Quote from theologyofbagels >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Question For The Day, in Sposta's stead:

What do you always make sure to have on hand for a game of D&D, outside of essentials like character sheets or dice?  Any special props or tokens, good luck charms?  Or conversely, what do you do your best to make sure never shows its face at your table when it's time to play.  Digital-only folks too - what do you keep with you, and what do you make sure to banish before playtime?

Online DM, here. My must-haves are a glass of water, physical dice (which must be tested before the game starts so I know which ones will betray me later), notes for my session that I inevitably forget to look at, and browser tabs with music selections and stat blocks I might need.

The only thing I banish is my spouse, who has an uncanny habit of making a ton of noise right when I'm trying to narrate something important, lol.

Is your spouse from another plane? If so, banishment will probably only help for a minute... I usually recommend demiplane for spousal disappearance.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

What do you always make sure to have on hand for a game of D&D, outside of essentials like character sheets or dice?  Any special props or tokens, good luck charms?  Or conversely, what do you do your best to make sure never shows its face at your table when it's time to play.  Digital-only folks too - what do you keep with you, and what do you make sure to banish before playtime?

When I used to DM in person (pre-pandemic)...

My "Work Game" - we'd all chip in for food (usually some form of fast food) - and have one of us go fetch it. That was pretty much it. Early on, one of my players brought in was remote - and all I needed was her voice. So, no need for camera or anything. Was using D&D Beyond + Beyond20, so no need for physical dice for her as it would roll directly into my Discord server. Worked out great. Then when the pandemic hit - we all played remote, and all went that route - D&D Beyond + Beyond20. Never needed cameras on. Way I see it, I have to worry enough about juggling things on the browser, my notes, and everything else. I absolutely 100% trust my players to respect my time and energy, as well as those playing; that they will be no $%$%ry going on. (Also not everyone has a web cam of any kind, myself included, so I am certainly not going to expect my players to turn on their cameras).

Since the pandemic, the only thing I require is my notebook. Each campaign has their own notebook, and when it gets filled (notes and all that) - I tape them together to the other full note books (so far, there's like six full) so I have this massive memory bank of scribbled notes (just for nostalgia) because all of my notes are put on the website I have for the game that has history, notes, an entire section for NPCs (where those NPCs are, brief backgrounds for those NPCs, etc).

It was a few sessions into the pandemic that one of the players recommended recording audio, which everyone was cool with - and it's been amazing, because I used the audio to write up the notes - but I also take hilarious segments and post them to our Discord server for laughs. With their approval granted already, I will eventually cut and splice out any personal stuff, and post the audio into videos on Youtube for laughs.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Question For The Day, in Sposta's stead:

What do you always make sure to have on hand for a game of D&D, outside of essentials like character sheets or dice?  Any special props or tokens, good luck charms?  Or conversely, what do you do your best to make sure never shows its face at your table when it's time to play.  Digital-only folks too - what do you keep with you, and what do you make sure to banish before playtime?

 Gotta have my coffee and my water. I do not function without.

Also, this beat up cheap, crappy notebook that I picked up from...somewhere? I don't even know where. This thing is straight garbage. But I have apparently decided that I will be using this piece of crap for writing down names and places and important info, so I keep using it. I have actually good notebooks at home. NOPE! I'll keep using this ratty thing.

I also have this little figure of an Orc that I bring. The first mini that I have ever painted, actually. Originally, he was going to be the mini for my half orc character, but we ended up finding a better option. I just left my orc next to my dice, and I rolled like a God. Now I bring him simply to intimidate my dice into coming up with good numbers.

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Question For The Day, in Sposta's stead:

What do you always make sure to have on hand for a game of D&D, outside of essentials like character sheets or dice?  Any special props or tokens, good luck charms?  Or conversely, what do you do your best to make sure never shows its face at your table when it's time to play.  Digital-only folks too - what do you keep with you, and what do you make sure to banish before playtime?

 Nothing unusual tbh. I always have the standard pencils, dice, scraps of paper for notes, books, DM screen, and minis/tokens.

Nothing in particular is "banished" per se, but I always keep any food I'm eating far from the table, and this is gonna sound weird but I always keep my hands clean so I don't get anything on my dice or books. I think I said this before lol.

I ******* hate Adobe Acrobat.

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from theologyofbagels >>

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

Question For The Day, in Sposta's stead:

What do you always make sure to have on hand for a game of D&D, outside of essentials like character sheets or dice?  Any special props or tokens, good luck charms?  Or conversely, what do you do your best to make sure never shows its face at your table when it's time to play.  Digital-only folks too - what do you keep with you, and what do you make sure to banish before playtime?

Online DM, here. My must-haves are a glass of water, physical dice (which must be tested before the game starts so I know which ones will betray me later), notes for my session that I inevitably forget to look at, and browser tabs with music selections and stat blocks I might need.

The only thing I banish is my spouse, who has an uncanny habit of making a ton of noise right when I'm trying to narrate something important, lol.

Is your spouse from another plane? If so, banishment will probably only help for a minute... I usually recommend demiplane for spousal disappearance.

Not sure how many years you need to be married before you have access to Demiplane, but when I get there, I'll be sure to take that spell! Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion might be a suitable alternative, though...

Quote from IamSposta >>

I ******* hate Adobe Acrobat.

 It is, perhaps, a greater curse on my life than all of Microsoft's products put together.

