Good point, it's just this "writer's block" has us all stumped. We kinda have an idea of which direction to go, but our biggest problem is how to 'play' the idea. I sorta wanted to go in the direction of deciding which quest is most important to the welfare of the Empire, the DM kinda wants to randomly pick one of the quests by dice roll. I don't really like that idea because that could lead to more problems. So me and her dissagree on the direction to take. I kind of feel the way you do, pick a quest, in my opinion the one that is most important, then since she has me running the NPCs ,let me start things off using one of the NPCs to kind of "push" the players into the chosen quest and then allow the players to just run with it and have fun in the process. I already have my eyes set on which quest is most important at this time, the DM just don't seem to agree with it, ultimately though, she's the 'boss' and has the final say, I only run the NPCs and I'm also one of the PCs, so I'm bound by her rules just like the rest of us. I'm just trying to keep things smooth and civilized instead of doing some random dice roll and hope everyone is ok with it. That just isn't the way I would run it if I were the DM. What do you think, pick a quest at random, or let an NPC choose which one is important. I mean obviously we can't do all three quests at one time, don't even have enough players for that.
Also, yeah, the zero session thing is a must at this point. After all, we're just stuck right now. I have talked to a couple of the players and they really don't want to make a fresh start, but they are changing their characters to a more streamlined character. Good idea in my opinion. Some of these characters are either underpowered or over powered which can really throw things off. Everyone needs to be on the same level. The DM has said that we are taking a few days (didn't say how many) break to allow time to study the situation at hand then come up with some ideas to submit to the players and then take a vote on which one they prefer. This also gives me and her time to overcome this 'block'. R&R is pretty much what we need right now. Everyone does seem to be happy with the story itself and the new rules being implimented. A lot of this came about because of the input some of you guys gave. I'm sorry for the earlier outbursts, I guess I was just having one of those days, if you know what I mean. I like the ideas you guys are putting forth, now to just get the DM onboard with them. I love her to death, best friend and all, but she can be a bit...subborn in her ways. I think she'll come around though in the end. I'm still holding on to the idea of having to start over with a new campaign if we can't iron things out with this one. Oh and I sugested to make one complete campaign instead of this spiltting into different chapters. that has really thrown things off in the past, don't understand why she wanted to stick with that format. I tried that in the past with my own campaigns, and it simply don't work.
Going to give another piece of general DM advice that helps with writer’s block: Never end a session before the party expresses where they want to go next.
In all but the most linear of games, players, not the dungeon master, ultimately decide where to go next. DMs can lay down clues and hints, even heavy handed ones, but the thing that makes D&D unique is that players can make their own choices in a way a video game cannot.
It is really tempting to finish up a story arc and end a session there / it feels like a clean break. But that puts the entire burden on the DM to prep for next session without guidance or player input, and then means players are basically forced to do whatever the DM wants because that is what the DM prepared.
Instead, DMs should always push the session just a little longer. “We killed the bad guy, next what do we want to do?” “What about explore the cursed tower?” is far more helpful than “We killed the bad guy, see you all next week.” It makes the players feel they are driving the story, shows the DM what the players are interested in, and gives a basic plot seed the DM can build on, as opposed to having no foundation (a primary contributor to writer’s block is being overwhelmed with endless possibility).
If this does not happen, the DM can always ask the group chat to talk and come up with a plan on what they want to do next. That out of character conversation can provide a similar foundation to build on, though it is less fun than having roleplayed the choice at table.
Also great advice. We're both novice DMs and that kind of advice really helps.
How would you guys feel if I once in a while just posted some "highlights" to show what is happening, then maybe get some advice on what we may be doing wrong or even right. We started this game bassically as a "test game" so me and her could "learn" better about how things work. We really didn't intend for it to become an all out game. but since it has, we want to continue but need guidance to help us out. Maybe putting some highlights out there could help you guys let us know if we are heading in the right direction or not. The highlights would only be short little paragraphs, no serious game detail, just highlights to show what directions things are taking. Not asking for yal to run the game for us, just give some advice and insight on what we may be doing that could take some improvement. Eventually we should be able to continue on without any help. We pretty much know the 5e system and mechanics, it's the storytelling part that seems to throw things off.
