My DM's Guild Books!

pssst hey I've made books you should get them on the Dungeon Masters Guild!. Together both are like 4 bucks! We are close to a gold medal too! Which would let me print my books on demand! http://dmsguild.com/product/381118… http://dmsguild.com/product/403411… Cosmos Curiosities is a book about a shop that appears anywhere in the multiverse. It can follow your party even if they venture from world to world. The enigmatic shopkeeper Vega has 42 new items from across the multiverse in her shop, and the book also has plot hooks, and roleplay tips for running Vega! I am actually working on a follow up to this book with more items, new races, backgrounds and more!

The Biblioplex Archive has 20+ spells to add to your Strixhaven campaign based on the instants and sorcery cards from the Magic The Gathering set. This book is under 80 sales away from a gold medal! Which means future books I make could be print on demand! There are some NPC's in here as well you can add to your Strixhaven campaigns!

impromptu reviews of someone else's homebrewing

Cover art for the D&D Fanmade manual “Autumn Twilight” by the “Dragonlance Nexus”: a conversion from AD&D to D&D 5th edition of the original game module. Coming soon on DMGuild. This painting was commissioned by the Dragonlance Nexus: a fanart about the very beginning of Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman: Tanis Helf-Elven, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, and Flint are about to return to the Inn of the Last Home in Solace.Of course, the rock under the tree on the right, near Flint, is “that” rock. Fans will know.

Work in progress and more information on my website: https://greenedera.com/portfolio/solace-dragonlance-nexus/

Created on: 08/05/2022 Copyright 2022 Elena Greenedera Zambelli, all rights reserved #noai

There are 21 plotted adventures for 5e currently not including things you can get from DMGuild or Adventures League. What does that mean? There's about 20+ plotted settings for muses to be dropped into and the threads write themselves with rolls. Just saying.

It’s enshittification all the way down

If you don’t know about Cory Doctorow’s “Enshittification of the Internet” hypothesis… please go read

In this follow up mini essay, I’m going to talk quickly about the non-news that a major TTRPG brand is working ever closer to enshittification of TTRPGs.

The Dragon Wants to Enshittify Itself (there was no Chik-fil-A)

For a long time That Dragon Game has been showing ways it will present enshittification as helpfulness for a while.

You can see enshittification as the culmination of this demotivational from Despair Inc.

If you're not part of the solution, good money can be made [renting an approximation of a solution]

This is how I see the enshittification of lots of things happening. Companies don't want to SOLVE your problem, they want to rent you an approximation of that solution. The posterchildren of this method is the Adobe Suite and Microsoft 365 (note: other corporate software has done this for aaaaaaaages but these two are big obvious examples you've likely brushed up against, and also Hello Unity! How you doin with your Enshittification???)

How do I make this claim? The long arc of That Dragon Game trying to enshittify iteslf.

Back in the dim recesses of the 90s, That Dragon Game made a version of itself so wildly needlessly complicated that they decided to make it easier by including software on a CD to do the job for you. You could make up to Level 3 characters with it, and yeah it had some issues but they didn't try make their game easier to handle just potentially sell you a tool to manage it.

Not part of the solution, prolonging the problem for profit... eTools for 3.5EDragon Game was prolonging a design problem for profit.

Then after the Dragon had crapped all over its loot pile with 2 trillion splat books in the early 00s, the Dragon decided that it needed a new cave to put a loot horde and started on 4E.

Enter the murder of Melissa Batten. Wizards had hired Joseph Batten to head up Gleemax: a project to basically create a TTRPG Social Media site. (which boy oh boy sounds like another great place for enshittification... please see Cory's analysis of TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, etc...) A lot of this project came to a screeching halt when Joseph Batten lost the plot, decided to murder Melissa (who worked a Microsoft and was clearly better than him at a lot of stuff)... but at the same time those resources were put into Insider.

What is this Insider you speak of?

Hasbro told every department "Make at least this many boats of cash or fuck off to the wilderness" in slightly more 'investor speak'. So Wizards had to think of a way to suddenly make more cash. The solution? Insider.

Insider was going to be: - a source of new material - a VTT - a marketplace - a 'place to organise games with strangers' - etc... and you would pay a subscription for it.

Is any of this ringing any bells?

This was during the 4E incarnation of The Dragon Game. In the dim heady days of the mid 00s. A whole marriage ago for this Halfling (my marriage can nearly drive in some jurisdictions! Woot! I am old...)

As far back as 2008 Wizards have been looking for ways to make subscription versions of its stuff. The Enshittification has been happening on a loooooong arc.

But Halfling, that isn't what is happening now...

How does Beyond work?

You pay a subscription to have it, you then pay for additional content on it, you can't get your stuff off it, you have to use the thing... wait, isn't this exactly what Melon Husk is trying to do with X?

