Modern literature actually narrates the flaws of the characters.
The old literature lets you discover them on your own through the story.
That is what I meant by "pointed out". Not that they were not there they were just left to the reader to discover to notice without help.
I think you are confusing writing for literature. For the most part, anyone who is explicitly narrating “but Bob is evil” is just writing a book—they are not creating literature. If you look at modern literature, you’ll see plenty of the “telling without telling” that you attribute to the past.
Which isn’t to say you can’t have “Bob is evil” in actual literature. That kind of overt statement can be done well such as in…. Almost all Greek plays where the Chorus specifically will give information like that.
And it still is probably worth noting the comparison of all of modern writing against historical literature is not a fair one. . After all, often only the best of the best gets passed down through the generations. We get plenty of Marlow and Shakespeare, we don’t have as many of the crappy, short-run morality plays that also would have been shown at the Globe.
Its a bit like looking a vein of gold and a lump of gold, both the same weight, and saying that there is more gold in the lump simply because it stands alone rather than being surrounded by rock.
The old literature lets you discover them on your own through the story.
Iago has multiple monologues explaining in detail which flaws of the other characters in Othello he plans to exploit
What the heck are you even talking about?
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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)
Good old fashioned gatekeeping was better than the shoddy attempts of so-called snobs today.
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
I think a great campaign does a bit of both - you have some kind of threat you are trying to stop from changing the world, which, in turn, reveals some of the problems of the world itself that the party must also fix. Can lead to so great moments of trying to figure out relative threat analysis and what needs to be prioritised.
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
It's true that it's much easier to stop some bad thing (or series of bad things). But I've done a few "post bad things, good things" - for example, I had this epic story of Dwarves vs Drow in my main campaign - and post, after the party helped the dwarves win. A statue of the heroes was placed. About 20 sessions later, the party had to return to the dwarves for something - and there was a whole campaign just celebrating the heroes again.
Question: Has anyone ever made a mashup game to incorporate elements of other games into their D&D?
I think the closest I got (if I understand the question) is Star Frontiers. In Star Frontiers there's a monster known as a Sand Shark. But it doesn't live in water - it's not that kind of sand shark. Rather it swims through the sand. I have always loved this monster - and my main campaign was in the desert. So I basically took the Star FrontiersSand Shark and imported into a homebrew monster for my campaign - that has terrorized the party. A fun side note - is that during a fight with sand giants (Oh, I guess there's something else I imported technically - I created Sand Giants based off of EverQuest) - it drew the attention of sand sharks, since they can smell blood in the sand - and as it was devouring one of the sand giants, one of my players remarked how big a sand shark's gullet must be. And we laughed how it's like the inside of the Doctor Who thing (phone booth?) - and at that moment, I said, "You know why bags of holding are so rare on this world? Because they require the gullet of a sand shark." And just like that, my party became very interesting in trying to kill a few sand sharks, despite how very perilous it was! Oh - see, the more I think about it - the more I remember - I also imported various characters from Darkstalkers - the party fought a mummy lord based off the character, in another game the party helped a triton based on one of the characters, another game they fought an undead bard based on the character...
I know I can keep going, now that I am sitting here mulling over my campaign world.
Good old fashioned gatekeeping was better than the shoddy attempts of so-called snobs today.
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
That will depend on three factors:
1 - What is the status quo. I set up a status quo in the new world that is precarious and involves a few adventures -- and the hope is that they will change them. In the current campaign, we are just doing a basic dungeon delve and town set up (the world falls off into the void about 30 miles out), and the status quo is pretty much the town just hopes the adventurers don't wreck the place even as they do.
2 - The Players. I complain about 5e being "too player centric" and all, but as a DM I take it as my first goal for them to have fun, to have adventures and enjoy it. Among my main groups, one is mostly younger (under 24 -- our kids and grandkids) and the other is mostly older (who have a heart that has been together for 40 plus years) along with spouses and friends. They mix and match frequently so it is a question of what will they do, and am I listening to them in the set up enough that I give them choices. Sidebar below.
3 - The vagaries of dice rolls. I always put if-thens into everything, and sometimes those if-thens happens even if the players don't take my desired route. I roll those.
