Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Chronicles of Darkness, Other TTRPGs

[Totenkindly]

Ok so personally I do my own version of a session 0.
For myself as a dm who does more character driven plots... They are nessesary.
But it bugs me that session 0's get pushed as SOOOOO necessary.
I don't do X cards either.
I dont really ask my players what sorts of things they don't want in the game. (I encourage yes and, not no but) If something is a BIIIG Fing space deal to someone, I leave my dms open during downtime. ((This is not to say I force my players to deal with things they cant bear to deal with, but I strickly do this one on one with individual players, Ive been in too many games(as a player) that session 0 just turns into a bunch of soft people telling what they dont want to encounters ime/o it puts the wrong focus at the table.
If you're grown up enough to play at my table.(which is 18+)
You're grown up enough to deal with horror elements.
You don't have to like them.
You do have to act like an adult and bite the bullet when the bad guy does bad guy shit.
If you want to be coddled...
Play Adventure League.
As usual I tend to agree with Brenan Lee Mulligan about dming things.
Matt Mercer Im a little less prone to agree with because Matt has a forever group that he's trained up to play in a complementary way to his dm style.
Matt Colville is the basis for my God of the Knowledge and Lawful War Domain. (So i tend to follow his advice a lot also)
Aabria Iyengar I take some of her things she does(telling the players what their character doesnt see, making tourist traps in world etc) but she's a bit soft and not quite on my plane of humor for my taste as a player.
​

How I do session 0:
Once I have enough players together for a game run I..
*Let the players know they're playing a role play heavy homebrew lore setting . IE The Races are different than the D&D lore.
I have little blurbs, just a few points that players need to know about their player races. EG (Elves are weird and wild not tree vulcans) My cat people live longer Tabaxi(felis) and Leonin(Panthera) Dwarves in my lore are also farmers rather than exclusively miners that kind of thing.
*I use the charts in Xanathars. To roll up a bit of backstory with my player characters. (I let them know their backstory is where a lot of the things that will happen in the game come from)
*With these two steps: By the time session 0 comes around The players know on a basic level who their characters are, and thus can discuss amongst themselves on session 0 why their character takes the first job and joins the party.
The players have already built their characters, and now they can make last minute changes based on how the players interact in this session 0.
*We go over the content warnings. My table is 18+ the world I tell them is a crazy chaotic place where law and chaos are at odds and good people do bad things and bad people do good things. People Fuck(I fade to black for the most part, but I fade to black later than pg13 would. I fade to black around the same times Deadpool or Constantine would.
*I warn them I don't balance my encounters for player level. If running away feels like the right thing to do. You better damn sure do it. I tell them to make sure to have their backup character ready because death is not the end, but the cheap ways to ressurect are essentially the scene in Conan the Barbarian where they raise Conan from the dead with a combat encounter.
*In the event of a TPK: Don't panic. Death doesnt let the party off the hook(there is no hook)
*We go over leveling. I do a hybrid xp/milestone system. If you want your character to level up quick. Put in the work. We plateu at level 6 for a time, and then at ten for a time. I reward not only with xp but proficiencies as well.
*I explain that adventuring is just one way to make a living. Big Damn heroes is not how most people are gonna view them. Adventurers are rat catchers and outsiders, and not all of them are good to people. (I run evil one shots and mini campaigns sometimes concurrently and I tend to draw my BBEG from evil pcs in these little adventures.
*I let them know I'm rooting for their characters to succeed. I'm not an antagonistic DM, that being said I will give you what you wish for and I WILL let you bradbury yourself and your party.
*I tell them my rules for PCVPC. Its in character only. IF YOU WANT TO PCVPC you have to communicate with the DM before hand, and with the player you're intending on PCVPC with. As soon as the issue leaves the characters and becomes issues between players. The PCVPC stops for the rest of that session and beyond until we square it away outside of game.
*DOWNTIME is a thing. Its when your shopping(Haggling) happens. If we come to a store in game time. DO NOT think we're going to have a critical role shopping episode where you can nit nat and haggle jack. it aint going down like that.
*If NPC's join the party and the party wants them to fight. A player takes responsibility for rolling for them. I have enough to worry about without having to worry my players are worried about a dmpc. Otherwise the NPC is looking out for themselves by fleeing combat.
*We discuss the magic legalities of the world.
*I explain about the "Porters" and "hired crew" mechanic I use. Nothing shows a dangerous situation quite as effectively as having a warm body yanked bodily up and decimated before the party's very eyes. The player characters dont have to hire anyone of course. but in my experience everyone is always glad with Poor forgettable Ted get's picked up by a giant man eating plant rather than a pc.
30 minutes for questions.
30 minutes to talk amongst yourselves to cement your in party ties.
15 minutes to account for shock and disbelief when I tell them to PLEASE split the party. It really kills the sense of reality for me when everyone sticks together ALL THE TIME. Im not going to punish you for splitting the party. You take your chances just like everyone else, but I discourage for the most part clumping together because "Thats what adventure league does"
*EXPLORATION is a big part of my games. There's no railroad tracks where you're going and if you're hoping for a guided tour or an escape room, my table is probably not going to give you the fuzzies.
*celestials, fiends, monstosities, and fey, are just as individualized as any player character and wont react like robots. They will offer you deal. Many of them are even good deals.
*The decks(plural) of many things are full decks and should be drawn from.
*You can play an evil character it just requires a little more discussion during downtime.
*Murder hoboes exist, and yall can even choose to be some, but they wont be viewed as heroes. Your alignment will change based off what you choose to do.
*The Zhentarum has all its teeth and claws back in, and I would very much like you to work for them sometimes.
*Todays patron could be tomorrows threshold guardian.
*If you're looking for a BBEG look in the mirror. (More on that later) ((This begins a conversation that happens everytime out of character discussion about who the BBEG could be.))
*Finally because this tends to only take an hour and 20 minutes if that. We get a little play session in. Our Tavern meeting so to speak.

