I've always wanted to play in a gritty survivalist Dark Sun campaign with some kingdom building. You know, survive in the hostile desert, make every move and choice count towards you and your parties survival, built a settlement or something. Just to give me a goal that isn't so "protagonisty". I hate being a hero, I like being and adventurer where my decisions on what I do matter and I have consequences to my actions.
I haven't had a taste of Dark Sun since 4e, and likely never will again at this rate.
I’d love to play in a dark sun game that actually followed through with it being in Dark Sun. Every time I start one, my group quickly tires of tracking water down to the last drop, or figuring out if someone’s dagger breaks. It just ends up being a generic desert-like campaign.
My least favourite player as a DM: The player with Main Character Syndrome (monopolising the field and always wanting to be the centre of attention). These characters make the game less fun for everyone else, can’t really be fixed without awkward conversations, and, at least in my experience, tend to be extremely dull characters to begin with (I expect the same lack of empathy that prevents them from realising “oh, others are upset I am monopolising the time” prevents them from seeing the world from a perspective other than their own, so they just play a boring version of what they think they are).
I've only DM'ed for friends and have fortunately never had to deal with one of these from that perspective, but as another player... HARD same
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
By all the gods, of each edition, homebrewed or official, yes.
So, what campaigns are you currently in Sposta?
Figured I'd also jump in on this thread, great idea! Could really benefit from a nice distraction today.
I am currently DM'ing two campaigns at the moment, both of them are online. The first one is an Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden campaign with five active players. They just finished up the fifth chapter last night, and I have been weaving in a campaign sub-plot that will lead them to an ancient portal buried deep beneath the ruins of the Nethereese city of Ythryn and the Reghed Glacier. The portal will take them to my homebrewed world of Amachryon. I've been building in speculative subplots of each character's back stories that somehow ties each one of them to this rumored plane of existence of Amachryon throughout - some characters ancestry are tied to it by distant ancestors hailing from there, the wizard's former teacher disappeared after faking his own death to go and chase down artifacts in pursuit of verifying it's existence, etc. The secret behind all of these strange coincidental ties to Amachryon is that they are all being manipulated by a Demi-Lich that goes by the name of "The Hollow King" that was forever trapped in Amachryon and stripped of his connection to the gods and Faerun, manipulating them to access the portal and reignite the connection between the two planes. I'm working on the details around this, including his plan to get the party to kill the Auril the Frostmaiden as a means of securing his ascension.
The second campaign is a homebrew that I am running for my three friends, set in Amachryon from the beginning. We are not far into it - we started it up over the summer and then went on a hiatus for a couple of months, but are looking to start back up again this weekend. It should be an interesting campaign with some pretty chaotic characters (an Aarakocra Monk, an undead Dhampir Warlock vampire, and a Tiefling Cleric). I haven't fleshed out much for this yet, as I mainly wanted to put them in a starting town with some quests to explore and see how they play out their characters first. The only thing I've really worked into this so far is that the patron of the Dhampir is Straad, which will lead to some real fun role-play situations.
I'm newer to D&D (started playing in 2020) and have quickly shifted into fully DM'ing as I've really come to love it. But I am definitely still trying to learn, especially when it comes to Homebrewing worlds and campaigns (trial by fire, am I right?). If anyone has any tips or have run similar plot lines in their campaigns, I'd love to hear them!
2. From the player perspective, what is your favourite and least favourite type of other player trait to play with?
3. From the player perspective, what is your favourite and least favourite DM trait?
Can only speak to these two questions, and I don't really have all that much experience to draw on, but:
2. Favorite other player: one who engages mine in roleplay and pays attention to my character's goals and development. It's always best when our stories intertwine the most. Least favorite: one who forces in a backstory trauma bomb that nobody (including the DM) was prepared for. Also a player that doesn't engage when they're not in the spotlight (can you tell I'm talking about the same player?).
3. Favorite DM trait: making the world, especially the NPCs, feel like it's living, moving, and changing along with us. You know it's a good sign when all the party talks about between sessions is how much they want to talk to the NPCs again or what the ramifications of our most drastic actions might be. Least favorite DM trait: relishing harming the party too much. This hasn't been a major problem in my experience, but I have occasionally gotten annoyed by a DM gloating in their damage roll while I wait for them to tell me the damn number already.