Beyond enshittified TTRPG. DMGuild is another aspect of that enshittification.

But why are you talking about this now Halfling? Why this topic now?

Well, it's making the rounds of many game design spaces that Wizbros have ended their distribution and publishing deal with Penguin Random House... sure, Wizbros likely have all sorts of options for printing/publishing/distribution. But on top of this it seems set up to make it hard for small retailers: the stores where a lot of people buy their TTRPG products. Why cut off their major advocates by doing this? To wall up the garden tighter and make it easier to enshittify the scenery more.

I don't see this as 'Wizbros scouring for a better distribution publishing deal' but a deliberate move to try enshittify things more.

I DMed for the first time yesterday for my family and it was really interesting. I took a small oneshot adventure from DMguild and tgey got so invested i had to improvise so many background information. Now i am back at trying to make sense of all the little bits i came up with

D&D 5e modules for free!

[Edit: The offer for these modules has expired, but they remain tried-and-true investments if you're looking for low-level adventures.]

Wizards of the Coast has been offering for the last weeks a rotation of free D&D 5e modules an images as part of their COVID-19 support initiative, including some modern classics from the Adventurers’ League like Tales Trees Tell and The Scroll Thief. You certainly can go check it all out, but I’ve highlighted here 5 must have modules from the current offering. These have all received great accolades and can serve to expand current hardcover offerings or your own world. Check them out before they disappear the 17-18th of May.

Pudding Fairy - A 3-4 hour module for character levels 1-4. You awaken on the morning of the Pudding Faire: just as you did yesterday… and the day before that… and the day before that! To escape the loop, you must break a curse that strikes to the heart of halfling and gnome lore.

Blue Alley - A 3-4 hour adventure for characters of 1st to 4th level.

Blue Alley lies hidden in the heart of Waterdeep. Built by a secretive wizard, it is a magic maze full of tricks, traps, strange monsters, and rich treasure. Countless adventurers have ventured inside to test their bravery and skill, yet few have returned. And now it is your turn…

The Black Road - A 2 hour adventure for 1st-4th level characters.

Caravans are having a difficult time getting through to Parnast via the Black Road. Little do they know that an unusually intelligent hill giant, going by the name of Bad Fruul is to blame. SEER has sent her emissary Hsing, to task your group to accompany a caravan with a very special cargo destined for the Shrine of Axes in Parnast, and to figure out who is responsible.

Uninvited Guests - A 2 hour adventure for 1st-4th level characters

The Shrine of the Axes has been restored and Raggnar Redtooth, who previously conspired with dragon cultists, is trying to restore his reputation in Parnast by sponsoring a feast. There is just one thing he needs, meat for his feast. Game is supposed to be plentiful in the Weathercote Wood, but the townsfolk are all busy with their own work, and the minions of Bad Fruul are still out there causing trouble. What can go wrong on a simple hunt?

Rats of Waterdeep - A 3-4 hour adventure for 1st-4th level characters.

Solve a brutal crime on the mean streets of Waterdeep in this madcap companion adventure for Xanathar's Guide to Everything! Includes two new NPC villains: the Rat King and the Lady of Plagues, and three new player options: the Detective background, the Rat King archetype for rangers, and the Circle of Plagues archetype for druids.

This month’s adventure is for D&D 5e! Dalren Thurdek was once one of the greatest Dwarven Wizards on the  Sword Coast. A hero renowned for great deeds, and powerful knowledge and a prized member of the Harpers.  However, his tomb and all this great knowledge were lost after the Orc invasions.  

The once lost forgotten tomb, hidden in the roots of the Sword mountains has been found again by a local Goblinoid tribe, who have begun scavenging the wizard's burial place, they risk destroying all of his great knowledge and lost treasures.  Now a team of adventures has to rid the goblins while also trying to survive the traps and puzzles placed here by Thurdek's disciples.

Designed for a standard part of four players between levels 3 and 5. Thurdek’s Tomb builds off some of the lore found in the starter adventure Mines of Phandelver, but easy enough to drop into any setting or adventure with little preparation! Perfect for a side quest, a campaign starter or even a one-shot adventure.

You can get your copy of Thurdek’s Tomb on DM’s Guild today!

03 - Hell-Shiner (NPC)⠀ -⠀ Name: Rut’zul the hell-shiner ⠀ ⠀ Background: Eons of climbing the ranks of the nine hells - Rut’zul is tricked by a past party and becomes the nine hells no.1 janitor.⠀ ⠀ Skills: Perception +6 Deception +3 Persuasion +1⠀ ⠀ Special Abilities: ⠀ • Bucket of rage (Thrown Item) - Creature that gets any of the content of the bucket on them goes into an instant-rage and attacks the closest creature next to them. (Duration: 2 hours)⠀ • Prestidigitation (Page: 267 PHB)⠀ • Hallow (Page: 249 PHB)⠀ ⠀ Directors commentary 🎬: so like... I blame my dyslexia... I read it as hell shiner - so this guys is the neighbourhood janitor!⠀

------ Follow me on: http://www.instagram.com/tonytran.design http://www.twitter.com/tonytrandesign

you know how sometimes you’re genuinely about to fall asleep, in bed, in the dark, nestled in, and then you’re like, “I wonder if there are enough spells with “Wall” in the name to make a full list of domain/patron/oath spells?” and then you roll over and grab your phone (which you had put away) and 40 minutes later you’ve made up an entire subclass?

