Narsham posted:

You drove me to look up an adventure that it turns out I ran in 1991 titled the Bureaucratic Maze. It was a one-shot for high-level PCs, who needed to access and close a gate on the Abyss. But that gate had been captured by devils, who had constructed a massive maze around it and used legal forms and controls to prevent passage through it, as demons simply lacked the patience or mindset to fill out all the right forms, accurately, and if they didn't the maze's defenses would deal with them or trap them forever.

While there were 36 rooms scattered across the maze, each issuing at least one form, only 10 forms were necessary to succeed, most of which were "you have to go to Infernal Affairs room 7 and bring back form X in order to fill out this form." There was actually a map of the maze available, but again, they needed the correct requisition form for it.

I correctly anticipated that they'd be willing to blow a full Wish after a while to help them, and decided that the devils had a Bypass Godsdamned Bureaucracy form along with all the others, although if you didn't know it existed they didn't advertise the fact. The Wish revealed the form's existence, and I was kind and also provided the room number where they could get it, but they still had to travel there and fill the thing out.

My one caution to you based on how that went: there's a point where you can flip from simulating a mind-numbingly boring administrative process to being boring for the players (and you), so watch out for that.

Also, I think you mean "General Statute," unless the laws are being enforced by enchanted statues, which I admit would be pretty fun.

ilikedirt posted:

Ay yall what is the best 5e megadungeon it doesnt need to be official or anything. Preferably something that has physical copies available

Narsham posted:

You drove me to look up an adventure that it turns out I ran in 1991 titled the Bureaucratic Maze. It was a one-shot for high-level PCs, who needed to access and close a gate on the Abyss. But that gate had been captured by devils, who had constructed a massive maze around it and used legal forms and controls to prevent passage through it, as demons simply lacked the patience or mindset to fill out all the right forms, accurately, and if they didn't the maze's defenses would deal with them or trap them forever.

While there were 36 rooms scattered across the maze, each issuing at least one form, only 10 forms were necessary to succeed, most of which were "you have to go to Infernal Affairs room 7 and bring back form X in order to fill out this form." There was actually a map of the maze available, but again, they needed the correct requisition form for it.

I correctly anticipated that they'd be willing to blow a full Wish after a while to help them, and decided that the devils had a Bypass Godsdamned Bureaucracy form along with all the others, although if you didn't know it existed they didn't advertise the fact. The Wish revealed the form's existence, and I was kind and also provided the room number where they could get it, but they still had to travel there and fill the thing out.

My one caution to you based on how that went: there's a point where you can flip from simulating a mind-numbingly boring administrative process to being boring for the players (and you), so watch out for that.

Also, I think you mean "General Statute," unless the laws are being enforced by enchanted statues, which I admit would be pretty fun.

Enjoy posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtEkUmYecnk

Madmarker posted:

Haha, I totally meant General Statute.........but now I want to make it so that next time I run this little adventure of mine I make it so that all the laws are carved into statues of famous people from the city.

Also...any idea where I can find that adventure, "the Bureaucratic Maze"? My google is failing me.

Cephas posted:

I'm going to be running Curse of Strahd for 2 friends soon. I know it's a fairly difficult module, so I've been trying to think of ways to make it doable for a party of 2. Neither of them are especially good at D&D and aren't, like, dark souls players who love punishment or anything--we just wanted to try a premade campaign for once and ravenloft sounded like a fun setting.

I know them well enough to know that it would be a nightmare for them to have to juggle playing more than 1 character at a time, so I think the most I would limit it to are free animal companions or giving verbal orders to hirelings.

I'm thinking to begin with, at level 1 they will get a free level's worth of max HP just to make things smoother.

Some of the options I've considered:
1. Give them a free feat at first level
2. Create some custom NPCs with specialized roles (healer, buffer, thief, tank) that were lured into Ravenloft as well, and let them recruit one as a DM-controlled party member. Give them some side quests and stuff that fit into the story.
3. Let them each start with a revised ranger's animal companion
4. Have them come across a plentitude of dark gifts
5. Just let them rough it with hirelings and named NPCs to emphasize the challenge of the setting

Do any of these/any combination of these sound like they'd help balance a two party run of Strahd?

Also does anyone have recommendations for other campaign books? I'm trying to shift away from doing homebrew campaigns because they take too much preparation on my end. The Icewind Dale one sounds neat.

ilikedirt posted:

Ay yall what is the best 5e megadungeon it doesnt need to be official or anything. Preferably something that has physical copies available

Also what is considered the best planescape adventure?

Cephas posted:

I'm thinking to begin with, at level 1 they will get a free level's worth of max HP just to make things smoother.

Some of the options I've considered:
1. Give them a free feat at first level
2. Create some custom NPCs with specialized roles (healer, buffer, thief, tank) that were lured into Ravenloft as well, and let them recruit one as a DM-controlled party member. Give them some side quests and stuff that fit into the story.
3. Let them each start with a revised ranger's animal companion
4. Have them come across a plentitude of dark gifts
5. Just let them rough it with hirelings and named NPCs to emphasize the challenge of the setting

Do any of these/any combination of these sound like they'd help balance a two party run of Strahd.