My gf and I are big fans of Naruto, so at some point I want to run a D&D campaign set in that universe. Since the majority of "ninjas" in that show are basically wizards to begin with, I feel like some reflavoring and small rules changes would be enough for things to fit without much issue. Here are some of my thoughts so far on how to piece the two properties together, let me know if you have other suggestions.
1) Remove the requirement for material components when spellcasting (unless it has a cost or is consumed). Most "ninjutsu" and "genjutsu" within the show could be replicated with spellcasting / pact magic, so just need to remove the need for holding a wand or staff.
2) Everyone is flavored as being human, and your chosen race's traits represent your "clan's" special training / techniques
3) No one gets darkvision from their chosen race, but everyone gets Spider Climb or something similar to the Monk's unarmored movement improvement after a certain level (probably 3rd or 5th) to reflect their ability to run up the sides of trees and across water.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
My gf and I are big fans of Naruto, so at some point I want to run a D&D campaign set in that universe. Since the majority of "ninjas" in that show are basically wizards to begin with, I feel like some reflavoring and small rules changes would be enough for things to fit without much issue. Here are some of my thoughts so far on how to piece the two properties together, let me know if you have other suggestions.
1) Remove the requirement for material components when spellcasting (unless it has a cost or is consumed). Most "ninjutsu" and "genjutsu" within the show could be replicated with spellcasting / pact magic, so just need to remove the need for holding a wand or staff.
2) Everyone is flavored as being human, and your chosen race's traits represent your "clan's" special training / techniques
3) No one gets darkvision from their chosen race, but everyone gets Spider Climb or something similar to the Monk's unarmored movement improvement after a certain level (probably 3rd or 5th) to reflect their ability to run up the sides of trees and across water.
I would play the crap out of a campaign like this.
I like the character creation adjustments and reflavoring and feel they fit. Might be worth thinking what the different tiers of play equate to in ninja ranks, too. Is a genin a level 1 character? If so, maybe they don't get Spider Climb until level 3, since they can't do that right out of the Academy. I can see the 4 tiers of D&D play being roughly similar to the genin, chunin, jonin, and jinchuriki/kage rank scaling.
I've been on the hunt for a legitimate Kakashi build for ages and nothing really seems to capture him in 5e without significant homebrew. Ninja feel like they should be monk mains with more magic. Also, all Sharingan abilities are hilariously OP even in the Narutoverse, so that might take some care if you want to introduce them.
My gf and I are big fans of Naruto, so at some point I want to run a D&D campaign set in that universe. Since the majority of "ninjas" in that show are basically wizards to begin with, I feel like some reflavoring and small rules changes would be enough for things to fit without much issue. Here are some of my thoughts so far on how to piece the two properties together, let me know if you have other suggestions.
1) Remove the requirement for material components when spellcasting (unless it has a cost or is consumed). Most "ninjutsu" and "genjutsu" within the show could be replicated with spellcasting / pact magic, so just need to remove the need for holding a wand or staff.
2) Everyone is flavored as being human, and your chosen race's traits represent your "clan's" special training / techniques
3) No one gets darkvision from their chosen race, but everyone gets Spider Climb or something similar to the Monk's unarmored movement improvement after a certain level (probably 3rd or 5th) to reflect their ability to run up the sides of trees and across water.
I would play the crap out of a campaign like this.
I like the character creation adjustments and reflavoring and feel they fit. Might be worth thinking what the different tiers of play equate to in ninja ranks, too. Is a genin a level 1 character? If so, maybe they don't get Spider Climb until level 3, since they can't do that right out of the Academy. I can see the 4 tiers of D&D play being roughly similar to the genin, chunin, jonin, and jinchuriki/kage rank scaling.
I've been on the hunt for a legitimate Kakashi build for ages and nothing really seems to capture him in 5e without significant homebrew. Ninja feel like they should be monk mains with more magic. Also, all Sharingan abilities are hilariously OP even in the Narutoverse, so that might take some care if you want to introduce them.
My working plan for the campaign is to have it run parallel to the events of the series, so levels 1-4 would likely be academy -> early genin, 5-10 would be late genin -> chunin exams -> early chunin, 11-16 would basically be shippuden up to the 4th Great Ninja War, and then 17-20 would be the players being active participants in the 4th Great Ninja War.