Session 0 ends right at the place where session 1 picks up. And to date this has worked VERY well for me and my players. Everyone knows what to expect( Rarely other dms who get to play in my games tend to not believe me when I tell them not to worry about what they want to do, that I have world built a multiverse that the player chacters can stumble into if theyre not careful, but only at first.)

*I also leave my players an Appendix N so they can if they choose to get some lists of other things that contain examples of the aesthetics of the world and so on.

How has all that worked out? What's your attrition rate with people joining/leaving the games? Does it seem to be successful?

As long as the expectations are laid out up front, there aren't any surprises.

I usually don't run sexual characters, but for the one 3-4 month campaign, I played one half of twin high elf sisters, and frankly my hot blonde high elf Amadaea had a voracious appetite for many things (rage, sex, food, clothes), etc -- she certainly had no shortage of ego or self-confidence. I tried to play her like a snotty high elf from "Bright" mostly, and another player (a guy) was playing her twin sister who kept emulating her and following her around, which annoyed the shit out of her.

I thought it was amusing to be the only female in the group playing a female character with healthy... appetites... and some of the guy players in their 30-40's stayed well-back from that, lol. I have noted that while they all play a female character from time to time, none of them ever fall in love or have a sexual side -- it's like they veer FAR away from going there. I mean, I never asked for a porn encounter, we would black out before we got to the blow-by-blow, but just the thought she was hopping on a new exotic guy in each town seemed unsettling for them. To me, it was just something different to try. RPGs characters are a smorgasbord and I am sampling from every plate.

I've had other female characters who were almost asexual (Sumiko and Clarisse), or pretty vanilla (Kabrina and Zahra), or just a hot drunk mess (Molly) who was still pretty vanilla at heart despite her pretenses. My barbarian character (Stormy) I played a long time ago was actually pretty bi or total lesbian, but it never came up. Lili was half air sprite or something (whatever that race is in Pathfinder 1e), she would flirt but mostly to manipulate everyone around her to steal the things she wanted.

 

[The Cat]

How has all that worked out? What's your attrition rate with people joining/leaving the games? Does it seem to be successful?

As long as the expectations are laid out up front, there aren't any surprises.

I usually don't run sexual characters, but for the one 3-4 month campaign, I played one half of twin high elf sisters, and frankly my hot blonde high elf Amadaea had a voracious appetite for many things (rage, sex, food, clothes), etc -- she certainly had no shortage of ego or self-confidence. I tried to play her like a snotty high elf from "Bright" mostly, and another player (a guy) was playing her twin sister who kept emulating her and following her around, which annoyed the shit out of her.

I thought it was amusing to be the only female in the group playing a female character with healthy... appetites... and some of the guy players in their 30-40's stayed well-back from that, lol. I have noted that while they all play a female character from time to time, none of them ever fall in love or have a sexual side -- it's like they veer FAR away from going there. I mean, I never asked for a porn encounter, we would black out before we got to the blow-by-blow, but just the thought she was hopping on a new exotic guy in each town seemed unsettling for them. To me, it was just something different to try. RPGs characters are a smorgasbord and I am sampling from every plate.

