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I've never used any music or sound effects. I've been tempted, but there is already so much to set up and prepare beforehand that I don't prepare any, and during the game there is way too much going on to be the dungeon DJ as far as I'm concerned. My players are typically riveted the whole session without any music so I'd say don't feel obligated to do any, but if it's something you enjoy and think adds to the game then go for it.

We actually have a player run all the music and sound effects in our group, another does minis, and another does hand-outs/accessories once the DM reveals stuff.

One of the guys who used to DM for us is brilliant at putting together soundtracks and themes for his villains. I am not into enough different music to do as good a job as him.

I'm liking the suggestions!

I had a chat with my group about music and i showed them this thread (they liked your reuinion session board Syro_!)
They didn't object to a player fixing the audio but i got the feel they wanted to focus on charaters, inventory and plot so i'm going to persevere and try to work something out with this soundboard thing. Maybe some generic audio files for generic interior spaces like caves?

I don't think doing dedicated sound effects (doors opening and closing, footsteps, weapon clashes) is really do-able as a lone DM from a 'number of things i have to remember' perspective and it's starting to feel a little like 'setting the scene' with the audio is effectively introducing a loading screen into D&D

That's great to hear Sir Donald, thanks!

I agree about it not being worth doing sound effects for everything little thing unless if you like doing sound effects with your mouth

My biggest issue is probably the loading screen you mention coupled with the fluid nature of the game. In order for the music to work 1) you have to kind of prepare a playlist for the tone of the things you want to happen. 2) Then the players have to actually do all those things while having the tone you want to fit the music you picked.

Yeah the music might help keep them on track tonally. But i have rarely not had the plays go off and do things incredibly unexpected. At which point i would have no music qued up for what they are doing. It seems a logistical nightmare, which at this point im philisophically opposed to doing in my dm prep.

It's pretty worthwhile and simple enough to set up generic playlists that can really be used to cover 90% of what's likely to come up in any given session, rather than prepping specific music for each game. It helps to think in terms of escalation; if you gave something for ambience, tension, action then either despair or victory, you've covered the typical course of a session with music that will suit the descent into a dungeon and the resulting glorious return but can also cover the sudden attack on a city that ends with a beloved character falling in the escape.

From there, you can build more specific stuff at your leisure, if you want, say, tavern music or for a city or villain to have their own 'themes', but by creating the basic pool of tracks and playlists, you don't need to worry about soundtracking everything, every game, and to my mind at least it
s more than worth it for the difference it makes at the table. And in game, it's no more complex than clicking from one playlist to another as the tone changes.


As for sound effects... I mean, I'm not DMing to not make fireball/sword/screaming/monster noises...

Lance845 wrote: But i have rarely not had the plays go off and do things incredibly unexpected. At which point i would have no music qued up for what they are doing.

Yeah, i think you put your finger on the crux of the problem there - and it's not like the phrase "expect the unexpected" can really help!

Paradigm wrote:It's pretty worthwhile and simple enough to set up generic playlists that can really be used to cover 90% of what's likely to come up in any given session, rather than prepping specific music for each game. It helps to think in terms of escalation; if you gave something for ambience, tension, action then either despair or victory, you've covered the typical course of a session with music that will suit the descent into a dungeon and the resulting glorious return but can also cover the sudden attack on a city that ends with a beloved character falling in the escape.

From there, you can build more specific stuff at your leisure, if you want, say, tavern music or for a city or villain to have their own 'themes', but by creating the basic pool of tracks and playlists, you don't need to worry about soundtracking everything, every game, and to my mind at least it
s more than worth it for the difference it makes at the table. And in game, it's no more complex than clicking from one playlist to another as the tone changes.


As for sound effects... I mean, I'm not DMing to not make fireball/sword/screaming/monster noises...

Okay, i'm trying to get a list going of all the types of places a player might visit in a d&d game that would have a distinct aural difference - suggestions welcome!

Tavern
market
blacksmith
barracks
countryside
wet cave
dry cave
rainy street
pitched battle
skirmish encounter
large monster combat
church/cathedral/temple

I feel like a really shoddy emulator - even when running 'properly' the audio drivers cause the game to lag and interrupt the dialogue; i suppose i should be grateful the system doesn't just crash..

I sometimes use a sound effects app I have on my phone if I remember to use it (Which can be a problem). Or if a scene is going to be n a place for awhile.

Background noise in a busy tavern, or water dripping in a cave can help ambiance, but not something that is strictly necessary.

I don't know how far people have gone before in derailing a plot, but I think that Thoruk the barbarian went as far as could possibly be gone...

