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Admiral Joeslop posted:I've been out of the dungeon making game for a while. What do people use for creating dungeons nowadays? Something with a grid that I could print out if needed. I use roll20, but the Starcraft II Map Editor has actually been great for certain settings. Here are a few I've done: http://imgur.com/a/GZwIM - just plug some extra assets on them in post, like the aforementioned Dungeon Maps kit. It would probably be easy enough to overlay a grid before printing. Hell, the tool itself has one (of sorts) built in. DarkLich fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Aug 5, 2017 |
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Aug 5, 2017 04:20
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 20:36 |
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I was proud of my encounter design tonight, and wanted to share! The first section is a potential encounter with some orcs, but there's a peaceful path forward with these defectors. In the middle, we have the rope bridge. They learn that having the higher ground makes them harder to detect, and advantage on their attacks. Lastly, they approach a heavily defended outpost. Unless they spot the moist cave, and manage to sneak into an alternate passage.
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Aug 23, 2017 05:18
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Alright DMs, help me out with some ideas! We're doing 5e Eberron, and we came up with a creative starting scenario: The party is composed of upper classmates in a special academy, a refuge for children that are struck with an aberrant dragonmark. Other students, one year your junior, have encountered some danger on a recent field trip. A teacher has handpicked each of you to rescue them, knowing that you’re the best team for success. The school has its own countryside estate, and focuses on teaching students how to control their powers, and survive in a society that fears them. We don't want this to lean too much towards X-Men or Harry Potter, but it'll be hard to avoid those allusions altogether. Anyone have fun ideas to incorporate?
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Dec 29, 2017 02:39
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Currently running a 5th Edition DnD Eberron Campaign. The party recently required a base of operations, a tower in Sharn. The plan is to grow it by a floor each level, granting a party wide bonus depending on the establishment they choose. For example, they chose a market for the first floor, to gain access to discounted magic items. To help visualize this in roll20, I used Terraria to build a cutaway of the tower. It includes rooms for each of the characters, and NPCs they recruit along the way. 
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Jul 14, 2018 06:21
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Do any of you have experience running Eastern or Asian themed campaigns? I'm looking for some recommendations on modules, or even just themes that were fun for the party. For background, we're using 5e D&D. The setting itself is something we've homebrewed together - it's devoid of any humans, elves, or other fantasy races. Instead, the players are encouraged to "re-skin" existing races. That helps us keep some mechanical integrity as we try to fit the more exotic theme. Here's the document my players will be using, if anyone is interested in checking it out or offering feedback: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jiwKccujL3E8yVww26evCJavD58d7VL3pw1Q9V5g-5s/edit?usp=sharing
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Mar 7, 2019 05:46
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Resting Lich Face posted:Working on a setting. How much loving with established expectations of D&D with regards to setting is tolerable? I disagree with the previous post of "do whatever". Consider your players and their current familiarity with fantasy pop-culture. Some things need to have a basis in existing context, or else your players will be lost and it may be harder for them to engage. For example, there are certain assumptions assigned to dwarves. If you rewrote dwarves to be druidic tree-dwellers, it could lead to a confusing situation. When it comes to homebrew settings, be mindful of what your players will have to learn for acclimation. My advice? Take existing tropes and modify 1 or 2 elements. It will still feel unique, but your players won't be in a totally alien world. Also, get their help brewing up the setting, as that will lead to personal investment.