So, my style of play these days is to come up with these wild, incredible adventures or these really bizarre underground lairs that defy sanity and yet have a secret way of operating and working. For me, on my side of the screen (the DM screen), the joy comes from letting them try and figure out the rationales of dungeons and the wonder of a new place. In the early 90's, I switched over to a wonder style effort, that looks more to "how cool is that" than "how dangerous is that" -- and after some of our collective experiences, we all enjoy it. WHich means that I make these amazing things for them to do and then set them up and sit back and let them decide what they will do. I give hooks, I give a set up, I get them together, but if they decide to hare out I will let them hare out and do nothing until they get bored and then give them another hook, or some bait, or wahtevah.
the new campaign includes storylines both for individual characters and the party as a whole. Full on, absolute Campbell theory for each of them and then a more complex one similar to Campbell's stuff that all of the others operate within and feed into as they reach their individual arcs and climax. Among the longer term storylines are defeating a demon, defying a Goddess, rescuing a princess and then later making sure she gets crowned, and essentially putting the world into a place where the War that is about to break out can happen.
For those that want them I have variations in the Campbell myth (and one of them is the actual princess' storyline), plus possible romance plots and more. There is a reason that I wrote a big book of just the lore for the world (according to Amazon, it will be 350 pages in standard Letter size format). Within it are several dozen things that could be taken anywhere, and it is all at a big enough scale that it could just be used as is for pretty much anything.
But for my players, tht book is the trivia set, the baseline rules of the Way It Is, and if they want to disrupt a status quo, that is completely in their power.
In the past, when I ran an open game, I had folks come in with evil characters who were disruptive and a problem, and I have tried the "no evil" and all that and so now I just use an alignment set up that does not have "good and evil" -- I have compassion and cruelty. I do still have pattern and chaos, but that's a meh thing. Then I have (now, after editing and playtesting) 7 total axis for alignment. Which is also less about how one plays the game and more about where one goes when one dies (because that is the cosmology). Because really, alignment gets in the way for the games I run -- and while I am the only "woke activist" among my group, I am no the only one who is affected by stuff all the time, and so we don't see a value in a tool that is overly simplistic like that, and I don't even have it for critters and such.
So trying to say "do we oppose the status quo" when the status quo is the only thing we all know becomes a much bigger questions, and one that is going to happen no matter what (it is a story, after all -- that is what all stories do) but will it be a direct action of the players or something that happens around them, tossing and turning them in the tempest and tides of the Times They Live In?
No clue. Never have one. Trying to set one up means I will be upset by the way they didn't follow my story path, lo, and I learned a lot from playing my favorite video game about that.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
It's true that it's much easier to stop some bad thing (or series of bad things). But I've done a few "post bad things, good things" - for example, I had this epic story of Dwarves vs Drow in my main campaign - and post, after the party helped the dwarves win. A statue of the heroes was placed. About 20 sessions later, the party had to return to the dwarves for something - and there was a whole campaign just celebrating the heroes again.
Question: Has anyone ever made a mashup game to incorporate elements of other games into their D&D?
I think the closest I got (if I understand the question) is Star Frontiers. In Star Frontiers there's a monster known as a Sand Shark. But it doesn't live in water - it's not that kind of sand shark. Rather it swims through the sand. I have always loved this monster - and my main campaign was in the desert. So I basically took the Star FrontiersSand Shark and imported into a homebrew monster for my campaign - that has terrorized the party. A fun side note - is that during a fight with sand giants (Oh, I guess there's something else I imported technically - I created Sand Giants based off of EverQuest) - it drew the attention of sand sharks, since they can smell blood in the sand - and as it was devouring one of the sand giants, one of my players remarked how big a sand shark's gullet must be. And we laughed how it's like the inside of the Doctor Who thing (phone booth?) - and at that moment, I said, "You know why bags of holding are so rare on this world? Because they require the gullet of a sand shark." And just like that, my party became very interesting in trying to kill a few sand sharks, despite how very perilous it was! Oh - see, the more I think about it - the more I remember - I also imported various characters from Darkstalkers - the party fought a mummy lord based off the character, in another game the party helped a triton based on one of the characters, another game they fought an undead bard based on the character...
I know I can keep going, now that I am sitting here mulling over my campaign world.