We were charged with clearing kobolds out of a dwarfs home, and set about it with gusto. Thoruk went into a rage, and as I was quite thickly roleplaying, I paid no attention to the map, nor to where I was going - Thoruk picked doors at random, kicked them down and flew in swinging his dragonsword at anything that moved. It worked well for the first couple of rooms, and lots of kobolds got deaded. Then he kicked in a door, and the DM said "You find yourself in an empty room". I said "I attack whatever happens to be closest". Raging barbarian on the rampage, and all that. He then says (and everyone in the group starts to get concerned at this point) that I walk up to what appears to be an alter, and swing my sword down onto it. I roll a 19, totalling 25 to hit - and people start to panic more. the DM then asks me to make a strength saving throw - to see if I get thrown across the room, ALA Gimli in LOTR. I roll a nat 20. The DM wasn't expecting that, and Thoruk "Out-stubborns" the alter, and it cracks in half. At this point, Thoruk is subjected to a deluge of "What have you done???"'s from the rest of the group. He replies simply that he killed it. The wizards in the group are detecting a great swirl of magic coming from the broken alter, and just be fore Thoruks next turn, the ghostly apparation of an elderly dwarven matron appears by the alter. Thoruk continues his rampage, but by now the kobolds are fleeing, he doesn't attack, and his rage wears off. All the other players are running out of the place now, turning invisible and trying very hard to not be killed by a dwarven goddess - who had been identified as the dwarven goddess of healing and homely protection by one of the religeous-types in the group. She walks up to thoruk, and thoruk turns to her, sees she has a beard, and says "Stay back, sir, there could be more of them!" before raging again, and kicking down another door. Kobolds flee before him (or possible the goddess, following him), and one of the few players who stayed inside cast a restraint spell so he can't move out of 30ft of her. The goddess asks "Are you quite finished". The DM is putting on a "I am so angry, I have to talk very softly to not scream at you" Kind of voice. The table is hushed. She asks "Would you like to explain to me why you decided to come into this house and destroy my alter?".
I reply, in character as thoruk, simply acting confused about the question:
"We were... paid to come in here and kill everything. And I did come in here, and I killed everything. I went into that room, and there was this thing, so I killed it, like the dwarves asked me to."
DM: Make a deception roll.
Me: But I believe that's the truth!
DM: Make a persuasion roll.
Dice: 20.
So at this point,. I have convinced the goddess of protection that the dwarves had paid me to smash her alter. She decides to stop talking to thoruk and talk to someone else, who explains that thoruk is very stupid and doesn't represent them. She asks thoruk to come through and have a look at her alter. A close look. Thoruk leans in, and comments that it looks like someone broke it. The goddess grabs him by the hair and slams his head repeatedly into the alter, which it transpires is an alter of healing, so thoruks nose breaks and heals with every blow. His blood flows into the cracks, and the alter repairs with it. He staggers back, has a look at it, and declares that he has fixed it. Then the goddess casts sleep on him, and he obligingly falls over. Then the goddess tells the 2 PC's who were left inside that they should keep an eye on him.

Thoruks backstory is that he is an accidental dimension-hopper, turning up almost anywhere, at any time, not noticing that he has travelled at all, and trying to help. He is my go-to drop-in character, so this suits him well. We also had my Partners character, xanphia, who we decided was bound to follow thoruk and try to keep him from getting hurt.

Essentially, Thoruk derailed a side-quest so badly that he awakened a goddess and turned the whole plot into his own backstory, of how Xanphia (and a guard) were magically bound to watch over and protect people from Thoruk.

It was supposed to be a simple, go in and kill things, then get paid, kinda job. A side mission on the way to the main one. Then Thoruk happened.

Contemplating renaming Thoruk the Distracted Duck-Slayer to Thoruk the Derailer.

Wow, that's quite a chain of events
At least from your recap, I feel liek your DM did a surprisingly good job of rolling with everything.
Also, I like the idea of renaming him "the derailer"

https://tabletopaudio.com/

might be helpful sound/music wise.

...of late we've been oddly obsessed/happy with the recent Watchmen TV series OST -- via youtube etc etc etc

meanwhile

https://www.enworld.org/threads/d-d-digital-plans-to-be-revealed-on-february-21st.670243/?fbclid=IwAR2u3xAYLgydmoppD9fmGxLXjsgChpD4ec9KgwH7BkIgSWWo8Pw3-mxKuBk

Brian D. Goldner, Chairman of the Board and CEO at Hasbro took part in the company's Quarter 4 2019 earnings call. This included several references to D&D.

