#every 5e character i've had so far

[ladytabletop]

Lady Tabletop's Primer for Getting into Tabletop Roleplaying Game Design Philosophy

Sam Dunnewold over at the Dice Exploder podcast has posed a fun question to his discord server: where would you tell people to start if they wanted to know more about TTRPGs and design?

First and foremost, I'd tell people to start with @jdragsky's article about Systems of Relation.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can now understand that the games we played on the playground were identical in nature to the tabletop RPGs I would grow up to play and help design.

Next, check out Thomas Manuel's analysis of the Axes of Game Design over on the Indie RPG Newsletter.

So the basic exercise is trying to figure out the standard axes or spectrums on which every game can fit. The idea is for these axes to be as descriptive and objective as possible.

Thirdly (and lastly for the purposes of this blog - it's entry-level, not comprehensive), check out this reddit thread about lonely fun.

The Lonely Fun is all of the stuff you do as a part of your hobby away from the table, in any way you might engage. For D&D 5e players, this is usually building complicated and elaborate characters on the page, pouring over the books for new races and subclasses, figuring out fun new combinations, and carefully crafting characters.

Read those? Now check out BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home by @temporalhiccup

Will we be able to outrun our Masters and those who hunt us down? Can we use our magic to bring about the rebirth of the city and all Elementals? ill this be our RECKONING or our HOMECOMING? That’s what we play to find out.

Why I make these particular recommendations below the cut.

All of these recommendations are hopefully all entry-level. I tried to stay away from any essays, blogs, or articles that reference game movements you may not have heard of or that require tons of reading before you can even read my recommendations. Some do have links to other stuff, and if you're enjoying the writing, definitely go down those rabbit holes! These are a tiny, tiny portion of my "TTRPG Homework" folder where I save essays, podcasts, etc that have helped me in my own game design journey. I'm always happy to share more, just ask!

The essay on Systems of Relation put into words something I had been thinking about the more I got into indie games/design: I've been playing my whole life, and ttrpgs are just another piece of that. I think it's crucial to break out of the framework of people trying to define play and games into neat little categories. Will I ever write a game as good as the ones I played in the backyard with my siblings? Probably not, but I'd like to find out.

Now that I've told you to stop trying to categorize games, we have an article about trying to categorize games. But I do like Thomas's assessment and examples of using game design axes. I think as designers it's important to figure out the things the game is trying to do and communicate, so that we can make sure it does those things well.

Lastly, I know 5e gets a bad rap (and it's gotten it from me, too!). But the concept of lonely fun has stuck in my craw since I first saw this thread. It's why some people prefer to GM (and therefore why GM-less games might not work for some people). Not all games are going to have lonely fun, but the ones that do are still going to appeal to people! This thread was key for me in terms of considering that no game is for everyone, and it shouldn't try to be, and also helped contextualize the enjoyment I get from the occasional high-prep game.

Balikbayan as a recommendation was a no-brainer for me. I'm not going to say it's the most elegant or tight of Rae's work, but it's the one with the most heart for me. The story this game wants you to tell is so clear, and as an introduction to "Belonging Outside Belonging" as a system/concept/design philosophy. This game really sings in its character concepts and emotional play.

If you've read this far, congratulations! I've been enjoying the DE podcast (even when I don't agree with some of the takes) and the discord has been a cool (if at times intimidating) place to hang out. I've had a hell of a game design journey this year and I'm so excited to keep learning, and to see what media other folks participating in this blog carnival recommend!

To sign off: my best advice to designers, especially those starting out can be boiled down to three things:

When in doubt, simplify or make it silly

The two cakes theory is your best friend - game design is not a competition

Not everything has to be finished. Not every part of the creative process is fun. Find the balance between these two truths (you're going to have to do that every day).

Best,

LT

#the lady rambles

[probablybadrpgideas]

Didn't know y'all did anything with DCC so I kinda wanna see what your opinion is on this campaign I'm in.

There's a guy we'll call him L, he and I were the only two players for the first two times we met up, and this week we finally got a third player. L has been very aggressively bullrushing every confrontation, completely ignoring everything in his path... And it got our entire party WIPED OUT (I was running 7 characters at once, him 4) session 1 and ushered in an age of chaos. Session 2 was building first levels, and he was constantly trying to dictate what I was going to build and play. The party wipe was devastating to me bc I had started to grow an attachment to one of my lawfuls, and unnecessary and L made no move to stop anything at any point. I assumed initially he was just frozen up on the spot.

Then session 3 happened (first one with the 1st levels we built) and I'm not so sure that's the case anymore. We were sent by the Chaos Gods to the realm of Law to steal the Yokeless egg and he was very much avoidant of any of the plot, including avoiding our DM in the storefront when they were supposed to be having their one on one for The Plot.

We get to the Ox defending the Yokeless Egg and he was running the ONLY lawful character, and he'd had some good meta this session for how he would react to things. This time he literally did nothing while me and the third player (both chaotic alignments) were attempting to figure shit out against the Ox to avoid combat. I went as far as to have my second character (neutral aligned) was elbowing his in the ribs and eventually even pushed L's character to the front to force him to interact with the Ox.

For nearly two whole minutes he sat in complete and utter silence as the Ox began to sniff out the chaos weapons we'd been issued, and didn't act again until combat began. It was PAINFUL bc our DM literally told us ahead of time that most monsters we'd face in the Law realm would kill us easily, so I'd tried to impart that we'd avoid conflict as much as possible.