Tardis. And don't you ever forget it.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
It's true that it's much easier to stop some bad thing (or series of bad things). But I've done a few "post bad things, good things" - for example, I had this epic story of Dwarves vs Drow in my main campaign - and post, after the party helped the dwarves win. A statue of the heroes was placed. About 20 sessions later, the party had to return to the dwarves for something - and there was a whole campaign just celebrating the heroes again.
Question: Has anyone ever made a mashup game to incorporate elements of other games into their D&D?
I think the closest I got (if I understand the question) is Star Frontiers. In Star Frontiers there's a monster known as a Sand Shark. But it doesn't live in water - it's not that kind of sand shark. Rather it swims through the sand. I have always loved this monster - and my main campaign was in the desert. So I basically took the Star FrontiersSand Shark and imported into a homebrew monster for my campaign - that has terrorized the party. A fun side note - is that during a fight with sand giants (Oh, I guess there's something else I imported technically - I created Sand Giants based off of EverQuest) - it drew the attention of sand sharks, since they can smell blood in the sand - and as it was devouring one of the sand giants, one of my players remarked how big a sand shark's gullet must be. And we laughed how it's like the inside of the Doctor Who thing (phone booth?) - and at that moment, I said, "You know why bags of holding are so rare on this world? Because they require the gullet of a sand shark." And just like that, my party became very interesting in trying to kill a few sand sharks, despite how very perilous it was! Oh - see, the more I think about it - the more I remember - I also imported various characters from Darkstalkers - the party fought a mummy lord based off the character, in another game the party helped a triton based on one of the characters, another game they fought an undead bard based on the character...
I know I can keep going, now that I am sitting here mulling over my campaign world.
Tardis. And don't you ever forget it.
Yeah! That's it. The Apparatus! That's what you said right? :D
I've never watched Doctor Who. My wife was working for a toy company before all her health issues came into play - and Doctor Who was one of their licensing toys to make. So my wife had to watch Doctor Who to become familiar with the product (normally I've supplied her all the information she needed for Marvel or Star Wars products). So I decided to watch an episode with her - and I have no idea which Doctor it was or who the doctor was - but it was before COVID - all I remember is there was a dinosaur in it. And I was like, "OK. I might watch this." Next episode they kill the dinosaur. And I was like, "Well, I am out." :D
That's as far as I ever got to watching any episodes of Doctor Who. I am just aware of the Tardis and the general concept of Doctor Who due to my wife, and the proximity of several friends who watch it (and one of my friends who vends at WhoCon here in San Diego, that I help with). So I have been doused in it, without ever seeing more than one and a half episodes. :D
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
It's true that it's much easier to stop some bad thing (or series of bad things). But I've done a few "post bad things, good things" - for example, I had this epic story of Dwarves vs Drow in my main campaign - and post, after the party helped the dwarves win. A statue of the heroes was placed. About 20 sessions later, the party had to return to the dwarves for something - and there was a whole campaign just celebrating the heroes again.
Question: Has anyone ever made a mashup game to incorporate elements of other games into their D&D?
I think the closest I got (if I understand the question) is Star Frontiers. In Star Frontiers there's a monster known as a Sand Shark. But it doesn't live in water - it's not that kind of sand shark. Rather it swims through the sand. I have always loved this monster - and my main campaign was in the desert. So I basically took the Star FrontiersSand Shark and imported into a homebrew monster for my campaign - that has terrorized the party. A fun side note - is that during a fight with sand giants (Oh, I guess there's something else I imported technically - I created Sand Giants based off of EverQuest) - it drew the attention of sand sharks, since they can smell blood in the sand - and as it was devouring one of the sand giants, one of my players remarked how big a sand shark's gullet must be. And we laughed how it's like the inside of the Doctor Who thing (phone booth?) - and at that moment, I said, "You know why bags of holding are so rare on this world? Because they require the gullet of a sand shark." And just like that, my party became very interesting in trying to kill a few sand sharks, despite how very perilous it was! Oh - see, the more I think about it - the more I remember - I also imported various characters from Darkstalkers - the party fought a mummy lord based off the character, in another game the party helped a triton based on one of the characters, another game they fought an undead bard based on the character...
I know I can keep going, now that I am sitting here mulling over my campaign world.
Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
I don't mind at all when my players want to have pets. Some folks like them and it increases their ties to their PC.