My plan also is to use a location separate from the hidden leaf. Im thinking maybe some smaller collection of ninja clans that lives in the Land of Fire's political capital as servants to the daimyo, so that it can be Hidden Leaf-adjacent without having to worry about messy continuity stuff every session, lol. In the same way, I can also make super visual powers like the sharingan or byakugan be inaccessible since none of the players would be members of either clan. That being said, if a player wanted to develop a unique visual power utilizing the D&D tools (or some light homebrew) Id be game for that.
Gonna be lots of fun coming up with story threads that play into the original story or reference it without offering too much wiggle room for changing the outcome.
For Kakashi, it definitely would be hard to pull off, but I am seeing something like Arcane Trickster Rogue. Could get the shocking grasp cantrip for lightning blade, find familiar for the occasional dog summons, and at super high levels they get Spell Thief, which is honestly about the closest thing I can think of to his ability to rapidly copy jutsu.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Hey all, what campaigns have you always wanted to play in but haven’t had the chance to yet?
I always wanted to run a campaign in the MTG multiverse, where the party is a team of planeswalkers just going on wacky fun adventures. I think it would be fun to run solo campaigns up until the get their spark, which is when they meet each other.
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
As a DM, I like to think I encourage players to go wild. My players mostly stay within RAW, though, which is honestly kind of disappointing. Still, we're all having fun, and if they want to stay within the bounds of the system, that's up to them.
I don't play as a player as often, but I usually try to mentally detach the system from my character's actions, e.g. if I want to grapple a bandit, I'll simply tell the DM and let them decide how to adjudicate it first. If they don't know how, I'll mention the RAW rule. I might occasionally ask the DM if I can use a spell in a unique way that isn't covered by the rules.
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
As a DM if I know RAW I stick to it, but if I feel like it isn't covered by the rules or it's ambiguous or I just don't know the rules on it I ROC rather then looking it up. Within reason atleast.
As a player I think it's similar. I generally try to work within the rules, though I will occasionally stretch them, especially if there's something that seems physically reasonable. Once when I was playing in college I grappled a young dragons wings specifically, even though there aren't really systems for grappling specific areas if a creature, to my knowledge atleast.
To go on a tangent about that fight, I was trying to grapple the dragon because we had shoved it off a ledge, which obviously does very little to a dragon, and so I jumped on its back and tried to stop it from flying. Both fortunately and unfortunately for me, it was flying above a 500 foot drop. So I grappled it all the way down into the ground killing both of us but successfully ending a boss fight in I want to say less then 5 rounds. Honestly it was one of the highlights of my DND 'career' for lack of a better word.
To go on a tangent about that fight, I was trying to grapple the dragon because we had shoved it off a ledge, which obviously does very little to a dragon, and so I jumped on its back and tried to stop it from flying. Both fortunately and unfortunately for me, it was flying above a 500 foot drop. So I grappled it all the way down into the ground killing both of us but successfully ending a boss fight in I want to say less then 5 rounds. Honestly it was one of the highlights of my DND 'career' for lack of a better word.
That sounds awesome. It reminds me of when I was running Dragon of Icespire Peak for my sibling and a friend. Spoilers for the module ahead.
Sibling was playing as a huge, buff, human fighter, friend was playing a 14-year old human sorcerer.
They were fighting Gorthok the Thunder Boar, the weather was wild. Thunder crashing every few seconds, rain and wind lashing at the character's faces. The two of them ended up killing the spirit by having my sibling climb onto its back, making their way to its head, and jamming an immovable rod into the boar's nose, clicking the button, while the sorcerer blasted it with evocation spells.
Edit: just realised that "killing the spirit" sounds like the players made the game unfun. What I meant was that the players actually killed the spirit, as in the spirit Gorthok the Thunder Boar
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
I think I fall somewhere in between, leaning closer toward RAW - RAW as a general stance, but there are a few areas where RAW might negatively impact gameplay or the players are so clearly excited about a course of action that “okay, yeah, I get you really want to do that, but the rules” seems like a bad argument (though that doesn’t mean they will succeed - it just means I might hide the RAW outcome in the narrative of their failure).
I think the important thing is to be fair and mostly consistent in application of wherever rules are applied—while also knowing that, maybe every once in a while, players just want to throw caution, the rules, and their dice to the wind and see what might happen.