My question for y'all is like, is this normal etiquette with players in a party? I had played 5e before this and have never experienced someone that acted like that, and if they acted similarly it was usually due to social dynamics or autistic stuff. I had given benefit of the doubt first session, but after this session I'm no longer believing he didn't act this way on purpose. Just wondering if you (or anyone else) has any takes on this situation, is this normal, how the FUCK do you play when someone in your party seems hellbent on combat and ONLY combat.

Also wondering if you have any advice for like, how to actually get this guy to stop Leroy Jenkinsing his way through each and every single dungeon. He has not stopped to examine anything even once and it was the reason our first party got wiped (we needed 500gp worth of items to toss to the Leviathan or a still-beating heart and he chose to start chopping at it instead).

I apologize for the length and density of this ask and appreciate any advice anyone has to give me. I'm at the point where if this party wipes out again I will be quitting.

(sidenote: I've been in this campaign and it's one of my favourites)

This players sounds like a dick. DCC is high-stakes and you need to be able to work as a party to survive, but it sounds like he basically got you killed due to main character syndrome and learned no lessons.

Advice-wise I'd have a talk and make sure he actually understands how TTRPGs and specifically DCC work, which will presumably either lead to "sorry, didn't realise this wasn't fun for everyone else, I'll do better", or deciding he shouldn't be in the group. I'd also have a chat with your GM before that, because there's every chance they enjoy it even if you don't (and it's very much not the recommended approach).

But yeah this is not the kind of gameplay DCC is designed for at all, and your characters are clearly suffering for it - Paper

#not an idea #actual advice #dungeon crawl classics

[leidensygdom]

I've seen you posting about what I think is a DnD campaign, and I'm wondering what software the screenshots are from?

It is a DnD campaign, even if an odd one!!

We use FoundryVTT, which is an absolute godsend. It's a Virtual TableTop (like roll20), with a few differences:

It's single payment. $50, but it goes on sale, and it's very lenient with the license (one person gets it, the whole group can use it to DM as they'd wish! they don't really care)

No subscriptions or extra payments after that. You get the entire software with all of its utilities for that.

It's self-hosted (think like Minecraft servers) but it's easy to set up and it's wonderful since you don't need to worry about storage

It comes with just all sort of functionalities out of the box and it's far much more fleshed out than roll20. There's a lot of integrated TTRPG systems in it already (including 5e, Pf2e, Blades in the Dark, Call of Cthulhu, etc), which update constantly

The software itself is also actively updated and they add more functionalities constantly- It's already VERY good, but they keep expanding it!

A very important one, but it allows modding and has a very active modding community, so if there's a functionality the base software doesn't have, chances are that someone already did it. for example, the healthbar or the turn markers are mods

Honestly the devs are pretty cool too and I appreciate the work they do

For some of the cool functionalities it has that I really use (most of which roll20 doesn't have)

It's just really well optimized and they actively work on optimizing it further with every update!

This one is very important to me, but it allows animations natively, which I use quite a bit for animated tokens. There's people who have done animated spell effects and such too. It supports webm, which are much better than gifs

Overall a LOT of visual customization. You can set lights in the scene with lots of animation, filters, there's a mod to add weather and particle effects, you can have forehead tiles (basically stuff that is over the character), etc.

The sheet and inventory management system is so much better than roll20! you can drag and drop features, classes, spells, all that sort of stuff. Pf2e's module is particularly well done and you can just drag about everything and get a sheet ready in no time

it has a delightful vision system with integrated walls, fog of war and so on (yknow, that thing that roll20 has behind a paywall, but better)

integrated rulers and templates too!

and of course just endless customization with mods

a really nice system for journals, player notes, handouts, etc

fairly specific but you can make both lootable chests and interactive shops for your players with a mod and I LOVE that

I could fawn ALL day about how much I love this software. I ran my campaign in roll20 for two years and the amount of wrestling I had to do with it was infuriating! I really recommend FVTT to pretty much anyone. It can be a bit overwhelming at first since it's a bit harder (given how much functionality it has), but once you get used to it, it's hard to go back to other stuff tbh

#foundryvtt #long post

[lankira]

Inspired by a video from Ginny Di, I've started a character journal for my bard/fighter, Mara!

Mara is part of Team Ponderance, and her portraits here are done by the amazing @thedovahcat

I designed the modular 5e Character sheet stickers (fuck having to redraw all this every time I level up...) And had to cut them out by hand because I don't currently have a streamlined way to get a PDF to cut well on the Silhouette.

So far, I have all the character sheet stuff ready to go in page protectors and the page protectors, binder, and note paper will be in on Sunday. I'm thinking about seeing what notes/letters/journal entries of hers I have in my computer files and printing them on antiqued parchment paper.

I also think I need to add some of Mara's doodles in here, but hey.

#pardon the messy table #dnd #dnd character #mara of the wandering oddities #bard/fighter #character journal

[cipheramnesia]

hey I'm curious about the switch to Pathfinder! could you go into how your group decided to change & what the process of switching over is like?

(I've started running 5e for my friends last year and the idea intrigues me. I'd love to hear your thoughts)

Just a quick summary up top because I've been thinking about this post awhile: Pathfinder 2e has the most readily available free system content and the Pathbuilder 2e app helped all our players with an easy creation process.