I talked to the DM just before getting on here and she agreed that we need new characters and is asking everyone to re-make their characters either with completely new ones or update their current one. And we're staying at level 7 for now, she wants to adopt the XP system for advancement from now on. We know how to use the XP system, not that hard.
We are going to continue the campaign from the current point. We have abandoned the 10 year jump thing. That's not going to happen now, we are staying where we are and we're updating the World developement. She has a new D&D AI program she just purchased and wants to use that to revamp our world to fit the game better. She's never used AI before and says it should be interesting at best.
I’d love to see those highlights. This has been pretty cool to read about, and I for one would like more. I would reiterate on one of my earlier ideas; you could start with maybe fighting around a storm-proofed farming area, or the hub of a teleportation network, or perhaps, if that whole wizard/warlock-guild-seizing-power thing is an option, maybe starting back with low-level characters overthrowing such a regime - not unlike at the end of LotR, with the whole post-main-quest Shire mess; kind of restarting at a smaller scale of events.
Yeah we are gonna scale back the levels of new characters, we're scaling back to level 5 from the level 7. We were not quite ready for that high of level so we scaled back a bit. Characters are getting redone from scratch to fix some of the problems with a lot of them. We are going to be short one player a he has other important things to attend to and no longer has time for gaming. Everything else is the same. We are continuing with the same campaign just smoothed out and scaled back. We are taking a couple of days off giving everyone some time to get their characters together and for me and the DM to work on some of the NPCs. Also she is trying to learn how to use the new AI she just purchased to revise the world, not really that important, but she wants to smooth out some of the rough edges of the world before gameplay starts up again in a couple of days.
I will post the highlights here on this thread. They will just be short description paragraphs to save on typing long and drawn out messages. Just enough to show what is happening so those with ideas can post them and help me and the DM learn a little more. We would like to get enough experience that we could eventually take the game live on Discord and try to get some new players. But we're not quite there yet. Also me and one other player are having Camera issues. Mine went completely dead, says "no connection" and the other player has no video, just sound. We hope tohave that fixed before the game starts back up. I'd love to get this up on Discord though.
Sounds like you’re setting up to go on a smoother path. Good luck.
For what it’s worth, I kind of liked the idea of the time jump. It can give the story a chance to breathe, and let the DM incorporate some new twists. It’s enough time that a few new NPCs have risen up in the world, etc. As a player, I always love it when we run a new campaign, and I can see the impacts the party had on the world. Time jumps really make that possible as you can see things ripple out.
And in this case, the break might be nice. A narrative break to match the rules changes. It can be less jarring from a storytelling perspective. Also, a 10-year break could be used to explain de-leveling the characters. They’ve been doing other things, and gotten a little rusty, so now they’re level 5 instead of 7.
Never thought of it that way, I'll pass that on to the DM and see if she agrees. I myself wanted the jump, but for some reason she decided not to use it. I'm going to speak with the other players and see if they agree and then see if we can get the DM on the same page. We have a couple of days to dial things in anyway.
We are trying very hard to get things on a smoother path. Things were just out of control at first and nothing was working the way we expected. As I said we started this ting more or less as a 'test game' between some friends, but it became an all out game, so we stuck with it. Otherwise it would have ended 1 year ago, we started last year and have been going since.Like I said, I would love to get this thing on Discord, but we still have some learning to do. Not too mention some technical issues to solve. I wouldn't want just a 'text' game, I would rather have a text+live video game. But my system can't handle it too well right now, it barely does what we do now and that's just video conferencing.
If we were doing the 10 yr jump, we probably wouldn't have run into this writer's block, I had my part all ready to go, then she pulled out the jump, and that was that. Like I said earlier, I love the lady to death, but she's a bit stubborn sometimes. We've been friends now for a good 12 years only been gaming for a couple of years. She was gaming a bit before that, but with the old 3.5e system. 5e is a whole new ballgame and she isn't quite used to it yet. I started out with 5e so I know a little more than she does, but still novice.
I'll admit I haven't read through all the posts in this thread, however:
Going off of what you said in your first post - the elves are sad that the time angel left and because they are sad (and their emotions control the weather) the empire is plunged into a freak snowstorm.