D&D grew again for the sixth year in a row.
Streaming D&D content was up nearly 50% on last year.
Substantial new (digital) gaming plans for D&D will be revealed on February 21st at Hasbro's Analyst Day
Total games category grew by 6%, as D&D, MtG, and Monopoly bolstered declines elsewhere.
Profit declined due to digital D&D and M:tG digital games investment.
"Well, good morning, and we did see very strong growth for Magic: The Gathering and increased growth for Dungeons & Dragons. "

"Magic: The Gathering revenues increased more than 30% in the year, behind double-digit growth in tabletop play and a strong first year for Magic: The Gathering Arena. Dungeons & Dragons revenues grew for the sixth straight year, and we are meaningfully investing in both brands to drive engaging storytelling, while developing new digital games with high margin profitable growth longer term. We look forward to sharing our 2020 new gaming plans for Magic and D&D on February 21. MONOPOLY had double-digit revenue growth and grew in each region with new themes and relevant entertainment tie-ins. We advanced our consumer products licensing business growing revenues double digits and expanding operating profit margin. We've broadened our licensed brand portfolio and expanded our reach with original live events that drive consumer engagement."

"In addition, for D&D, we did see our sixth straight year of growth. We are seeing about 150 million hours of content viewed on Twitch and YouTube, which is up nearly 50% year-on-year. In the first half of 2020, we are seeing a lot of new initiatives coming for the brand, but again I'm going to let Chris walk us through at at our Analyst Day, our plans for digital gaming, which are again substantial for D&D that begins in 2020."

"You'll also see great digital game development for D&D. And we will see you on February 21 to outline that."

"Our total games category grew 6% for the year, fueled by growth in Magic: The Gathering and MONOPOLY. Higher revenues from Dungeons & Dragons and several classic games titles did not offset declines in our Hasbro Gaming portfolio"

"Adjusted operating profit and profit margin declined as we invest in digital gaming initiatives including Magic: The Gathering Arena and future Magic and Dungeons & Dragons digital games."

"We delivered compelling gaming experiences, led by the work of our teams at Wizards of the Coast. Our positive results to date have us on plan to double Wizards of the Coast coast revenues over five years from 2018 to 2023."

You can read the full transcript at The Motley Fool.
WotC acquired Tuque, a video games company last year which is working on a brand new D&D video game called D&D: Dark Alliance.
There is also, of course, Baldur's Gate 3 coming soon.
Archetype Entertainment is WotC own new video game studio headed by ex-Bioware staff.

Ooo. I've seen trailers for that new Dark Alliance game. Really, really bad.

Bad, as in they took the 2001 Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance PS2 game, and applied a downgrade.

But it has the Drizzit and company, so I guess they're counting on IP sales rather than gameplay sales.

Restarted my student campaign at level 1 to let some newbies join.
Running Ptolus with Dungeon of the Mad Mage standing in for Ghul's Labyrinth. Players went down the Yawning Portal entrance, and snuck around the first entrance.
First game, first combat, first attack, player death.
Bard steps forward to cast dissonant whispers. Hurts bugbear. Bugbear moves forward, hits, rolls max damage of 18. Player HP 8.
The group then went on to find the teleporter down to level 10. I have taken the level restrictions off the level connectors, because I want them to be able to get in over their heads. They promptly did.

I'm now starting to arrange my own campaign, and have a plethora of different plots lined up for use in no particular order.

One of the missions I have planned is an ever-changing labyrinth (I know, unique or what?) in which there are traps and monsters and the like.
I plan on running it like so:

1: The players meet a friendly artificer, who is working on a safe way through the labyrinth. He gives you a sending stone, so he can talk to you, and shows you a map he has made. It is blank, except for the perimeter of the maze and 2 ink blots. He explains that one of those blots is the sending stone he gave you, and the other is the goal in the maze (the maze is like a gateway, and he's managed to get a stone to the other side). He explains that he can guide you through the maze, and make sure you're still going in the right direction.

The maze itself will be a set of mini cards, drawn each time they find a new section by opening a door or turning a corner, and slotted together behind the DM screen. anything more than 5 rooms away is reshuffled into the deck. The cards will detail any challenges in these rooms. If a room had a challenge which was cleared, I will have a random table to roll on to stop it from being repetitive.

I, as the DM, will play the artificer and advise on their direction. I will have a map on graph paper, showing their start, end and current location. They might get lucky, and their first cards will take them directly to the exit, but I doubt it!

I thought this a good way to avoid the mindless blundering of a maze, and to keep a feeling of progress without a certainty of success. What do you guys think?

I reckon that could work well, though I would be sure to give the Artificer some sort of flaw that made them seem less reliable, to make them less of the "voice of god" and more the voice of a flawed person in the game world, so the players still have to filter what they hear through what they understand as the Artificers perspective and make decisions.
I like the idea of a "maze deck" with encounters and traps on it. I might give it a go!

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/784518.page

I made a thread about trying to run a maze. Several peoples ideas are in there.