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
I'm in-between (as a DM). I want my players to experiment with what they can do or try to do, and I try to be open to that. But I do try to steer the goals towards a normal rule in implementation for balances sake. One of my players, for example is roleplaying his PC as a in-universe version of a WWE wrestler, so I wind up using snippits of the grapple /shove/ pin rules for the various maneuvers he wants to do, even if the end result is not a grapple, shove, or pin.
I'm a RAW or die kind of DM, but I always make sure that RAI is the primary motivator to some things (for example, casting Fly while falling could mean you take falling damage etc). But I dislike any and all houserules, though I do adjudicate anything and everything my players try. Once upon a time I used to forbid actions that aren't RAW, but those dark days are behind me.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
When I DM, verisimilitude and immersion/investment is my objective. "Rule of Cool", in terms of anime sitcom hijinx, are pretty rare in my games and in my table's games in general. We get there occasionally, but it's an occasional thing when a situation is just too keen to let pass. I tend to think of it as "earn your Rule of Cool." If you want to do something awesome that's actually within the bounds of the world we're playing in and something you could plausibly accomplish? I'll bend RAW however I need to in order to give you the chance to try. If you want to go Supah Saiyan and Saitama-punch a nasty enemy into Vermont - actual Vermont, not D&D Vermont - I'm gonna give you the squinty eyes and because I'm a DM that likes to be kind to my players when I can, I will state "as an inhabitant of this world, you know that sort of magic is beyond the most powerful and storied of legendary warriors, let alone yourself. if you try, you WILL fail. Do you still want to try?" If they say yes, then I narrate the failure without calling on dice. No "roll a 20 to cast Minor Wish" rolls at my table.
Which also sums up my stance as a player - I strive to stay within the reasonable bounds of the world I'm playing in and enhance verisimilitude, immersion, and investment for everybody else. I want the cool shit to be cool because it's a clever or unlikely application of the game's reality, not because I Powerup Yelled into the mic until the DM let me have it to shut me up.
One of my favorite examples came from this forum, actually - a party was facing archers on a ledge with no ranged weapons of their own, and three players had shields. They asked the DM if they could form a shield wall to protect themselves and their vulnerable shieldless caster as they tried to march on the archers. As a DM, I would'a been all in on that shit. "**** yeah you can, that's awesome; your initiative drops to the lowest roll amongst the three of you, and when that turn comes up in init you can move as a unit and act simultaneously. Anyone directly behind your shieldwall, in the space five feet behind you guys, gets three-quarters cover, and so long as you're moving in the shieldwall I'll give you guys in the front half cover as well since you're all protecting each other with your shields."
Had they asked "can I throw my shield a hundred feet to try and crush the lead archer's throat and scare the rest into surrender?" my response would've been markedly different and decidedly less enthusiastic.
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
I'm 95% RAW, because if you RoC it hard, then nothing means anything. It's just a constant stream of middle school fan fiction where you occasionally happen to roll dice. Every success is really just a overdramatic participation award. That said, especially in 5E, RAW is pretty open ended & leaves a decent amount of rulings largely or completely up to the GM. And you can always do something RAW while describing it in a dramatic, action packed way. Nothing wrong with making a cinematic monologue of how you sprint around, dodging arrows fired by minions, jumping over things, sliding under other things, perform a martial arts maneuver, deliver a catch phrase, and feint dodge parry riposte when you fight the BBEG, instead of saying "I move 20' forward and attack with my sword."
Just a little bit of cross-thread promotion, but if anyone is interested in looking at homebrew that is being designed by members of the community in a friendly contest as a way to spend time on D&D Beyond, I would like to direct your attention to the Competition of the Finest Brews, which has been running for a little over a year and half now in the Homebrew and Houserule Forum.
Submitting or reviewing stuff for the competition could be another way to get away from the OGL drama on the General Discussion page
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I LOVE Dank Sun.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I’ve always wanted to play in a “points of light” campaign, but have never had the chance.
I’d love to play in a dark sun game that actually followed through with it being in Dark Sun. Every time I start one, my group quickly tires of tracking water down to the last drop, or figuring out if someone’s dagger breaks. It just ends up being a generic desert-like campaign.