There is an official 5e adventure called Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. In this adventure the whole of Icewind Dale has been plunged into a magical arctic setting by the Frostmaiden. You could probably reference this adventure for many mechanics and ideas regarding magical arctic environments.
As for general "what might happen", honestly if most of the world is NOT populated by elves (which seems to be the case from what you've said), and they knew the Elves being really sad was causing what they think could possibly be an eternal winter, there's a strong possibility of resentment growing from the populace (especially farmers and other people who depend on the environment for their wellbeing) who might start attacking the elves. I know you said "the people trust and love the elves and the elves love and trust the people), but this could very much be the kind of situation which breaks that.
I know you said it would only last about 2 days, but I'm sure no one in-game probably knows that. and people (mobs) are quick to get frightened about something and react in an over-the-top way.
Just a thought. Obviously you can take this idea or leave it, no worries.
We've sort of gone down that path, game play starts back up tonight, so we will see what happens. The DM hasn't filled me in on how she intends to run with things, she hasn't even said which NPC is going to be the 'bearer of bad news' yet. I run the NPCs show she will have to let me know something before the game starts tonight. Probably we won't do a whole lot tonight because a couple of us won't be able to tele-conference because our cameras aren't working. We can still voice communicate though. From the E-mail I got from the DM, (she sends me story updates that way), the people are starting to get a little upset that the elves didn't have more control over their magic knowing that such strong emotions can have devastating effects on the weather. Most of the farmers are slightly angry at them. However things are remaining held together by the few 'good fairies' that help to maintain vegetation through their magic. The problem there is that the fairies rely on 'fairy dust' for magic, it is their only source of magic. And unfortunately, the fairies make their dust from a specific magical flower located in a specific location in the Feyeland Forests. The snow storm has become quite severe now and those flowers are dying off because of the severe cold, those flowers require a specific temperature and atmospheric balance to grow. Without those flowers, the fairies are unable to produce the Dust which gives them their magic, so their supply is dwindling to dangerous levels. In short, No Dust, no fairy magic, therefore they will no longer be able to sustain the crops that are being affected by the storm. It's now becomming a mess.
Thanks to our pirate friends ,they have been able to ship in some food supplies from neighboring islands, but that won't last for too long, it's costly and also sea travel is becomming more difficult by the day because of the storm, so sooner or later that option will be no more. The storms are getting worse each time.
I should mention that the storm isn't constant, there are temporary breaks in them, but each time, they get stronger and stronger, temperatures aren't getting above 10 degrees now and they are continuing to drop.
Those are just some of the highlights that I could put together from the story update the DM sent me. That's pretty much all she sent me, no information on any actions being taken by any of the numerous NPCs. She needs to let me know something so I can prepare my starting point. Without any info, I'm still stuck.
I do want to take a look at that "Icewind Dale" adventure, is there anywhere I can find some information on it without having to purchase the book? If I could get some ideas from it, I could pass them along to the DM, I'm not sure if she has read it or even knows of it. You know, sometimes I wish I was the DM. I could at least get things going again. But, she is my friend and I don't want to say anything too bad about her methods. We'll see what happens tonight, looks like she has the storyline ready anyway.
She's probably busy playing around with that AI program...wouldn't be surprised at all.It's supposed to be able to create your world, creat characters for you, and even it's supposed to be able to give suggestions on what the DM should do in game. I guess pretty soon they'll have AI running these games, not too sure I want that, YIKES!!
Ok, well...things went pretty well tonight, we weren't really able to do much with two of us not having video and only audio, but we did manage to get in some storytelling and roleplaying.
We did implement a few of the ideas you guys gave me, and they actually worked out great. We now have a goal set and a purpose. Thanks to all who gave me ideas. I'll post some highlights to morrow some time, I have to gather up my notes first and get a grip on everything that happened. I can say the storm is causing some really serious problems though. Temperatures are staying below freezing, snowfall has reached around 4 inches on the ground, higher in some places. The Sovereign Queen of the Empire called for a special meeting of all rulers,Fairies (the good ones),elves and other important persons. The meeting took place and she set down some laws. Me and one of the Elven Princesses were ordered to travel to one of our allies (not part of the Empire) to ask for help. We arrived there and got snowed in, so me and her are stuck there for now. that's about it, things got kind of held up there at that point. We ran out of ideas at that point. Next game session is next week, hopefully my new webcam will come in and the other player will get her computer back from the shop. We just couldn't do a lot because we couldn't do any real game play without video. I guess that's one of the Quirks of playing online.
