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castle-ravenloft · 2 days
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The Monster Manual but it's blatantly written by the monsters
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castle-ravenloft · 13 days
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castle-ravenloft · 18 days
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just because i saw a post about it. D&D alignments are good. and they are not the end-all be-all of character building. In some senses, they are a bit out-dated as a player tool because characters' lifespans are significantly longer in contemporary dnd (this is not a value judgement, it is just a fact) and this means that more developed tools for characterization (for example, 5e's bonds, flaws, etc) are more immediately useful because there is a bigger chance any of that will have meaning when the character is being created. alignment is still a useful tool for breaking down your character to its essentials and can guide you in making character-true decisions when things get complicated. but the (3x3 grid) system was developed in a time where a character's lifespan was measured not even in modules, or sessions, but in rooms. a quick and easy framework for to characterize a cheap life.
Alignment is still a fantastic DM tool because it helps you either break down conflicts, or create them from the combinations. Even if you take the exact same pre-written module, the approach will be different if you have a focus on good vs evil as opposed to good vs law.
while official settings like planescape did make the alignments into fundamental cosmic forces of the setting, it does not matter if you and your co-player disagree on exactly what is good or neutral. what matters is that you have a sense of what that means for you, and that it helps you make character-true decisions
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castle-ravenloft · 21 days
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he
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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awooga
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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rkgk
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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Sunrise in Barovia, updated for the anon who wanted a print 🌞
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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I know I've posted this thread in the past but it's still like top TTRPG posting of the decade
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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Let me tell you about one of my high school friends’ old Dungeons and Dragons PCs.
Olaf Olafson was your pretty straightforward Northman Barbarian type. Huge, strong, pale, red-haired and with a tremendous beard. What made Olaf special was the little things.
Despite living in a world with clerical magic, demons, and other powerful alignment-based Outsiders, Olaf was an atheist. This was because his people believed the last world had already ended and the gods went with it (basically post-Ragnarok). All that was left were ‘spirits’. Powerful spirits. Who could grant deific magic. But they weren’t gods, and you didn’t have to worship them- in fact you shouldn’t, because it would just inflate their already swollen egos.
Despite being an enormous, frightening, powerful man with dubious hygeine and a propensity for going literally berserk in combat, Olaf was a gentle fellow in towns and villages, had a deep fondness for small fluffy animals and children, and was a generous tipper.
Olaf liked to drink. Not mead, but wine. He liked to sip it. It made him feel ‘civilized’. He never drank it quickly enough to get drunk. His meals almost invariably consisted of “Wine. Meat. Cheese.” Which was what he would order in literally every tavern. They’d ask him to clarify, what sort of wine? What sort of meat? What sort of- Olaf would raise a hand and repeat, slowly, as if to a fool: “Wine. Meat. Cheese.” 
Olaf spoke broken common, more or less Hulk-speak, referred to himself in the third person almost exclusively, all that fun stuff. Then we had a story arc where I sent them up to Olaf’s homeland, where everyone spoke ‘Northman’ or whatever the hell I called it. While up there, he was incredibly fluent. Even poetic. “My brothers! I have returned from the decadent lands of the south, bearing riches and glory, and tales of great deeds!” The other players caught on and talked like a pack of movie Frankensteins, barely able to communicate in the foreign tongue.
For a long time, Olaf was the most financially stable member of the party. Because he bought a tavern in their home-base-town, hired the senior barmaid/waitress lady to be the manager, and funneled the profits back into the business. He kept his adventuring money and his tavern money separate, except when he would sometimes spend adventuring money to expand the tavern. 
 There’s not a lot to do in 3rd edition with skill ranks when you’re a barbarian, so eventually Olaf sank a point into Healing on a lark. A few sessions later, they captured an important enemy NPC, but he’d lost an arm in the fighting and was about to die. Their cleric had been captured and their NPC paladin wasn’t around, either. There was no magical healing available, and no one else had any ranks in healing. The dude was about to die, and take with him the knowledge of where their friends had been taken. Olaf- with a  single rank in Healing I remind you -offered to save his life in exchange for the location, and the guy agreed. Olaf then stuck a sword in the fire, said “Olaf see this once,” and cauterized the wound.
It worked, of course. I didn’t even make him roll. I was too busy trying not to piss myself laughing. “Olaf see this once.” Jesus Christ.
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castle-ravenloft · 1 month
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part 3 - shadow hands him his gun
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castle-ravenloft · 2 months
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the party met Strahd for the first time
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castle-ravenloft · 2 months
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Artwork from our Curse of Strahd campaign I did for our group’s secret santa last year
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castle-ravenloft · 2 months
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on the topic of good books. if you're a dm, go get your hands on the 4th edition dungeon master's guide 2. very little about it concerns the specific mechanics of 4th edition. it's just top tier advice in there
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castle-ravenloft · 2 months
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buy flee mortals btw. monster manual found dead in miami
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castle-ravenloft · 2 months
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the intent/method post is going around again and no there is no "on the other hand GMs can ask..." the point is that players should learn this behaviour to make the entire game better and smoother, the gm needing to stop to ask what you mean is the problem that the post is about. oh my god. the gm is by orders of magnitude the player with the most shit to do the least you can do is bring food and try to make the game better
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castle-ravenloft · 3 months
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