guardsmen, soldiery, vigilantes, rivals ect. Monsters still have to be killed in pursuit of loot or information or territory, and evil characters can still have plenty of objectives beyond 'kill everyone' or 'steal everything'.

I actually think it'd be fairly easy to structure a campaign in this way; the party works for a thieve's guild or criminal empire or evil order, they undertake quests and jobs for that organisation while also plotting their way up through the ranks, they might even end up doing some ostensibly good work because it's in their own interests (the pack of Orcs is as much a threat to your robbers as it is to the caravans they're robbing, and the invading Chromatic Dragon doesn't care what the aims are of the puny mortals it wants to rule or consume) or facing some threat that poses a similarly large threat but to the bad guys rather than the good (instead of the boss being a powerful dark wizard, you [are] the dark wizard and the boss is the self-righteous Paladin sticking his nose where it doesn't belong).

Ultimately, I don't really see how it'd be any harder to run an evil campaign than a good one, assuming all the players are on the same page regarding the tone and style (which is pretty much a baseline requirement for any campaign). Given that other games are more than happy to put you in the role of the bad guys, like (for instance) Blades in the Dark which has you running a criminal gang, I don't see why it should be any more difficult for D&D.



I also don't see any point restricting certain races to certain alignments or banning available races on the grounds that this is a 'good' campaign (or setting similar parameters). Yes, Goblins as a whole might tend towards Chaotic Evil, but that doesn't mean they all have to be baby-eating monsters. True, High Elves might often tend towards goodness or neutrality but that doesn't preclude you from having a High Elf antagonist who's a real nasty piece of work. Obviously certain things are out on the grounds of mechanics (you can't have a Beholder or Dragon PC without a lot of custom work) but if someone wants to play a Bugbear or Kobold in my campaign, I find that no more outlandish than a Dragonborn or a Tabaxi.

Then again, this is really illustrative of why I throw the alignment system in the bin wherever possible; I find it creates preconceptions about how things 'should' be done and I'm far more interested in my players playing a genuine, nuanced 'character' rather than something defined by the trinity of race, class and alignment, and I take a similar approach with NPCs and antagonists. Even though I figure Alignment is meant to be a reflection on how you play rather than an instruction manual, I find people prone to taking it backwards and doing things because of their Alignment, rather than having a certain Alignment on account of the things they do.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 17:38:48


Post by: Mysterio


Ironically enough, 'evil' campaigns tend to be more restrictive then (for lack of a better term) 'good' campaigns.

And it just looks like you've allowed yourself to be restricted by alignments in the past, but this is also probably why it really isn't a focus of D&D now - if it exists at all anymore?

And yes, your experience may vary, etc. etc. etc.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 17:59:57


Post by: Paradigm


 Mysterio wrote:
Ironically enough, 'evil' campaigns tend to be more restrictive then (for lack of a better term) 'good' campaigns.


How do you mean? In terms of character creation? Or in terms of what you can actually do once you're in the game? Perhaps I'm missing something, but all an Evil campaign restricts you to is the idea that the law will be your main antagonist force, rather than the dangers of the wild or the traditional cults/bandits/evil creatures ect. Which yes, cuts down on your options a little, but it's also what you sign up for when you join an evil campaign.

Then again, perhaps the whole concept is a misnomer; it should perhaps be considered a campaign in which some (or all) of the PCs happen to be evil. Threats, opportunities and roles change in response to what the players elect to play, that's true of any party; the dynamics of the group dictate the sort of things that are going to happen and how the players will respond, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a function of Alignment.



And it just looks like you've allowed yourself to be restricted by alignments in the past, but this is also probably why it really isn't a focus of D&D now - if it exists at all anymore?


If you mean 'you' as in me, rather than a hypothetical 'you', not really; I started with D&D earlier in the year and haven't really given Alignment more than a passing thought. It has its uses, perhaps, as a barometer of player intentions; if you have a character describe themselves as Lawful Good, you know moral ambiguity or calling the concept of law into question should be a good way to challenge them, likewise if you have a self-described Chaotic Good PC then you can give them opportunities to challenge the status quo and the existing order, knowing they should get a kick out of that.

My wariness comes from the idea that it takes the place of motivation; as far as I'm concerned, saying 'I'm Lawful Good' is not a particularly good rationale for donating your 500GP reward to a struggling city orphanage, whereas 'I am a firm believer in helping those in greater need than I, even at my own cost' is far better. Same outcome, but a result of a thought process rather than checking the box on your character sheet.

Bin the Alignment axis, and players won't feel the need to act in a certain way, and conversely will think more about their character's outlooks, beliefs, morals in a variety of situations ect. And for that, I think 5e's Background system makes Alignment entirely redundant. As I say, I've never bothered with it, so it could be these are entirely illusory risks, but ultimately I don't feel I've lost anything of value by never bringing Alignment into my games. If you're roleplaying well, then I don't need an Alignment box to tell me what kind of things I can use to provoke a response from you, and if you're not them I don't see that an Alignment will help all that much.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 18:01:55


Post by: Mysterio


Yes, almost no one paid much attention to alignment probably....ever.

Which is probably why the "Lawful Good isn't Lawful Stupid" phrase showed up a....long time ago!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/06 20:47:19


Post by: Da Boss


I have often just told my players not to worry about alignment, and then I observe their actions and track it secretly. It used to be important mechanically in 3rd edition for spells like Blasphemy and Holy Word. But overall I find it is not helpful for roleplaying and players tend to fixate on it a bit too much.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/07 03:32:48


Post by: SlaveToDorkness


Our group has had a few evil games. Mostly they work if everyone has an overall overall goal. Seems like it'd be hard on a DM though needing combat stats on virtually every NPC encountered.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/07 06:43:55


Post by: Earth127


Games tend to work best if the party has a goal in general.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/07 10:14:25


Post by: Da Boss


I think the most important thing is for people to have a reason to work together. I played a Chaotic Evil character who was a total scumbag but really liked having some drinking buddies and didn't really care about money and so was by default pretty generous to his friends.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/07 10:35:08


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
I think the most important thing is for people to have a reason to work together. I played a Chaotic Evil character who was a total scumbag but really liked having some drinking buddies and didn't really care about money and so was by default pretty generous to his friends.


Yeah, I built myself into a corner one time. I was playing a Warlock (3.5) who was a student at the Mage school in the city and was a huge loner. The DM tried to work with me to give me a reason to want to adventure, but I kept thinking "My character wouldn't care about money, or other people". So, I had to reroll a character to fit with the game. Doh!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/07 20:38:36


Post by: Paradigm


Yeah, I do occasionally find myself having to remind players that this is an adventure game, so you kind of need to make an adventurer, or at least a potential one. Reluctant, hesitant or totally-out-of-their-depth characters are absolutely fine, and can make for some great stories (see Bilbo Baggins), but there has to be at least some reason, whether than an internal motivation to go adventuring or a product of the character's circumstance, that gives them a little nudge out the door.

Take that warlock above as an example, that's a fine character so long as they have a reason to get out and do stuff, preferably with a group. All you need to do is, for example, throw in a line in the character's backstory about how they used to be a student at the Mage school but got thrown out after being framed for a crime there or discovered some dark secret that meant they had to leave. All the personality traits remain the same, but they now have a reason to be out in the world, and stick with a group for safety and convenience if nothing else. That can then lead naturally into an arc of being more trusting and more adventurous, without having to force it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/08 08:35:23


Post by: Da Boss


That crops up so often for me over the years that I actually think of it as the "bilbo baggins problem".
Grouping is really important. I tried to get my players to consider that when making our new group, asking them, "Why are you all working together?" but they either couldn't really process what I meant or didn't consider it that seriously, and now we have reached a point where conflicting desires are causing issues.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/08 20:10:58


Post by: Red Harvest


To be a bit contrarian.... D&D started out as a game of adventure/exploration. The PCs were treasure-seekers and adventurers. However, AD&D 2E changed that a bit, and started portraying the PCs as heroes and heroines. Unfortunately, that sort of thinking still pervades. This need to flesh out the character fully, as though it were a protagonist in a novel... sheesh.

Here's an idea. Just roll up the character and let its background/history develop as you play the character, not before you play the character. You're not plotting a novel; you're playing a game. You'll find the game much more fun if you explore the character's background, motivation, w/e, as you play.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/08 20:54:13


Post by: Da Boss


I generally agree with that. I am not too interested in creating backstories with my characters, I much prefer experiencing the backstory through play! So I tend to just have a broad idea and see where the game takes me.

To my mind there is no wrong way to do it though, so I think it is fine if you want to do the backstory thing.

I am much more on the gamist-simulationalist end of things rather than the story game end. But I think right from the start how people played diverged wildly. Gygax might not have been a big Tolkien fan, but lots of other people in the early days were, and so I think you see pretty early on that sort of heroic romance style in parallel with the more Leiber inspired swords and sorcery stuff. I actually fell in love with swords and sorcery through D&D and am only recently discovering the fiction that inspired it - my initial exposure to fantasy was the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. Of the two, the Hobbit is much more the average D&D campaign but I still love LOTR.

To be fair, for new players, 5e presents background as a core part of the system. I do like that, as I think everyone had a life before being an adventurer, and people in my group have a lot of fun with their backgrounds.

And popular streamers like Critical Role focus on the storytelling parts because I think it makes for more entertaining viewing.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/08 21:37:55


Post by: Paradigm


 Red Harvest wrote:

Here's an idea. Just roll up the character and let its background/history develop as you play the character, not before you play the character. You're not plotting a novel; you're playing a game. You'll find the game much more fun if you explore the character's background, motivation, w/e, as you play.


I disagree, simply because while a Level 1 or 2 PC is someone who's just picked up their sword and set out into the world, or made a deal with their Warlock patron or graduated from the Bard's College, the majority of player characters are going to be adults and are going to be defined entirely by the experiences they have had up to that point. They are still people, after all, and their life doesn't begin at Level 1.

Certainly, characters will grow and develop a great deal during a campaign as the events they're part of and the people they meet change them, that's the fundamental principle of storytelling, but I think coming into one without knowing that person's history leaves you significantly underrepresented. You don't need an itemised list of 30 years of events and characters, but I do think you need to have prepared some details just for the sake of knowing that character, and thus being able to roleplay them faithfully and authentically.

Yes, you can just decide on a list of personality traits, but sooner or later someone will want to know something more and it's best to have an answer prepared. If you play a character that has major issues with authority figures/institutions, eventually an NPC or another player will (presumably) respond to that and ask why. At which point, a player who has a backstory to justify that belief is better equipped to maintain the immersion than one who's only reasoning for it was that they wanted to play a rebel.

Not to mention that it just helps have a clearer idea of your character. Even if you have stories or ideas jotted down that never even reach the DM or other players and are entirely for your own benefit, they still contribute to your frame of reference for getting into character. An encounter with a Tiefling in your past might give you reference for an encounter with a different Tiefling now. Having your home burned by an Orc warband colours any interaction you later have with Orcs. So on and so forth. More detail can't ever hurt.

As a DM, I also encourage my players to give me backstories as that in turn gives me a tool to make their experience at the table bespoke and personal. I might not use every detail you give me, I might introduce new details you/your character wasn't aware of previously, but in general, if you give me something to work with, I will work with it and make sure you get encounters, interactions with NPCs, entire sessions and arcs that matter to your character, rather than just saving another town or looting another ruin. In my experience, the players who get the most of out my games are the ones who give me stuff to work with, as I go out of my way to respond to it. It's an understanding that if you put the effort into your character, I will put the effort into making sure they get a story that is personal, relevant, surprising and satisfying.

I'm sure there are games that run very well without that kind of stuff, but to me it's anathema, the fundamental opposite of the kind of game I run. For me, all the dungeons, all the monsters, all the traps and chests and merchants and ruins, it's all just a catalyst for creating drama, whether that's between the players, between a player and an NPC drawn from material they've given me, or between the players and the world at large. And the more thorough, interesting and engaging your backstory is, the better that drama is.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 00:30:20


Post by: Da Boss


I think you have a fine point there Paradigm, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with running a game that way at all.

I would still like to play devil's advocate though!

If you allow the story to happen only in the shared world of the game, it means you actually experience the backstory rather than have it be written on the paper. You build it together with the other players, meaning that they are the main actors in your story, forging closer bonds by doing so. It means you will be invested in what is happening and likely to form your goals out of what has happened in game, drawing you further into the story and the world in front of you.

This visceral "living" of the story is something only roleplaying games can provide, and it is so much more meaningful than reading a written text can be in most cases, simply because most of us are not world class writers. By putting in a backstory, you are colouring this visceral experience with something unrelated to it and risk diluting the impact or distracting from it.

(Remember, this is devil's advocate )

I would also say that some people play roleplaying games for reasons other than story, and that is perfectly valid too. Sometimes you just want to fight some monsters and steal their stuff.

Again, I only bring that up to demonstrate what I see as the other point of view. I think both approaches have deep roots in the hobby and it is all a matter of taste.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 01:13:10


Post by: Red Harvest


De gustibus non est disputandum. If you are having fun, then you are doing it right.

With that out of the way... I've played the sort of campaign Paradigm describes. Not fun for me. Too restrictive, not at all spontaneous. Dull. ( I repeat, for me. For others, maybe not. It's not a thing of wrong way/ right way, just different ways.) I prefer improvisation and creating at the table, with my fellow players. It is meant as a cooperative game after all. As far as I am concerned, a PC's adventuring life begins at level 1, and what they did before that is really not relevant...unless you play one of those social politics sort of campaigns. ( I get enough of that in RL; don't want it in my Elfgames.)

This, by the way, is a common dichotomy. The story-telling started to creep into D&D in the mid-80's when the Hickmans started writing modules for TSR, as far as I can tell. (Dragonlance being the worst of them, IMO) It may have been present in other RPGs earlier.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 02:09:24


Post by: Syro_


Seems like, as usual, it comes down to how each of us want to play the game and how our players want to it. And like the two things Red Harvest said, the style of the game that will be played affects it too. And ultimately if it's fun, it's being done right. The starter set campaign that I'm playing with my first time players, they didn't care at all about back story, and they haven't even read their pre-made back stories. A long term veteran of D&D joined that group, and I believe he's writing a new back story for the character he's playing, even though it already came with one. A different campaign I'm writing is more about political intrigue, mystery solving, and puzzles. They players are thrilled that I wrote a back story for them and how they are involved with the events that are starting the adventure, with them polishing and tweaking the back story only.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 10:09:35


Post by: Paradigm


I think an important distinction to make is between story and backstory; the two are not mutually exclusive, and neither relies on the other, but I think together they can complement each other nicely. The easiest way to make that distinction is that backstory happens before any dice hit the table, anything after that is story.