Hope I was in any way helpful. Mostly I was just trying to approach things from a politicoeconomic standpoint, as opposed to a storytelling or game mechanics one, since those were already provided by the other posters.
You and everyone were helpull. Thanks. I will be getting those highlights up as soon as I ca. The DM is going to be out of the country for a while, she has gone overseas to be with her family for the hollidays. they are military so she don't get to see them too often. The game has not been put on hold however, she asked me to step in and DM while she is gone. Since I know about as much as she does, I was the only one qualified to take over. I have a few ideas I need some help with that I want to add to things. I want add them right away, but I will do it later, it's mostly mechanics that I need help with. I know how to roleplay the ideas, I just need some insight on the mechanics. That's always been an issue when I DM, is getting the mechanics right so as not to cause any issues with game flow. I'll post the ideas after I post the highlights.
I hope this doesn’t sound patronizing, but if yours looking for ways to handle different mechanics, you should read the DMG. The 24 version especially. It’s got lots of good mechanics for doing a lot of different things. I’ve been playing for more than 40 years, and I still read it cover to cover. It’s full of great advice.
I hope this doesn’t sound patronizing, but if yours looking for ways to handle different mechanics, you should read the DMG. The 24 version especially. It’s got lots of good mechanics for doing a lot of different things. I’ve been playing for more than 40 years, and I still read it cover to cover. It’s full of great advice.
Agreed, the 2024 DMG is a great book and head and shoulders over the old one. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Also the more of the official rules you learn the easier it becomes to see the patterns and logic behind them which allows you to make your own rulings from a firmer foundation
I'll look into getting that. I have the old DMG, but it's not that much help, I've read it and it does help somewhat. Just doesn't cover enough. Bassically right now, I want to run a couple of possible scenarios by you and see if it is a good idea or not. I have a couple of things I want to do to lead into the Quest I have in mind. I've already figured out how to roleplay the quest into things, I just need something to lead up to it and make it a necessary quest.
It has stopped snowing at least, but a lot of damage has been done, and now we have another problem (this was actually put in motion by our "evil" PC, I liked it so went with it. Even though the snow has stopped ,the weather has now become out of control. We're having storms, flooding rains, and all sorts of things at random. There is a reason for it, we just don't know what that is yet. With this new scenario, I should be able to lead up to our 1st quest, of course we have to gather up who is going to go on this quest. I really want it to be PCs and maybe one or two support NPCs. I know I will have to involve the 'pirates' because we will have to leave the comfort of our continent and travel the seas to other lands and the 'pirates' are the only ones with ships capable of traveling the open seas. All the Pirates are NPCs. How the heck do you do Sea Travel in D&D, never had to do it before?
Same way as overland travel. Either you hand wave it and just say, ta-da, you arrive. Or you throw in a few encounters along the way. Either some little island or port they visit on the way, or a ship-to-ship fight, or they’re attacked by some kind of sea creatures or flying creatures or something. Or some combination.
If we did have some sort of attack at sea, wouldn't there be some sort of damage assesment mechanics for the ship? Or could I just "wing-it" and do a sort of "average damage" roll or something without having to actually design the ship to have stats, could I do like a damage roll and give the ship some HP and if the HP reaches 0 it's destroyed, how could I assess damage for any PCs on board when it sank? NPCs are no problem, I can just RolePlay those, but there would be some PCs onboard, how do I asses their damage or survival for that matter? We are talking about being at sea where there is a possibility of drowning or being eaten, all sorts of things. It wouldn't be as simple as a battle on land would it? I've never been able to cover sea travel before, because all of the advice I was given in the past from different DMs, they all say I have to more or less build my ships as if they themselves were players, and I have to calculate all sorts of damage and stuff. that's why I never incorporated sea travel in any game I ever ran. but since our DM put it in there, I can't just get rid of it. That would make things a bit messed up. I assume she had some idea of how she was going to run sea travel and/or sea battles. She didn't pass that info along to me though. How would you do something like that, should I just allow them to go on their mary way and arrive without incident (not much fun in that), or should I throw in some sort of challenge for them?