Silly Newbie posted:

Re: one on one game:
First session, there are some kobolds in a cave doing banditry and harassing villagers. Adventure is to go through the mini dungeon cave and whack the kobold leader.
Afterwards, the remaining kobolds come out and say that they never wanted to be bandits, leader just bullied them into it, and they're faithful retainers of the PC forever after (or until they fall into a bumbling death).
Gives npc party members to interact with who can have their own story hooks but can't steal the show or overbalance power too much.

Silly Newbie posted:

Re: one on one game:
First session, there are some kobolds in a cave doing banditry and harassing villagers. Adventure is to go through the mini dungeon cave and whack the kobold leader.
Afterwards, the remaining kobolds come out and say that they never wanted to be bandits, leader just bullied them into it, and they're faithful retainers of the PC forever after (or until they fall into a bumbling death).
Gives npc party members to interact with who can have their own story hooks but can't steal the show or overbalance power too much.

Madmarker posted:

It turns out that rather than being aloof and uncaring the "Declaration of War-Mobilization" hadn't been issued by the ruling council because all official declarations have to be first issued on Papyrus paper, and since the weather had been so dry there had been a shortage and the ruling council's supply was....unfortunately....... out. Even worse, according to Modronad General Statute 33-27(A2)(1), all requisition requests for supplies for the ruling council must ALSO be issued on Papyrus......and so the ruling council is currently defunct unless they can find some papyrus. Unfortunately they can't just accept a gift of Papyrus from a citizen...as that would be bribery and they wouldn't want to be corrupt.

Cephas posted:

Malpais Legate posted:

I would also very much like this adventure.

Trivia posted:

Make sure you do a proper session 0 for curse of Strahd. My DM didn't and I ended up hating the damned thing and quitting.

If they don't like grimdark, don't like werewolves or vampires, and don't like a constantly dour and depressing atmosphere, perhaps turn back now.

Magical items in the module are few and far between, and the real treasure the PCs get is their freedom.

Also the module is long as gently caress.

nelson posted:

Agreed. It was not my favorite module. I wouldn’t recommend it to people new to D&D unless they’re really into that kind of thing.

Reveilled posted:

To be honest if they're into that thing and new to D&D, I'd probably recommend they skip straight to Vampire: The Masquerade, before they risk catching "I want to reskin everything to D&D" disease.

Cithen posted:

Hot Take: Curse of Strahd is actually a boring adventure and, in fact, sucks.

Rutibex posted:

D&D is a game about power fantasy. Its not fun to be jerked around by some vampire rear end in a top hat in his magical land of mists, thats not a power fantasy.

Arivia posted:

I don't know how well Curse of Strahd communicates it, but previous treatments of Ravenloft (both the module and the setting) have emphasized the powerlessness of the PCs as an essential part of the gothic horror-fantasy the setting is renowned for. Being jerked around by Strahd is inevitable, but it's meant to make beating him all the sweeter.

Epi Lepi posted:

Curse of Strahd is extremely good and you all are super weird.

Edit: or your GMs suck

Rutibex posted:

D&D is a game about power fantasy. Its not fun to be jerked around by some vampire rear end in a top hat in his magical land of mists, thats not a power fantasy.

Devorum posted:

My current GM is pretty good and I've thoroughly enjoyed his other games. CoS is just badly written. It desperately wants to be a freeform sandbox and a railroad at the same time, and not nearly enough care went into making those desires mesh.

quote:

I loved old Ravenloft, when it was effectively the antithesis of a power fantasy. I think a big difference is the writers weren't afraid to go all-in on the theme instead of the milquetoast module we got for 5E. There's nothing "horror" about CoS because at the end of the day you're still a party of superheroes, just with less money and equipment.

Blooming Brilliant posted:

So need a bit of help brainstorming something. For context, I'm running a Candlekeep Mysteries campaign for five players which strings together several of the adventures.

None of the group has played any of the adventures, except for the Lv. 5 adventure "The Price of Beauty". In fact three of them have played the adventure before.

I trust them all not to be meta-gamey and they've said they're happy to replay it again regardless. That being said, I want to introduce something new to the adventure just to freshen it up/throw off the players who've played it already.

I'm struggling to think of what I could add/change that could work, so would appreciate any ideas/suggestions.

change my name posted:

Have the three sisters be on the level and not hags. Maybe the dwarf who went there is actually loving things up by angering the spirit of Sylvarie

BattleMaster posted:

Don't run Strahd as a horror game, run it as Castlevania! The players are the morning sun, come to vanquish the horrible night!

D&D is definitely the wrong system for horror and helplessness. I like creepy, crawly, dark, and gross (in the fun way) stuff in my D&D game but the players are heroes who are the only people with the strength to rival the villains of the story, and should be treated as such.

Trivia posted:

Unrelated: Does anyone know of any ancient egyptian-style adventures? This was a request from one of my players.