Take for instance recent events in my campaign; it was a fairly standard setup, with the party set up against a mysterious rising threat (in this case, a new, deadlier kind of Gnolls that ultimately tried to summon Yeenoghu). There was some detective work, some heroic rescues, some dungeon crawling and it concluded with a pitched battle outside the city walls, and a final showdown with the leader of the Gnolls in Yeenooghu's Realm. A fine story if you ask me. But what the backstory did, rather than interfere with that, is enhance it. A few examples:

Spoiler:

The only reason the PCs were in this region at all was because one of them had received a mysterious summons from their father, who claimed to have made a discovery regarding the family lineage. On arriving at the city, they find him missing, and a couple of days later, discover him and his wife about to be sacrificed by the Gnolls in a dark ritual. Instantly, the dramatic tension mounts and what would have been a simple end-of-dungeon fight becomes something much more important; the PCs now had to rescue the family of their companion, and as such, they tackled that fight very differently. If it had just been unnamed sacrificial victims, they'd have been less daring, less reckless and it'd have been less exciting.

This was only possible as the player had given me details on their family and their relationship with them, and tied into the larger quest in a way I had planned but the PCs knew nothing about until that final room.

At a different point, our Warlock used Dark One's Blessing to take THP one too many times, and a failed Wisdom save later, he had turned on the group as his patron took over his mortal body for a few moments while the PC's soul was pulled out to have a chat with the patron on their own plane. Anyone who's played a Warlock knows that's not how Dark One's Blessing works, but it did in this case as the player made it clear to me this warlock had a strained, even hostile relationship with his Patron and sought to resist its boons where possible (hence the Wisdom saves... he's actually running almost a custom sub-class at this point due to the changes, but that's a whole other thing). I'd not planned for this to occur at this specific moment, I just knew that once DOB had been used a certain number of times, and/or a certain number of Wisdom Saves to resist the extra HP failed (the DC tied to the DOB count) then the patron would overpower the warlock and turn their body against their allies. The fact this came in the midst of a dungeon at the climax of a fight the party had already struggled with created a genuinely spontaneous moment of drama and tension that again, wouldn't have been possible without the player giving me that backstory and me discussing with him how to tweak the class mechanics to suit it.

During the final fight of the arc, with the PCs in a bad way against the boss, this same warlock made a desperate appeal to his patron on the grounds that, as a Demon, it too benefited from halting the machinations of Yeenoghu... I rewarded this (and a successful Charisma roll) with an extra 5 Temporary Hit Points, which ended up crucial to that player surviving long enough to win. Clever use of details they'd established via their backstory kept them in the fight and added a whole new dynamic to this final confrontation.


I think those examples form my case for arguing that a good backstory can create excellent moments of spontaneity and enhance the storytelling that occurs during gameplay. In each of those instances, whether it was via my choices or the players', the drama was heightened, twists had genuine emotional punch, the players were forced into tougher decisions and after most instances like this, the interactions with the party regarding the events create the exact same kind of at-the-table story that you'd get otherwise, rather than detracting from it. Again, the crucial thing to keep in mind is that done well, backstory is a foundation for story, rather than replacing it. It's fuel for the fire on both sides of the DM screen and I can't really think of a moment where it's detracted.

Once again, as other have said I'm not claiming this is the right way to do things, and every group and game will approach these elements differently. I'm just arguing the case for it as I personally believe it can add a great deal to a campaign, heightening drama, reinforcing immersion and verisimilitude and facilitating these memorable moments. It is very much the Critical Role way of doing things, and probably only a fairly recent phenomena when taken to this extent, but as a new player and one who came into the game via CR, it's the style I find most exciting and what keeps me coming back to the table each week. (incidentally, I do accept that my game, and taking drama to this extreme, is probably an outlier, not necessarily representative of a more standard game, so I'm definitely not saying this is the 'normal' way to do things, just the one I prefer)


EDIT: I'd also add as an addendum that the backstory is entirely in the hands of my players in my campaign. It's entirely up to them when, how and why they choose to reveal it or not, rather than sitting down and passing round 4 sides of A4 with a character's life story on it. One of our players is a walking barrel of mysteries as far as the rest of the group is concerned, another is entirely open about it. But it's never been presented as written material (except to me as DM), it's all done through character conversation at the table and never forced on them. The players still get to experience that story as a group, which strikes me as the exact kind of shared storytelling you'd get in 'regular' games.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 20:42:27


Post by: Da Boss


Sounds pretty cool. I am less into drama in my games now that I am older, but I used to thoroughly enjoy it back in the day. I think now, after a long and tiring day herding middle schoolers and stressing about my high schoolers coursework, I want some pretty straightforward escapism that doesn't require too much emotional investment.

Did you see that Matt Mercer has released his world as a campaign setting? Cover art looked fairly cool, I nearly picked it up even though I can't seem to get into Critical Role.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 21:09:57


Post by: Paradigm


Fair enough. Given that my two most active players are drama/creative writing students, that possibly explains why we're so into the dramatic side of things more than your average group. I wouldn't have it any other way, but it's entirely possible that's influencing what we're looking for as a group.

Yeah, there's some good stuff in the Tal'Dorei campaign book, and as a CR fan it's really cool to have access to the background material that doesn't necessarily crop up in the show. Mercer certainly has a talent for breathing a lot of life into a setting that would otherwise be fairly generic high fantasy, and the book offers a nice peek behind the curtain at that.

I'd love to run a game in that world but I feel that, as with a lot of licensed RPGs/settings, you kind of need to run it with a group that knows that world well, or a lot of the work is going to be lost on them.

I had that problem last year running Green Ronin's Dragon Age with a group who (aside from one player) knew very little about the setting and it ended up being more of a hindrance than a help as I had to explain every reference or concept to the unfamiliar players. While the rules evoke the feeling of both the world and the video games very nicely, that wasn't really worthwhile on a group that didn't really appreciate it.

When we switched over to D&D in a setting of my own devising, everything ran much smoother as the onus was on me to explain things as I saw them and I could fill in gaps on the fly, rather than relying on existing knowledge of a setting. There was less need to explain at length the lore ramifications for playing a Mage or an Elf (both of which come with tonnes of baggage in Dragon Age that I'm not sure my players were expecting), and I could focus on building up a setting around what my players wanted, rather than trying to project it onto them.

It's actually the same reason I don't use any of the 'official' D&D settings, as that freedom suits me as DM and the players; if one wants to play a Drow, for instance, I can write up a side of notes on Drow culture in my setting, where they exist, what their relations with the other races are, and to a certain extent I can curate that around what the player is after and what I want the central tensions of my world to be. Where as if I was using Sword Coast or Waterdeep or Raveloft, that lore already exists and might not necessarily fit with the ideas I/the players are after. That, and world writing lore is a lot of fun for me!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/09 22:38:47


Post by: Da Boss


I use settings quite a lot, over the years I have run Ravenloft, Darksun, Ptolus, Planescape and Eberron. Weirdly, I have never run Forgotten Realms, because if I am gonna run a basic fantasy world I would rather make it myself, so I have done 2 completely homebrew campaigns.

I am currently running in my own setting, but even then I use the maps and stuff from the Wilderlands - I just fill in all the detail and cultures myself.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 13:24:03


Post by: krodarklorr


So, had the second session on my Critical Mode game and I must say, it was pretty ridiculous. If anyone is interested, instead of typing it all again here, I posted on reddit describing what transpired. Simply for your reading enjoyment, should anyone be interested.

https://ss.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/8qrwcx/how_players_are_dealing_with_my_critical_mode/

Thanks.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 15:32:03


Post by: Da Boss


I'll definitely have a read. Always interested in other styles of play (this is my favourite Dakka thread )


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 15:41:02


Post by: Earth127


That's completely opposite of how I like playing dnd. But if you and yopur players are having fun...

3 things I'd like to give as feedback:

1) 14 kobolds at lvl 1 is extremely hard for 4 lvl 1 chars let alone
using all those special rules.

2) I'd probably give a catch up system for xp in case a person gets killed at "higher" lvl's because constantly laggiong behind isn't really fun.

3) I'm pretty certain that rate of character loss stops being fun very quickly.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 16:15:46


Post by: krodarklorr


 Earth127 wrote:
That's completely opposite of how I like playing dnd. But if you and yopur players are having fun...

3 things I'd like to give as feedback:

1) 14 kobolds at lvl 1 is extremely hard for 4 lvl 1 chars let alone
using all those special rules.

2) I'd probably give a catch up system for xp in case a person gets killed at "higher" lvl's because constantly laggiong behind isn't really fun.

3) I'm pretty certain that rate of character loss stops being fun very quickly.


Thanks for the feedback!

1. You are absolutely right. However, I randomly generated it and rolled really high for the number of enemies, plus I figured the fact that they can funnel them through the hallway with two ranged picking them off, and the fact that they take one hit and die, would compensate.

2. Perhaps. The idea I'm going for is that everything you achieve is supposed to feel like an accomplishment, and characters that survive the odds end up giving you more to be excited about.

3. Yeah, probably. We shall see. But if someone gets to a higher level they can essentially carry the party to a degree, so it gets easier to level up.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 17:54:32


Post by: gnome_idea_what


Some people enjoy character loss, some people despise it. It’s up to individual taste. As for some sort of catchup system, maybe just allocate more XP to underleveled players or something, because while surviving is an accomplishment, not surviving could mean that your next character is dead weight to the party, and no one wants to be useless.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 18:00:04


Post by: krodarklorr


 gnome_idea_what wrote:
Some people enjoy character loss, some people despise it. It’s up to individual taste. As for some sort of catchup system, maybe just allocate more XP to underleveled players or something, because while surviving is an accomplishment, not surviving could mean that your next character is dead weight to the party, and no one wants to be useless.


The saving grace there is that, unless the party is actively fighting near-max level stuff, due to bounded accuracy, even level 1 characters can still contribute to combat to some degree. Yes, it makes it more difficult because it's easier for them to die, but it adds to the challenge. Imagine how Frodo was when the troll was attacking them inside the dwarven tomb place. Legolas and Aragorn are easily level 10+, but Frodo was no more than level 2 or 3. It creates scenes like that, which I believe adds to the tension.

I'm hoping that by the time they get to level 2-3, people won't die as much, because they'll have more of a buffer of abilities and health.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 21:11:39


Post by: Paradigm


In case anyone's interested, there's currently a Humble Bundle for a bunch of 5e third party adventures/resources. Might be of use to some of you:
Link


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/13 21:48:17


Post by: Syro_


That's awesome Paradigm, I'm going to check it out. Thanks!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/15 18:53:46


Post by: Da Boss


I enjoyed reading about your campaign, krodarklorr.

It reminds me of the campaign I ran a couple of years ago, I didn't go as hard on my players as you did, but they were pretty used to a low death rate and a fair amount of plot armour. They also used to get a "rounds grace" between when they failed their last death save or died, and when they were actually dead. So in the early games, the death rate was quite high.

This resulted in 2 things: People began to enjoy making new characters and seeing what would happen. And players got a lot more careful. Early on people would wander into rooms or charge into dangerous combats. As time went on, they developed systems for dealing with room entry, they became canny and tactical about taking on groups. They did things like blocking doors in the dungeon to prevent attacks from behind.

It resulted in very satisfying dungeon based play.

One thing I did do that I think worked well was if someone in the party was 2 levels below the highest level character, they got 33% bonus XP. This helped them "catch up", and it usually made sense because they were often dealing with things well above their "pay grade", and some players actually roleplayed the older characters mentoring the rookies.

It also made high level characters very valued for the way they helped lower level characters and prevented resentment - they became the old warhorses of the adventuring guild and people really looked up to them and liked having them along on adventures.

People also learned to enjoy just surviving high level encounters as a low level player, and adapting their playstyle to just contribute however they were able to, often in creative ways.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/15 19:17:05


Post by: Syro_


@Paradigm: Thanks again for sharing about those D&D ebooks, after mulling it over for a few days, I decided to get all of the ebooks offered in the bundle. I doubt I'll even ever use 1/3 of them, but it's a great price and should be a fun read.

@Da Boss: Those are some really good ideas for helping a party play smoothly with different levels of characters, I'll have to remember those suggestions.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 10:54:53


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
I enjoyed reading about your campaign, krodarklorr.

It reminds me of the campaign I ran a couple of years ago, I didn't go as hard on my players as you did, but they were pretty used to a low death rate and a fair amount of plot armour. They also used to get a "rounds grace" between when they failed their last death save or died, and when they were actually dead. So in the early games, the death rate was quite high.

This resulted in 2 things: People began to enjoy making new characters and seeing what would happen. And players got a lot more careful. Early on people would wander into rooms or charge into dangerous combats. As time went on, they developed systems for dealing with room entry, they became canny and tactical about taking on groups. They did things like blocking doors in the dungeon to prevent attacks from behind.

It resulted in very satisfying dungeon based play.

One thing I did do that I think worked well was if someone in the party was 2 levels below the highest level character, they got 33% bonus XP. This helped them "catch up", and it usually made sense because they were often dealing with things well above their "pay grade", and some players actually roleplayed the older characters mentoring the rookies.

It also made high level characters very valued for the way they helped lower level characters and prevented resentment - they became the old warhorses of the adventuring guild and people really looked up to them and liked having them along on adventures.

People also learned to enjoy just surviving high level encounters as a low level player, and adapting their playstyle to just contribute however they were able to, often in creative ways.


Sounds like that was a good group you had there. Ideally I'm hoping this group evolves their strategy and learns from their mistakes. I already hinted at some things they could've done to help in the battle against the kobolds. Today is our 3rd session, and everyone is still very excited to play, which is a good sign. Though, I will admit, I expect a few more of them to die today if they don't be careful. One of the players is trying to be a Githyanki Wizard wielding a Longsword...with 8 hit points.

As far as the catch-up mechanic. If it ever becomes a problem, I'll have to look into it. But realistically, at least how I see it, if the party is level 5 and they're fighting creatures of the appropriate level, then the 1st-level character will receive the same amount of experience, but it will easily be enough to level them up immediately. That's what I figured would be the built-in catch-up mechanic, is simply them requiring less experience to level up. But, we don't even have a level 2 PC yet, so we'll have to wait and see.

I'll be continuing the saga tomorrow once I see what happens tonight. Thanks all for those who read it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 11:14:25


Post by: Da Boss


Aye, I don't think the 33% catch up XP is needed and it created some problems itself anyway. I think 5th is much more easy on low level players (I was running in Pathfinder).

I think the risk of death generally motivates more careful play, but tthen I also have had some players that seem to have a deathwish at times!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 11:19:24


Post by: krodarklorr


 Da Boss wrote:
Aye, I don't think the 33% catch up XP is needed and it created some problems itself anyway. I think 5th is much more easy on low level players (I was running in Pathfinder).

I think the risk of death generally motivates more careful play, but tthen I also have had some players that seem to have a deathwish at times!


Oh, haha. Yeah in 5e, unless you're fighting CR26 creatures and one PC is level 1, typically it won't be an issue. Bounded accuracy makes even higher level creatures still easy enough to hit by a level 1, and so on.