In what probably comes as no shock, the Wizards of the Coast open gaming license controversy was the prompt to change. We have a game that's been recording with the goal of being a podcast, and after we all talked it out we decided we couldn't stay with D&D for that specific game.

The choice to go with Pathfinder was ultimately convenience and availability. Because the majority of the resources for Pathfinder are free online with the blessing of the company owning the system, it meant everyone could access the basics. The similarities also made it easier to transition over for most of us, and our DM had the books already available. The majority of the group also wanted to do more with the characters which meant the move had to be something where we could preserve them as best as possible.

I think what really cemented it for the whole group were two apps:

Second Edition Character Sheet - This is a simplified Pathfinder 2e character sheet that does not have many features or all the options in the game, but gives a great feel for how the creation system works. Most descriptions of it I find labyrinthine or counterintuitive, and this app made it much easier to see how various skills and stats are assigned in the game.

Pathbuilder 2e - I think everyone is using this app now because it has basically every single option in Pathfinder 2e you can consider for a character, and a very easy to use system for editing and tweaking your concepts, or just playing around to see how the system works. My nonbinary wife who generally hates mechanics and stats jumped right in and made a super good character almost immediately, so it's very new user friendly too. We do end up needing to use the Pathfinder website in conjunction for a lot of the process, but realistically it's no different than being new to 5e and using DnD Beyond, other than that it's not trying to get you to shell out extra money all the time.

So far all we've done is the character creation process, although as I understand it the main difference in game play is critical roles are more common in 2e. However, as creation goes, Pathfinder is very difficult to create outside the box compared to 5e. For example, in 5e I was able to make my orcish sprite as a Ranger with negative strength and intelligence but thanks to high dexterity and some judicious use of spells allow her to be the party tank with the capacity to immediately charge into danger further and faster than anyone else.

This is more or less impossible in 2e until higher levels, which I don't like because I need my character to be both ignorant and irresponsible because I think that's hilarious. Fortunately I was able to more or less jury rig something, but in general I find the creation process a bit less diverse - despite the fact that 2e has a huge number of background and class options compared to 5e.

Additionally, while 2e has a reputation as having more rules, many of the specific features have not been as well defined as 5e. This means you'll need to somewhat define functionality between yourself and your DM in some situations.

Something everyone noticed during creation, even our DM, was that 2e offers a great deal more options for building a campaign around intrigue, politics, crime, science fiction, or basically any other number of options that aren't combat focused. I think our campaign may end up more city oriented just to take advantage of those options, and because some of us love that style of story.

Overall, I think I like Pathfinder just a bit more for the point distribution and character design. If you're planning to start fresh, it's a very exciting system, either if you want a stand up knock down slugfest or if you want to play a scheming vizier plotting the king's downfall. However, the base characters lack some variety and if you plan to move a 5e character over expect some tradeoffs or potentially for it to be flat out impossible.

#dnd 5e #pathfinder 2e #5e 2e comparison #ttrpg

[seananmcguire]

Hi Seanan! I'm homebrewifying a bunch of stuff from October Daye into DnD 5e material, as I reread the series! Nothing's porting over perfectly, of course- Tuatha de Dannan, for instance, have to be far less powerful in 5e than they are in cannon, only getting one big teleport per day if they aren't a casting class. And Dóchas Sidhe had to become a race with more Fiend ancestry Fae ancestry, to fit my setting's lore, and I'm gonna have a hell of a time making up scent descriptions for everyone's magic on the fly if any of my players ever play as one.

Think I've had the most fun so far making Fairy Circle a 5e spell, based loosely on Glyph of Warding. I don't think it's quite balanced- it should probably still be a much higher level. But I wanted my players to have a chance to play with it if they discover it in-game.

It's gone through a lot of edits- the first draft was 3rd level, didn't have a saving throw, and had different effects for using higher-level slots and for different circle materials. I made it a lot more customizable than it is in cannon, trying to make it accessable to my characters, and not necessarily make walking into one an instant "well you need to make a new character now" button every time, while still having the potential to be powerful enough to be rather scary.

Just wanted to let you know I'm having loads of fun over here. Thanks for building such an interesting world here- I plan to add a bunch of InCryptid's cryptids to my playable creatures list eventually too :)

Oh this is DELIGHTFUL.

I hope you're still having a wonderful time!

[dungeonmalcontent]

Ya'll. It has taken far longer than anticipated, and it is quite nearly 30 pages longer than planned, but I have another book that will be put on DMsGuild soon. It is finally a complete document. Just needs to be read through a bunch (forward and backwards, tip for anyone editing their own stuff) to make sure I'm not making an absolute fool of myself with horrible spelling, punctuation, etc. (lets be real, it's gonna happen anyway).

But, yes. New book.

Psionics: Spellcasting & Specialties

The book re-imagines psionic abilities... kind of. tl;dr, I did my best to make psionics part of 5e in a way that works and doesn't suck the fun out of having it.

(The exasperated tale of a writer overwhelmed by their creation below the cut)

I've talked about this a little, but now that the book it more complete I can say more.