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Apr 10, 2019 21:34
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Be mindful of how "must-be-" creatures hamstring your players. It's fine to say "most orc societies value combat prowess over education, and as a result, many orcs are not as intelligent"; that doesn't limit the player from saying that their orc is just as smart as an elf. Maybe they were raised in a different society, or took the time to study scrolls. Saying that a sapient species can't be as intelligent as others, however, might stifle their desire to play certain character types. In a game of pretend and wish fulfillment, that's usually not fun. If someone has a concern about how races are handled, hear them out and adapt. No shame in adjusting to accommodate various worldviews. Slavery has been a touchy subject for some players, so it's a topic I don't even touch in my games any more. Unrelated to  , I need some DM advice! What are some complications I could add to this scenario?The party is hired to perform a heist on an interstellar cruise ship. A billionaire, the manager of the casino on the vessel, needs mercenaries to test the automated security. A trial run of it's new defense systems. Struggling to find a way to spice it up though. Pirate/Alien attack seems a bit basic. I considered having it so that the heist is actually observed by rich socialites, making bets on the party's antics. Y'all have any other ideas? DarkLich fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Apr 10, 2021 |
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Apr 10, 2021 00:46
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Need some advice on the capstone adventure of a DnD 5e homebrew campaign. After a near-decade of real life play, the group is level 20 and is prepping to stop the big bad. All of the players are fans of the Mass Effect series, so I wanted to model this after the "Suicide Mission" finale in ME2. The group will be leading various factions through the astral plane into a graveyard of gods. I want to convey a sense of "we may not come back from this" that only end-game stakes can provide. However, combat at level 20 is a big slog, so I want to achieve this without throwing waves of enemies at the party. Any bright ideas on how to do that? My current thinking is to mix a few non-combat challenges into their encounters, but to attach a heavy penalty for failure/compromise. In this case, attaching an automatic failed death saving throw. As an example, two party members need to divert their attention to halt a divine corpse that's been flung at their armada. If they stumble while doing this, it means that the character is more exhausted. As a result, they may succumb to defeat more easily in subsequent encounters. The party has plenty of resurrection type spells at their disposal, so I don't think this will be overly punishing. Might feel harsh to players though, which is why I wanted to bounce the concept around first.
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Feb 11, 2024 01:13
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Arglebargle III posted:how do I do villain exposition? As others have mentioned, have a minion do the talking if you're worried about the party immediately engaging the villain when physically able. Or address the 'when physically able' part by: - providing messages, audio logs, or talkative corpses - projecting through an image or other apparatus - environmental / item story telling. IE, the party discovers their motives through clues left in their wake. Or the villain delivers a bomb with a message attached
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Feb 11, 2024 18:18
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Boogan posted:I'm running a campaign set in the Forgotten Realms and I've introduced a mechanic called Shards of Madness. A player with a Shard of Madness can "spend" it like an Inspiration Point, granting Advantage, but doing so requires them to roll on the Long-Term Madness table. Regarding the mechanical implementation of this: is the idea that a player would have spent several Shards over the course of a campaign? So they might have multiple random quirks attributed to maddening encounters? My immediate concern is that a character might have an array of flaws/phobias that don't necessarily make sense, or it feels abrasive to the player's concept of the character. If you have a party that embraces this randomness and chaos, this might be fun. But I've also seen things like this take the wind out of the sails of character engagement. Especially if the shard is a front-loaded bonus for a long term problem. An alternate approach is to let the madness develop first, and then reward a shard for playing out the quirk. IE, knowledge about what lurks in the deep ocean creates a sense of hydrophobia in a character. When the player elects to have disadvantage to swim through some dark ruins, they earn a Shard of Madness which can be spent to get advantage on a future roll. Another thing to consider is letting players choose from the flaws they're about to inherit, so that it better jives with their character concept. Using the above concept of the deep ocean, a character might choose between: disadvantage on physical checks while in water, forced fear checks when near large bodies of water, disadvantage on knowledge checks about aquatic creatures, etc. This gives the player a bit more agency in how a quirk will affect their character progression.
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Feb 17, 2024 20:05
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Agrikk posted:I am the god of knowledge for a fantasy world. I have built twelve libraries across the globe. These twelve libraries are magical edifices such that any book, or scroll, or piece of writing brought into any of them are instantly “read” by the building and the contents therein are now accessible by anyone attuning to any one of the buildings- representing a global data store. Also, any mortal standing on a specific dais in one building can communicate telepathically with someone standing on a dais in any other library. What happens when one of these libraries malfunctions? I had a few ideas of things going wrong with the library. For example, it ingests info that is paradoxical to previous recordings and that creates some kind of destabilization? Alternatively, what happens if wild magic affects it? Or a church schism causes attending clergy to start flirting with other gods in the space? How would these malfunctions manifest? Perhaps projections of historical figures, authors, or even fictional characters start appearing. Their ethos and world views may start conflicting and causing problems for a place of learning.