I must say, the risk of death has made the game a lot more interesting in my opinion. The players are adapting, and it creates a sense of urgency with potentially running away from combat or, you know, not being dumb and rushing into dungeon chambers.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 11:36:33


Post by: Da Boss


Yep. They switch on more and take in the surroundings a lot more carefully. If no risk of death is present they can be on autopilot sometimes.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 12:08:02


Post by: krodarklorr


Yeah. One of my players, god bless him, is terrible at games. He normally spends time on his phone and relies on everyone else to help him with character creation and explaining where and how to find information he needs. Or just relies on me to know it for him. He's been playing for over a year. In this game, he's died twice. More than everyone else. And he's going to keep dying if he doesn't pay attention and think tactically.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 12:58:28


Post by: Da Boss


Hmph. Phone use at the table is a real bugbear of mine. Fine if it is important, but mindless browsing is a no-no. You can do that at home on your own.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 12:59:59


Post by: krodarklorr


Agreed. This player is a good friend of mine but dang he gets on my nerves with it. I keep trying to tell him to put it down, but hey. I'll just let him keep dying until he learns his lesson.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/18 19:44:56


Post by: Manchu


 Red Harvest wrote:
Just roll up the character and let its background/history develop as you play the character, not before you play the character.
Yep, 100% agree. So many bad experiences come from expecting a character to be like one thing and him or her being something different in play. Plus, it is so much fun just to see how the character emerges.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/26 11:58:39


Post by: krodarklorr


just another update for my Monday night Critical Mode game. There are reports for sessions 3 and 4, so if anyone is interested in how my party is handling these rules, have at it.

https://ss.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/8tzcbx/5e_critical_mode_chapter_4_sweet_sweet_progress/


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/27 19:15:16


Post by: Da Boss


Oh man, that one poor player! Hahaha. The game gods are cruel to those who do not respect the phone taboo.

I am taking a break from GMing to play. My first character, a Dwarven Cleric, got ganked in the first game facing down 8 Bullywugs (I lasted longer than I expected! Hurrah for the Dodge action).

My new character is a Bard called Caolawn, and I rolled the best stats I have ever managed, so he is a sort of prince charming style wunderkind, annoyingly good natured and chipper.
(I ended up with Str 17, Dex 16, Con 17, Int 12, Wis 9 and Cha 18!!!)
Piles of fun so far, and I am really looking forward to getting the War College abilities and busting out my greatsword.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/28 02:38:29


Post by: Syro_


Wow, those are really great stats Da Boss, I hope you have a lot of fun playing him.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/29 11:08:02


Post by: Paradigm


Those are some very good stats.What race are you playing?


I was going to say I was surprised you lost a character in the first session, but then I remembered that in the new campaign I kicked off on Wednesday, one of my PCs was one save from death in the first Medium Difficulty fight... Technically, he should've had to make another Death save, but I let another PC get an extra 5ft of movement with a hard Athletics check which got him in range to Cure Wounds (though he was one pip away from failing the check!)

While combat is still taking a back seat in my games, I have found that my sessions across both campaigns have got a lot more rewarding since I started ramping up the difficulty/complexity of fights over the last few weeks. I think there was probably a bit of a learning curve there, but at this point I think I've got a good handle on how to make things interestingly challenging rather than just hard (ie. enemy variety/positioning/tactics is more important than the number or threat of individual enemies).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/29 20:41:58


Post by: SkavenLord


Man, a last stand against Bullywugs is a perfectly dignified death.

I wonder how you’re going to act out the high charisma with those Int and Wis scores. Whatever it is, looks like you’re all set for bard work!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/06/29 21:00:56


Post by: Paradigm


Bullywugs are one of those enemies that I really want to find an excuse to use at some point. I think I've mentioned before that I love the fun you can have with the low-level stuff like Goblins and Kobolds, and Bullywugs fit into that as well. At face value, they're kind of comical and hardly 'worthy opponents' to proper adventurers, but to a low-level party they can be properly threatening.

Especially after starting off this new campaign, I'm beginning to think levels 2 through 5 are probably the most fun for me. Lots of 'bread and butter' enemy types can be genuinely dangerous (especially in the setting I'm currently running, CR1/8 guards are pretty nasty when a good number of them have firearms! ), combat is fast and often fairly brutal, and you don't need to have a 'save the region/nation/world' imperative like you kind of need at higher levels.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/01 14:55:07


Post by: Gitzbitah


A great way to boost the Bullywugs fearsomeness is to play into their frog nature. Have them set up an ambush as the party is crossing a slippery log in a swamp between islands. The Bullywugs erupt form the muck, or jump out of the low bushes. It's even more fun to capture one or more members of the party, and hold them for a really, really lousy ransom, like a shiny flask, or some colored beads or the feathers of a particular marsh bird.

The tension as the Bullywug king led my group of players on a grand tour of his village was outstanding. They didn't know whether to laugh at his mud shacks, or try to blast through the tribe.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/01 15:43:27


Post by: Da Boss


@Paradigm: I'm a human. I've lost a fair few level one characters in 5e, but I think that is just the way it works. We do secret death saving throws, so people sometimes underestimate how close someone is to death when they roll a 1!

@Skavenlord:As for low int-wis, well, I play him as a bit oblivious to other people and lacking in common sense - he is always ready to rush heroically and recklessly into any situation, confidently believing he can find a way through. As for dignity, I thought it was hilarious. The Bullywugs were trying to take us prisoner, and I resisted, and found myself surrounded by 8 of them. Even with high AC and the dodge action, I only managed to last three rounds til one of them critted me.

As to Bullywugs as enemies, I love them! I bought a bunch of Privateer Press Croaks to use as them and can't wait to use them in my own game when I get back to DMing.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/02 13:18:11


Post by: Syro_


As far as I can remember, I haven't encountered Bullywugs as a player, nor have I used them as a DM. I haven't seen them in any of the pre-made quests I've been reading either. I think I'll need to change that. I'll add Bullywugs to the list of things I want to make for D&D.

Along similar lines, I've been reading a lot about monster minis that different people feel are most important for a starting DM to have (if they play with minis). They mostly became top ten lists, of minis that would be most useful to a DM starting out.
Going from memory, there was mostly a consensus to focus on a spread of the CR 1/8 and similar commonly encountered monsters: goblins, orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins, knolls, bandits, cultists, zombies, skeletons, etc. There was also mostly consensus one a few wilderness encounter animals, like wolves, owlbears, etc.
And finally that beginning DMs should have two large creatures to use as final bosses: they mostly agreed on a juvenile dragon and some kind of demon. (A few wanted beholders, but the rest felt they were far too dangerous).
This of course is very variable based on campaign setting, and where the adventures will take place, But I thought I would put together a top ten list based on my own thoughts and limited experience.

1.Goblins (at least 4 of them. They seem to be the bread and butter of very first encounters from what I've read and show up more than anything.)
2.Bandits (at least 4. Good to have humanoid PC stand in enemies, and they appear a lot in what I have read too)
3. Bugbear (stronger version of the above 2 entries, good at ambushing, and can bolster the forces of goblins or bandits)
4. Zombies (preferably a lot maybe 8-10. Good for straight forward horde encounter, and are more mystical than the living enemies above)
5. Orcs (Mostly because I love orks from the warhammer universe, so I can play these with more personality than most monsters, but also for variety of straight forward attacking monster)
6. Wolves (good for wilderness encounter, can be teamed up with goblins, and is something that helps with suspension of disbelief since they are real and people of scared of them)
7.A second wild animal group, I'll say bears (but it can be wild boars, big cats, an owl bear, etc)
8. Some weak abberation, abomination, unusual beast (Some unusual monster, either unique to D&D or mythology to shake things up. Like a pudding, spectator, or medusa0
9. Evil wizard (can be scaled up and down to match heroes, and reused no matter what level they are. Good to know that not all final bosses are big monsters)
10. A final boss that is a big monster, maybe an ogre or troll (I'd prefer not to over use young dragons, but most feel they are good for this. It is in the name of the game I suppose)

I would love to read your own lists and why you choose them, if any of you would like to share.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/02 13:34:23


Post by: Paradigm


I share your feelings on Young Dragons. The PCs in my first campaign are probably at the point they could take a Young Dragon (especially if they face it off the back of a Long Rest) but I kind of feel throwing the weakest possible Dragon at them at a lower level devalues them a bit; when Dragons show up in my game, I want it to be a big, dramatic moment of terror rather than 'here's a baby one, bash its head in and have some treasure for your troubles'.

I can see using them to foreshadow a larger dragon down the line, or even as more of an ally/questgiver in need of some assistance, but I'd certainly hesitate to use them as a big final boss. Though I do admittedly like using things like Wyverns or Drakes* to get the feeling of a dragon battle without toning down actual Dragons.

*There's a few varieties of Drake in Kobold Press' Tome of Beasts supplement, which I highly recommend if you want more variety than MM/Volo's/MTOF, there's a lot of folklorey types in there as well as some genuinely weird stuff.


I don't use minis myself, but if I did, I'd largely agree with your list above. Maybe go for more generic humanoids instead of specifically bandits, if you have half a dozen with various armaments you've got everything from Bandits/Guards at CR1/8 to Archers/Veterans/Knights at CR3, and they can double as allies or enemies. I generally prefer Skeletons to Zombies, but that's just because I'm not a massive fan of overly tanky enemies early on, it drags combat out while not being much more dangerous in the long run. Ogres are always a good shout, most factions can find an excuse to use them and with Mordenkainen's there's some decent alternative profiles as well.

All that said, I reckon (if they're still available) the D&D boardgames are a good place to start. Wrath of Ashardalon, Temple of Elemental Evil, Castle Ravenloft ect. Not only are they fun games in their own right but they all have a good range of enemies ranging in level and type significantly. Likewise, something like Mantic's Dwarf King's Quest makes a good start, you've got Undead, Orcs, a few more unique pieces. Add in a sprue of Frostgrave soldiers for Guards/Bandits and you're sorted. Not to mention these things tend to come with a bunch of board tiles as well that are always useful.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/02 18:53:14


Post by: Da Boss


Agreed on Dragons as well. I have written into my game world that drakes are dumb, unintelligent dragons that behave like beasts.
Every so often, a drake bonds with an area of land, making a lair their. The Drake gradually increases in intelligence and gains magical abilities, becoming a true dragon, or wyrm.

Flora and fauna in the area around a wyrms lair is effected over generations, creating the various "drake" form animals like Rage Drakes etc, which are called "wyrmbeasts" or "wyrmtainted".
Goblins and Halflings in the area gradually begin to take on a draconic aspect over generations, eventually becoming Kobolds. Humans, Hobgoblins and Orcs etc undergo the same process becoming Dragonborn. This is partially looted from Robin Hobb's Liveship traders.

As for beginner minis, that list is a pretty good start. I like to have a variety of Undead, because they are a pretty common low level bad guy and can show up as minions or "environmental" bad guys, and nearly always need to be fought.

The core of my collection is Castle Ravenloft + Wrath of Ashardalon for the basics, with Dwarf Kings Quest + Expansions filling out the roster with more Undead, Trolls, Orcs and Demons.
If I had to pick one Dungeons and Dragons Board Game to buy, I would definitely go with Wrath of Ashardalon. You get a small orc clan, some Kobolds, Duregar, Demons, some weird abberations like Grell, Gibbering Mouthers and a Gauth, and a kick ass Dragon, as well as some Bears and Snakes. Combine it with Castle Ravenloft and you get wolves and rat swarms, a collection of undead including ghosts and all the major corporeal types, and some classic villains like Hags, a Dracolich and of course a Vampire.

I recently picked up legend of drizzt on the cheap, and while I am not as fond of it as the others, it has a bunch of drow, goblins galore, a mind flayer, a drider, another Dragon, and a big arsed demon.

I really need to get around to photographing all the stuff I have painted over the last while.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/02 19:07:59


Post by: Paradigm


I like that concept of Dragons 'evolving' from Drakes over their lifespan. In my setting, I have a similar starting point, but basically where Drakes (like Wyverns) are simply non-magical creatures, while Dragons are inherently magical. In other words, the Drakes of my world have more in common with Lizardfolk or dinosaurs than actual Dragons, which are few and far between to the point of being almost mythical to many cultures.

I also change up the way Dragonborn work, essentially using them how other settings typically use Elves; the civilisation that has already fallen from the height of its power, reduced to a few thousand by some calamity. I also set DB lifespans at several centuries (possibly millennia in some cases, as they are functionally immortal unless killed) with children incredibly rare so they are slowly dying out and each new generation is more precious than the last. So far none of my players have gone for a DB character, but I'm hoping someone does at some point so I have an excuse to delve into this culture a little more thoroughly and show it off in-game.

It never sat right with me that the 'standard' lifespan for a Dragonborn was less than 100 years, as I tend to see them as the most majestic and innately magical of the usual races. If Dragons themselves can exist for millennia, why are their 'descendants' so short-lived by comparison (I'm sure there is a reason, but I don't care for it )


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and further to the Bullywug discussion, I came across this the other day, part of this package is an extended Bestiary that adds in (amongst around 100 monsters) a couple more profiles for them, including chiefs and (tortoise-mounted) cavalry! Might be of interest, and you can get it for free.
http://www.dmsguild.com/product/202858/Nerzugals-Game-Master-Toolkit

There's also some good trap/puzzles in there as well that are worth a look if you need a non-combat challenge in a hurry.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/03 04:20:59


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for you quick responses about starter minis. Thank you both for suggesting the D&D board games, I've been considering buying them for some time, so this is helping push me toward getting them. Wrath of Asharadon is the one that caught my eye most, but I may have to look into Castle Ravenloft too. What do the two of you think of Temple of Elemental Evil, I'm most interested in that after Asharadon.

@ Da Boss: Those evolving drakes are an interesting game mechanic. I like how they have a little bit of the same feel as a beholder, with altering the world in an area around their lair. It's a cool origin for kobolds and dragon born as well.

@Paradigm: Thanks for the advice about a mix of generic character races to use as bad guys, rather than only bandits. Also I'm glad I'm not the only one bothered by the short life span of dragonborn, it doesn't make sense to me either. I like the direction you're taking it. Very interesting


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/03 18:44:49


Post by: Red Harvest


Syro_, Wrath of Ashardalon is the best of the 3 which had the WotC made minis. Drizzt was, predictably, the least interesting. Ravenloft is brutal, and I think not as well play-tested. A few of the scenarios are really randumb lulz not fun. The rest are fun.

ToEE has the WizKids minis, which are noticeably different in scale, at least for the PCs. The minis are a bit nicer ( a few painted ones are in my gallery, or on my blog, BTW) than the WotC minis, but they are still *game piece* quality. ToEE has a nice campaign mechanic. It is worth playing.