Every once in a while as a player it can be, "omg here we go again" when another player wants to adopt EVERYTHING!!! (the birds, the cat, the giant snake, the owlbear, the mushrooms, the ferret, the skunk, the chipmunk, the giant centipede, the wyvern that just stung you!). It's what is fun for them so it's fine.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
My first character was a beast master elf ranger with a pteranodon. The DM let me ride it and start out with it at first level so the rules were bent a little. We also once trained a couple wolves. It shouldn’t have worked, one animal handling check shouldn’t do that, but we were new to DND. Our DM didn’t want us to keep them though, so he made the townsfolk fear them, and we had to leave them outside where they were stolen by shepherds to use as sheep dogs. It was annoying at the time, but I realize it was because we would have acted like the wolves would obey our every command, telling them to fight instead of us, and we never should have been able to train them in the first place.
Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
My very first 5e character was a dwarf cleric of the Lady of the Winds, who had a falcon (well, a chimango) as a pet/companion/whatever he believed was sent by the Lady to guide him. Mostly Morjha just hung around for the free food
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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)
Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
I, apparently, love D&D pets - which completely surprised me since I don't like most animals IRL.
Pretty much all of the characters I've played have picked up pets, after a fashion: cleric had a Staff of the Python, fighter had a Bag of Tricks, bard has a ghost haunting her...all of which I treat like beloved animal companions. My ranger helped the party acquire 5 musk oxen which everyone treats like family, not pack animals.
As a DM, I have handed out plenty of pets: a one-winged rescued pegasus, a flying snake, a derpy stirge drawn to magic, an animated rope with separation issues, and, yes, a baby mimic (though that one was only for a few sessions). I take a rather Schrodinger approach to pets, which is to say they exist when I remember they do, and my memory gets inexplicably patchy in combat
Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
My character in Wysp’s campaign has the Urchin background and has a pet mouse named Mece.
Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
I regularly hand out pets if the players seek one out. Through a series of daily animal handling checks, I’ll let players train them to do simple tasks like fetching or the like. Animal handling check determines how a d100 roll is modified, and the cumulative total of each daily d100 roll is added up until a threshold for the task is reached and the pet was trained.
The abilities are never as powerful as beast companions or familiars and do not have straight combat applications, but add a little payoff to folks taking care of their animal.
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Modern literature actually narrates the flaws of the characters.
The old literature lets you discover them on your own through the story.
That is what I meant by "pointed out". Not that they were not there they were just left to the reader to discover to notice without help.
I think you are confusing writing for literature. For the most part, anyone who is explicitly narrating “but Bob is evil” is just writing a book—they are not creating literature. If you look at modern literature, you’ll see plenty of the “telling without telling” that you attribute to the past.
Which isn’t to say you can’t have “Bob is evil” in actual literature. That kind of overt statement can be done well such as in…. Almost all Greek plays where the Chorus specifically will give information like that.
And it still is probably worth noting the comparison of all of modern writing against historical literature is not a fair one. . After all, often only the best of the best gets passed down through the generations. We get plenty of Marlow and Shakespeare, we don’t have as many of the crappy, short-run morality plays that also would have been shown at the Globe.
Its a bit like looking a vein of gold and a lump of gold, both the same weight, and saying that there is more gold in the lump simply because it stands alone rather than being surrounded by rock.
Iago has multiple monologues explaining in detail which flaws of the other characters in Othello he plans to exploit
What the heck are you even talking about?
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)
Good old fashioned gatekeeping was better than the shoddy attempts of so-called snobs today.
Here's a new question: Do you prefer a quest to restore the old status quo, or a quest to establish a new one? It seems to me, most D&D adventures seek only to undo or prevent some singular bad thing, rather than pushing forward any particular good thing.
I think a great campaign does a bit of both - you have some kind of threat you are trying to stop from changing the world, which, in turn, reveals some of the problems of the world itself that the party must also fix. Can lead to so great moments of trying to figure out relative threat analysis and what needs to be prioritised.
Not exactly.
I turned Car Wars into a spaceship combat game.
I turned Villains and Vigilantes into a fantasy game.
I did try to turn a D&D game into Gamma World.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
It's true that it's much easier to stop some bad thing (or series of bad things). But I've done a few "post bad things, good things" - for example, I had this epic story of Dwarves vs Drow in my main campaign - and post, after the party helped the dwarves win. A statue of the heroes was placed. About 20 sessions later, the party had to return to the dwarves for something - and there was a whole campaign just celebrating the heroes again.