I've had other female characters who were almost asexual (Sumiko and Clarisse), or pretty vanilla (Kabrina and Zahra), or just a hot drunk mess (Molly) who was still pretty vanilla at heart despite her pretenses. My barbarian character (Stormy) I played a long time ago was actually pretty bi or total lesbian, but it never came up. Lili was half air sprite or something (whatever that race is in Pathfinder 1e), she would flirt but mostly to manipulate everyone around her to steal the things she wanted.

Once I started doing this It worked out really well. I had a core group of 4 who liked it so much they kept inviting other friends. A few weeks I was sitting at 8 players(which was too many for me but at that time two of the players were a bit flakey schedule wise, they ended up stepping away. One because they were not as down for heavy role play as they first thought and didnt communicate with the other players. the other just had a hard time fitting in with the other players. I would have 4 doing one thing, and one seemingly finding every way possible to get themselves instakilled. When we ended: I was sitting at five regular players and i had adventure plots I had marked for future sessions from their play sessions for months. It ended like all great games of D&D do. The DM got put on a work schedule that starts around 3am so our 6-630pm weekly start time was untennable to me. And no one else could do weekday mornings, and one of my players who was also a dm who ran a home game on saturdays, wasnt willing to give up their sundays. And we all fell out of touch with adult life.

The best part about the system for me, is I weed out players who are gonna be thorns in my side before they even come to my table. One guy wanted to play, but didnt want to learn any lore, nor share their backstory with the dm. I didnt even have to tell them no, they just said: I dont think this is gonna be for me. It was so easy and quick.

One of my favorite characters Ive played was a changeling bard that I built as a "Companion/Dancer" I had a stripper pole of collapsing and all my spells were flavor named and sexy. Similarly played as how you describe your own endeavors, with similar results noticed. I need to find a group of theater people or geeky pornstars who play D&D to get my dream game to play in lol. Where I tend to struggle as a player is that I keep trying to play characters who know that adventuring is dangerous and therefor need a better reason than. Because its the adventure to clump together and not obsessively check for traps. I refuse to let my characters act like they have plot armor, and that's a thing ive noticed is seemingly hard on a lot of people.

 

[The Cat]

One think I don't know if I reccomend is including W.S. Cahills Operational Resurgence Bomb Mark I AKA O.R.B. 1 in a chest on the first adventure just in case someone fucks up in a way nobody wants to live with: and the magic item description reads thus: "A silver orb etched with sylvan writing, and a little button... It seems a little strange that Dr Cahill would construct a bomb...perhaps its just harder to pick a b word that's not "ball" to get the acronym of O.R.B. So just push the button already, honestly how much worse could things get? Also this is a one time use thing. Because of science reasons the o.r.b. consumes itself when it's activated; and no I can't just make another one; Do you have any idea how difficult it is to channel that much potential cosmic energy and hyper focus an a stream of lightly irradiated plasma into it's atomic core? This is the kind of thing you can use like once...maybe twice in a campaign or you might shatter the planet. So hurry up and push the button <player character name>!

My only caution with is if you have a player at your table who is a traditional logic driven lawful neutral Dungeon Master...Sending the entire party to a parallel timeline where everything is only slightly different will lead to that player becoming "stressed out" in a way that will try to be supportive but will ultimately end in nose bleeds till you put them back in...*sigh* "the real world." which is a compliment in its own right, but also mildly dissapointing to every chaotic person at the table who realizes the full implication of the fun the ability to portal to alternate realities in D&D opens up.

 

[The Cat]

I'm like if your minimalist(I'll let you break the world) architect(I'll help you break the world then fix it if you like) cool cousin(We can get weird with it) was also Nick Fury(I like demon lords and titans) My autism demands Im a world builder too, but I do this for writing fiction(Building an ttrpg world is often where I start ie my bullet points, I develop further for fiction writing. Plus I tennd to rrun online games, so I have discord servers that I'll set up where the players can keep notes, check lore dumps outside of game and handle their downtime and get whispers from the dm that only their characters know so I dont feel compelled to lore dump in game, but the world does move without the characters if they chose to remove themselves from its events.​

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, week 6's "low key street escape" ended up being nothing of the sort. So much for staying secret....

While Rasheed locates a place on the roof to stash the dead guard’s body, Zahra and the others pick up the pace on the street, trying to move quickly without looking like they are trying to flee. Behind them, another guard keeps a firm grip on Set’s leash as the dog trails them through the crowd.

Rasheed keeps track from the roof and relays information about the search. Unable to lose their tail, the trio decides to split up to see who the dog follows. As Masil veers into a stall digging through his pockets for money, Zahra and Amal cut in different directions in the crowd, trying to lose themselves.