I have yet to get the most recent game, Tomb of Annihilation. My group, we've been busy and really have only had time for regular D&D for the past 9 months or so.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/04 01:44:24


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Red Harvest, I appreciate the mini reviews on the game, Wrath of Ashardalon will definitely be top of my list.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 03:19:36


Post by: Syro_


@Red Harvest: I also checked out your blog. It was hard to find the D&D minis in the page after page of beautifully painted and built stuff for Infinity. Nice work


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 06:56:03


Post by: Viktor von Domm


hey mates....been following this thread now for some days...and did a more overview scroll through read of the pages before...

some of you know me already...

well...i really like this thread and now i am in the position to ask you pro´s for my own needs

my family recently started with pathfinder ... we got the starter box...and are currently experiencing the first steps in the given adventure that comes with it.

well...my kids have some (shady) ideas about roleplaying...and i have played some other systems back in the days...(cthulhu, and the DSA). I am not really what you might call a pro player...and tho i am currently the designated DM i wish some future day one of my two sons would take that part too...

so here is what i am asking you all...do you have some recomendations on how to make our first steps as a small group better, and more athmospheric...do you know adventures for beginners (that are even "cheap") and so on?
in the past i´ve had a quite spontaneous approach to DM´ing so i am no stranger to improvising...tho it is in the first steps always nice to have something to rely on...

anyways....anything you want to share i am thankful for, i highly value your opinions...!

so....best foot forward, ey?

cheers, vik


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 08:29:52


Post by: Paradigm


In terms of adventures and resources, you should be able to get some mileage out of the myriad cheap/free adventure packs on DMsGuild, even if they are for D&D rather than Pathfinder. Obviously you'd need to convert any stat blocks over/switch them for things from the Pathfinder equivalent to the Monster Manual, but the maps, locations, names, storylines ect will still be of use.
http://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?filters=0_0_45393_0_0_0_0_0


In more general terms, music and visual aids can really help atmosphere. The first step is choosing suitable music to convey the tone you want, so if you're playing heroic high fantasy, use the soundtracks from LotR or Skyrim, if you're doing something a bit gritter maybe stuff from Game of Thrones or The Witcher games might be more appropriate. Try and have 3 selections for ramping up intensity: exploration, tense and combat playlists is a good thing to work towards.

On the visual side of things, especially with new players and/or less experienced DMs, I find having actual pictures of locations/monsters/NPCs/items to hand round or show on a screen helps a lot. When you're planning a session, do a quick google for the notable locations or monsters you might want to use, and when these elements come up, show the group the image. This will give them a more definite look at what they're dealing with in game, on top of the description you give as DM, which helps them picture it a little more clearly. Likewise, have the players try and find an image for their PCs to show the group, again to give everyone a clearer idea on what they're imagining.


Other than that, for your first few sessions, don't fret about getting the rules right or going back to the books and checking stuff; as DM, make a ruling, move on with the game and if you do check, do it afterwards and let the group know before the next game. Nothing kills the tension like 10 minutes spent going through books looking for a specific ruling, and the DM has the authority to make those judgement calls so don't be afraid to just go with what makes sense and review it later on.

And above all, have fun!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 11:35:16


Post by: Lance845


Ive been listening to a Podcast (DnD is for Nerds) and the DM Adam does some interesting things that you only really pick up on as the story goes on. At first I thought he was a pretty good but not the best DM. I am now convinced hes flat out one of the greatest to sit behind a DM screen.

Highly recommend for the comedy and the DnD goodness.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 12:05:34


Post by: Da Boss


Viktor von DommÖ Welcome!

The advantage of Pathfinder is the absolutely huge library of material available for it.

It can be mechanically complex at times, but at lower levels it is totally manageable.

You can use any material from 3.0 or 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons along with the Pathfinder material.

The Pathfinder adventure paths tend to be very nice in terms of atmosphere, but often very wordy - designed more for pleasure of reading than use at the table. But most of the first issues of those are quite good.

I know more from 3.0 or 3.5 though, so...

Recommended starting adventures:
- Sunless Citadel - a tight little dungeon adventure with Kobolds and Goblins, with a decent twist to it. Very easy to run and kid friendly, and leads into:
- The Forge of Fury - this is the direct sequel to Sunless Citadel. The rest of the adventures in the series are only okay, but this is a brilliant level 2-5 adventure. A ruined dwarven citadel colonized by various factions, with a dragon at the bottom. A really fun and well put together one, and again, really easy to run written with kids in mind.



Some of the old school stuff can be found for peanuts and is easy to convert too - Caves of Chaos (from Keep on the Borderlands) is really an excellent mini sandbox if your players like kicking ass and taking names.

For Pathfinder, Rise of the Runelords is well regarded and has some really nice parts to it, and especially some very atmospheric parts if you do not mind themes of horror and so on.

On another note: I've been running Dungeons and Dragons for a group of 6-8 kids at lunchtimes and after school on Friday all year. They're a nice bunch, and I have enjoyed it even though I have been a bit overworked this year. They came in today with a lovely card and a "start collecting Seraphon" boxed set! Unbelievably nice of them. We'll do it as a club painting tool I think, it is the only fair way to put it to use. Though I may paint the carnasaur myself!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 19:18:59


Post by: Red Harvest


Pathfinder is fine to start with. However, I would not recommend continuing with it. A new version is forthcoming. Paizo will be releasing the playtest materials in about a month too. Also, Pathfinder is bloated. My DM has us going through the Pathfinder adventure path Kingmaker. He converted it to 5e. I have come to despise the adventure path. It's not really adventure at all. I would not recommend any of them. Then again, my ideas about the game are from its early years. Ah, here's something for inspiration http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html This describes the the sort of world the kinder might like to explore.

For cheap adventures, D&D is the way to go. Paizo has a few free modules on their website, from the Free RPG day. http://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures/modules/freeRPGDay

Your kinder want to be "murder hobos"? ( re: shady ideas. )

Improv is good. Just remember to take notes. Continuity is important. Never fudge dice rolls. Let the player's actiions and decisions drive the game, not something pre-determined.

Have fun.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 20:10:25


Post by: Viktor von Domm


@ red... i MEANT soemthing more in line with blurry ideas... LOL...i hope they never really get to that murder, torture and related taste of roleplaying...(here is crossing fingers...)

@ paradigm... very good ideas....in fact i downloaded a soundboard app already on our tablet...with lots of atmosphere sounds, animal and monster sounds and whatnot...

as for the visuals...i am collecting "data", pics and maps for inspirational matters like mad atm via pinterest... that is a highly addictive task^^

@ da boss.... i take it you are either a teacher or an "erzieher" right? that sounds awesome and it seems even that since the kids try to "repay/ gift" you now even that you are doing a really wonderful job...respect!!!

as for yl your suggestions...i take everything on board...the kids and me will be together this summer for the whole holidays at home...no vacation planned this time... so lots of free time to "kill" use properly...and i want to drag them at least a bit away from fortnite and the lot a bit...so we will have quite some time to explore this wonderful hobby...

many thanks for the quick and insightful replies mates!!!

cheers, vik


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 21:02:17


Post by: Red Harvest


Murder Hobo is just joking term, well half-joking term, for Player Characters. As in: kill the monsters and take their stuff, and of course have no fixed address. Unfortunately, the newer versions of the game, Pathfinder and D&D both, emphasize combat. As a DM, you of course can, and IMO should, shift the emphasis to exploration and the actual role-playing. This was the "Old School" approach-- although that was very much exploration as the primary activity, because combat was very hard on Player Characters. It was very, very easy to die. You will need to give experience points for things other than killing monsters. Out-witting them, tricking them out of their treasure, solving problems, these are things for which you can give experience in addition to experience for killing.

Not taking a vacation? I though Germans were the most vacationing peoples on the planet?

If you can get a hold of some GameScience polyhedral dice, for a reasonable price, do so. Koplow and Chessex will do if you cannot. I know the D&D starter box, which is fairly well done, has, or had, Koplow dice in it. I'm not sure about Pathfinder. The dice in their card game boxes were generic. Somewhere in my P&M thread I posted some photos of GameScience dice. Like little gemstones.

Ah, here's an interesting series of blog posts about transforming the Pathfinder Adventure paths into something more exploration based: https://udan-adan.blogspot.com/search/label/Pathfinder


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 21:09:11


Post by: Da Boss


Viktor: Yeah I am a teacher, for my sins. Got my D&D club signed up as an official extra curricular for next year which means technically I get paid to play dungeons and dragons next school year

Red Harvest: I generally agree with you about bloat in pathfinder, but I think if you limit it to Core only it is manageable. I prefer 5th edition myself, but if Vik and his kids have gotten over the initial hurdle with PF, I think there is some mileage in it.

When I use Pathfinder adventure paths, I tend to purely loot them for cool locations and ideas rather than running them as a story. I have had some pretty memorable sessions from looting stuff like the Skeletons of Scarwall and so on, which was basically just a big haunted castle. I agree that following the entire AP rigidly would not be super interesting.

Funny, though, because reading Kingmaker it looked like it would be pretty fun.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/05 23:10:49


Post by: Red Harvest


It was fun for the first book, where it is basically a hex crawl. However, it is still a railroad, like all adventure paths, and the rails become very visible from the second book. And there is the whole kingdom building sub-game, which gets tedious, and wastes valuable gaming time. I don't have a surplus of gaming time, so I prefer to spend it gaming, not playing with spreadsheets.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/09 20:44:51


Post by: Paradigm


Found these earlier and thought they might be of interest. A selection of printable tokens that should come in handy for anyone looking to run the game on a budget. Print, laminate if you can and Bob's your uncle. There's a decent array of enemy types in there, as well as a sheet of character portraits for your PCs/NPCs.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/stn516ba68invt0/AAA4QG9APZztZAn6VNXWIvUEa?dl=0

On a similar note, this tool allows you to create tokens easily from existing artwork, just drag and drop a pic and it'll do the rest!
http://rolladvantage.com/tokenstamp/


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/18 22:01:20


Post by: Paradigm


As my second campaign winds down for a bit after the first 5 sessions (one of the players is off on holiday, so we're switching back over to campaign one with the two remaining players for a few weeks), I figured I might as well jot down some thoughts on how it's gone so far, as I think I'm happier with the start of this one than I was with the last one by some margin. I think this is down to a few key differences.

Spoilered for length and rambling
Spoiler:

- One is simply a case of experience. When I started the first game, my only other experience with 5e was a one-shot, and I think it showed. I regularly made certain items a tad overpowered, my understanding of difficulty (or rather lack thereof) was way off base and I was very eager to push my players through big, dramatic events very early on.

This time round, aside from better balance, I think I've managed to start in a much more stable way; the party come together, do a few smaller quests for a larger organisation, and have now found their feet before being sent off on a much more important quest that will take them out into the wider world. The starting locale was much better set up to act as a microcosm of the wider region, and the party thus engaged with the society and politics of it far more than I'd imagined they would.

- In mechanical terms, I think I get challenge (rather than difficulty) now. 5 weeks in and so far, each major combat scenario has had at least one PC knocked out and making death saves; it's not harsh or difficult to the point of being unfair, but by this point in game 1, the party were simply breezing through Deadly level encounters without a second thought. The tension is far higher now, and while I still don't want to kill my player characters, I nearly have on several occasions and everyone has found it rewarding when they eventually pulled through them.

Likewise, we've been starting to use grid-based combat for the last few sessions, and I'll eat crow here, it is a vastly smoother experience. My worries that it would descend into More Complicated Warhammer proved unfounded (perhaps related to the point below about player outlooks) and even though it's just 2d tokens on a marker-drawn map, not having to pause every turn to explain where each character is or what's around them has made larger, more varied and more interested combat encounters much easier to handle.

- I do think a change in players has helped. This campaign only came about after our group split (long story short, the group was divided from the start between 2 minmaxers and 2 players mainly in it for the RP, and those divisions came to the fore after a particular session so they went their separate ways) and while we only have 3 players now, the fact they're all on the same page regarding what this game is for us (a narrative over everything else) has made things so much smoother.

No having to contend with ludicrous characters builds, no more having half the group functionally non-existent outside of combat, no more arguing over what the 'optimal' thing to do is... I bear no ill will towards the players that left, but having a group that's all on the same wavelength has made things so much easier. I'm sure they'll find a group that caters to their tastes, and we can all go on enjoying the game in our respective ways far more than trying to force a compromise between two opposite stances on what it should be.

- Finally, kind of preemptive as it hasn't come up too much yet, but the prospect of running both campaigns (and various one-shots) in this shared world is one that's got me and the players very excited. Party 2 will shortly travel through a region in which Party 1 (much higher level) just fought a colossal battle, and the players will be able to get an entirely different perspective on its aftermath; while the level 7s deal with the city's upper echelons, the level 3s will hear about recent events from the common folk of the region and that's a very interesting way to play with the meta-narrative that's we're building here. We're still a long way off the eventual full crossover, but just the idea that these two stories are being told in tandem is a tantalising one that opens up a lot of possibilities!



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/19 22:14:12


Post by: Da Boss


I enjoyed the summary. I think experience always helps - though sometimes you will be at a difficult time in your life and your GMing will suffer because of it. It used to really get me down when that happened, because I felt I was backsliding, but now I am a bit more used to it after 15 years of GMing, so I roll with the punches a little better.

On the group thing, absolutely. Eventually, group dynamics or GM burnout due to group dynamics kills most games. The ones that run for years are the ones with a decent group of players, but you can't always have that, and that is just the way it is. It is good to recognise that a problem player for you might fit right in in someone else's game.

I am also finding 5e a bit easy and particularly the high level monsters a bit bland and easy to beat. I guess it is because I also like to give out decent rewards to players (cool loot is a big part of "traditional" dungeons and dragons in my view). But I was just looking at the demon lords today and thinking "Man, they really do not shift the dynamic of the battle from something like a big troll with lots of hitpoints". A demon lord should be absolutely warping and controlling the battlefield in my view. I am thinking about giving more legendary actions and stealing some abilities from 4e since I have the books and they tended to be designed to be pretty clean and modular, not relying on subsystems.

Also, I played for years with nothing but a chalkboard or piece of paper to sketch maps on, but now I use minis for everything and I do find it is a lot of fun. Plus it lets me use my collection since I do not really wargame very much any more.

I am on hiatus over the summer holidays too. I was a bit burned out by the end of the school year, partially because of work, and I am sort of slowly regaining my interest and energy. I hope to get some more painting done this summer and do some scribbling about my setting. I am not sure what my players are going to do when we get back to it - they have just achieved their first big objective, and I know roughly what I want the eventual endgame to be, but they currently have a bunch of options open for what to do next.