The way WotC tried to put psionics in 5e with the mystic class was a massive failure. It was like this vestigial tenth limb on a bird—a creature which has ostensibly already shed limbs five through nine. It was this whole other resource that only this one class could use and didn't really have much synergy and it was complicated and you had to track all these new passives that you could shift around (it was like having to worry about infusions that could be swapped out with greater ease and significance). It was a mess. I stand by that. I've tried to tackle the problem by drafting a revised mystic class before (not even going to go over how that went, you can read it for yourself for free).

But psionics are so cool. They're still in 5e, just really subtly and honestly mostly in the presence of the mind flayer stat blocks. They work very much like spellcasting, but really only in a way that can be used with "innate spellcasting" which isn't exactly a player attainable feature (yes, I know it's comperable to a spellcasting feat, that's a whole other problem). So, I thought to myself: "What if psionics replaced spellcasting? What if you took a wizard, or a sorcerer, or a bard, or a druid, or any spellcasting class and decided 'this is not spellcasting anymore, this is psionics' and you just changed the way the spellcasting feature worked for that class?" And then I answered that question.

The follow up question was, of course "What about the other classes that don't use magic?" Well. They get specialized archetypes with psionic features that reflect what someone of that background would do with psychic powers.

And then that led to "Well some of these already have something like that from tasha's, and what if a spellcaster wanted a dedicated psionic kit beyond spellcasting modifcations? Do they get subclasses too?" To which I had to exasperated say "Yes! Fine!" (out loud, startling my spouse at 3am).

And then "what if psionics had adept feats? What if we just had more spells that acted like psionics? What if psionics was it's own school of spellcraft? We don't want to turn psionics purely into spells, but what if there was a whole school of spells that was just the kind of spells you could only do if you had psychic powers?"

I was crying at this point. This was supposed to be a short booklet, like I mentioned earlier. I was supposed to be done with it in... April? I was supposed to be done in April. That did not happen.

Psionics has five different spellcasting replacement features (four more than originally intended) along with a range of three ways to customize and further strengthen your psionic spellcasting abilities based on your spellcasting ability. Revised rules for multiclasing with split spellcasting levels (the amount of technical this got was... WotC should hire me, at this point I am as embedded in their rubbish game system as any of their writers (I would turn down the job offer out of principle, but still)). There are six new feats which adapt any (potentially) character to be some degree of psionic spellcaster. The book includes 13 new subclass options, all psionically themed—13? you ask, yes, one for every class including artificer. 35 (freaking why did I do this to myself? 35?! are you kidding me?!) new spells are included in the book, they encompass the new psionic school of spellcasting which GMs can add previously written spells to if they so choose (with some guidelines on what would make good spell candidates for this). And, because there was so much content and this was unavoidable, there are 3 new creature stat blocks which correspond to either summons or created entities that players can interact with.

Will there be art? NO. I looked at the unformatted draft and decided then and there that this would not be a full art book. Or an any art book. There is a cover. I designed a new document style template. That is it. You want more than that? Crowdfund me so I can pay some blasted artists a fair rate to commission fantasy illustrations of characters squinting into the distance and looking like they have a headache. Book isn't even out yet, so technically there's still time for that.

But yes.

This is it. Psionics book.

Soon.

(I need to sleep for a month.)

#d&d #dnd #dungeons and dragons #homebrew #5e #ttrpg #fantasy #writing #psionics #spells #spellcasting #dmsguild #book #psionic #wotc #if you read this whole post #reblog it #make sure other people know that you have suffered with me

[vulgarmaw]

So when I first started playing d&d over a decade and a half ago the groups I played with did xp based leveling.

When I came to 5e the groups I played with were doing milestone leveling.

I really like milestone leveling because it allows the party to stay the same level, doesn't require encounters necessarily, and really adds to the narrative as far as I'm concerned.

My only real issue that I've had is that milestone leveling feels like it takes away from player agency on their own path to growth. So if we're gonna be facing a challenging boss and we're doing xp based they can say "I'm a couple hundred xp away from the next level, let's go complete a dungeon before this fight so we can be stronger." where as you can't do something like that with milestone because it's just "You come to the next leg of your journey and everyone gains a level."

So I devised a solution that's worked great for the groups I dm for called Heroic moments.

Basically a heroic moment level is gained by completing a challenge that I as the dm didn't think you would actually be able to beat. It's not just good dice rolls. It's not just good strategy. It's a combination of everything you can possibly do and finally coming out on top.

Now I only allow one heroic moment level per chapter in the adventure, but every heroic moment you complete will always gain you something. It could be a magic weapon that's a bit too strong for you, a magic item to ease your journey, a writ of passage that makes travel faster. It can be just about anything.

I also don't tell my players when something is a heroic moment for narrative purposes. I don't want you the player to say "We're going to kill this demon and save the town." I want your characters to say "We can't abandon them, no matter the cost."

This has added a lot more RP into my games. Because you the player don't actually know if you'll succeed, you don't know if your character will live. You could very well die during this struggle which adds gravity to the choice to stay behind. I could have planned for this to be so much stronger than you that running away is your only viable option. It's safe, I'll allow it, and there probably won't be too nasty of consequences. If you win though, you'll be one step closer to being the hero's of the journey.

[gardensandtaverns]

When Players Commit to the Bit

My last post talked a little about player buy-in, and its impact. Again, as far as game design goes, my experience is limited to personal experience playing games and the experience I have as a Game Master for tabletop RPGs, but especially in those varieties of fiction, player buy-in matters. I'm going to address two particular games where this made all the difference.