Millenials have it easy these days becoming great heros. Back in the day, I'm talking D&D BECMI, you had to put your time in. There was none of this reaching 100th level computer game stuff after a few months. They used to talk about kids suiciding from D&D back then. In Becmi system the greater risk was dying of old age between levels. So you killed 6 liches and 10 undead dragons in the campaign and got all their gold ? Nice work son, that means you progress.........1/50th the way to next level.

BECMI? LMFAO! BECMI was for the brain damaged sorts who couldn't figure out how to open a ziploc bag. Try the 3 LBBs. Now that was real D&D.

Git on my level, bro.
------------------------------

I started DMing a Holmes basic campaign of all things. Running the party through "In Search of the Unknown." Highly entertaining. The party finally found the fabled room of pools, and didn't do anything foolish. I was impressed. Previous session they decided to stand their ground against some slowly, emphasize slowly, approaching Zombies -- wandering monsters. The Zombies outnumbered them too. Yet they stood. Only lost one party member before they realized they needed to not do dumb things like fight wandering monsters, especially in melee, if they can get away instead.

I think you are describing American players there. We didn't have ziploc bags back then, and BECMI for the record, had it used ziploc bags, would have required killing at least 10 nuckalavee, 3 displacer beasts, the great dragon and 6 elementals before reaching the level to open said ziploc bag. Its possible you are missing the parody in both my posts btw ;D

Oh yeah? Well, I started in 4th ed. where even a combat encounter against 2 goblins would last 3 hours. So we were the real brain-damaged sorts who couldn't open Ziploc bags!

wait...

Nice, balmong7

Has anyone had any experience running futuristic D&D campaigns?
I have a plan for a campaign series in which the party will move to a place where time was accelerated, but there is no magic. They will be able to cast their own spells, but no-one else has magic. The isolation of this place meant that the magic became a finite resource, which at this point has been converted to technology.
The main enemy will be a military organisation, with futuristic weapons. I want to give them a different flavour, rather than re-skinning a crossbow.
found this cool site:
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Category:Futuristic
which has a huge list of weapons. Just looking for any advice people have on this twist of d&d.

Sci Fi in Dungeons and Dragons has been a part of the setting since very near the beginning - stuff like robots are in the game from almost the very start. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is the classic adventure in this style.
Your idea sounds interesting. Different from how most of these classic incorporations of sci fi into Dungeons and Dragons were done though. The usual trope is that the sci fi elements were part of the distant past, and some great apocalypse happened to wipe the knowledge from history. Civilisation has risen again, but only to the point of medieval technology.
In this idea, some magic items are actually just ancient technology. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy is arguably the first setting produced for dungeons and dragons and this is the basic premise of that setting, you can find things like antigrav vehicles and so on that are described as magic items.

 Da Boss wrote:
Sci Fi in Dungeons and Dragons has been a part of the setting since very near the beginning - stuff like robots are in the game from almost the very start. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is the classic adventure in this style.
Your idea sounds interesting. Different from how most of these classic incorporations of sci fi into Dungeons and Dragons were done though. The usual trope is that the sci fi elements were part of the distant past, and some great apocalypse happened to wipe the knowledge from history. Civilisation has risen again, but only to the point of medieval technology.
In this idea, some magic items are actually just ancient technology. The Wilderlands of High Fantasy is arguably the first setting produced for dungeons and dragons and this is the basic premise of that setting, you can find things like antigrav vehicles and so on that are described as magic items.

I recently had a backwards-idea for the whole "A lost civilization of great power" thing. Rough summary, some people from the modern era seek atlantis, for it has lost technology of great power. They find atlantis, and the atlantian scientists show them their "superweapons"; "Behold; a musket!".

Back on topic; Don't read this if you think you'll be playing in my campaign!

link

"The talented performers from Critical Role, virtual tabletop platform Roll20, and Dungeons & Dragons publishers Wizards of the Coast have released a free pen-and-paper adventure online. The excerpt from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is available now for those stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak.

“Roll20’s mission has always been to unite gamers across any distance, and we’re working hard at continuing that pursuit as we see the world’s need to move their gaming gatherings online,” said Nolan T. Jones, managing partner of Roll20. “Critical Role has united and created millions of Dungeons & Dragons fans around the world, and we’re excited to offer their new playable adventures so gamers can continue expanding their hobby.”"

Roll 20 actually crashed past Saturday because of a massive influx of users I think.

https://twitter.com/hexcrawl/status/1252289754479165442

lovely, lovely work indeed.

Has anyone played an Arcanist yet? My Avernus group is finishing up and I'm thinking of trying it in the next campaign we do.

I hope everyone is taking advantage of the free D&D content from WotC.
https://dnd.wizards.com/remote/freematerial