Oh and by the way, the snow has started up again, but it's an all out blizzard this time. Moral in the Empire has started to drop and people are ,as someone on here sugested, getting angry and some are actually blaming the Elves for not having control of the situation. I had to do some rolls for all of this to take place. I just did a d20 roll for moral ,and anger, then just role played the rest. Was that a good way to do it? I couldn't think of any other way to do it in-game. Food production has come to a complete stop now. The Kingdoms do have several collected food stores, and are distributing them to the people, but that won't last long.
We are facing another problem as well, remember a while back that I said the 'good' fairies were doing all they could to help? Well they have been, but the problem is, the plant that they use to make their fairy dust (the source of their magic) has all but died due to the ice and snow. So now, they have no way to make dust. Meaning their magic will soon be no more. Also, remember I said we were brought here to this modern world by an unknown evil force? Well, we've adapted and since there are no medeival vehicles to travel with, we had to adapt to using small cars, but here's the problem, originaly these cars ran on fossil fuels, well, it was decided a long time ago not to use fossil fuel because of the enviromental impact, so one of the fairies (the Queen to be exact) is a tinkerer and she came up with a way to use fairy dust as a fuel for the cars. Problem solved. However, since there is no more dust being produced by the fairies, fuel is now running low and soon we will have no means of transportation. No Dust, No Fuel. So now getting food supplies to the people will now be an issue. The Avrial elves can help somewhat because they can fly, but not in this heavy snow where vissibility is less than 1/4 of a mile. And we only have a handfull of Avrial elves.
So things have 'snowballed" at this point. I don't think I will put any more hardships in right now, I think we have enough to keep us busy for a while. I want to lead up to the 1st quest which is one that could help significantly if we can pull it off. I'll explain what it is later, I have a few 'bugs' to work out, not too mention how to lead up to it. There are actually 2 quests and the PCs will have to convince our Queen which one is most important and then put that chosen quest in motion. Our Queen is understanding, but stubborn. She is a PC BTW. A very good player, she knows her stuff and how to play her character.
It's a real pain adapting a medieval Empire to a modern world. I hope one day before this campaign ends, to be able to find a way to return us back to our original land. But, before the Time Angel left, she permanantly closed the portal that brought us here because it was being used by the Evil Force to bring other people from other realms to here. We voted and decided that closing that portal for good was the best idea to prevent it from being used as a weapon. So we're stuck here for now.
Most effects target creatures, not objects. So you can generally just ignore ship damage. Also, unless it’s part of a military action, pirates and raiders and such want the cargo; if the ship sinks that’s much harder to get. That said, if you want the ship to sink, maybe you have a plan for them wrecking on an island, or bring plucked from a lifeboat, you can usually pull that off.
And if the ship sinks, they start to swim or cling to some bits of floating wreckage. Theres only sharks and other things that might eat them if you put them there.
There are some ship stats in Ghosts of Saltmarsh if you want them.
But in general, the extra bit of tracking ship damage and the boat sinking is only a pain if you want it to be, you can ignore it pretty easily.
Or, the easy route is: “Your voyage took about two weeks. What did you do with your time on board?” Followed by “ Great, on with the adventure.”
Yeah, I think I will just wing it, maybe throw in a small complication, and just be done with it. The Pirates have pretty much established a friendship with the offshore islanders, so there shouldn't be too much trouble. The trip will take about a week there and a week back, and that's in good conditions. So it will take a while being as conditions aren't so good right now. Thanks for the ideas though. Helped me decide what to do. Not going to worry too much about ship damage right now. May add that later, but since the pirates only have 2 ships, an extended battle isn't in the making at this time.
Ok, here are a few things that happened tonight. Just ended the game for tonight.