Finding a vendor selling spices and peppers, Masil grabs a pre-weighed bag that could be used to disturb the scent the dog is tracking and drop bills to cover four times the purchase’s cost, to head off any outrage. He then ducks into a gap between stalls. Meawhile, Zahra ducks between the booths on her side and starts to quietly doubles back, while Amal tries to fade into the crowd.

Hearing a buzzing sound from below him, Rasheed groans. He signals to the others that there is also a drone in the air. Scanning the dog-handler’s surface thoughts, he just hears him think, “Where did she go?” He relays to everyone that the drone is looking for Zahra, since the man can still see Amal. Zahra sees a scarf hanging nearby and grabs it, wrapping it around her head to better disguise herself from above.

From his concealment to the side, Masil watches as the man positions an earbud, then taps his phone as if pulling up a screen. Masil tries to formulate a plan to telepathically coordinate with Zahra to prevent her from being located but struggles under the pressure. Too much is happening too fast. Rasheed tries to freeze the drone’s rotor with telekinesis to buy them time but can’t quite get it.

Tension is building in the crowd now, as they notice the man being dragged forward by a guard dog and a drone whrrrring by overhead. What’s going on?

Seeing no easy place to run for, Zahra quickly adjusts her facial features and reduces her height, hoping that with the head covering she won’t be as noticeable to the drone, then veers back into the cover of the crowd. Seeing this, Masil waits for the guard to pass his position, then ducks through the crowd to reach Zahra’s side of the street.

Now Rasheed hears something alarming from the guard’s surface thoughts: “Ah, maybe she’s gone, but over there is the woman she was with!” Rashed teleports to the next building to close the gap between himself and the drone but still can’t shut the machine down.

The guard heads straight through the crowd towards Amal, who becomes more desperate on the mindlink, begging for advice but only getting back, “I’m not sure –” from Rasheed before she feels something tap into her back. Her stress rises within her like a black surge and suddenly her mind goes blank.

From different spots in the crowd, both Masil and Zahra see her turn to face her pursuer, a horrific rictus of hate and fury on her face that they had just seen a few minutes ago in the company basement.

Hakim.

Blue balls flash out from Amal/Hakim’s forehead, somehow missing the guard, but converging on a hapless bystander whose head explodes like one of Gallagher’s watermelons, spraying the crowd with bits of indescribable goo. Zahra and Masil immediately duck behind other people in the crowd to avoid the spatter.

Masil relays for Zahra to duck into the closest hotel, so they can get out of this mess – which he does as he tosses another small object at the drone and this time disables one of its four rotors.

Meanwhile, the street has become total chaos as the crowd starts screaming and running in every direction at once, opening up a circle around the guard and Amal. Somehow Masil and Zahra manage to avoid being knocked over and are instead swept along until they can bail at a nearby hotel. Rashed is meanwhile still taking potshots at the drone as the operator raises it higher in the air and tries to move it to a safer location despite him not knowing where the disabling attacks are coming from.

As Set darts off through the crowd to find cover under a nearby table stall, Hakim is hit by a taser and falls jittering to the ground. Taking out some zipties, the guard cautiously approaches – and recoils as he is met with Hakim’s murderous glare. More blue balls fly from the sociopath’s forehead – a few flying high in the air to intersect the struggling drone, which bursts into fire and then veers in a flaming trail to crash through a third-story building window, while others rip through the guard’s midsection, rocking him back on his heels, the fury of their delivery so fierce that they emerge from his back to strike a nearby bystander, who shrieks and falls to their knees begging for Allah’s divine aid.

The guard looks down at the holes in his mid-section, then back at Hakim, before his face goes blank and he splashes facedown into a puddle of his own blood. Shaking off the taser effects, Hakim lurches to his feet, runs over to stomp wildly on the corpses a few times, then hears the sirens swelling and flees the street. Nearby pedestrians are screaming and running and yelling for police, while a few others are filming the gory scene on their phones.

Lights flash in the sky as police drones whiz towards the chaos of the market.

Hakim runs into a different building than where Zahra and Masil have holed up – one where the crowd had broken the front door in order to take refuge. As she runs through the lobby, a little boy points at her. “She did it! That woman, daddy! She’s the one!” Hakim scowls and looks for an exit on the other side, as the frantic father slips a hand of his boy’s mouth and turns him around so Hakim won’t hurt them.

A few seconds later, a police detail enters the lobby. “Everyone stay put! ID’s out!”

As everyone scrambles to present their credentials, the cops notice Hakim running back and forth looking for an exit and converge on him. He twists out of the first one’s grapple hold, and more blue balls flash through the lobby. One cop drops, while two other hurt cops pull their guns and begin firing. One of their bullets pierces Hakim’s armor, which really ticks him off. An explosion of blue balls sends pieces of the cops sliding across the floor, while also badly wounding two bystanders.

