i just. so strongly believe that if someone isn't vibing with everyone else in a ttrpg group, or if they're not vibing with you the gm, the best and most correct thing to do is to tell them, "hey i don't think this is the game for you. no hard feelings!" you don't have to play ttrpgs with everyone on the planet. you can still be friends outside a ttrpg context. like. liberate yourself, dude!

Was really tickled by Small Saga's spin on making loot chests more dangerous. Instead of a shapeshifting mimic, it's a big spider! Like a trap-door spider that uses the chest like a protective shell and uses money as projectiles.

As we also saw in the game, they're intelligent and can be reasoned with! Offer them a bit of food and not only will they not attack, they'll make it rain.

So, like the nerd that I am, I decided to try and translate it into D&D 5e. Gonna surprise the heck out of my little level 2 players. Sure, everyone expects a mimic, but no one expects a spider in a box!

These unusually intelligent arachnids nest in chests or other containers. They wait patiently for prey to surprise, paralyze with their bite, and drag into their little lairs, adding to their collection of treasures. Clever nobles and minor crime lords bribe avarice spiders to be guards for valuables, with careful instructions about who – and who not – to devour.

Doing DnD prep and making more hilarious hand drawn tokens and

Rust monster #1 vs Rust monster #12

[ID: My hand holding up two handmade DnD combat tokens. They are cardboard squares with rough drawings of DnD rust monsters on them. The one on the left is more detailed with a bug like face and large plate scales, while the one on the right is smaller and very simple and cute, and has a small smiley face instead of a bug like face. End ID.]

The word doc for my curse of strahd ravenloft dinner prep just passed 10 pages 😌 I am going to terrorize these players

New npc who dis?

Ask any DM, and they will always need new antagonists for their stories. I just came up with a really cool one, and he is really nasty.

Imagine, an Ursoi (a humanoid bear race from Dragonlance) standing just over 9ft tall, weighing close to 1200lbs - looking every bit the large grizzly, except he's wearing the skull and upper jaw of a Kirre as a shoulder piece and its pelt as a cloak. (Kirre pictured below)

Oh, and you see that tail? Yeah, he's had that preserved and made into a *really* nasty mace - his 'trophies'. He worships the "Blue Bear" which (in Forgotten Realms lore) is another name for the Beastlord, Malar. The Beastlord likes it when his worshippers kill things with their bear hands (see what I did there?).

I just plotted out his travels to bring him into the area where my pcs are doing their thing - completely oblivious to how very real and close the danger is. They've got about a month of in-game time... and then Kubaarad comes to town.

I won't present him as an enemy. Just a highly competent npc that's there to join the fight against an enemy that threatens all of them. I won't share too much about him or his background because "it isn't about him". Then when I'll slowly have him do more morally bankrupt shit and force the pcs to question him, leading to one of my favorite moments as a dm...

"Oh, you thought we were allies... it was merely our interests that had aligned, but now..."

I can't wait.

I was complimented once on my storytelling and now I'm crying send help

I am late to the NADDPOD party, on episode 5. There is so much joy in this, but my absolute favorite is when Murph sighs before saying, “Roll for initiative.”

As a DM, I feel that sigh in my very bones.

I think I want to run a session where the dungeon is a power point presentation

I have a love-hate relationship with Clerics in D&D.

on the one hand, I love characters who are built to have RP penalties. rituals, strong beliefs, a community and faith to which you've dedicated yourself are all great ways to make a strong connection to the gameworld and be able to speak with your DM on a good level of connection and immersion. I love the concept of one's faith becoming magic that can heal, hurt, make fire rain from the sky, or give people blessings that enhance their luck. having a cleric of an odd faith is a great way to make a very vibrant and interesting character, and a powerful one. on the other hand, I hate that gods are true and provably real in D&D worlds, almost without exception. in base Forgotten Realms, not only are the gods a real thing, you can talk to them and actually see them made manifest. that makes faith less of a question of "what do you believe when all else has failed you" and more...science. it's a process, and deference to a magical beast the same as a dragon or a fiend, not a system of beliefs. you say this prayer and commit these words to your memory, you light a candle and sprinkle salt and you become protected from possession by evil spirits. it's not a ritual you conduct in hopes that the gods will answer, it's a known sequence with repeatable results.

gods and divinities should be as distant as possible in any world where religion is a thing. sometimes they don't answer, people aren't sure if they exist or not beyond the occasional miracle or scale tipped in favor of this or that. religious communities believe in their gods to give themselves some feeling of comfort from a world they can't always explain, or the hope of salvation from the terrors that absolutely do exist. just because a world is magical, has demons and dragons and magic, doesn't mean the gods need to be big presences. I think it's better to have them almost nonexistent, doubtful if they exist or if they care except when a Cleric performs some magic to change the course of a battle. even then one can ask if the cleric is just a misguided sorcerer, or more frighteningly an unwitting warlock with an unknown pact. having the gods too present raises more questions than it answers, and forces forth questions of "why don't the gods solve this" and "how can atheism exist in a world where I can call god on the phone and he answers".

one of the things I've been thinking about recently is that it takes effort and practice to become a good ttrrpg player.

as a forever dm, i obviously knew this was true for dming. like. dming is clearly a skill that takes work and effort and practice. and it's a skill I've worked hard at!

but being a good player is also a skill that takes work and effort and practice. arguably less than what being a dm requires, but not nothing! and it's not something i knew about until i got more opportunities to be a player. (the thing is, I'm at a point where i do think I'm a good dm. i am NOT at that point as a player lmao. so I'm working on it.)

anyway. i don't know if Forever Players view being a player this way, but i think it's worth considering, especially given how much work dming is. what can you do to be a better player? in what ways can you support the other players and the dm? these are good questions to periodically ask yourself imo.

Going insane at 1 am and starting to build an entire merchant ship to use as a battle map in my dnd game

This is what DMing is all about. I love crafting

DnD gods please bestow upon me your inspiration, for I DM a session tomorrow and I do not want to prep

I run a very serious D&D campaign 

Left to Right: 

Aezo, Tiefling Barbarian (he/they) Harry B, Half-Elf Wizard (he/him) Thea, Human? Druid (she/her)

Those are 3 of my player characters. Guy in the speech bubble is an NPC of mine, Iniko Freyr, a rival, presumed ex/rival of Harry from ye olde wizard university days

What the heck is this about?

@usroute666 came into my messages just to randomly say this... then blocked me from responding. Wtf, man? Idk know what post or whatever this is about. Who cares that much if I say soda or pop? 🤦🏻‍♀️

May I offer you Scarlet Overkill in these trying times?

(Tap/click for better quality)

ART BELONGS TO @lc20-official

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