I will spoiler them!
Spoiler:

1. Ruined city of Sotur. A city from an ancient empire with a mobile portal to hell inside it, but surrounded by a life draining force field that destroys any demon that tries to cross it. Any mortal that stays too long in the city is cursed and gradually wastes away. It is full of relics of the old empire, being the northern capital. I am quite keen to use the setting as I think the ruined city angle is cool and I have done the prep for it including painting a whole bunch of demons, but I am also realising that it is basically closing another portal to the Abyss, and the last quest involved closing a portal to the plane of Madness, they are probably a bit too similar. Maybe my players just poke around in the ruins a bit, figure out how to shrink the forcefield down so that the castle is outside it and claim it as a stronghold.

2. Valon, city of the Winter Court. The ruling force in the nation my players are in are the Winter Court of the Elves (elves being a bit more fey, a bit more related to the Sídhe of celtic myth in my setting. So these guys are the Unseelie). They are disinterested rulers, but the players got their attention by sorting out this incursion of Chaos, and therefore could get an audience with Mébh, the Queen of Air and Darkness.This is appealing to one of my players, as she is half Winter elf, but might not be super interesting for the rest. Valon is a bigger city than any they have currently been to though. I have ideas for adventures on the Great Glacier to the north of Valon, where there are clans of Frost Giants, and I have a few frost themed minis to paint, but I would need to get cracking to have them ready in time. The journey to Valon might also be interesting, as it crosses through an old Dwarven Empire with a few ruined holds and other interesting bits and pieces in it.

3. Ptolus, capital of Virdistan. This is my "good" city, Lawful Neutral really, but I am using the famous city supplement Ptolus to represent a truly cosmopolitan city and the main city of my France-Germany analogue, the most powerful civilisation apart from the Iron Empire of the Invincible Overlord. The players found the bones and ghost of a paladin from that city and promised to lay them to rest, so they might travel there to do some more research, shop, fulfill their quest. Ptolus is so full of factions and intrigue that it is certainly going to be interesting for all the players, and adventure will certainly find them. I am reasonably happy with this outcome, though I think the players might end up moving permanently to Ptolus because it is so interesting and full of variety. The journey to Ptolus is likely to be by ship, but it does pass through some interesting territories and there is a collection of Orcish kingdoms between where the players are currently and Ptolus if they go overland. I don't need to do any painting for this option so...

4. Malikarr, island of the Alchemists. This is a pretty lawless island in the middle of the sea between them and the Iron Empire, where the rulers are various alchemists in towers perched on the rocky island. A slum of vagabonds from all over the world clusters around the feet of the towers. They wanted to go there because they found that one of the alchemists is engaging in the trafficking of intelligent creatures, but the NPC they rescued from that fate then later died adventuring with them so they have lost some of the impetus. I have a plot involving were rats and rat swarms (which I have rewritten to be a lot scarier - essentially all rat swarms have the same malevolent intelligence behind them, an insane and incredibly powerful Druid. The rat swarms actually "control" the wererats, though few understand that this is the case. Essentially stole this from the second book of the Malazan series by Steven Erikson. Lets me use Skaven Means I have to paint my skaven :(

5. The Iron Empire. This is the big antagonist in the world, a huge Asmodeus worshipping empire that is the remnant of the earlier empire. They use devils in their armies as well many, many slaves and they believe all gods other than Asmodeus are false. The players will eventually come into conflict with them anyway, as the end game, because they murdered a Hellknight who was investigating the spread of Chaos. They did it to protect the town from the eventual "purification" that would have happened, but the Empire does not take things like that lightly and is only looking for a reason to provoke a war with the Winter Court. The players have vaguely talked about an infiltration mission to see if they can find or free captured loved ones from their various backstories. But one player is a deserter from the army and does not want to risk going back. I have a bunch of Byzantine infantry I want to paint up for this, but I hope the players choose to do it later or I will have to really speed up my painting.

6. Sunken ruins. The players know of some sunken ruins of the old empire off the coast and some want to investigate. Of course, they do not know that the ruins are full of sahuagin and an Aboleth. All this stuff is undercoated and I am eager to paint it, but it is a lot.

7. Dragon hunt. The group know of an elder green dragon living in the huge forest to the west of them. The rogue is so greedy she wants to just loot its hoard. The others are interested in doing something about it because the wyrm is a problem for their wild elf allies.


Sorry for the "hey look at my campaign" nonsense. That sort of list is how my sandbox style campaigns usually end up looking at a certain point, particularly between "arcs", which is one long quest focused around a few locations. I then tend to lay lots of plot hooks and my players can choose to follow or discard whichever ones they want. The problem is when using minis I need to try and have the stuff painted for each option. It is a really good motivator for my painting, and I own pretty much all the minis I need, but my motivation died off after a stressful period at work and I am trying to get it back.

Personally, I sort of hope they either go to Ptolus or investigate Sotur and the Sunken Ruins. Eventually, the end game will kick in, but I think they have six months or so of game time before that happens.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/20 17:33:28


Post by: streamdragon


Has anyone here done any Adventurer's League stuff? I have been missing D&D lately, especially playing in person. My regular group does the online thing, but I really miss being around a table and actually rolling dice. I thought about checking into an Adventurer's League, but the Wizard's site for locating one of them is complete garbage and only shows me Magic Tournaments. I would put more effort into finding an AL group, but I wondered if anyone had any experience before I did.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/20 19:12:04


Post by: Da Boss


I went looking for it before I started my current group. My local store was advertised as having a group on the Wizards site, but when I got there there was no group and no time when a group could feasibly run because the store closed every day at 19.30.

I had a bit more luck with Pathfinders version, but only because I knew someone playing. Sometimes the groups meet outside of game stores - this one met in a deli.

It lets you get some games in, but it tends to be kinda unsatisfying. The standard of the games varies wildly and you can often end up at the table with people with very different gaming tastes to yourself, or just plain oddballs. But it is better than no gaming.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/24 22:41:51


Post by: Elemental


A new setting incoming, and the revival of an older one (and my personal favourite)!







Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/26 05:10:49


Post by: Lance845


Envoy Warforged can take any tool they are proficient with and incorporate it into their body. The last item on the list of tools is Vehicle (Land or Water). Xanathar's Guide to Everything says players can choose Land Vehicles or Water Vehicles as a tool proficiency.


RAW warforged can be transformers. Discuss.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/07/26 08:06:49


Post by: Da Boss


All I can say to that is yes, yes please.

I really enjoy Eberron. Fun setting, did some interesting and original stuff, airships are cool. I ran a long campaign in 3.5 where I sort of made it a bit more 20s than fantasy medieval, and it was really fun.
It does have the sort of "Goblin Country, Monster Country, Demon Country, Undead Country, Lovely Country, Dwarf Country" schtick that can make D&D settings a bit fake seeming, but they thought out the politics of it all pretty well and put enough unique twists to keep it interesting.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/08/19 20:14:33


Post by: Paradigm


Something I came across earlier that might be of interest to some of you, a book of printed, laminated and pre-gridded battle mats. Seems handy if you're playing on the go and don't want to cart around tiles/boards, or want a lot of different 'terrain' on a limited budget.
https://www.chaoscards.co.uk/accessories-c1/bags-counters-coins-dividers-others-c530/loke-battle-mats-big-book-of-battle-mats-fantasy-a4-p164301

There's also a larger A3 book and a sci-fi set coming later in the year, something I'll definitely be keeping an eye on.


Also, after today's game I have a new entry in my list of favourite monsters, the Allip from MtoF. It's a really fun one to use, with abysmal HP and AC for its level but with some really fun AoE attacks (including one that makes the targets use their Reaction to melee attack an ally) and the incorporeal movement that means in a tightly-packed area it can really keep the players chasing after it. It's got some really great lore behind it as well, and was way more interesting than a lot of the other wraith-type enemies.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/08/20 16:09:39


Post by: Syro_


Sorry, this is going back to a past topic. I wanted to thank everyone who discussed good starting miniatures and preferred D&D board games for miniatures, with me. I've bought Wrath of Ashardalon


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/10 08:06:23


Post by: Cynista


Hi all. Currently about two months into my first 5E D&D campaign and absolutely loving it so far. Our gaming group used to play various board games but this has now completely taken over.

I'm using a Goliath Tempest Cleric and am very happy with it. The rest of our party includes a Fighter, Barbarian, Ranger and Sorcerer so we have a nice balance. We are a fairly combat focussed group, which we are all fine with, and like to emphasize improvisation in our roleplaying. For example I managed to befriend a Nothic we were supposed to either kill or avoid by rolling a crit 20 on my persuasion check and it proceeded to kill most of our enemies for us.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/10 21:03:38


Post by: Syro_


Hi Cynista, I'm glad you're loving you're D&D 5E campaign. They are very enjoyable so I can see why it's replacing the other board games. Are you and your group playing a pre-made or custom campaign?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/12 18:16:09


Post by: Cynista


It's one of the existing starter campaigns. I'm not sure the name of it but it's the one where your party has to find the missing dwarf. Which I have to say we've made very little headway on - plenty of side quests and looting however!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/12 18:18:15


Post by: Mysterio


Sounds interesting and fun - and I may need to DM a group of beginners soon - if you can remember the name of the campaign, I'd appreciate it!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/12 21:04:56


Post by: Syro_


@Cynista: It sounds like the starter campaign I was DMing last year. Are you playing "Lost Mines of Phandelver"? Where it starts: your team of adventurers is hired by a dwarf (Gundren Rockseeker I think was his name) to bring a wagon of supplies. You then find his horses dead on the road and he and his bodyguard are missing?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/12 22:16:33


Post by: Gitzbitah


Heh, I'm sending 1 rookie GM and 2 rank noobies on that adventure in our DnD club. 25 kids and me RPGing in a classroom- it's like a low budget con every month. It should be spectacular. Anyone know of a good reference sheet for GMs who are new to the system?
I'll be using my hackmaster screen, but I don't think any of them need the distraction of a screen- more a one page style thing.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/13 14:43:54


Post by: Cynista


 Syro_ wrote:
@Cynista: It sounds like the starter campaign I was DMing last year. Are you playing "Lost Mines of Phandelver"? Where it starts: your team of adventurers is hired by a dwarf (Gundren Rockseeker I think was his name) to bring a wagon of supplies. You then find his horses dead on the road and he and his bodyguard are missing?

Yeah that's the one. We are hoping to finish it before our sorcerer leaves for Australia next month but I don't think that's going to happen


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/09/15 22:41:38


Post by: Syro_


Good luck Cynista! But yeah, that's a tight time frame.

I went to my FLGS and picked up:

I've heard really good things about it. Has anyone on here tried it out yet?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/21 15:22:58


Post by: Syro_


Wow, it's been over a month since anyone has posted on here.

The D&D supplement for Ravnica (A Magic the Gathering campaign setting) is coming out next month. I was wondering if anyone would like to discuss it. Does anyone know if Ravnica is part of or related to Zendikar, the last MTG setting brought over into D&D with "Planeshift"?

The other main topic I was hoping to discuss is minis. I have bought all three MTG Area of the Planeswalkers board games to use the minis for D&D. Most are useful already, but I wonder if more of them will become useful with the release.

This Necro Alchemist mini seemed pretty useless in the settings I played, but seems the most like it was made for Ravnica:


Rhox were a creature I was hoping would be a big part, but I haven't seen them anywhere. There are Elephant folk instead as a PC race. I still plan to have similar races of both in my own D&D setting.


I know nothing about the Simic Hybrids Vedalkin listed in the leaked table of contents.

Thoughts?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/21 19:06:09


Post by: Da Boss


Those look like some pretty interesting minis! Rhino Men! I was never much of a MtG player, but I think it is a really clever idea to bring the settings for MtG into D&D. Why not get some cross pollination between the two fanbases?

I haven't picked up Dragon Heist yet but there is a good buzz around it. I was not really in the mood or market for a Waterdeep based low level Urban adventure at the moment. My preferred Urban settings are the City State of the Invincible Overlord and Monte Cook's Ptolus, I tend to find the Forgotten Realms stuff a bit unsatisfying for some reason. I do really love the Yawning Portal though, and I wish they would release something cool for Undermountain!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/21 23:49:41


Post by: Syro_


@Da Boss: Dragon Heist has been a good read so far, but I prefer a more low fantasy lean in fantasy games, all the crazy stuff in Waterdeep is kind of a turn off for me. I may never run it. I haven't heard of either the City State of the Invincible Overlord or Prolus, Though I have heard Monte Cook mentioned many times. I'm not totally into Forgotten realms either (although I do like it overall), but it's D&D setting of choice so it gives lots of options and campaigns when first starting out. I also agree that it would be great to have something new for Undermountain.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/24 19:56:20


Post by: Da Boss


City State is I think the first ever city supplement, and it is based heavily on Lankmar from Fritz Leiber's classic pulp fantasy series. It is a bit gonzo and sort of a lawful evil dump, but I like it.

Ptolus is just a very detailed and fully realised fantasy city of very high quality.

My problem with the Realms is the names for everything seem like just smushing random syllables together, or worse, taking a word from German and another from some Celtic language and smushing them together, which sounds really weird to my ears.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/25 00:52:02


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for the explanations Da Boss, and yeah Forgotten Realms does have weird names. Was German your first language? I could see something that has syllables from someones fist language but not being that language feeling intrinsically wrong to listen to.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/25 13:28:11


Post by: Da Boss


I'm an Irishman living in Germany who grew up just over the water from Wales, so I speak Irish, English, German and I can recognise common Welsh words.

I think a lot of fantasy authors tend to raid Germanic and Celtic languages for names, which I don't mind if they are consistent with the language family. Like Circle Orboros in Hordes use a lot of Gaelic Irish words for things like "Tuath" for clans or kingdoms of Tharn for example, and that is fine by me. GW uses a lot of German words for it's stuff, since the Imperium is the Holy Roman Empire IN SPAAAACE, and that is also fine. I just find Forgotten Realms will sometimes put a german word and a celtic word together, which to me just sounds totally wrong and is kinda jarring. Either that or the words are totally made up and really hard to remember or pronounce.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/25 14:22:52


Post by: Voss


One of the quirks of the Realms is it's solidly Midwest Canadian/American culturally. The central areas of the FR don't have any particular cultural markings, and the ones that do are blatant historical stand ins at the edges of the map.

So you get fantasy Egypt in the southeast, Viking islands and Celtic islands in the west, and the latter wasn't included by Ed greenwood originally, but inserted by a TSR author after they bought and published he setting. But the dales and sword coast and etc are essentially generic and lacking in any identifiable culture. There is a vaguely Arabic area in Amn and Calimsham, but the only way to know that is they have a lot of djinn. And all of Africa is jammed into the Pennisula that is Chult, with extra serpent monsters and Dinosaurs.

Even the barbarians in Icewind dale are just generic fantasy barbarians, with no real cultural trappings beyond 'hate civilization,' though that is largely Bob Salvatore's fault. Out east you've got Mongols mongoling under a Temujin figure, but that was just dropped in out of nowhere by Troy Denning to fill in the vast empty map between the standard play area and not!China, when they added Kara Tur to 2nd or 3rd edition. And have a Crusade analogue for Cormyr to go on, but without any religious or cultural trappings.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/25 20:19:07


Post by: Da Boss


I have always had that impression, though you have expressed it much more eloquently than I ever have.