Now the back door to the lobby bangs open and more cops pour into the room, firing. Hakim is rocked by more bullets. He’s becoming badly wounded, but nothing can quench his hate. Sizzling balls whiz through the air, dropping more of the police. The surviving policeman dives behind cover like he saw in American action films, firing wildly and hitting nothing.

Up on the roof, Rasheed sees police swarm around the particular building that Hakim entered. Three cops went in the front, four went in the back, while another group of five waits outside, shouting nervously to each other as more sirens converge on the area. outside. Dear Allah….

“Hakim!” Rasheed sends as more shots ring out. “You have to go! There’s more police and a swat van coming!” He watches anxiously as an APC roars up and a SWAT team leaps out into the street, prepping their riot gear and shields to go into the building.

With numerous shots, the group charges en masse into the foyer as Rasheed flinches, waiting for the inevitable gunshots but… then hears nothing? The seconds drag out, and then suddenly the SWAT team is returning pulling bystanders behind them, zip-tying each as they get them to the vehicle. At one point, they carry out an unconscious woman with a passing semblance to Amal. Unable to contact Hakim or Amal, he decides discretion is the better of valor and starts to teleport his way from roof to roof until he can descend safely to the street.

Elsewhere the group is also bailing. Modi packs up the computers in the safe house and moves to another safe house. Feeling that their refuge is too close to the SWAT assault, Masil and Zahra head out the back of the hotel and, while they cannot find a taxi, are able to hire a man to drive them for 4000 pounds. They have him drop them at a different hotel, and then walk the remaining distance to the hotel room where Modi has been providing Silent an overview of what has been happening.

When he received Rasheed’s dire message, Hakim felt something shift inside of him. Concentrating, he winked out of the lobby he was standing in and reappeared in the lobby of a build across the way. People turn in surprise to see who has suddenly appeared. Hakim does not stay long enough to answer questions, he just repeatedly tele-hops from building to building until he decides he is out of harm’s way – and then lets himself sleep.

Amal opens her eyes to a men’s wear store that has been closed for the weekend, looking at all the expensive suits and wondering how she got there. She searches the employee’s back rooms but cannot find any woman’s clothing that she could change into. She feels more anxiety because she doesn’t know how to get out – and then she blacks out again. When her eyes open, it is now Samara looking out through them, and fortunately she knows how to pick her way out of the building.

As she walks, she goes through the security guard’s wallet from earlier, finding credit cards, his ID, pictures of the man’s kid… she hastily puts those back, not wanting to see too much. Then, as an afterthought, she reaches around and pulls off the tracker that the man with the dog had shot her with originally, back in in the street. She sticks it a nearby cab as she walks down the street.

Needless to say, everyone wants to lie low for a few days – and we need time for Modi to crack the items we collected. The news story the next morning proclaims: “6 police dead, fire started in building with shot-down drone, bystanders wounded.” There is a suggestion a subject was taken into police custody. Notably there is no mention of superpowers.

Other non-official news sources have different focuses, as we scan the Internet and airways. One caster suspects this is a retaliatory action for the prior shooting (of Amir) since they happened close to the same location.

Rasheed picks up a few rumors about a woman throwing fireballs with her eyes, who set the drone on fire with flames left billowing out the window.

Modi finds no news articles that note supernatural actions, but the wording is carefully stated and none actually directly explain what was fired at the police – just that the police returned fire with their weapons.

He also finds some crappy cell phones footage of not quite direct action, but people running, panicking, taking footage of the burning drone hitting a window. There are a few rumors about incendiary fireworks/rockets being fired. (Modi spreads those rumors further as cover.) Then there are many more crazier rumors involving aliens, pyramids, alligators, and so on.

The market itself is closed down and guarded by police while they investigate the incident.

For other odd news -- there was a fire in an apartment building in the south end of town (Jameela’s “apartment”) and arson is actually suspected. It is floated that jet fuel was used as an accelerant.

The Grand Hotel construction has been delayed by a legal dispute over funding.

There was a minor altercation on a campus, with students getting into a fight.

When Amir’s feeds are examined, we see his official channels posts khabob review (3.5 stars), while another channel reviews a construction site with the first six floors becoming a shopping mall. There is footage of Amir walking through the interior and even riding his board down four flights of an “UP” escalator, sticking the landing. Nothing new shows up on his secret channel. However, we can see what he was looking around in, based on the food stand and construction site.