I've only DM'ed for friends and have fortunately never had to deal with one of these from that perspective, but as another player... HARD same
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Figured I'd also jump in on this thread, great idea! Could really benefit from a nice distraction today.
I am currently DM'ing two campaigns at the moment, both of them are online. The first one is an Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frost Maiden campaign with five active players. They just finished up the fifth chapter last night, and I have been weaving in a campaign sub-plot that will lead them to an ancient portal buried deep beneath the ruins of the Nethereese city of Ythryn and the Reghed Glacier. The portal will take them to my homebrewed world of Amachryon. I've been building in speculative subplots of each character's back stories that somehow ties each one of them to this rumored plane of existence of Amachryon throughout - some characters ancestry are tied to it by distant ancestors hailing from there, the wizard's former teacher disappeared after faking his own death to go and chase down artifacts in pursuit of verifying it's existence, etc. The secret behind all of these strange coincidental ties to Amachryon is that they are all being manipulated by a Demi-Lich that goes by the name of "The Hollow King" that was forever trapped in Amachryon and stripped of his connection to the gods and Faerun, manipulating them to access the portal and reignite the connection between the two planes. I'm working on the details around this, including his plan to get the party to kill the Auril the Frostmaiden as a means of securing his ascension.
The second campaign is a homebrew that I am running for my three friends, set in Amachryon from the beginning. We are not far into it - we started it up over the summer and then went on a hiatus for a couple of months, but are looking to start back up again this weekend. It should be an interesting campaign with some pretty chaotic characters (an Aarakocra Monk, an undead Dhampir Warlock vampire, and a Tiefling Cleric). I haven't fleshed out much for this yet, as I mainly wanted to put them in a starting town with some quests to explore and see how they play out their characters first. The only thing I've really worked into this so far is that the patron of the Dhampir is Straad, which will lead to some real fun role-play situations.
I'm newer to D&D (started playing in 2020) and have quickly shifted into fully DM'ing as I've really come to love it. But I am definitely still trying to learn, especially when it comes to Homebrewing worlds and campaigns (trial by fire, am I right?). If anyone has any tips or have run similar plot lines in their campaigns, I'd love to hear them!
Can only speak to these two questions, and I don't really have all that much experience to draw on, but:
2. Favorite other player: one who engages mine in roleplay and pays attention to my character's goals and development. It's always best when our stories intertwine the most. Least favorite: one who forces in a backstory trauma bomb that nobody (including the DM) was prepared for. Also a player that doesn't engage when they're not in the spotlight (can you tell I'm talking about the same player?).
3. Favorite DM trait: making the world, especially the NPCs, feel like it's living, moving, and changing along with us. You know it's a good sign when all the party talks about between sessions is how much they want to talk to the NPCs again or what the ramifications of our most drastic actions might be. Least favorite DM trait: relishing harming the party too much. This hasn't been a major problem in my experience, but I have occasionally gotten annoyed by a DM gloating in their damage roll while I wait for them to tell me the damn number already.
My gf and I are big fans of Naruto, so at some point I want to run a D&D campaign set in that universe. Since the majority of "ninjas" in that show are basically wizards to begin with, I feel like some reflavoring and small rules changes would be enough for things to fit without much issue. Here are some of my thoughts so far on how to piece the two properties together, let me know if you have other suggestions.
1) Remove the requirement for material components when spellcasting (unless it has a cost or is consumed). Most "ninjutsu" and "genjutsu" within the show could be replicated with spellcasting / pact magic, so just need to remove the need for holding a wand or staff.
2) Everyone is flavored as being human, and your chosen race's traits represent your "clan's" special training / techniques
3) No one gets darkvision from their chosen race, but everyone gets Spider Climb or something similar to the Monk's unarmored movement improvement after a certain level (probably 3rd or 5th) to reflect their ability to run up the sides of trees and across water.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I would play the crap out of a campaign like this.
I like the character creation adjustments and reflavoring and feel they fit. Might be worth thinking what the different tiers of play equate to in ninja ranks, too. Is a genin a level 1 character? If so, maybe they don't get Spider Climb until level 3, since they can't do that right out of the Academy. I can see the 4 tiers of D&D play being roughly similar to the genin, chunin, jonin, and jinchuriki/kage rank scaling.