To start with a group of players that has really knocked my socks off, I'll tell this first story from the players' perspective, as I was one in this rare occurrence. Any D&D5e veteran knows that the system was built for medieval power fantasy; the existence of the spell fireball is enough justification on its own, but should you need a few additional examples from a DM's perspective:

The 1st-level spell heroism completely negates the frightened condition, regardless of its source, and is available to any divine caster at 1st level. At higher levels this is the solution to fear effects from creatures like dragons, who often have DCs that creatures lacking the appropriate save proficiency could never succeed on.

The game itself has a terrible exploration and social interaction system, just look at the memes. There's a reason the homebrew community is so strong when it comes to additional or revamped mechanics.

The game also has a terrible inability to run Battle of Helm's Deep-esque situations because it is precariously balanced in the system of action economy - assuming that players will always be up against enemy groups of similar size and strength to their own.

This problem is further exhausted when specific genres, like horror or survival, come up. That's because, again, the game is balanced in the player's favor by default. Nothing should be scary until it is a definite loss for the party. Not to mention numerous background features and low-level spells immediately negate the concern of finding food, water, or medicine - as well as treating diseases and poisons.

So, dear reader, you may find it interesting when I say that my favorite experience as a player was in a modified version of the Curse of Strahd module. Curse of Strahd is a survival and gothic horror module that was heavily influenced by Bram Stoker's Dracula, for those unfamiliar. As I've already stated, the system of D&D5e is not well-suited to these types of challenges without using tactics that severely cripple players and their abilities. However, in a combination of excellence on the Game Master's part and the buy-in of all of the players, this game has been one hell of an experience.

Not only did every player come to the table with a self-motivated and layered, perhaps even somewhat corrupted, motivation - but those motives and characters have been well-played by the players in response to the appropriate types and levels of pressure applied by the DM, both on the characters in fiction but also on the players at the table. Every session ends in a cliffhanger, which only helps preserve the mindset from week to week of being in the game.

We also are tolerant, as a group, to making less-than-ideal decisions. Our characters may flee, even if nothing mechanically compels them to do so. They may make hasty decisions, or even evil things, and the characters themselves may create and relieve tensions throughout the group. Curse of Strahd has become gothic horror done right in D&D with this group because we as players let ourselves be afraid, be invested in our character's survival, and follow a narrative that is always changing and reacting.

Not quite in contrast, but certainly from another angle, I have had my best experiences and pride in my work as a DM when my players truly invest themselves in the world and connect with it. In my most recent, and possibly last ever, 5e campaign I had built a world that was embroiled in a continental war, specifically over the use of magic. At the outset of the game, I informed my players that this conflict had gone on for quite a long time, with many tenuous peace treaties over the decades, so the nation of origin for these characters would vastly influence how they perceived the world, due to various levels of propaganda, so they would have to choose together what nation they were loyal to, though that loyalty could change over the course of the campaign. The final composition of the party was a cloistered cleric, who would have had little opinion were it not for a raid on their church; a soldier, who deserted after being hunted for breaking laws regarding the use of magic in an attempt to save their ill father; a commoner, who knew little of the outside world but had grown up in a nation where the use of magic was free and unrestricted; and an ex-assassin, who had served in the interests of that same nation of free use of magic until they fell in love with a political target of a rival nation.

Now, they did not find their loyalties to change over the course of the campaign, but the beauty in this story was that none of the characters died (except for the time the wizard decided against the clear indication that this was a death wish to proceed). The players themselves asked for death to be uncommon and meaningful, and I was happy to comply. What this required me to do as a Game Master, however, was to find other means of motivating the party to action, as few of them had a moral or personal obligation to take any side in this war. For this, I used two strategies:

Threats to Security. I used the proximity of their home to contested territories to motivate their actions to protect their sense of security. Not only were some missions mandatory service, assigned by the local legislature, but there were also night raids from across the border that directly threatened the characters, and those they wished to protect. Which brings us to

Exploiting Relationships. I also used the NPCs the party cared about, most famously the two children of their patron, to drive direction and urgency in the narrative. In retrospect I used kids in general a lot to pull at heartstrings, but so does UNICEF and a number of other relief organizations.

To the players' credit, they went all-in and there were not only excellent inter-party relationships, but various party members had differing opinions on the societal needs in the future that were derived from their experiences and the NPCs they were most involved with by the end of the campaign.

I can't say I have a great way to close this one other than saying that sure, this is my experience and ymmv, but player buy-in can make a massive difference in gameplay and the options available to a designer to make a truly immersive and memorable experience.

#game development #dungeons and dragons #game master #roleplaying games #tabletop #advice

[sigmasupreme]

So I actually got to play 5e as a player rather than a DM last night (The DM is still a player but that's not a conversation for right now). I have a lot of thoughts so far.

Overall the experience was very good despite my opinions on 5e. I'm not going to be DMing it anytime soon, but this game helped me learn a lot. I learnt about running sessions online, running synchronous sessions and roleplaying.

This might be the first campaign where I've really had to think about my own character in detail. It's something I kind of need help with. Hopefully the rules of 5e have some stuff that would help me develop the NPC in my character's backstory, as well as some other details. One thing that would also help is how to actually use personality traits in the game. I'm finding this a bit difficult.