When Zahra goes back to her apartment to check on Ptah, it looks like her roommate Khepri finds the puppy adorable, despite the fact it has now chewed up a chair leg. Khepri actually has gone out to buy the dog a ball to play with. Zahra is happy to have some feeling of normalcy after the events of the last day; being with her roommate and the dog feels almost like her accident never happened.

While Zahra has her own apartment and Modi also has places to work, and Masil has an apartment off campus, Rasheed and Amal are not as fortunate. With this stolen money, maybe Rasheed can find a place for himself, Amal, and Silent to hole up. Modi offers to set them up someplace cheap, maybe in the servant’s quarters of town – “or you can just pull up a cot while I work,” he offers.

Silent requests simply a place with a roof and (hopefully) walls…. Plus maybe a lizard or snake. “You want a pet?” She indicates she just needs it to be fresh. Apparently her body requires reptile blood in some quantity on a regular basis, although she also can eat normal food.

While the others rest, Modi starts trying to crack all the items that Zahra swiped form the company labs – which includes 12 hard drives, a data card, a security tape, and the shooter’s phone.

The ceramic box has 71.5 hours of coolant remaining, which is enough time to focus on the other items right now while Modi figures out how to open the box safely.

Gunman’s phone content: The location data is most valuable, as Modi he can lay out the man’s locations over the last week including restaurants, the building he died in, his condo, his office and three spots with potential significance: a construction site (linked to the company) + two general use office buildings, one of which (a prosthetics manufacturer) is linked to a company on the stock list… The other is an experimental research facility and volunteers the therapy location.

Security footage: The oddest thing Modi notices is that every Tuesday a man in a suit (like the guys at the park) enters, drops off a briefcase, and walks out.

And then he begins to look at all the hard drives from the lab computers….

 

[The Cat]

I read it with this music. It worked generally well for the part before the D&D happened.
after that I imagined everything took place to this song:

Boy the last thing you want to not see coming is a strangers blue balls headed for your face.

Your game sounds like a lot of fun!​

 

[Totenkindly]

Apparently Amal has TWO other personas... one of them being male and a murderous one to boot.
Stress forces her to trigger.
I did not know Hakim has Rapid Heal 5, so even if killed his body will reconstitute.
So that takes off some pressure... but that was like a war zone!

The GM bribed us with extra story beats for XP, if we consented to Hakim emerging instead of Samara.

EDIT: THe big problem in Deviant is that while you are investigating the Conspiracy, they are also tracking to track you down -- so that kind of blow-up draws a ton of attention down on you.

 

[Totenkindly]

So after we took out all the gnolls in the courtyard, my fire cleric Aleksion summoned a Greater Earth Elemental to smash the inner gate, at which point we could see the entire gnoll community swarming inside towards our position along with two big hyenas and a third as huge as the earth elemental. Damn. Aleksion's next move is to blade barrier half the courtyard to separate their forces from hitting us all at once while sending in the earth elemental to draw their fire as we take them out bit by bit.

We are an hour into the continuation of this fight.

The bard is running ahead with Greater Invisibility beating on Drums of Panic and drumming a fear melody, frightening all these clusters of giant hyenas and gnolls.

The cleric casts a blade barrier to separate the community in half, to make it easier to take them all out.

The illusionist cast a Phantasmal Killer on the Giant Alpha Hyena (size Huge) to the north... and it keeled over dead. (The first time she has actually successfully cast that spell!) I wonder what it saw as it expired.

The pally is one shotting everything she hits.

The greater earth elemental lumbers into the courtyard, arrows and weapons bouncing off his rocky exterior without doing any damage -- and charges at the archer tower, getting a natural 20 on his combat maneuver and smashing it to pieces, all the archers tumbling 30-50' to the ground squealing.

The investigator is breathing lines of acid with her dragon breath on everything.

It is total chaos and we are owning this fight.

 

[The Cat]

Ive been thinking about this a lot lately watching videos from D&D all over the place.
I really enjoy darker more mature content. I miss being able to play, and play with "evil" characters.
I miss being able to encounter rough and upsetting content in D&D settings.
I don't enjoy having to play a kids television show every week.
I sometimes wonder if this is a consequence of D&D going mainstream.
A lot of content creator I think are getting into reachy bullshit. Because they've been streaming for so long they're hard up for content to make 45 plus minute videos so they go out of their way to makes lists of red flags and so they hang a red flag on anything.