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Feb 26, 2024 19:55
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Arglebargle III posted:Any general advice on plotting a campaign and story arcs? I've got three or four big mythos arcs and another four sorts of side things for each player, but I don't have like pacing or encounters. Pacing a campaign depends on session length and how frequently the group plays. The most important thing is that it never feels stale, or that the group never makes progress. I'll provide an example of what I mean: My group plays for about 3 hours every week. We're high level, so an encounter takes around 90 minutes. If I place too many encounters together in a row, then half a month might pass by without the party actually progressing a story or impacting the world. That can make DnD start to feel like a slog. To handle this, I plan each adventure to be told in three sessions. That provides some kind of progress and resolution over the course of a month, while still giving some room for RP diversions or unplanned events. I frame each of these adventures like a TV episode (something like X-Files or Star Trek). The party should quickly learn the new situation, identify some objectives, and after overcoming the challenges, emerge with magic items and narrative growth. Then next episode, you change up the environment, NPCs, threats, etc - and the campaign will maintain its freshness. As a DM, it's beneficial to plan being mindful of those timed parameters and how it aligns with your player engagement. Since you know which story beats you want to hit over the course of your episode, this can also help you plan your encounters. I generally have a couple big interactive set piece battles per adventure arc. Maybe a couple others in my back pocket if the players seem antsy or you anticipate violent problem solving. Ultimately though, you should feel comfortable shuffling these around for the sake of attention spans. It's totally fine to trim a combat so you can end a session on a major story beat. It's more memorable for the players. Apply that concept to your entire campaign. Sequence things so that each player character gets some time in the spot light, while still pushing the mythos forward. Make sure to deviate from this if things feel formulaic. My players love when we do "two-part episodes" or there's an unexpected twist.
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Mar 7, 2024 01:52
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Unless you're personally into the theatrics, voices should be used strategically. Like the other posters said, save it for recurring NPCs, or in situations where the party has to interact with multiple NPCs to drive the story forward. If you're not used to doing it, you might get burnt out or overwhelmed and drop it altogether. As for the accents themselves, I usually lean into the cartoon tropes to define the NPC personality. IE, when I do a Foghorn Leghorn voice, people generally get an idea of that NPC's demeanor. Regional dialects are also valid, but there's two things I'd caution against there: 1) if your characters are visiting steam punk Russia, and you're only speaking in Russian accents, it might be harder for them to tell NPCs apart. 2) be careful when you wade into accents that don't match your ethnicity, or avoid it altogether. Some DMs might get funny looks if they're doing an over-the-top Caribbean patois. Getting started, I'd recommend picking a couple of NPCs or a session villain. Make a couple of notes that are easy to keep track of, and then fully commit. For example, "Talks like Scooter from Borderlands. Laughs at his own jokes" is simple, but it'll give the characters a lot more dimensionality and your players will appreciate when the NPC makes a return appearance.
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Mar 10, 2024 18:53
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 20:36 |
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Several pages back I had solicited feedback for the DnD level 20 final adventure. Big thanks to everyone that provided ideas. I wanted to share the results, and see if y'all spot any major flaws with these house rules. This is modeled after the Mass Effect 2 suicide mission. The party is stopping the evil god in a graveyard of its pantheon in the Astral Plane. I want to convey that there maybe no coming back from this, so I'm presenting several huge challenges across three phases. They can overcome these with a mix of spells and skill checks. Some of the challenges will allow the party to prepare. For example, coordinating the fleet or escorting a fey-powered spore bomb into the undead ranks. A few of the hazards will require them to react quickly once they're in the fray. These include kinetic bombardment from colossal god corpses, and necrotic bile being geysered from one of the divine bodies. In the event of failure, the players can beckon one of their five reinforcements to intervene. There's a chance it might sacrifice some of their favorite NPCs, but it puts the odds a bit more in their favor. Each character will have three chances to deal with these problems: - In the approach phase, characters will work in pairs. - In the breach, they'll split into a stealth group and a distraction group. - Within the interior, every character has an individual predicament. Defeat in these challenges results in a permanently attached failed death saving throw. Which is to say, towards the end of this adventure, mounting failures might result in an immediate cinematic death for one of the player characters. I talked it over with the group, and they're totally into it. Everyone has two characters to their name, and plenty of rez spells, so a few losses won't hurt. The party has become an unstoppable force in the higher levels of 5th edition, so hopefully this will be a nice change of pace.
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Apr 4, 2024 05:21
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