One thing about this style of play though where every character is detailed, most of the interactions can take a lot longer, especially when players are doing long introductions. RP takes a lot less times in my other games, for good or ill because it's not really required of the players to come up with a deep backstory.

First session was no combat, but I feel as if the rules we had were almost too much for what we needed in that session. If all we need is rolling a d20 and adding a modifier, 5e cannot be the only game that can do that.

Digital tools are great, but I am disappointed that D&D beyond does not have options for a lot of the really good homebrew rules in the DMG.

The DM came up with some good homebrew rules to help out. I love the idea of making healing spells more powerful. I like the idea of pointing out something that someone else did that you liked and what you hope for the next sessions.

With the use of D&D beyond, I'm beginning to understand that some people don't look at these games as rules to be learnt. With D&D Beyond, most players can skip that process and go straight to the RP. This is perhaps why so many people don't want to learn other games (I'm not talking about anyone I was playing with). With a new game you don't have a tool to skip all of the rules learning and let you go straight to the RP.

But I think through rules cheat sheets, it's possible for players to do this in other games (there's tons of Free alternatives to D&D which people should try out). Where they focus more on the things they want.

It's weird for me because I love thinking about rules and how they can be used. I've only just realized some people don't do this.

I think the DM did a great job although I am not as experienced with these games as I thought I was.

I'm having fun, and I think I can learn a lot more.

#d&d #ttrpg #rpg #lok's luminations #5e

[drchipmunk]

Scavenger World

I'm a GM. When my players and I have a concept for a campaign, but I can't find a game that fits, I design one.

This was my first TTRPG design. We played Microscope to define the world, and came up with a wild world with no agriculture or metalworking. Horizon: Zero Dawn was cited as a major inspiration.

At this point I had run six campaigns: two D&D 5e, two FATE, Blades in the Dark, and The Sprawl. What I came up with looked like this:

This is Basically Just Apocalypse World Not only is this a Powered by the Apocalypse game, almost all the moves and mechanics are straight out of Apocalypse World itself. I have no regrets about this. The setting was post-apocalyptic in tone and I was familiar with this style of move from The Sprawl.

Stat Names Naming stats is hard. They need to be evocative both individually and as a set, short, descriptive, and consistent. This is the best set I've done: Daring, Compelling, Vicious, Aware, and Savvy. I like how they're all descriptions of personality, not body or skill set.

Exhaustion When you take harm, exhaust that many stats. When you roll an exhausted stat, take -1 to the roll and clear exhaustion on that stat This was my harm mechanic, inspired by MASKS. It worked great. It struck the right balance between gritty and heroic: getting hit put you in a bad space, but you could get out by powering through. It encouraged players to use approaches they wouldn't normally because of which stats were and weren't exhausted.

Team Impulses At the end of each session, choose another PC. Say what you wish they will do next time. Write that down as a team impulse on their playbook. If they already have two team impulses, they must erase one first. When you fulfill a team impulse, mark XP, then erase it. This was my relationship mechanic, and it also worked great. The incentives lined up well. Players didn't want to give team impulses that their allies would have done anyways, but they also didn't want to give team impulses that their allies would never do, so they gravitated to interesting options. It was fun to write on each other's character sheets, and it was always interesting when a player deliberately turned down an opportunity to fulfill a team impulse.

Last Breath There's a different one of these on each character sheet, and they all read: When you sustain mortal injury, roll +0 On a 10+, you’ll show up later with a story to tell On a 7-9, choose 1 On a 6-, choose 2 Whatever you choose, you can never choose that option again And then 7 options, the last one of which is "Embrace Death" This is directly from Night Witches. It's less evocative here than it is there, but it did good work. The most interesting option was "Exchange two of your stats", which forced some character development at crucial moments. The roll was a bad idea: I should have just required the player to choose 1 every time.

The Layout This was back when I played in person. I was adamant that the rules fit on one sheet of paper, double-sided, and the playbooks each fit on one sheet of paper, double-sided. That way each player would only need to have two pieces of paper in front of them, which is the maximum amount of paper you can keep comfortably in front of you. I maintain this is the only right way to do things.

The Bonded There were ten playbooks, which was far more than I needed for my 5-player group. By far the most successful was The Bonded.

There are many playbooks about having a companion, but most of them have a companion that is completely obedient, more of a tool than a friend. This playbook represented a more give-and-take relationship. Sometimes, the Beast would do what you wanted, and sometimes you would do what the Beast wanted. It was effective and funny every time.

Misses For my first design, I got lucky (and played it safe). Nothing ruined the experience. There were some things that just didn't get used. The idea of a party that ventured into the wild, running down their resources and accumulating loot, before returning to civilization to trade it away, never came to pass, and so Gear, Barter, and Recuperate never found a purpose. There was also a move, Appeal, players could use to give each other extra team impulses, but they never needed it.

Here's the whole game if anyone's interested:

#ttrpg dev #ttrpg #pbta #ttrpg design #homebrew

[videogamesareweird]

Finished act 1 of Baldur's Gate 3 last night. Thoughts so far under the cut.

So fyi I'm playing as a Dragonborn Cleric. I'm romancing Karlach and my party is typically her, Lae'zel, and Asterius.