Divine Domain: Walls

You worship the Wallmaker, the god of walls. Not metaphorical walls, holding back emotions or protecting the innocent or whatever. Walls. The walls themselves. A god of walls.

Domain Spells:

1st Lv: Alarm, Shield (you cannot conjure a true wall, but you can summon the essence of one for 8 hours or a ghost of one for a few seconds)

3rd Lv: Lesser Wind Wall*, Warding Wind (you are still so untrained in the true art of walls, you can only manage with the least wall-like element: air)

5th Lv: Wall of Sand, Wall of Water (walls!)

7th Lv: Lesser Wall of Light*, Wall of Fire (walls!)

9th Lv: Wall of Force, Wall of Stone (WALLS!)

*Does 1 less die of damage than stated in the canon description of the spell. I had to be flexible to get everything into 2 spells per level, okay; cut me some slack.

Wall’s Endurance. At first level, you gain the endurance of a well-built wall. You gain 1 HP now and 1 more with each level-up. You cannot be pushed back or knocked prone.

Channel Divinity: Wall’s Durability. At second level, you can channel the power of your god to grant an ally the durability of a sturdy wall. Channel divinity and take 1 action to make a spectral wall around any creature you can see within 60ft of you, granting them resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage for 1 minute.

Wall’s Fortitude. At sixth level, you gain the fortitude of a wall under siege. Any armor you put on is automatically +1 while you wear it. This stacks with otherwise enchanted armor.

Wall’s Power. At eighth level, you begin to unlock the true potential of walls. Any spell you cast with “Wall” in the name now does an extra damage die of damage. 

More Walls. At seventeenth level, your god recognizes your worthiness and grants to access to even more walls. Wall of Ice, Wall of Thorns, and Prismatic Wall are all now additional domain spells.

GRIMDARK 3.0 IS LIVE!

The new document is 16 pages including fancy artwork, updated rules based on playtesting, and new features like "Soaking Off" damage and armor Durability. The PDF is on a 10% off sale right now because of International GM's Day, so it's less than $1.00 for a download right now. So far 76 people have downloaded the document. Why not be number 77?

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/258346/Grimdark-A-Sneak-Peek?affiliate_id=148595

@chaospastry

No it’s a homebrew someone made to play monster races and it’s supposedly really good and really balanced and all the reviews are like 4/5 stars (except one who thought the monsters weren’t powerful enough) but it’s 2.99 and looks just so good

http://www.dmsguild.com/m/product/230312

Puzzle Design for D&D

As requested by @blu-purpl3-indig0​. Bear in mind I’m definitely not an expert, or even an experienced DM; this is all just what I’ve discovered after two weeks of feverish Google deep dives, your mileage may vary:

Each puzzle at its core is an obstacle between the party’s goal (the core obstacle being that the party needs to figure out how to progress). I’ve got my core rules/things to keep in mind below the cut:

1. Accept that the puzzle may not be solved and have a mercy rule:

There's nothing worse for a player than going through a dungeon, getting to a puzzle, being unable to solve it and then... what happens? You can't just say "Welp, that's it. You guys can backtrack out, or keep trying". 

Easy step is to make sure there’s multiple solutions for each puzzle (Unlock the door, set it on fire, punch it down, teleport through, etc.)

1.1. Related to this, an easy way to set up a puzzle is to have different consequences for how a puzzle is solved:

Players solve the puzzle perfectly? Great, give them little a reward or bonus (The enemy they were tracking has no clue they're there and they can stealth in)

Players almost solve the puzzle? Ok, let them through, but without the reward (Enemy knows something is up)

Players can't solve puzzle? Still let them through, but now with a penalty (They break down the door and the enemy is alert and waiting)

Progress forward should never be the reward; it should happen regardless of the results of the puzzle. 

2. You (theoretically) know exactly what you're thinking as you make these puzzles. Your party knows exactly none of what you were thinking. 

Bear in mind that what's obvious to you will be nonsensical to them without context clues. This is probably the origin of the three clue rule (Every conclusion you want your players to make about the puzzle solution should be presented in triplicate, because they’ll miss or misinterpret the first two.

3. If you're going to have skill checks for your puzzle, the puzzle should still be solvable even if your party fails every single one of them. 