I've been on the hunt for a legitimate Kakashi build for ages and nothing really seems to capture him in 5e without significant homebrew. Ninja feel like they should be monk mains with more magic. Also, all Sharingan abilities are hilariously OP even in the Narutoverse, so that might take some care if you want to introduce them.
My working plan for the campaign is to have it run parallel to the events of the series, so levels 1-4 would likely be academy -> early genin, 5-10 would be late genin -> chunin exams -> early chunin, 11-16 would basically be shippuden up to the 4th Great Ninja War, and then 17-20 would be the players being active participants in the 4th Great Ninja War.
My plan also is to use a location separate from the hidden leaf. Im thinking maybe some smaller collection of ninja clans that lives in the Land of Fire's political capital as servants to the daimyo, so that it can be Hidden Leaf-adjacent without having to worry about messy continuity stuff every session, lol. In the same way, I can also make super visual powers like the sharingan or byakugan be inaccessible since none of the players would be members of either clan. That being said, if a player wanted to develop a unique visual power utilizing the D&D tools (or some light homebrew) Id be game for that.
Gonna be lots of fun coming up with story threads that play into the original story or reference it without offering too much wiggle room for changing the outcome.
For Kakashi, it definitely would be hard to pull off, but I am seeing something like Arcane Trickster Rogue. Could get the shocking grasp cantrip for lightning blade, find familiar for the occasional dog summons, and at super high levels they get Spell Thief, which is honestly about the closest thing I can think of to his ability to rapidly copy jutsu.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Conversation starter for the day: As a DM, where do you fall on the RAW to ROC (Rule of Cool scale?) And as a player, how likely/how often to do try to nudge your DM toward the ROC end of that scale?
I'm asking because I realized the other day that the party I DM for kind of styles themselves as a chaos crew, but they rarely try to push the envelope on, say, a spell effect -- it's mostly narrative chaos, not rules chaos. And I greatly appreciate that
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I always wanted to run a campaign in the MTG multiverse, where the party is a team of planeswalkers just going on wacky fun adventures. I think it would be fun to run solo campaigns up until the get their spark, which is when they meet each other.
As a DM, I like to think I encourage players to go wild. My players mostly stay within RAW, though, which is honestly kind of disappointing. Still, we're all having fun, and if they want to stay within the bounds of the system, that's up to them.
I don't play as a player as often, but I usually try to mentally detach the system from my character's actions, e.g. if I want to grapple a bandit, I'll simply tell the DM and let them decide how to adjudicate it first. If they don't know how, I'll mention the RAW rule. I might occasionally ask the DM if I can use a spell in a unique way that isn't covered by the rules.
[REDACTED]
As a DM if I know RAW I stick to it, but if I feel like it isn't covered by the rules or it's ambiguous or I just don't know the rules on it I ROC rather then looking it up. Within reason atleast.
As a player I think it's similar. I generally try to work within the rules, though I will occasionally stretch them, especially if there's something that seems physically reasonable. Once when I was playing in college I grappled a young dragons wings specifically, even though there aren't really systems for grappling specific areas if a creature, to my knowledge atleast.
To go on a tangent about that fight, I was trying to grapple the dragon because we had shoved it off a ledge, which obviously does very little to a dragon, and so I jumped on its back and tried to stop it from flying. Both fortunately and unfortunately for me, it was flying above a 500 foot drop. So I grappled it all the way down into the ground killing both of us but successfully ending a boss fight in I want to say less then 5 rounds. Honestly it was one of the highlights of my DND 'career' for lack of a better word.
That sounds awesome. It reminds me of when I was running Dragon of Icespire Peak for my sibling and a friend. Spoilers for the module ahead.
Sibling was playing as a huge, buff, human fighter, friend was playing a 14-year old human sorcerer.
They were fighting Gorthok the Thunder Boar, the weather was wild. Thunder crashing every few seconds, rain and wind lashing at the character's faces. The two of them ended up killing the spirit by having my sibling climb onto its back, making their way to its head, and jamming an immovable rod into the boar's nose, clicking the button, while the sorcerer blasted it with evocation spells.
Edit: just realised that "killing the spirit" sounds like the players made the game unfun. What I meant was that the players actually killed the spirit, as in the spirit Gorthok the Thunder Boar
[REDACTED]
I think I fall somewhere in between, leaning closer toward RAW - RAW as a general stance, but there are a few areas where RAW might negatively impact gameplay or the players are so clearly excited about a course of action that “okay, yeah, I get you really want to do that, but the rules” seems like a bad argument (though that doesn’t mean they will succeed - it just means I might hide the RAW outcome in the narrative of their failure).