I'm really enjoying the game so far. I hit a bit of a roadblock at the end of this act trying to take out the goblin leaders. However, after getting advice from a friend and retrying, I pulled it off.

I'm sorta surprised I haven't seen any other Dragonborns so far. Also a little disappointed there aren't any smallfolk companions.

I like that different weapon types give you a couple special moves. Keeps combat interesting for those without spells or maneuvers.

Had one annoying bug where I knocked out the girl I was trying to save in the hag boss fight, but the quest line said she was dead. I think I've seen a couple others complain about that bug as well though.

I feel like the short/long rest system is more forgiving than normal D&D. When I played that, it felt like long rests were much further between. But I guess you progress a lot more quickly in this game than in actual play of 5e.

I also very much enjoy the writing in this game. All the characters feel unique and interesting, especially the companions. I found it a bit funny that, at the end of act one, almost every companion propositioned me, but that's how it goes I guess.

The combat is fun and engaging, if a bit confusing at times. I think I've got a pretty good handle on it though. The most important things seem to be positioning and taking advantage of all your characters' skills.

Anyway, I'm excited to see where things go!

#personal #baldur's gate 3 #bg3

[memento-morri-writes]

Hi Morri! Happy blorbo blursday!

This is a semi-unconventional ask, since it’s not about the characters that you’re writing, but what is your favorite DND or ttrpg character to play and why?

// @cryptid-s-wips

NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR ASKING ME ABOUT D&D. This shit is my special interest, and has been for MONTHS.

Okay, okay, buckle your seatbelt. I have a lot to say about this. (Note: the only ttrpg I'm familair with atm is d&d 5e, so just assume everything I say is about that.)

This is going under the cut, because it's about 6 miles long.

My favorite class is rogues by far. They're just so awesome??? Like, not only do they have sneak attack (my beloved), but they also get so many amazing subclasses?? Like, swashbuckler, assassin, arcane trickster are all amazing. (I'm aware this is most definitely biased by my obsession with thief/pirate/etc. characters in writing, but idc. Let me live my dream.) I have at least 4 thief characters out of my 20 or so character concepts.

Aside from rogues I love fighters, because I love stabbing people (IN GAME, I SWEAR). I've yet to play a paladin, but that would also probably be up there because it's a good balance between fighting and magic. (Smite, my beloved.) Also, Oath of Vengeance is such a sexy concept.

I will say that Warlocks have some of the best concept possibilities, though. Just the number of possibilities. Did they sell their soul? Did they ask nicely? Did they have a choice at all? What is their relationship with their patron like? (For example, I have one warlock whose patron possesses them every so often, forcing them to do things they would never agree to do. When they come to, they've received new powers. It should be noted that they didn't ask for the pact at all. But I also have a warlock who has a decent relationship with their patron, and is very happy to have their gift, and uses it to help people.)

Also, it should be known that I have a tiefling obsession. Best race in-game, hands down. Idk, I just love them so much. The horns, the tails, the colored skin, I love it all. (It will come as no surprise that I have both tiefling rogue and tiefling warlock concepts.)

When it comes to my actual characters, I have WAY too many. (The current count for concepts is 20...) The one thing they all have in common is very complicated, always traumatic, backstories. I haven't played most of them (I've only played 3 in campaigns, and one more in a oneshot, but two of those campaigns got cut very short.)

Here's a pic of my character database that I made in notion:

My favorite characters on that list are Laverna (who I've had as a concept for 2 years), Zen (the warlock I mentioned, the one who gets possessed), Alarion (half-drow ranger who started out as a sorcerer concept, but I realized that was Not Right for him.), Avra (shadar-kai assassin rogue!!!), Asra (human fighter with so much shit in her background), Rook (half-elf pirate swashbuckler who makes his debut on Satuday!!!!), Sabe ("what life is there for a warforged with no war?"), Elira (aka Ellie, autistic former gifted kid abjuration wizard with a cat familiar), and the Feylost Bard (wandered out of the woods/feywild with no memories whatsoever. Has a very uncanny valley aura about them.)

Okay, I promise I'll shut up now, but if you want to read more about my characters, I made a post about them all here, which I just updated for this ask. <3

#friendlyneighborhoodwizard #morrigan replies #oc asks #morrigan plays dnd #dnd #I'm so so so sorry for making you read this. If you don't read the whole thing I fully understand lmao #you unlocked the autism with this one ajsdkajsd #blorbo blursday

[funstufffandomsandcoolpictures]

I've never shared one of these online before but I loved this guy so much. My first rogue, my first real 5e character after Phandelver, and my highest level dnd character to date.

This poor guy. I gave him a chill backstory on purpose because I didn't want him to be that stereotype edgy rogue. Just a guy wandering the Sword Coast with his childhood friend on a lark. Pickpocketing and burglarizing to pay for rooms in each town, until one day they get separated fleeing one town, and Timothy "Mulch" Dorset gets nabbed by drow slavers on the road (the hook for OoTA).

We only played the first half of the campaign, but over the course of it we suffered 60% casualties. And through a combination of players having to drop out and luck, every single PC and NPC Mulch befriended died. Serial killers, faulty teleporters, a held-action disintegrate. Even the no-name Scout he played cards with died in a drow ambush.

During the final escape, an NPC gets cut down by Orcus himself right in front of Mulch, and he has to jump over his body to get out.