Now for the most part I enjoy the Dungeon Dudes.
But some of the stuff they list they clarify "may be" could be in certain circumstances" "not necessarily" but that gets buried for the sake of controversial content getting the most clicks. It kinda sucks because safe heroic fantasy where the characters are guaranteed success is only one very narrow way to play a game where anything can happen.
Now I think theres plenty of room in the hobby for games like that, but I do kinda resent the attitude of the pop culture of the hobby that there's np room for old style adventures and players in this bold new world of "inclusion but not really".
A lot of it feels like being back in school the tables of magic the gathering players at school who never wanted anyone but their existing magic friends in on it. Because it wasnt really seemingly about bringing people into the gathering of magic. It was about playing things with an in crowd and making sure there was a big enough out crowd, so they could still feel like they had something others didnt. Which seems like most socializing where exclusion is the point. Everything old is new again I guess.
So much to do in D&D land and YOU CANT COME.
I guess its nice to see the Cartman business model still works?​

 

[The Cat]

This weekend Im getting some pdfs and pod of basic D&D adventures;
The village of Homlet, keep on the borderlands, journey to the rock, nights dark terror, in search of the unknown, the isle of dread, the savage coast, Quagmire!, Master of the Desert Nomads, and The Temple of Death.

Im doing a sword and sorcery sandbox campaign and im gonna have fun converting these scenarios to fifth edition rules and tweaking them for my campaign which is set in the time between the days of thunder(prehistory and the stone age, and the Dawn Age(the bronze age) It's essentially gonna be the first heroic age of the world. I'm super excited.

 

[The Cat]

So to do this right, gonna have to restrict some player races (only humans, half orcs, halflings, dwarves, lizardfolk, and yuant-ti pureblood) and classes(Barbarian, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, and Druid) to start, and use gritty realism setting for short and long rest and variant encumbrance players cant buy magic items(because its the stone age and they dont exist yet. The goal is to use this campaign to help worldbuilding for my future set campaign. Pretty much have the starting packet done five pages for session 0 so they know what theyre getting into, and Im working on the starting region map. Soon now. Very Soon.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[The Cat]

View attachment 30145

Its a stone age campaign, shortly before the dragons and the gods come to the world, the bid is that this is supposed to be the worlds age of heroes so the player characters are going to be playing the mythological heroes of legend their weapons are going to be the legendary artifacts as they basically guide civilzation into the worlds bronze age. Then I'll probably run a Mythic Odyssey type campaign, then a campaign where the dragons and the giants are ruling the world after the gods have returned to the outer planes after bringing divine magic establishing clerics and paladins. Monasteries will probably be established around this time too, and then the great and glroious bronze age collapse and then im probably gonna do some rebooted old school adventures from greyhawk and just homebrew the locations and such. But yeah it begins as a low magic setting and the goal is to have the players play a hand in shaping how history unfolds for future set campaigns. Also Ive been really geeking out over sword and sorcery, the stone age and bronze age lately and as always dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures so here we are.

 

[The Cat]

 

[The Cat]

 

[Totenkindly]

"Putting pants on Larry Elmore's women"

I liked the idea of 5e when it came out. Reducing a lot to advantage/disadvantage was an elegant solution to minimizing a lot of the math involved and seemed fair. Getting rid of magic item bloat by forcing attunement to more powerful items was also smart -- you had to pick what you most wanted, not just load up for bear.

But yeah it sounds like a lot of the endgame was lacking for some players and/or the DMs at least. Lots of books, little content. Most of the gripe here seems to be about too much kitchen sink play, not enough variation driven by world setting, and removing threat. Interestingly we ran a few campaigns of 5e but they weren't pure 5e -- one was the Crimson Throne ported from Paizo into 5e, and another was a homebrew world with modifications to the rules to make things more dangerous and provide more restriction.

I mean, I really enjoyed running my 5e characters, but it was more because of their personalities (my crass hot mess halfling monk and my chill pot-smoking druid hill dwarf). At this stage one of our DMs will not play 5e anymore (mostly due to the OGL shit) and it seems rather played out; we've been more interested in Aberrant and CoD (White Wolf) instead. I will always play Pathfinder 1E (I still have my friday campaign in that system), and we might try Pathfinder 2E at some point.

I'm not sure DND 6 will be any better, but it is noteworthy that every version of DND is different typically. So it'll be interesting to see where DND 6 goes.

 

[The Cat]

"Putting pants on Larry Elmore's women"

I liked the idea of 5e when it came out. Reducing a lot to advantage/disadvantage was an elegant solution to minimizing a lot of the math involved and seemed fair. Getting rid of magic item bloat by forcing attunement to more powerful items was also smart -- you had to pick what you most wanted, not just load up for bear.

But yeah it sounds like a lot of the endgame was lacking for some players and/or the DMs at least. Lots of books, little content. Most of the gripe here seems to be about too much kitchen sink play, not enough variation driven by world setting, and removing threat. Interestingly we ran a few campaigns of 5e but they weren't pure 5e -- one was the Crimson Throne ported from Paizo into 5e, and another was a homebrew world with modifications to the rules to make things more dangerous and provide more restriction.