I decided to choose one of the quests myself. Here is what I did. since we now know that the elves were not directly responsible for the weather problems, I decided to run with that. The Fairy Queen has informed the Sovereign Queen that there is a magical device, a stone in the shape of a Dodecahedron. it has 12 flat sides. This stone is known as a 'nature stone'. Now for years, the fairy queen has been using this stone to keep nature balanced. As we all know, magic in this land has a rather unique effect on nature including weather. She was given this stone by the late Queen Talori, the original Fairy Queen. She was told that only a fairy can operate the stone and that it can only be attuned to a fairy. It was attuned to her and her only. The stone was kept in a special secret cavern underneath the fairy forest of Bristwood. Only the Fairy Queen and her Princess has access this hidden secret cavern. However, the Fairy Queen has informed our Queen that the stone is missing and could be the reason the weather has gone out of control. Also, the stone must be returned before the Winter Solstice which is on December 21. (We use real time when possible) If it is not returned by this time, things could become un-repairable and only small control could be done. If this stone has fallen into enemy hands, they could in theory, remove the attenuation and attune the stone to one of the Dark Fairies which would explain why weather is out of control. This stone could be used as a weapon to hold the Empire hostage.
This leads up to setting forth a quest to find the stone, and return it to the Fairy Queen before the solstice so she can restore nature balance. the only thing is, we have no idea where it is or who took it, or even how it was taken. An ivestigation is in order here. Figuring out how it was stolen may lead us to who stole it. It does seem obvious that since the stone can only be attuned to a fairy, that the dark fairies took it. That's the obvious conclusion.
Now I have a question, what stats would be used to have the players conduct the investigation. Would you use INT? or a combination of different stats. Or should I take into account the abilities and skills of the players? I'm not sure how to conduct something as complicated as this. I've done simple things like figuring out who did what and things, that's not too hard, but here we are talking about not only figuring out who, but how,when, and why, then figuring out where the darn thing is. I could Roleplay it, but that would make it boring. I want to make it interesting and fun, and not so easy. How would one of you guys do it? I'm a novice DM and I 'm having to take over from another DM. I'm falling her notes, but eventually will have to take the lead completely. I'm good at roleplay, but when conducting things like this, I'm a bit rusty. I do know the mechanics of 5e, and I know how to roll for magic and damage and stuff like that, but I am not all that up on using players skills,abilities, and other things other than their stats. I want to become a better DM and I am hoping you guys can help me a little with that. If I can get good enough, then I might can get the game up on Discord for the public. I want to use this game right now for gaining experience as a DM. I've always been good at writing stories, just putting them into a game, is a bit difficult. I really don't have the finantial ability to keep purchasing a bunch of books. I know a lot of them you can find online, but I'm a little against getting 'free' pirated material. It's not fair to the writers to do that. If I can't buy them, I don't want them. I've spent a lot of dollars on just what I have, a couple of the books I have were given to me, one of those is the Time Travel book, and the other one is the D&D handbook, the person had two copies and gave me one, he didn't want the Time Travel one so he gave it to me as well. I just need a little help with how to conduct things like investigations.
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Good point, it's just this "writer's block" has us all stumped. We kinda have an idea of which direction to go, but our biggest problem is how to 'play' the idea. I sorta wanted to go in the direction of deciding which quest is most important to the welfare of the Empire, the DM kinda wants to randomly pick one of the quests by dice roll. I don't really like that idea because that could lead to more problems. So me and her dissagree on the direction to take. I kind of feel the way you do, pick a quest, in my opinion the one that is most important, then since she has me running the NPCs ,let me start things off using one of the NPCs to kind of "push" the players into the chosen quest and then allow the players to just run with it and have fun in the process. I already have my eyes set on which quest is most important at this time, the DM just don't seem to agree with it, ultimately though, she's the 'boss' and has the final say, I only run the NPCs and I'm also one of the PCs, so I'm bound by her rules just like the rest of us. I'm just trying to keep things smooth and civilized instead of doing some random dice roll and hope everyone is ok with it. That just isn't the way I would run it if I were the DM. What do you think, pick a quest at random, or let an NPC choose which one is important. I mean obviously we can't do all three quests at one time, don't even have enough players for that.