I am creating my materials for my game to work with Amazon's Kindle, but because not everyone has or can afford kindle unlimited, I also have to make it available as a pdf.  It is being laid out to work perfectly for a tablet, and the damn acrobat format still forces a vertical scroll. It is offensive.

But, I commiserate in my digression.

Quote from IamSposta >>

I ******* hate Adobe Acrobat.

Part of me wants to believe this was apropos of absolutely nothing.  

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

I ******* hate Adobe Acrobat.

 It is, perhaps, a greater curse on my life than all of Microsoft's products put together.

I am creating my materials for my game to work with Amazon's Kindle, but because not everyone has or can afford kindle unlimited, I also have to make it available as a pdf.  It is being laid out to work perfectly for a tablet, and the damn acrobat format still forces a vertical scroll. It is offensive.

But, I commiserate in my digression.

 
I can make InDesign do anything I want it to do, but as soon as I have to take my PDF into Acrobat to finalize things I’m ready to pull my Goddamned hair outta my skull. 🙄

Quote from theologyofbagels >>

Quote from IamSposta >>

I ******* hate Adobe Acrobat.

Part of me wants to believe this was apropos of absolutely nothing.  

 
Nothing anyone here wrote at any rate. I’m working on a PDF to publish on DM’s Guild and Acrobat is giving me grief.

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

Quote from IamSposta >>

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

 Sometimes, when i see many playtest of the homebrew i use

Quote from IamSposta >>

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

 I mostly run RAW, but I allow homebrew if I've had a good look at it and deem it balanced. And even then, we're under the agreement that I hold the right to ask the player to change it or choose a different option, if it turns out to be broken.

Overall, yes I use homebrew, because I don't want to limit my players' options, and because there's a bunch of cool, creative stuff out there to use. I can't imagine running a game that outright bans homebrew.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

Only constantly

Current party of five people I'm DMing for has three homebrew species, although they're just variations of existing options, and three fully new homebrew subclasses

Quote from IamSposta >>

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

 
I’ll allow it if it passes my (fairly liberal) vetting process. Usually that involves asking folks who homebrewed to explain the homebrew abilities and what their power level basis was as compared to existing content.  Hasn’t really caused a problem yet.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

To homebrew, that i might face the questions and acknowledge...

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.

I homebrew my own magic items, feats and spells as-needed. I don't allow homebrew races or classes, and I also don't allow UA. As for why, it's twofold: I find there's sufficient variety in vetted, official sources, and most homebrew stuff I come across is really not my speed. 

Part Two: 

Now, I mentioned what *I* do, however that is all using my own stuff for my campaign. But what about *other people's homebrew?* (gasp)

*wiggles hand side to side* Maybe? Sometimes?

I have allowed a lot of backgrounds, maybe three or four feats, a class or subclass once in a while after some really deep examining, but really, for the most part, I don't -- because the homebrew already done fills in a lot there and is done with the player's in mind.

I ran a game for years where anyone could come in and play their character as written, and about a quarter of all the folks who played more than three sessions started off with some kind of massively min-maxed, overpowered character, and I kinda got really over that.

I don't mind when people min max, and odds are good I will grant someone use of a homebrew if it is really just a variant that picks and chooses a couple things from other subclasses, but by and large, nah.

and if I do, I build it into the world these days.

do I use stuff from here? Mostly backgrounds.  that's about it. And when I run my next campaign using DDB, it will be one that probably makes use of some of the variants for other things.

Someone wanting to bring homebrew character options including spells into a game I'm running requires my review.  There's a lot of good non official content, and there's also a lot of not good non official content.

In the games I run I have vetted homebrew and third party options available, the specifics vary from game to game.  Character options are identified at the start of the campaign or arrival of new characters.  Other systems, exploration, social, chases, crafting etc. are introduced in a sort of "let's try it this way this around" and after we play with it, we'll debrief and decide to either make "this is the way" for that particular aspect of the game or keep things open to try it differently in a future session.  We lean more toward playing a game as a vehicle for imagination, and less toward playing a game as a legal or ritual practice.   

Quote from IamSposta >>

Question for the day: To homebrew, or not to homebrew? Do you homebrew or use homebrewed races/species, subclasses, or even classes in your games and why?

Only thing I really homebrew is weapons/gifts.

For races and class, D&D already offers enough for me. The games I DM for, in all of them more than 50% are brand new to D&D.

When I first my games - it's a shared world (so what one group does can impact another) - so when I first started, the only races, classes and spells were what was in PHB even though I had the other stuff.

I made it basically a quest to unlock the magic in the world (it'd been contained into a sphere by a mad - as in crazy - ancient elf). And I placed said orb, far away from where players would be starting, so I knew they'd be doing a lot of things (and in general getting a feel for the game). When the game was about three years in, one group finally got to where the sphere was - did all the side quests I lined up (special hammer to shatter it and such) - and shattered it.

At that point, all the spells I had on D&D Beyond were officially available - and anyone could keep the same class - but they could then change the "path" (college, etc) that they took in that class and pick one of the "unlocked" ones explained as the magic from the sphere filling their minds with knowledge.

So everyone got to keep the same characters, same class, just got new spells then and new paths to take within that class.

Wow, that's a lot of rambling to explain I homebrew a ton of weapons, armor, gifts, specific to my world.

I also homebrew monsters. Quite a few of those.