I have also had the impression that the Realms are more popular on the other side of the Atlantic. In my own experience it was never super popular in Ireland at least, other settings predominated. I wonder if the popularity is related to it being more "American" than some of the other settings. I mean, obviously Dungeons and Dragons is inherently American, as it was created by Americans, but some of the other settings have a different and to me more European flavour.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/25 22:04:05


Post by: Syro_


Wow Da Boss, it's cool how many languages you speak.

I don't know much about Forgotten Realms, being new to D&D, and I haven't delved into the lore, so it was helpful seeing what you and Voss had to say about the lore.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/26 02:54:56


Post by: Lance845


Isnt chult more south america/amazon/aztec (from the perspective of outsider/conquistadors. Not the actual cultures) then africa?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/26 12:59:36


Post by: Da Boss


Seems like a hodge podge of both, basically anything "Jungle" themed.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/26 17:19:12


Post by: Voss


 Lance845 wrote:
Isnt chult more south america/amazon/aztec (from the perspective of outsider/conquistadors. Not the actual cultures) then africa?

Nope. That's Maztica, which is across the western ocean. I didn't bother to mention it because its essentially separate (the impact is all over there) and the story basically is Conquistadors (lead by Priest of Helm, the LN god of guardians for some inexplicable reason) go there and slaughter native people (mostly Aztec-ish expies, complete with 'jaguar warriors') because reasons. Even as a teenager when that book series came out, I was really unimpressed with it.

Chult is a tiny little peninsular appendix stuck on the SW corner of the main continent. It actually got a little coverage in the 5e material (adventures/livestreams), Tomb of Annihilation.
In the Realms, if you want really dark skin, blow pipes, spears and other stereotypical cliched baggage and/or dinosaurs, you come from Chult.

Da Boss wrote:
I have also had the impression that the Realms are more popular on the other side of the Atlantic. In my own experience it was never super popular in Ireland at least, other settings predominated. I wonder if the popularity is related to it being more "American" than some of the other settings. I mean, obviously Dungeons and Dragons is inherently American, as it was created by Americans, but some of the other settings have a different and to me more European flavour.

That's pretty fair (depending on the setting). Mystara (the 'basic' D&D setting) and Greyhawk definitely had more material definitely aimed at trying to be more like Europe. Supplement books with heraldry and social order and cultural trappings (they weren't always particularly good, but there was a definite tendency toward research and trying). FR is mostly high powered wizards and obscure monsters dominating everything and while a lot of the town _maps_ are really well done (though admittedly they're done in the same style as real 19th century American maps), the cultures of a lot of places are just skipped in favor of details about what some 15th+ level character did to save or establish the town.

And a lot of the popularity of the FR comes from the Drizzt books, so you get a lot of dark elf culture, but not much else. Ed Greenwood's own novels were never quite as popular (and much weirder), and Elminster got a lot more mockery as the uber character of the setting, on the basis of how many goddesses and powerful female wizards he's slept with as an old man (and an unapologetic self-insert character for the author- he used to go to Gen Con and Origins in character).


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/26 20:05:10


Post by: Red Harvest


The default setting for D&D was the American West. If you think about it, the American West was a post-apocalyptic setting. Given that up to 90% of the pre-Columbian population had been killed by disease, I find it hard to see the place and time as anything but post-apocalyptic. Also, PCs could clear, claim and settle land. This was not something from Medieval Europe, to be certain, but was characteristic of the American frontier. If you poke around, you can find these notions better expressed.

Here is an interesting start, http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2013/05/od-setting-posts-in-pdf.html It would have been interesting to see this implied setting better developed.

Forgotten Realms, a.k.a. Ed Greenwood's *Magical Realm*, had the good fortune to be a developed campaign setting available at the time TSR was searching for a way to side-line Greyhawk after Gygax left/was thrown out of TSR. I don't much care for it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/26 21:15:29


Post by: Voss


I've seen arguments that D&D is basically Iron Age, with heroes and demigods dressed up in D&D classes, and the raiding back and forth for sacks of loot is the default that replaces the wars of late medieval/Renaissance Europe that the weapons and armor would otherwise imply. In many settings what passes for countries can't effectively muster armies that match the threats they face.

The American West doesn't do much for me, as it requires a different tech base (which isn't well represented in game), and lands for settlement, which isn't all that typical of D&D settings. When they do, it feels more Age of Exploration rather than Manifest Destiny style of things, filling in the blank spaces on the map, rather than expanding 'civilization' to the horizon.


Personally, for FR, at the time it was introduced I quite liked it. The style of the central area fit, and a lot of stuff was left to be filled in by players. As they filled things in themselves (and added increasingly tone deaf cultural expies at the fringes), my interest waned.
It wasn't nearly as bad as Dark Sun, where they introduced a new setting and then effectively destroyed the world state they had just introduced with novel and module developments in less than two years, but by late 2nd/early 3rd edition became a morass of bland and overpowered junk everywhere. Especially 20+ level wizards and weirdly shaped epic monsters, like the sharn (who had three heads and three arms with three hands each) and phaerimm (basically wizards shaped like giant wind-socks) fighting secret wars with magic deserts and whatnot.

The Time of Troubles didn't help either. Why they felt they needed to justify the rules changes from one edition to the next in universe is beyond me.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/28 05:22:12


Post by: Red Harvest


Curse you Voss! I had to go look up Expies. The search led to TvTropes.

The original game very much posited an American Frontier setting, with a Medieval (Dark Ages) skin. Players were expected to claim and settle lands when they reached higher levels. Many pages are devoted to this in the original brown book, "Underworld and Wilderness Adventures" and even more in the AD&D (1e) DMG. We know that the original group at TSR had a thing for the West. Ever played "Boot Hill" or heard of Murlynd? The setting worked fairly well for grafting a home brewed world onto it.

Has anyone seeen or purchased this, https://www.amazon.com/Dungeons-Dragons-Arcana-Special-Ephemera/dp/0399582754/ref=pd_bxgy_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0399582754&pd_rd_r=c400780e-da6f-11e8-9665-8df9d4ca2866&pd_rd_w=8JIY1&pd_rd_wg=CLrMB&pf_rd_i=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=6725dbd6-9917-451d-beba-16af7874e407&pf_rd_r=E6VNA9N2WGS20081EV4Y&pf_rd_s=desktop-dp-sims&pf_rd_t=40701&psc=1&refRID=E6VNA9N2WGS20081EV4Y It has the original tournament version of Tomb of Horrors in it, the one from 1975. I admit, I am fairly curious about the module. Not sure I am $75 curious though.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/28 06:16:29


Post by: Voss


 Red Harvest wrote:
Curse you Voss! I had to go look up Expies. The search led to TvTropes.

The original game very much posited an American Frontier setting, with a Medieval (Dark Ages) skin. Players were expected to claim and settle lands when they reached higher levels. Many pages are devoted to this in the original brown book, "Underworld and Wilderness Adventures" and even more in the AD&D (1e) DMG. We know that the original group at TSR had a thing for the West. Ever played "Boot Hill" or heard of Murlynd? The setting worked fairly well for grafting a home brewed world onto it.

Never played, but knew of Boot Hill, and yes, heard of Murlynd.
But still, never really got a American Frontier vibe off of D&D, however. Building (or occupying) a castle (or tower, monastery, etc) never really gave me a American West vibe, sorry. I just took it as written; getting a (lowish) title and a parcel of land in return for feudal service.
Usually within the existing boundary of an established kingdom, not an expanding frontier.



You can get it for $5 from Drivethru RPG, or slightly more as a reprint of the S1-4 module collection under 'Dungeons of Dread' (For $10). (includes White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth). The latter is the one usually forgotten, but Tomb of Horrors is by far the worst, featuring Gygax's obsession with being a killer DM at its most extreme- if a group got through the first hallway into the dungeon proper without losing anyone, they were most likely cheating.

Expedition shows off the other obsession with early D&D: integrating sci-fi and lasers into the game (badly). The original Blackmoor setting has a lot of that as well, but was more Dave Arneson's baby, so got buried.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/28 10:45:00


Post by: Paradigm


Can't speak for the Special Edition with the Tomb of Horrors module, but the book itself is absolutely fantastic if you're interested in that.

Packed full of great art pieces and interesting photos, very well-produced and written. If you've been with the game from the start it'll be more of a nostalgia trip than anything new or revalatory, but it's a fascinating book all the same. Definitely recommended if you're into the history and culture around the game, or just want a book full of pretty pictures.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/28 22:39:05


Post by: Elemental


 Da Boss wrote:
I'm an Irishman living in Germany who grew up just over the water from Wales, so I speak Irish, English, German and I can recognise common Welsh words.

I think a lot of fantasy authors tend to raid Germanic and Celtic languages for names, which I don't mind if they are consistent with the language family. Like Circle Orboros in Hordes use a lot of Gaelic Irish words for things like "Tuath" for clans or kingdoms of Tharn for example, and that is fine by me. GW uses a lot of German words for it's stuff, since the Imperium is the Holy Roman Empire IN SPAAAACE, and that is also fine. I just find Forgotten Realms will sometimes put a german word and a celtic word together, which to me just sounds totally wrong and is kinda jarring. Either that or the words are totally made up and really hard to remember or pronounce.


What's your opinion on the Empire in old WHF, and their....Germanesque place names?

Voss wrote:

It wasn't nearly as bad as Dark Sun, where they introduced a new setting and then effectively destroyed the world state they had just introduced with novel and module developments in less than two years,


4e mostly went over my head (I'd burned out hard on 3e late in the edition, and took a very long break from all things D&D), but I liked its treatment of Dark Sun--sweeping away most of the wacky metaplot, and setting it just after Kalak had been killed and everyone was trying to figure out what that meant.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/29 05:28:25


Post by: Red Harvest


The Tomb of Horrors module in the Arcana collection is the original 1975 module, written for the Origins Convention. It pre-dates AD&D by several years. The one available at Drive Thru is the updated and revised for AD&D version from 1978 I already have that one, since I did in fact purchase it... in 1978. The 1975 version was never available. I'm curious to see what a pre AD&D module from TSR might look like and see how the two versions differ.

Anyway, about the American West... interesting essay here, https://dndwithpornstars.blogspot.com/2016/09/monocultural-dying-earth-vs-anti.html you'll have to click through the content warning (nothing NSW in this post) and scroll down to the "D&D is anti-medieval" essay.

Later versions of the game may have done things differently. I never played anything after AD&D 1e, apart from a bit of dabbling.

Thanks, Paradigm. I may add it to the wish-list then. Maybe the price will drop a bit. I started in 1978, so not quite since the beginning, but a few months before the AD&D PHB released.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/10/29 22:03:17


Post by: Da Boss


Elemental: Heh, I don't mind it. My German wife rolls her eyes at the more cringey puns or obvious names, but I think it is all in good fun. I miss the Old World precisely because it had such a nice germanic flavour to it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/11/17 20:21:05


Post by: Da Boss


Just got my hands on the physical book for Dungeons of the Mad Mage
Pros: The layout of the room descriptions is short and to the point, with the first part of the layout being bulletpoints of the most important features of the room. This is very good for readability. Each level also has a short summary of what is going on, which is useful for improving as you play through. The areas included are detailed and include a pretty good mix of traps, roleplaying encounters, puzzles and combat encounters. I am especially pleased to see many interesting rooms as well as some humorous additions. The overall feel is quite light hearted in places, and there are even some quite risque elements that I will achem skip over for my school club game. There are 23 levels detailed and the book is pretty much all level descriptions with little else present. Non MM monsters needed are included in an appendix at the back and there is a brief section on the history and Halaster Blackcloak's motivations, but that is all. It is presented pretty much as "Well, here is Undermountain, go have fun!" which is my preferred style for this sort of thing.
Cons: The dungeon seems very linear, from what I can see on a first look there does not seem to be much in the way of branching paths or ways to jump multiple levels at once. This is a shame. It would be easy to fix, but it really should be included in the design from the start. There is also no overview map to show how the levels connect, which I tend to enjoy having. Each level is actually fairly compact, and contains usually 4-5 "expand this into dungeon of your own" exits. This is probably the only way to keep this book manageable and inside the budget, but it would be nice to have some of those really gigantic maps of Undermountain that came with the original set in all their glory, even if only part of it was detailed in the book and the rest left for expansion. I suppose people will expand it on DMs Guild and so on. Also, I was disappointed to see that there is no poster map with this book, I would have really enjoyed having a big postermap of Undermountain's first and second levels at least. Ah well.
Definitely feel this is worth picking up for anyone who likes megadungeon style play, and I will definitely be using it, slightly reskinned, to stand in for large sections of Ghul's labyrinth in Ptolus and sealing the entrances to other areas with the "Bluesteel doors" which are a feature of that setting. That will mean opening one will have to be an investment in time and effort and a conscious decision on the part of the players which will give me time to put something together. I might make brief notes for each one about what is beyond so that I am ready if the players decide to go for it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/11/17 20:33:17


Post by: Syro_


Thanks for the Overview Da Boss, and I'm glad to hear the book will be useful to you. I agree that it would be nice if they had included a big poster map like they did for "Dragon Heist"


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/11/17 20:41:47


Post by: Da Boss


Yeah, definitely agree. It seems like the perfect product for it.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/11/19 15:50:02


Post by: Da Boss


Useful to know. I didn't see anything TOO significant there.

I found a "half red dragon ogre" that seemed to be using a GW dragon ogre shaggoth as the base but giving it fire abilities, so I re-wrote it to be more like the classic. Thought I would share it here in case anyone else has a shaggoth sitting around they want to use (I am planning on having my group encounter it as the cross through a mountain pass)

Spoiler:

Ancient Dragon Ogre
Huge dragon, chaotic evil
Armor Class 14 (Natural Armor)
Hit Points 168 (16d12 + 80)
Speed 50 ft.

STR
22 (+6)
DEX
10 (+0)
CON
20 (+5)
INT
5 (-3)
WIS
7 (-2)
CHA
7 (-2)

Damage Immunities Lightning
Senses Blindsight 10 ft., Darkvision 60 ft., Passive Perception 8
Languages Common, Draconic, Giant
Challenge 9 (5,000 XP)
Charge. If the dragon ogre moves at least 30 feet straight toward a target and then hits it with a great axe attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 13 (4d6) slashing damage and the target must make a DC 17 strength saving throw or be knocked prone.
Rage (1/day). The dragon ogre goes into a rage gaining resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage for 1 minute.
Actions
Multiattack. The dragon ogre makes two attacks with its maul or its javelins.