I think the closest I got (if I understand the question) is Star Frontiers. In Star Frontiers there's a monster known as a Sand Shark. But it doesn't live in water - it's not that kind of sand shark. Rather it swims through the sand. I have always loved this monster - and my main campaign was in the desert. So I basically took the Star Frontiers Sand Shark and imported into a homebrew monster for my campaign - that has terrorized the party. A fun side note - is that during a fight with sand giants (Oh, I guess there's something else I imported technically - I created Sand Giants based off of EverQuest) - it drew the attention of sand sharks, since they can smell blood in the sand - and as it was devouring one of the sand giants, one of my players remarked how big a sand shark's gullet must be. And we laughed how it's like the inside of the Doctor Who thing (phone booth?) - and at that moment, I said, "You know why bags of holding are so rare on this world? Because they require the gullet of a sand shark." And just like that, my party became very interesting in trying to kill a few sand sharks, despite how very perilous it was! Oh - see, the more I think about it - the more I remember - I also imported various characters from Darkstalkers - the party fought a mummy lord based off the character, in another game the party helped a triton based on one of the characters, another game they fought an undead bard based on the character...
I know I can keep going, now that I am sitting here mulling over my campaign world.
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
That will depend on three factors:
1 - What is the status quo. I set up a status quo in the new world that is precarious and involves a few adventures -- and the hope is that they will change them. In the current campaign, we are just doing a basic dungeon delve and town set up (the world falls off into the void about 30 miles out), and the status quo is pretty much the town just hopes the adventurers don't wreck the place even as they do.
2 - The Players. I complain about 5e being "too player centric" and all, but as a DM I take it as my first goal for them to have fun, to have adventures and enjoy it. Among my main groups, one is mostly younger (under 24 -- our kids and grandkids) and the other is mostly older (who have a heart that has been together for 40 plus years) along with spouses and friends. They mix and match frequently so it is a question of what will they do, and am I listening to them in the set up enough that I give them choices. Sidebar below.
3 - The vagaries of dice rolls. I always put if-thens into everything, and sometimes those if-thens happens even if the players don't take my desired route. I roll those.
So, my style of play these days is to come up with these wild, incredible adventures or these really bizarre underground lairs that defy sanity and yet have a secret way of operating and working. For me, on my side of the screen (the DM screen), the joy comes from letting them try and figure out the rationales of dungeons and the wonder of a new place. In the early 90's, I switched over to a wonder style effort, that looks more to "how cool is that" than "how dangerous is that" -- and after some of our collective experiences, we all enjoy it. WHich means that I make these amazing things for them to do and then set them up and sit back and let them decide what they will do. I give hooks, I give a set up, I get them together, but if they decide to hare out I will let them hare out and do nothing until they get bored and then give them another hook, or some bait, or wahtevah.
the new campaign includes storylines both for individual characters and the party as a whole. Full on, absolute Campbell theory for each of them and then a more complex one similar to Campbell's stuff that all of the others operate within and feed into as they reach their individual arcs and climax. Among the longer term storylines are defeating a demon, defying a Goddess, rescuing a princess and then later making sure she gets crowned, and essentially putting the world into a place where the War that is about to break out can happen.
For those that want them I have variations in the Campbell myth (and one of them is the actual princess' storyline), plus possible romance plots and more. There is a reason that I wrote a big book of just the lore for the world (according to Amazon, it will be 350 pages in standard Letter size format). Within it are several dozen things that could be taken anywhere, and it is all at a big enough scale that it could just be used as is for pretty much anything.
But for my players, tht book is the trivia set, the baseline rules of the Way It Is, and if they want to disrupt a status quo, that is completely in their power.
In the past, when I ran an open game, I had folks come in with evil characters who were disruptive and a problem, and I have tried the "no evil" and all that and so now I just use an alignment set up that does not have "good and evil" -- I have compassion and cruelty. I do still have pattern and chaos, but that's a meh thing. Then I have (now, after editing and playtesting) 7 total axis for alignment. Which is also less about how one plays the game and more about where one goes when one dies (because that is the cosmology). Because really, alignment gets in the way for the games I run -- and while I am the only "woke activist" among my group, I am no the only one who is affected by stuff all the time, and so we don't see a value in a tool that is overly simplistic like that, and I don't even have it for critters and such.