A minute before he was killed by the Disintegrate spell, the PC and Mulch had argued about who should entered the room first. Mulch entered second, his boots covered in dust.

I swear if I didn't watch it all go down I'd have thought it was planned. I didn't even realize it all until I calculated the casualties afterwards (neither did the DM).

Nowadays, Mulch is working as a sailor, as far from underground and demons as he can get, until such time as I can pull him into a new campaign.

#mulch #dnd #rogue #spotify #playlist #character playlist #dnd character #i recently translated him to pf2e so i could play him with another group #d&d #dungeons and dragons #mulch accidentally summoned the demogorgon #he dueled the priestess on the altar #he doesn't remember seeing it. or the next 3 days. #rip raevinn #rip Aardonyx #rip donaar #rip eldeth #rip jimjar #rip turvy #rip ront #rip random scout #fuck you buppido #rip sarith #rip lidon #rip henry the bear #rip devan #rip odorf #long post #Spotify #miser rant

[thefrogwild]

Sketched out this very lost mailman I played in a 5e oneshot. their name is Mallow Grasshopper and they are incredibly quick, very passionate about their job, and can drive 60% of the time. also inexplicably a level 7 monk.

#dnd #tabletop #mallow #oc #apparently my streak of names starting with M will never end #every 5e character i've had so far #personal fav

[wearesorcerer]

It's a Trap! Spells to Avoid in 5e

Talk about traps is a little overdone. You hear people tell you not to take certain spells because they're suboptimal or only work for very specific character types and play styles.

This is not that kind of post.

The following spells are spells that no one in their right mind should take. They are either non-functional, barely functional, or significantly worse than other spells of the same spell level (and sometimes lower).

So far, I've only found three of them: create bonfire, distort value, and true strike. If you know of any others (or would like to contest my analysis of create bonfire or distort value; true strike's suckitude is noteworthy enough to have a video about it [but see the description below]), let me know.

Level 0 (Cantrips)

Create Bonfire (Xanathar's Guide to Everything, pg. 152)

What It Does: Per the name, you fill a square (well, 5 ft. cube) within 60 ft. of you with fire. Anything in that space when the spell is cast or which moves through the space (on the first time in a turn) or which ends its turn in the space takes 1d8 points of damage (+1d8 at 5th, 11th, and 17th levels) on a failed Dex save. Any flammable materials that are in or enter the space ignite.

Why It Sucks: There are several reasons to avoid this spell. First, it's a Concentration spell; there are so many other spells that require Concentration that are better, so don't limit yourself to one that sucks. Second, the obstacle it places is the sort of extremely obvious danger that opponents would be careful to avoid regardless of Intelligence; the tactics required to make it a viable trap are not feasible. It does not function well as a utility spell, either, as it lasts only a minute and, as a Sorcerer, you have access to a plethora of spells that can ignite material if you really need to start a fire; indeed, with fire bolt and a dry enough field, you can create a wall of fire just using a cantrip. Speaking of fire bolt, finally, every other fire cantrip is better in nearly every regard in most situations.

True Strike (Player's Handbook, pg. 284)

What It Does: Gives you advantage on your next attack against a specified target if you make the attack before the end of the next round.

Why It Sucks: First, this is a Concentration spell. Second, you spend two rounds to get two rolls to make one attack. You are better off just attacking twice. Finally, you don't get advantage on your next attack, just your next attack against a specific target.

Why It's Like This: To the best of my current understanding, true strike originated in 3.0. In said edition, it was a 1st-level spell that granted +20 on the caster's next attack roll (regardless of target) and allowed you to ignore the miss chance from concealment; the duration was the same, though. This was balanced when used as intended (after all, there are probably better things to spend a spell slot on), but provided a corner case that imbalanced the magic item creation rules enough that the DMG itself had to include a note about it and similar spells. (It would also provide one of several reasons why the OG Warlock couldn't simply select any Sorcerer/Wizard spell to cast at-will.) It was significantly nerfed to conform to the rules of 5e, but the eventual suckitude was probably unintentional (and likely due to lack of playtesting).

What Makes It Semi-Useful: This video keeps saying it's "very powerful" when it's not, but it does come up with a case where it might be useful: when targeting an object, such as in an archery contest. That might be fair; the original use of the spell was not meant as a constant-use buff, but a panic button in case you absolutely had to hit something and that use squares with things like archery contests. I wouldn't say this is reason enough to take the spell, though, unless you're using alternate rules for cantrips and could prepare them as a Wizard prepares spells.

1st Level

Distort Value (Acquisitions, Inc., pg. 75)

What It Does: Doubles or halves the perceived value of an item.

Why It Sucks: The item in question has to fit inside a 1 ft. cube, drastically limiting the utility of this spell. You can get around this by using a higher-level spell slot, but the increase is additive and the value of spell slots increases exponentially. For example, if you use a 9th-level spell slot, you can affect an object that fits into a 9 x 9 x 9 ft. cube...or you could reshape the fabric of the universe such that for that single transaction you can get a thousand times more than the object is worth (or have it written off as worthless). Given that the spell is balancing itself against disguise self (another glamer of the same level), it should be capable of doing far more than merely distorting value.

What Would Make It Better: This would probably be fine as a cantrip.

#5e #spell #distort value #create bonfire #true strike