Great Axe
. Melee Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 27 (3d6 + 6) slashing damage and 10 (3d6) Lightning damage.
Javelin. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +9 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 16 (3d6 + 6) piercing damage.
Storm Wrath (Recharge 5-6). The dragon ogre unleashes the lightning stored in it’s enchanted axe. A 30 ft radius sphere emanates from the Dragon Ogre. Each creature in that area must make a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 56 (16d6) lightning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one.


I would be interested if anyone else has found any decent conversions for Warhammer monsters!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2018/11/23 15:33:29


Post by: Earth127


There is a separate pack coming next week I believe that includes cards, larger maps, etcc.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also a big one is in the DMG's errata. Two effects with the same name don't stack. Big difference for a party with multiple paladins for instance.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/01 15:05:04


Post by: Syro_


It's been a while since anyone has posted on here, and with the new year upon us I was thinking about how a lot of people do retrospectives of the past year on their blogs (I'll probably do one on mine too).
Do we want to share what happened in D&D for us in 2018? I'm thinking it can be over views of games we've played last year, talking about what books, supplements, minis, terrain, etc we've added to our collections. It can be group photos of your entire collection as of Decemebr 31, 2018. What do all you think?

Being my idea, I'll be the first to try (photos will have to wait till later. I have a little bit of an advantage as I only just got back into D&D beginning of 2018. I ordered the 5E starter set on January 1st 2018. I have the big three core books, I bought 2 of them and a very kind member here on Dakka bought me the Dungeon Master's guide as a gift when he found out I didn't have one. They haven't arrived yet, but I also recently bought myself "Xanathar's guide to Everything", "Volo's Guide to Monsters", and "MordenKainen's Tome of Foes" while they were on sale. I also picked up "Water Deep Dragon heist" in between.
Thanks to Paradigm's heads up, I was able to get one of the D&D 5E humble bundles with 39 items in it (including the "A series" of adventures with "Assault on Blacktooth Ridge").
I watched a lot of Matthew Colville, and downloaded old versions of "The Village of Hommlet", "The Red Hand of Doom", and "Against the Cult of the Reptile God".
I also downloaded "Keep on the Boarderlands", I think that was because of Da Boss.
Total: I have about 50 campaigns, adventures, one shots, suppliments, free partial adventures, etc. I've even gotten to play one of them
A lot of them have been fun to read, and I'm happy to say it looks like I'll be playing D&D again soon (I haven't gotten to play since May).

I'll follow with a post on how I've built my mini and terrain collection, because I am a crafting DM


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/01 19:35:28


Post by: Lance845


Well, for me this year I got a second edition of my Unisystem DnD functional and began a play test that is going strong. So far the character creation is spot on and the game play is smooth and enjoyable. Certain abilities need point tweaks or function changes but on the whole it's working well. The document still needs some work before it can be shared but it's on my to do.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/01 19:49:31


Post by: Dark Apostle 666


I recently joined a DnD group - we're all pretty new to it, I know a bit thanks to Critical role, and Matt Colville's DM'ing videos, so I've been trying to help our DM when I can by making life easier for him - its been great fun so far!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/01 20:56:24


Post by: Da Boss


Good idea, Syro.
This year started strong, for me. We finished the Barrowmaze section of our campaign with an epic battle against my scratch built beholder, and it was friggin' awesome.

Then, as time wound on, I started to get a bit burned out, so I took a break and actually got to play for a bit as my players took turns DMing. It was quite nice for me because I am pretty much a perma-DM and I have been for 17 years!

The summer came and of course meant that we needed to break up for the summer, and when I came back I was raring to go. We lost a player and my players decided that what they had planned before the summer was no longer interesting and veered off in a different direction.

Normally, this would not be a big deal for me. For most of my tenure as a DM I have not been using miniatures, it is a relatively new development. So I never had to invest too much work into prepping stuff. But I felt pretty burned by this sudden change as I had painted a pile of stuff and spent a lot of time writing up the location "properly" rather than my usual brief notes. Anyhow, it is all good and we are enjoying seeing other areas of my setting. The lesson is, don't overprep and be willing to accept not having minis ready. Theatre of the mind worked before, and can still work now.

I also run a club for the students, and I really enjoy it, but at times last school year I got a bit overwhelmed in my job and found it difficult to prioritise. So this year I got it officially recognised on my timetable, and that has helped me to keep it running at a pretty high quality. The students are pretty hilarious and they are really enjoying their game as a bunch of mad murderhobos. I am going to pass the torch over to them for GMing though, because I think it is good for them to learn how to do it without me. I am a bit cagey about letting them use my minis, but they have been fairly trustworthy so far.

Overall, Dungeons and Dragons has become my main hobby. I don't play any wargames any more, due to not having opponents, which is why I decided to start working on miniatures to give me some outlet for this aspect of my hobby. It has been a total blast and some of my most productive time in the hobby. I think it has also improved my standards and kept my interest due to the nature of always painting small groups and big centrepiece monsters rather than grinding through armies.

My adult campaign is moving toward a huge war soon enough, so I may eat those words. But it is exciting to play this style of game, which has always been something I have wanted to explore.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/01 21:36:47


Post by: Paradigm


As someone who homebrews my settings/adventures and doesn't use minis, I've not exactly amassed anything to show off at the end of the year (though that battle mat book I linked to a page or so back has been immeasurably useful!) Nonetheless, this has been a year of ever more D&D for me. Starting with playing/running my first 5e one-shot in January, followed by a campaign kicking off after that which was meant to be a short 3-5 week one but evolved into one that's still continuing, albeit sporadically.

That first campaign took a hit over the summer with 2 of the 4 players leaving over differences in our approach to the game (minmax power gamers in what I want to be a highly narrative experience), but following that the remaining players and a couple of new one started a new campaign in the same setting (eventually, I plan for the two games to 'Infinity War' together at a certain point). At this point, it's going from strength to strength, everyone is on the same page as to the style of game and we're getting sessions in weekly.

That group also has a couple of 'descendants' already, one by one of the original players and another run by one of his players (who only started play in the summer and already puts us both to shame! ). I'm lucky enough to have 'guest' roles in both when I'm back from uni, so I do get to see the other side of the DM screen sometimes, most recently as a 'Weapon X' type sorcerer turned mob hitman, which was good fun.

My favourite moment of the year as a player has to be said sorcerer rather aggressively talking down a pissed off red dragon about to burn down a city... I dread to think what would have happened if I'd rolled anything less than a nat 20 there, but it worked out in the end, netting us a rather angry dragon on our side when we took of a cult of the Chained Oblivion and (more immediately) stopping him from slaughtering us in the first place...

As a DM, it was probably (somewhat paradoxically) our first shared experience of a player character death. Even as I rolled the dice I felt awful for doing it (it really was a 'no other choice situation, though, and a fitting if premature end for that character), but at the same time I think for all of us, the emotion of that moment proved that we'd nailed exactly what we were going for; a campaign where these characters and their stories truly meant something to us, fully transcending their nature as numbers on a stat sheet and becoming something that could make everyone around a table tear up slightly... By sheer coincidence it also came after a similarly emotional moment on Critical Role (if you've followed campaign 2 you'll know the one...), which lent it a certain something. Not to say that CR represents the only 'right' way to do things, but it's very much the kind of game our group shoots for, so it was somewhat affirming to know that our own living room could facilitate the same drama and power as that.

D&D really has defined my year, to be honest. It's got me through some stressful times, it's given me a creative outlet that I haven't had in years and it's given me many great times with many great people. Honestly, I'm not sure quite what I did with my time before I was running 2 campaigns and playing in 2 more, but I can safely say It wouldn't have been nearly as fulfilling. Here's to another year of dice, dungeons and drama!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/02 01:58:49


Post by: Syro_


Wow, thanks for the great responses everyone.

@Lance845: That's exciting about getting your own system functioning, keep us posted.

@Dark Apostle 666: That's great that you joined a D&D group, I'm glad you're enjoying it too. That was good of you to help out your DM.

@Da Boss: I already commented on your retrospective on your blog, but this one is different enough that I'll comment again. D&D has become my main focus for the same reason as you, I'm having too much trouble getting together with people to play wargames. I'm glad you've started using miniatures, because I'm gotten to enjoy your blog because of it.

@Paradigm: Homebrewing without minis might mean what you've amassed is something in your bank account . That is really amazing how many games you are running and taking part in. it sounds like so much fun, I hope you are having a blast. I bet there are a lot of people who would trade there mini collections to get to game that much instead.





Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/02 11:38:18


Post by: Da Boss


@Syro: It has been a good positive feedback loop chatting back and forth with you. And your crafting is inspirational to me!

It's cool that you have amassed a lot of books and so on - up til maybe 2011 I never really went in for pre-published stuff. I was a poor student and mostly did theatre of the mind and homebrew. But once you are working full time having something pre-prepared is so useful. I went on a big splurge for PDFs a few years ago when I was playing online, but it looks like you prefer physical books. I loved seeing the stuff you made for the Lost Mines of Phandelver, and that is one of the advantages of pre-writtens- you can easily share your experience with other GMs who have access to the same stuff. That was an aspect I never appreciated when I ran homebrew.
Cool to see you are also watching Matthew Colville, he is very much my favourite youtuber and his style and mine are pretty similar I think.
Thanks for being such a positive force in our little community!

Paradigm: Sounds like you are having a good time! I think groups splitting over differences is unavoidable, and better if it is done before everyone gets too invested. I think it is a great time to be into Dungeons and Dragons and it has been my favourite hobby since I got into it in first year of University. Given your painting skills, I would love to see what you would do if you started using minis, but I think starting out it can be better to go theatre of the mind if you have your eye on the budget, as otherwise you can end up limiting yourself to what you can prepare or afford. I can only run minis because I had several years of slowly collecting and painting stuff til I felt I had enough to move forward with.

@Dark Apostle 666: You gotta run your own game mate! it is the best help you can give your DM.

@Lance: What is the advantage of Unisystem over the modern versions of the game? Is it still class based. or more point based like GURPS?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/02 13:10:16


Post by: Paradigm


Syro_ wrote:
@Paradigm: Homebrewing without minis might mean what you've amassed is something in your bank account . That is really amazing how many games you are running and taking part in. it sounds like so much fun, I hope you are having a blast. I bet there are a lot of people who would trade there mini collections to get to game that much instead.


True enough, I do appreciate how lucky I am to have a group where there's always people up for a game and to have an extended group with multiple DMs all with quite different approaches, keeps things fresh and interesting to go from my own 'epic narrative' LotR-esque game to my brother's highly personal campaign to his friend's very political/intrigue-based game.


Da Boss wrote:

Paradigm: Sounds like you are having a good time! I think groups splitting over differences is unavoidable, and better if it is done before everyone gets too invested. I think it is a great time to be into Dungeons and Dragons and it has been my favourite hobby since I got into it in first year of University. Given your painting skills, I would love to see what you would do if you started using minis, but I think starting out it can be better to go theatre of the mind if you have your eye on the budget, as otherwise you can end up limiting yourself to what you can prepare or afford. I can only run minis because I had several years of slowly collecting and painting stuff til I felt I had enough to move forward with.


Yeah, I think the group split was ultimately a good thing; there were clearly tensions in the sessions leading up to it and those players weren't really contributing to the narrative or character growth at all; they wrecked face in combat because they knew how to make OP builds, but did little else and trying to get them to RP was like pulling teeth. The new players we brought in are much more on board with the type of game we're playing and the second campaign has been going great.

I do use grids for combat sometimes, but for the time being I just print 2d tokens for the characters and monsters. Not as flashy as minis, but easy to keep track of and I'm not restricted by a collection of minis, which given my campaigns are fairly globetrotting and sandboxy at times is probably a good thing as I can keep up variety as they move to different locales and regions . I'd love to have the time and budget to use minis consistently, but at the minute tokens are a far easier option, especially as we often play online with a top-down camera over the map, where tokens are far easier to make out than minis.

I agree that now seems to be a great time to get into the game. Things like DnDBeyond make those first steps into making a character far less intimidating than going blindly through the PHB and various supplements, there's so many resources out there for players and DMs and a lot of it's free via Youtube or DMsGuild ect, and the community at large seems to have become increasingly welcoming as more and more people join the hobby bringing all sorts of experiences with them.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/02 20:43:47


Post by: Earth127


I have been playing a bunch.

We finally concluded a 3 year campaign that ran from lvl 1 to 15-ish with a lvl 19 finale.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/02 22:00:37


Post by: Lance845


@DaBoss

There are a lot of advantages in my opinion.

1) point buy. But unlike gurps the points are broken into types (attributes/skills/qualities/etc...). This cuts out a lot of the min max garbage of gurps especially because points are very tight in character creation.

2) super simple universal mechanics. Its incredibly easy to run and to play. Its very easy for new players to learn and very intuitive. Even if a rule doesnt exist its kind of built for the dm to wing things easily.

3) the unisystem has 2 rule sets kind of. They have the base line rule set which is very nuanced. Characters have endurance and loose it for all kinds of things including frenzied activity (combat) so the character will get tired and eventually maybe pass out. Skills are more exact. As an example each weapon type is its own skill (sword/axe/spear/etc...). The other is the cinematic rule set. Its more streamlined. No endurance. A single skill (medieval) covers basically all melee weapons. Its meant to emulate tv shows and movies and one of their cinematic games is Army of Darkness.

But, because the rules are so simple and universal to begin with you can just pick and choose the level of complexity you like and play. For example i dont like the micro managment of keeping track of endurance for combat. But i DO like players treking through a jungle getting worn down by the terrain they have to deal with. So i cut the players endurance totals in half and only have them lose it for those kinds of things so they have to thi k about when they need to make camp.

4) finally, and the part my group enjoys most, its reactive in thatyou get to choose how you are dealing with everything that is happening to you.

Example: i try to attack you! 1d10 + dex + sword. You have some choices. Most often dodging or parrying or blocking (if you have a shield). So you try to parry. D10 + dex + sword. The total makes a success level (conveniently located on every character sheet) 9-10 1 success. 11-12 2 successes. Etc etc..

Who ever has the highest success level wins. Ties go to the defender.

Are you sneaking up on somebody? Dex + stealth + d10 vs perception (attribute) + notice (skill).

Are you searching a room? Int + notice.

Are you taking your time to aim a shot with a bow? Perception + bow at the beginning of the round. You attack last in the turn. The success levels of the aim action are a bonus to the dex + bow when you do finally attack.


Basically you just pick the most appropriate attribute with the most appropriate skill for whatever you are doing and the dm applies penalties for dificulty of task. Any successes pass (but more successes could net you more things (degrees of success are a good thing)) and competing tasks work as above.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/03 00:29:55


Post by: Gitzbitah


Huh. That sounds shockingly like the old Streetfighter STG, or any of the White Wolf World of Darkness games.

For my year in DnD, I appear to have started a fire at my middle school. Last year I began a club, and got 20 or so people involved, with 5 chomping at the bit converts.