So trying to say "do we oppose the status quo" when the status quo is the only thing we all know becomes a much bigger questions, and one that is going to happen no matter what (it is a story, after all -- that is what all stories do) but will it be a direct action of the players or something that happens around them, tossing and turning them in the tempest and tides of the Times They Live In?
No clue. Never have one. Trying to set one up means I will be upset by the way they didn't follow my story path, lo, and I learned a lot from playing my favorite video game about that.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
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An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
There is a Gamma World/D&D module. Your D&D characters get to ride a space ship.
Tardis. And don't you ever forget it.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I still have the original Dr.Who RPG.
Yeah! That's it. The Apparatus! That's what you said right? :D
I've never watched Doctor Who. My wife was working for a toy company before all her health issues came into play - and Doctor Who was one of their licensing toys to make. So my wife had to watch Doctor Who to become familiar with the product (normally I've supplied her all the information she needed for Marvel or Star Wars products). So I decided to watch an episode with her - and I have no idea which Doctor it was or who the doctor was - but it was before COVID - all I remember is there was a dinosaur in it. And I was like, "OK. I might watch this." Next episode they kill the dinosaur. And I was like, "Well, I am out." :D
That's as far as I ever got to watching any episodes of Doctor Who. I am just aware of the Tardis and the general concept of Doctor Who due to my wife, and the proximity of several friends who watch it (and one of my friends who vends at WhoCon here in San Diego, that I help with). So I have been doused in it, without ever seeing more than one and a half episodes. :D
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Time And Relative Dimension In Space T.A.R.D.I.S.
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Have you, as a player, ever had any pets? Or as a DM, have you allowed any pets to your players? I am excluded horses (and mounts of the like) as well as familiars. I am talking cats, dogs, birds, mimics, you know - the usual.
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
I don't mind at all when my players want to have pets. Some folks like them and it increases their ties to their PC.
Every once in a while as a player it can be, "omg here we go again" when another player wants to adopt EVERYTHING!!! (the birds, the cat, the giant snake, the owlbear, the mushrooms, the ferret, the skunk, the chipmunk, the giant centipede, the wyvern that just stung you!). It's what is fun for them so it's fine.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
My first character was a beast master elf ranger with a pteranodon. The DM let me ride it and start out with it at first level so the rules were bent a little. We also once trained a couple wolves. It shouldn’t have worked, one animal handling check shouldn’t do that, but we were new to DND. Our DM didn’t want us to keep them though, so he made the townsfolk fear them, and we had to leave them outside where they were stolen by shepherds to use as sheep dogs. It was annoying at the time, but I realize it was because we would have acted like the wolves would obey our every command, telling them to fight instead of us, and we never should have been able to train them in the first place.
My very first 5e character was a dwarf cleric of the Lady of the Winds, who had a falcon (well, a chimango) as a pet/companion/whatever he believed was sent by the Lady to guide him. Mostly Morjha just hung around for the free food
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)
Bless you. I thought I could handle the lowercase, but I couldn't. 😅
I, apparently, love D&D pets - which completely surprised me since I don't like most animals IRL.
Pretty much all of the characters I've played have picked up pets, after a fashion: cleric had a Staff of the Python, fighter had a Bag of Tricks, bard has a ghost haunting her...all of which I treat like beloved animal companions. My ranger helped the party acquire 5 musk oxen which everyone treats like family, not pack animals.
As a DM, I have handed out plenty of pets: a one-winged rescued pegasus, a flying snake, a derpy stirge drawn to magic, an animated rope with separation issues, and, yes, a baby mimic (though that one was only for a few sessions). I take a rather Schrodinger approach to pets, which is to say they exist when I remember they do, and my memory gets inexplicably patchy in combat
My character in Wysp’s campaign has the Urchin background and has a pet mouse named Mece.
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I regularly hand out pets if the players seek one out. Through a series of daily animal handling checks, I’ll let players train them to do simple tasks like fetching or the like. Animal handling check determines how a d100 roll is modified, and the cumulative total of each daily d100 roll is added up until a threshold for the task is reached and the pet was trained.
The abilities are never as powerful as beast companions or familiars and do not have straight combat applications, but add a little payoff to folks taking care of their animal.