I mean, I really enjoyed running my 5e characters, but it was more because of their personalities (my crass hot mess halfling monk and my chill pot-smoking druid hill dwarf). At this stage one of our DMs will not play 5e anymore (mostly due to the OGL shit) and it seems rather played out; we've been more interested in Aberrant and CoD (White Wolf) instead. I will always play Pathfinder 1E (I still have my friday campaign in that system), and we might try Pathfinder 2E at some point.

I'm not sure DND 6 will be any better, but it is noteworthy that every version of DND is different typically. So it'll be interesting to see where DND 6 goes.

I don't think im gonna get into D&D 6, looks like its gonna be more of the stuff im burned out of fifth edition over. The biggest reason 5e still holds appeal for me is the ease of D&D beyond for mathing quicker. Ive started getting POD of older editions from Drivethrurpg, and I picked up Old School Essentials.

The biggest thing Im worried about is losing players and such for the new system because its "new" and "official". I realize I wouldnt really care about a new system if the new system seemed like it was gonna go in a good direction, as it is, it just seems like they're dialed into the practices and philosophies that have taken the soul out of 5e.

 

[Totenkindly]

I don't think im gonna get into D&D 6, looks like its gonna be more of the stuff im burned out of fifth edition over. The biggest reason 5e still holds appeal for me is the ease of D&D beyond for mathing quicker. Ive started getting POD of older editions from Drivethrurpg, and I picked up Old School Essentials.

The biggest thing Im worried about is losing players and such for the new system because its "new" and "official". I realize I wouldnt really care about a new system if the new system seemed like it was gonna go in a good direction, as it is, it just seems like they're dialed into the practices and philosophies that have taken the soul out of 5e.

The major thing I dislike about Pathfinder is how tedious combat can be with many participants. We had 7 PC characters, and a cluster community of gnolls with some action taking place out of our view, and it took us about 3 hours to do 6 rounds of combat and did not finish the fight again. That's two sessions spent on this, and I am just hoping we can finish with this camp by next Friday. But I do love how much control I have over my build and knowing exactly how to generate the numbers I want for what I want to do and have ways to do that.

At least 5e simplified things, it was pretty quick to proceed through those kinds of things although spellcasting of course adds to time.

if a new version offers something useful for gameplay, then that is good. I really did not look at the current playtests due to the OGL mess and my group kind of leaving Hasbro owned games. You can't blame folks for wanting to try something new, but if it sucks then they won't stick with it long.

Drivethrurpg pdfs are sometimes on sale and can offer a cheap way to collect old adventure and rules mats.

 

[The Cat]

The major thing I dislike about Pathfinder is how tedious combat can be with many participants. We had 7 PC characters, and a cluster community of gnolls with some action taking place out of our view, and it took us about 3 hours to do 6 rounds of combat and did not finish the fight again. That's two sessions spent on this, and I am just hoping we can finish with this camp by next Friday. But I do love how much control I have over my build and knowing exactly how to generate the numbers I want for what I want to do and have ways to do that.

At least 5e simplified things, it was pretty quick to proceed through those kinds of things although spellcasting of course adds to time.

if a new version offers something useful for gameplay, then that is good. I really did not look at the current playtests due to the OGL mess and my group kind of leaving Hasbro owned games. You can't blame folks for wanting to try something new, but if it sucks then they won't stick with it long.

Drivethrurpg pdfs are sometimes on sale and can offer a cheap way to collect old adventure and rules mats.

That's what Ive been doing. Ive gotten into OSR games. I ordered Old School essentials last night, and once I learn the rules I'll run a few, but either way I'm looking forward to adding some homebre for my 5e campaigns. Finding out about Dungeon Exploration rounds in increments of 10 minutes the party says what they want to do, and rolling d6s to resolve what the party wants to do. Traps not just going off when you touch them. it sounds so exciting.

I like 5e don't get me wrong. I'm just rather cynical of the direction its going given how overpriced for the content the last several releases have felt. Spelljammer and Planescape have been so dissapointing. Its not a huge big deal because I can build something to make it work, i get them wanting to get more money even, but like do it by releasing content not just a con.


I'm optimisitic I can find a way to hybridize OSR and 5e But gosh dang do I wish WOTC was as good as Whitewolf when it comes ro releasing useful source material.

 

[Totenkindly]

Whitewolf definitely gives you a lot of background material and worldview settings.

I am not a DM but it sounds like 5e just kind of threw DMs to the wolves as its tenure progressed.