This year I'm seeking another sponsor for next year, because I can only handle 28 of them for club, and we had nearly twice that number sign up. I've got a base of 8 that has started meeting outside of school and in the mornings.

They're moving through Curse of Strahd, while the club does one shots based around the troubles of a town once a month or so.

I can't wait until one of them gets the bug and decides to try DMing. I've got a lizardfolk paladin all ready to go. He thinks eating a dying paladin he found in the swamp infected him with some magical mad cow style disease, because the sun started talking to him. Now he's trying to do what the sun says, lest it bring drought upon the land, and avoiding his tribe so he doesn't infect them. I'll turn him into a wild magic sorceror once he hits 3, as he laments the disease getting worse. Lizardfolk are of course, too practical for suicide.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/03 02:30:18


Post by: Lance845


Its got elements that are similar to white wolf, but nowhere near the complexity. White wolf can be down right draconian to fully understand and run.

This is always simple. Stat + skill + 1d10.

You dont have to take time building a dice pool and then splitting it and then counting successes and rerolling 10s and bla blah...

All that crap slows down the game. A single dice roll to resolve all actions keeps the game moving.

Those stat + skills are called tasks. The other roll is a test which is only attribute. Simple tests use the attribute doubled. Difficult use the attribute alone. So trying to lift a boulder. Simple strength test. Trying to lift a boulder off your own leg while pinned. Difficult strength test. Trying to lift it off your own leg with someone helping? One person is determined to be the primary person. Any successes are added to the other persons roll as a bonus. Chasing a person down an ally? Athletics and dex task or simple dex test. Whichever is better.

If you drop to 0 life you make a special survival test (con+will power).

In combat everyone gets 1 offensive action and 1 defensive action. If you want to do more actions in a round (or have to because your being attacked by multiple opponents) each additional action is a cumulative -2 to the task. So your fighting 3 goblins. Slash with your sword at one, parry a incoming attack. Dodge a second at -2. Try to parry the 3rd with -4.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/03 03:07:07


Post by: Syro_


@Da Boss: Thanks Da Boss your blog and advice have been an inspiration to me too.

@Earth127: That's great that you have been getting to play a lot! And cool about completing a 3 year campaign, must have left the group with great feelings.

@Gitzbitah: That's so great that you've helped so many people enter the hobby,. and have made it so popular. I hope you find another sponsor. I'm having a similar experience, where my single after school group of 5 may be turning into 3-4 separate groups with how many people want join.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/03 23:17:27


Post by: Paradigm


Turns out the dice gods are cruel masters... Not a day after writing about how well all my games were going, my PC gets killed in my first game of the year. Definitely a character who was okay with dying (Nature Domain Cleric, so very much about the cycle of life and death being a perfectly peaceful thing) and I feel she had a good influence on the party before it happened, but it was still quite emotional.

Still though, only one more week with that group before I head back to uni, so I'm going for a much lighter and sillier one-and-done character next time, whereas up to this point I was playing the most straight-laced and sensible one among them... From sombre, peaceful cleric to fighty, permanently-hammered Drunken Master Dwarf Monk should be quite an entertaining shift...


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/04 02:24:14


Post by: Syro_


Loosing a character is always hard, but that does sounds like a fun shift


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/04 15:18:12


Post by: Dark Apostle 666


My PC died too - but in a way that I'm actually pretty happy with!
Our group was fleeing a citadel under attack by drow, and got into a fight versus some knights who were stopping us from getting on the boat with their noble masters.

Combat ensues, and with the knights doing poorly on their Dex saves vs "Grease", The dwarf fighter got onto the boat, followed by the human rogue (after he'd gone unconscious and been brought back by the bard,) and the Halfling Bard, while my Gnome Wizard "tanked" with mage armour and the shield spell. I went down, and used my "last words" to chuck my party a mysterious book, and tell them to take it to a particular church. (I'd had this planned for a while as a hook to bring in my next PC)

The party escaped (with about 15hp between the three of them), and that was the end of the session - it was pretty awesome! I think it helped that I'd given some thought to character mortality, and by my GM letting me have my dying moment be a bit more dramatic than "You're unconscious. Death save please."

After the session, the DM said that he was thinking that he'd like to try being a PC, I volunteered to take up the DM'ing job, and he'll now be playing as a wood elf paladin.
So, looks like I'm DMing next session!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/04 19:21:18


Post by: Da Boss


Great stuff Dark Apostle, I am sure you will do a great job. Let us know how you get on!

My first PC in years was a Dwarf Cleric that I ran when one of my players took over. He got surrounded by 8 Bullywugs at level 1 and managed to stay in the fight for quite a while, but eventually went down, and then nobody healed him for the full 5 rounds of death saves. (in my game we roll death saves in secret so people don't ever know how close you are to death. It makes characters bleeding out much more exciting and prevents unrealistic "Oh I have another round to save them" kind of play). It was the first character death my newbie group has ever had, pretty amused it was me who copped it!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/05 02:26:32


Post by: Syro_


Good luck with the DMing Dark Apostle 666, that was an epic death and good set up for your new character.

I've finally made and posted my retrospective on what I accomplished in the year 2018 hobby-wise, in my blog. I'll share just the D&D part here.

This is the terrain I've crated for entering the first goblin cave complex in "Lost Mines of Phandelver"


And here are all the minis I finsihed and mostly made, for D&D:


I probably shouldn't bother with all the minis I bought for converting to D&D, as I went hog-wild.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/05 13:05:47


Post by: Gitzbitah


Man Syro, that's glorious! I especially love the evil Gumby looking dude next to the scarecrow.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/05 17:50:03


Post by: Syro_


Heh heh, thanks Gitzbitah. That is a perfect description for him I had a little clay left over in a pottery class I took, and decided slap together a clay golem.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/08 18:42:41


Post by: streamdragon


I finally got back into playing D&D after finding a D&D Adventurer's League group. It's not perfect, but it's better than playing online.

Unfortunately, my usual weekend group is torn about D&D. Most of us are bleh on 5e, but some want to go back to Old School type stuff for a try, others want to go back to 3.pf. I'm not really a fan of either of those options, being a 4e die hard. We're working through a Genesys game right now that I'm running set in the World of SMOG, so we have some time, but after watching quite a few D&D streams I'm missing a good solid fantasy RPG.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/08 20:04:40


Post by: Alpharius


I've never met a 4th Edition diehard!

I didn't think there were many/many left.

What is it about 4th that you love so much?


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/10 21:01:40


Post by: streamdragon


 Alpharius wrote:
I've never met a 4th Edition diehard!

I didn't think there were many/many left.

What is it about 4th that you love so much?


Simplest answer is that I enjoy the balance of 4th edition. No more linear fighter, quadratic wizard. I enjoy the "big dude with a big sword" archetype in my fantasy, and that character wasn't really a solid option in 3.pf, where magic dominated everything and martial (by which I basically mean non-pure caster class) characters had no real options*. Feat support was a joke comparatively. There were no real class abilities that made a monster stick to you like the simple method of a mark in 4e.

(* Basically it was trip build or bust, and that only worked half the time and was boring 100% of the time)

Any remotely intelligent monster ignored or evaded the fighter, because if it didn't it would end up polymorphed into a fish, had its mind dominated into oblivion, or would simply be disintegrated. High level encounters became hilariously short and dangerous. "Did you win initiative? No? Welp, better hope you make your save or this is over." Magic was so powerful it ruined the game, to me. Then you get into Permanence or Contingency and it starts becoming a nightmare to DM.

4th edition also avoided the whole necessity of bringing a cleric. No one got stuck playing the walking band-aid. Channeling to Cure spells in 3.pf was a nice step to avoiding the 2e cleric spell listing. (i.e., Cure ____ Wounds x however many slots I have), but when 4th sort of spread around the healing through Second Wind and other abilities, it was wonderful. Mind you, I still ended up playing "the healer" quite a bit, but at least more often than not I got to take an actual turn instead of "I move to so and so and heal them/dispel the polymorph/collect their ashes for later burial.

4e did the best job of making player characters seem larger than life from start to finish. No more low level characters getting one shot by a random high damage roll. No more Wizards casting their one or two spells then sitting out the rest of the game until a long rest. (I may be bitter against wizards, but I still want their players to have fun). It was an edition that really made my character from start to finish feel like a hero in their world, in a way 3.pf lacked.

Did 4e have its issues? Of course it did. The rigidity of treasure was probably one of the biggest issues to me, since it made handing out off-the-cuff treasure "break the timeline" as it were. But even with its issues, it was to me a better and more even play experience than 3.pf, without the relative blandness of 5e, where most of your real decisions are made by level 3. (Again, unless you're a caster, then you at least get to select spells every single level.)


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/13 21:55:05


Post by: Da Boss


I gave 4e a pretty thorough shake. I think it had a lot of good ideas and mostly put people off with the art direction and descriptions of things, but it was mechanically pretty solid for the first 10 levels or so. I found the combat broke down into a slog after level 12 or so, and apparently I was supposed to be filling my encounters with hazards and interactive traps and stuff to liven it up, but I felt that was just as much work as running high level 3.X combat.

Hitting high level in 5e now and finding myself stealing abilities from 4e to stick onto my monsters to make them more interesting and challenging to fight.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/13 22:43:32


Post by: Syro_


Matt Colville is a big fan of 4E, isn't he? He could probably be called a die hard.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/14 12:39:02


Post by: streamdragon


 Da Boss wrote:
I gave 4e a pretty thorough shake. I think it had a lot of good ideas and mostly put people off with the art direction and descriptions of things, but it was mechanically pretty solid for the first 10 levels or so. I found the combat broke down into a slog after level 12 or so, and apparently I was supposed to be filling my encounters with hazards and interactive traps and stuff to liven it up, but I felt that was just as much work as running high level 3.X combat.

Hitting high level in 5e now and finding myself stealing abilities from 4e to stick onto my monsters to make them more interesting and challenging to fight.


There are definitely places it fell flat, and combat encounters could definitely slog on if designed full of normal monsters. My thought is that Minions were supposed to be a more common thing. My go to explanation/reasoning is to think of the fight at the end of the first Lord of the Rings movie. Boromir vs the Uruk-hai. Despite being considered the biggest and baddest of the orcs, most of those dudes dropped in a single hit. Then you had Lurtz there as a regular enemy (or even an elite) to really be the threat. It gives your players a place to use their encounter and daily powers, while still having plenty of fodder for the At-Will powers. It also avoids burning all your Encounter powers on regular monsters and then spending 10 rounds using At-Will powers to slowly grind down a monster.

I really don't get the Art Direction complaints people had, especially when they then latched onto Pathfinder so hard. The 4e depictions of Dwarves, a race I'm somehow more bored of than Elves, remains among the best to me. I mean, I understand that all art is subjective, but the styles are so similar.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/14 13:18:54


Post by: Da Boss


I don't hate it myself but I would say the style is less "gritty" than pathfinder. Pathfinder is much more dungeon punk, and also much more cheesecakey. It is also more consistent because so much of it is done by one bloke.

I thought 4e had some pretty good art and some okay stuff, but the general look was more clean and cartoony than people were used to it and it caused a wee backlash.

My favourite 4e stuff is actually some of the setting stuff like the Underdark supplement and the Darksun setting book. Really cool stuff there.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/14 16:53:41


Post by: infinite_array


I recently re-listened to System Mastery's 4e review, and they hit a lot of good points as to why 4e was a good system that you can pretty easily fix with a couple relatively simple patches. Everyone should have weapon expertise and implement expertise from the start, and they should use the updated Monster Manual 3 math that adjusts monster hitpoints and damage (or, to make it easier, monsters should have 50% less health and do 60% more damage).

It made me want to pick up a giftbox core set off of ebay just to have in my collection.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/14 17:09:50


Post by: Red Harvest


D&D was never designed for high level play, anything above 10th-11th level. This is the impression I had.

4e had some interesting things, but it was more skirmish game with rpg elements.

My group is finding that 5e combats at 9th level are "grindy" because of a poorly developed movement, withdrawal, retreat and pursuit mechanic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Syrto, nice work on the terrain for Phandelver.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/14 18:25:02


Post by: Syro_


Thanks Red Harvest


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/15 13:53:33


Post by: Earth127


I found you can soften combat grindiness by creating good dungeons and interesting situations as a DM. Don't play on planet bowling ball for pure kills. Never let your players go ham on a boss.

Unlike the lower levels your players should be able to handle serious amounts of bs so therefore apply generously if fairly.(Tomb of horrors is an example of how not to do this btw)

2 main disadvantages:

This increases the amount of work it takes for a DM.
Combat takes longer, a lot longer.


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/19 08:11:05


Post by: CragHack


Got hooked on giants. Two of them in comparison: Nolzur's (Frost giant) and GF9 (Fire Giant).
I have to say I really like the GF9 resin as it's pretty much the same thing you would normally get from, say, Forge World. This is also reflected by a higher price range (40 euros vs, like, 15 for the Nolzur's Giant). Unfortunately, it also suffers from the same issues: some nasty mold lines and mold slips, but since the resin is a hard one, it's not so hard to work with and with some miliput here ant there it's almost perfect.

Nolzur's, on the other hand, comes in a sketchy "pre painted" form that reminds me of the nasty times I had with Vallejo airbrush primer. It will scratch away. And I'm not sure how good will that look once painted. Good thing though, the primer is acrylic - hence you can strip it away if you don't like it (and have the luxury of buying simple green or any other magic cleaning solution). I would not risk of soaking this thing in isopropyl alcohol
The whole mini is definitely made from some other material which feels rubbery and pretty heckin bendy. It was also, probably, cast in a different way, because there ARE SO MANY MOLDLINES EVERYWHERE. Some of them are very clear and go in random visible places, others are hidden, so a great care should be taken if you want to clean them all.



Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/19 14:51:48


Post by: Syro_


Those are some cool miniatures CragHack, this is my first time seeing a mini for a Fire Giant Dreadnought


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/19 15:21:15


Post by: Da Boss


The Gale Force 9 giants are really tempting! I hadn't realised they had giants available from the main line, I will have to check that out!


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/19 15:47:49


Post by: CragHack


Syro_ wrote:Those are some cool miniatures CragHack, this is my first time seeing a mini for a Fire Giant Dreadnought

It's not the only one. WOTC have one in their main pre painted line
Spoiler:


Da Boss wrote:The Gale Force 9 giants are really tempting! I hadn't realised they had giants available from the main line, I will have to check that out!

Yeah, their Frost Giants look amazing as well. Unfortunately, the only Hill Giant they produced is out of stock with no plans to re release it in foreseeable future :\


Dungeons And Dakkas! The Dakka DnD Thread! @ 2019/01/21 15:38:48


Post by: Olthannon


I've been playing dnd for a couple of years now and I'd love to play more but managing to get everyone together for a night is just a nightmare. The stars have to align etc.

I'd really like to DM a Warhammer fantasy game and I'm sure there's campaigns online but has anyone had any experience of running one or playing in the universe?