Also, yeah, the zero session thing is a must at this point. After all, we're just stuck right now. I have talked to a couple of the players and they really don't want to make a fresh start, but they are changing their characters to a more streamlined character. Good idea in my opinion. Some of these characters are either underpowered or over powered which can really throw things off. Everyone needs to be on the same level. The DM has said that we are taking a few days (didn't say how many) break to allow time to study the situation at hand then come up with some ideas to submit to the players and then take a vote on which one they prefer. This also gives me and her time to overcome this 'block'. R&R is pretty much what we need right now. Everyone does seem to be happy with the story itself and the new rules being implimented. A lot of this came about because of the input some of you guys gave. I'm sorry for the earlier outbursts, I guess I was just having one of those days, if you know what I mean. I like the ideas you guys are putting forth, now to just get the DM onboard with them. I love her to death, best friend and all, but she can be a bit...subborn in her ways. I think she'll come around though in the end. I'm still holding on to the idea of having to start over with a new campaign if we can't iron things out with this one. Oh and I sugested to make one complete campaign instead of this spiltting into different chapters. that has really thrown things off in the past, don't understand why she wanted to stick with that format. I tried that in the past with my own campaigns, and it simply don't work.
Going to give another piece of general DM advice that helps with writer’s block: Never end a session before the party expresses where they want to go next.
In all but the most linear of games, players, not the dungeon master, ultimately decide where to go next. DMs can lay down clues and hints, even heavy handed ones, but the thing that makes D&D unique is that players can make their own choices in a way a video game cannot.
It is really tempting to finish up a story arc and end a session there / it feels like a clean break. But that puts the entire burden on the DM to prep for next session without guidance or player input, and then means players are basically forced to do whatever the DM wants because that is what the DM prepared.
Instead, DMs should always push the session just a little longer. “We killed the bad guy, next what do we want to do?” “What about explore the cursed tower?” is far more helpful than “We killed the bad guy, see you all next week.” It makes the players feel they are driving the story, shows the DM what the players are interested in, and gives a basic plot seed the DM can build on, as opposed to having no foundation (a primary contributor to writer’s block is being overwhelmed with endless possibility).
If this does not happen, the DM can always ask the group chat to talk and come up with a plan on what they want to do next. That out of character conversation can provide a similar foundation to build on, though it is less fun than having roleplayed the choice at table.
Also great advice. We're both novice DMs and that kind of advice really helps.
How would you guys feel if I once in a while just posted some "highlights" to show what is happening, then maybe get some advice on what we may be doing wrong or even right. We started this game bassically as a "test game" so me and her could "learn" better about how things work. We really didn't intend for it to become an all out game. but since it has, we want to continue but need guidance to help us out. Maybe putting some highlights out there could help you guys let us know if we are heading in the right direction or not. The highlights would only be short little paragraphs, no serious game detail, just highlights to show what directions things are taking. Not asking for yal to run the game for us, just give some advice and insight on what we may be doing that could take some improvement. Eventually we should be able to continue on without any help. We pretty much know the 5e system and mechanics, it's the storytelling part that seems to throw things off.
I talked to the DM just before getting on here and she agreed that we need new characters and is asking everyone to re-make their characters either with completely new ones or update their current one. And we're staying at level 7 for now, she wants to adopt the XP system for advancement from now on. We know how to use the XP system, not that hard.
We are going to continue the campaign from the current point. We have abandoned the 10 year jump thing. That's not going to happen now, we are staying where we are and we're updating the World developement. She has a new D&D AI program she just purchased and wants to use that to revamp our world to fit the game better. She's never used AI before and says it should be interesting at best.
I’d love to see those highlights. This has been pretty cool to read about, and I for one would like more. I would reiterate on one of my earlier ideas; you could start with maybe fighting around a storm-proofed farming area, or the hub of a teleportation network, or perhaps, if that whole wizard/warlock-guild-seizing-power thing is an option, maybe starting back with low-level characters overthrowing such a regime - not unlike at the end of LotR, with the whole post-main-quest Shire mess; kind of restarting at a smaller scale of events.
Phantom Menace to Society
Yeah we are gonna scale back the levels of new characters, we're scaling back to level 5 from the level 7. We were not quite ready for that high of level so we scaled back a bit. Characters are getting redone from scratch to fix some of the problems with a lot of them. We are going to be short one player a he has other important things to attend to and no longer has time for gaming. Everything else is the same. We are continuing with the same campaign just smoothed out and scaled back. We are taking a couple of days off giving everyone some time to get their characters together and for me and the DM to work on some of the NPCs. Also she is trying to learn how to use the new AI she just purchased to revise the world, not really that important, but she wants to smooth out some of the rough edges of the world before gameplay starts up again in a couple of days.