If you want to use skill rolls, use those to grant extra hints for good rolls. Give them all the clues they need to solve the puzzle straight off the bat. 

4. Pick a theme and run with it. It helps make things coherent throughout a dungeon. 

This is less puzzle design and more integrating puzzles into a dungeon for a one-shot. If you start with a simple mechanic, and then build on the mechanic as you go, the players will (hopefully) naturally learn and connect the dots on how to do more complex puzzles using the basic mechanics.

5. If you see a good puzzle somewhere else, adapt it and use it.

Reddit is a fantastic place to find these, as is DMGuild. Stackexchange can be good for ideas, but a lot of the puzzles there are heavily math based or don’t translate well into a tabletop setting. You can also adapt video game puzzles, but it’ll take a little more work depending on the puzzle.  I looked into some game design for games with other puzzles (Zelda, Portal), and i've been basing a lot of my stuff around the Zelda key concept (Go down one path, get a key to unlock another path, repeat until end)

6. Theater of the mind lends itself differently to puzzles compared to playing with a map. 

A lot of spatial puzzles are going to depend on you precisely being able to describe object positions relative to other things and on your players remembering these objects and their positions/orientations. Likewise if you want to play with time, you'll need to decide whether you're going to work with rounds (if you want the characters to think), or real time (if your players need to think). 

My favorite types of puzzles are lateral thinking: homophones are good for this (Vein/vain), and engineering puzzles. Mirrors are also a lot of fun, you can play with reversing various aspects or have them act as portals.

If anyone is interested and isn’t in my group I can share some examples. Just send me a message, I guess, and I’ll do my best to respond.

This might be a question you’ve already answered, but I’ve just come across your page and was wondering if you have any plans to publish a book/module for your Vallonde setting?

That's the million dollar question, huh lol. The short answer is "I'd like to", but it's looking like that's probably in the not-so-near future, if ever. Beyond the fact that Vallonde is really, really big and I've got a lot to do to finish fleshing it out, preparing something like this for publication is a huge undertaking, especially for one person. Just packing in everything I've already done without any future additions would mean I'd be looking at a nearly 300 page campaign guide, and that's a ludicrous amount of editing and formatting/layout work. Art isn't cheap, and I won't be satisfied putting out a product that doesn't have art to sell the mood and quality. If I wanted to just stop at that point and put it on the DMguild I could, but that isn't a satisfying solution to me or many others I'd think. Digital is nice and very convenient but, at least personally, I like the feel of a physical book in my hand. That said, going that route is expensive. Like, expensive expensive, even beyond the 100+ art pieces of have to commission for the project, and would necessitate crowd-funding which honestly scares the hell out of me. The last thing I want to do is dive head first into a situation where other people are putting money into a product campaign that goes ass up because of my lack of knowledge and experience. In the end, I'm just some guy working a low-paying kitchen job in middle America who just happens to be passionate about D&D. I'd love to take it further, but my personal knowledge and resources are road blocks that aren't so easily circumvented. My only in-line on that road is through a friend of mine that just happens to be brother's with the creator of British Vs. Pirates, a strategy board game that was successfully funded through Kickstarter. Eventually when everything has been completed to the point where I'm satisfied with it (basically once I've finished doing write-ups for the other 40 or so countries/regions that still don't have dedicated content posts) I'll start looking into the rest of it, but for the time being I'm just enjoying getting to create content for the game that I love and having a chance to share it with like-minded people. Everything beyond that is just icing on the cake.

-VLB-

There’s a starman waiting in the sky 💫

Commission piece from instagram. This is Caelum the Sternling. He’s a glamour bard.

You can check out Sternlings on my DMguild here (its 100% free!)

For a long time I’ve had this idea of putting together a Heavy Metal inspired Nordic campaign for my home game. The notes scribbled down a long time ago, hiding between piles of notebooks filled with random ideas. When I recently reached a set amount of subscribers on my Patreon, and the attached goal of putting together a small campaign booklet, I decided to go back to that idea and finally put it to paper.

After visiting the town of Slumberhaven, the players will find themselves on a quest headed for a snowy outpost and the dungeon hiding underneath. Like most of the battlemaps I create, I wanted to make sure the players would have multiple approaches to securing the outpost. They can take the direct approach, or try and sneak into the camp unseen by crawling underneath the main building in the North of the camp. They could also just circumvent the entire camp by following the river into a cave that leads directly to the dungeon underneath. If things go awry during combat in the camp they also have the opportunity to just drop down the water well, dropping into the dungeon below.

Like I’ve mentioned before I am putting this entire campaign module to paper and as soon as it is finished I am thinking of uploading it to some place like drivethrurpg or the dmguild for PWYW/free, if people are interested.

For all the high resolutions of my maps visit my Patreon