I think the important thing is to be fair and mostly consistent in application of wherever rules are applied—while also knowing that, maybe every once in a while, players just want to throw caution, the rules, and their dice to the wind and see what might happen.
I
I'm in-between (as a DM). I want my players to experiment with what they can do or try to do, and I try to be open to that. But I do try to steer the goals towards a normal rule in implementation for balances sake. One of my players, for example is roleplaying his PC as a in-universe version of a WWE wrestler, so I wind up using snippits of the grapple /shove/ pin rules for the various maneuvers he wants to do, even if the end result is not a grapple, shove, or pin.
I'm a RAW or die kind of DM, but I always make sure that RAI is the primary motivator to some things (for example, casting Fly while falling could mean you take falling damage etc). But I dislike any and all houserules, though I do adjudicate anything and everything my players try. Once upon a time I used to forbid actions that aren't RAW, but those dark days are behind me.
DM for life by choice, biggest fan of D&D specifically.
When I DM, verisimilitude and immersion/investment is my objective. "Rule of Cool", in terms of anime sitcom hijinx, are pretty rare in my games and in my table's games in general. We get there occasionally, but it's an occasional thing when a situation is just too keen to let pass. I tend to think of it as "earn your Rule of Cool." If you want to do something awesome that's actually within the bounds of the world we're playing in and something you could plausibly accomplish? I'll bend RAW however I need to in order to give you the chance to try. If you want to go Supah Saiyan and Saitama-punch a nasty enemy into Vermont - actual Vermont, not D&D Vermont - I'm gonna give you the squinty eyes and because I'm a DM that likes to be kind to my players when I can, I will state "as an inhabitant of this world, you know that sort of magic is beyond the most powerful and storied of legendary warriors, let alone yourself. if you try, you WILL fail. Do you still want to try?" If they say yes, then I narrate the failure without calling on dice. No "roll a 20 to cast Minor Wish" rolls at my table.
Which also sums up my stance as a player - I strive to stay within the reasonable bounds of the world I'm playing in and enhance verisimilitude, immersion, and investment for everybody else. I want the cool shit to be cool because it's a clever or unlikely application of the game's reality, not because I Powerup Yelled into the mic until the DM let me have it to shut me up.
One of my favorite examples came from this forum, actually - a party was facing archers on a ledge with no ranged weapons of their own, and three players had shields. They asked the DM if they could form a shield wall to protect themselves and their vulnerable shieldless caster as they tried to march on the archers. As a DM, I would'a been all in on that shit. "**** yeah you can, that's awesome; your initiative drops to the lowest roll amongst the three of you, and when that turn comes up in init you can move as a unit and act simultaneously. Anyone directly behind your shieldwall, in the space five feet behind you guys, gets three-quarters cover, and so long as you're moving in the shieldwall I'll give you guys in the front half cover as well since you're all protecting each other with your shields."
Had they asked "can I throw my shield a hundred feet to try and crush the lead archer's throat and scare the rest into surrender?" my response would've been markedly different and decidedly less enthusiastic.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm 95% RAW, because if you RoC it hard, then nothing means anything. It's just a constant stream of middle school fan fiction where you occasionally happen to roll dice. Every success is really just a overdramatic participation award. That said, especially in 5E, RAW is pretty open ended & leaves a decent amount of rulings largely or completely up to the GM. And you can always do something RAW while describing it in a dramatic, action packed way. Nothing wrong with making a cinematic monologue of how you sprint around, dodging arrows fired by minions, jumping over things, sliding under other things, perform a martial arts maneuver, deliver a catch phrase, and feint dodge parry riposte when you fight the BBEG, instead of saying "I move 20' forward and attack with my sword."
Just a little bit of cross-thread promotion, but if anyone is interested in looking at homebrew that is being designed by members of the community in a friendly contest as a way to spend time on D&D Beyond, I would like to direct your attention to the Competition of the Finest Brews, which has been running for a little over a year and half now in the Homebrew and Houserule Forum.
Submitting or reviewing stuff for the competition could be another way to get away from the OGL drama on the General Discussion page
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!