I will post the highlights here on this thread. They will just be short description paragraphs to save on typing long and drawn out messages. Just enough to show what is happening so those with ideas can post them and help me and the DM learn a little more. We would like to get enough experience that we could eventually take the game live on Discord and try to get some new players. But we're not quite there yet. Also me and one other player are having Camera issues. Mine went completely dead, says "no connection" and the other player has no video, just sound. We hope tohave that fixed before the game starts back up. I'd love to get this up on Discord though.
Sounds like you’re setting up to go on a smoother path. Good luck.
For what it’s worth, I kind of liked the idea of the time jump. It can give the story a chance to breathe, and let the DM incorporate some new twists. It’s enough time that a few new NPCs have risen up in the world, etc. As a player, I always love it when we run a new campaign, and I can see the impacts the party had on the world. Time jumps really make that possible as you can see things ripple out.
And in this case, the break might be nice. A narrative break to match the rules changes. It can be less jarring from a storytelling perspective.
Also, a 10-year break could be used to explain de-leveling the characters. They’ve been doing other things, and gotten a little rusty, so now they’re level 5 instead of 7.
Never thought of it that way, I'll pass that on to the DM and see if she agrees. I myself wanted the jump, but for some reason she decided not to use it. I'm going to speak with the other players and see if they agree and then see if we can get the DM on the same page. We have a couple of days to dial things in anyway.
We are trying very hard to get things on a smoother path. Things were just out of control at first and nothing was working the way we expected. As I said we started this ting more or less as a 'test game' between some friends, but it became an all out game, so we stuck with it. Otherwise it would have ended 1 year ago, we started last year and have been going since.Like I said, I would love to get this thing on Discord, but we still have some learning to do. Not too mention some technical issues to solve. I wouldn't want just a 'text' game, I would rather have a text+live video game. But my system can't handle it too well right now, it barely does what we do now and that's just video conferencing.
If we were doing the 10 yr jump, we probably wouldn't have run into this writer's block, I had my part all ready to go, then she pulled out the jump, and that was that. Like I said earlier, I love the lady to death, but she's a bit stubborn sometimes. We've been friends now for a good 12 years only been gaming for a couple of years. She was gaming a bit before that, but with the old 3.5e system. 5e is a whole new ballgame and she isn't quite used to it yet. I started out with 5e so I know a little more than she does, but still novice.
I'll admit I haven't read through all the posts in this thread, however:
Going off of what you said in your first post - the elves are sad that the time angel left and because they are sad (and their emotions control the weather) the empire is plunged into a freak snowstorm.
There is an official 5e adventure called Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. In this adventure the whole of Icewind Dale has been plunged into a magical arctic setting by the Frostmaiden. You could probably reference this adventure for many mechanics and ideas regarding magical arctic environments.
As for general "what might happen", honestly if most of the world is NOT populated by elves (which seems to be the case from what you've said), and they knew the Elves being really sad was causing what they think could possibly be an eternal winter, there's a strong possibility of resentment growing from the populace (especially farmers and other people who depend on the environment for their wellbeing) who might start attacking the elves. I know you said "the people trust and love the elves and the elves love and trust the people), but this could very much be the kind of situation which breaks that.
I know you said it would only last about 2 days, but I'm sure no one in-game probably knows that. and people (mobs) are quick to get frightened about something and react in an over-the-top way.
Just a thought. Obviously you can take this idea or leave it, no worries.
We've sort of gone down that path, game play starts back up tonight, so we will see what happens. The DM hasn't filled me in on how she intends to run with things, she hasn't even said which NPC is going to be the 'bearer of bad news' yet. I run the NPCs show she will have to let me know something before the game starts tonight. Probably we won't do a whole lot tonight because a couple of us won't be able to tele-conference because our cameras aren't working. We can still voice communicate though. From the E-mail I got from the DM, (she sends me story updates that way), the people are starting to get a little upset that the elves didn't have more control over their magic knowing that such strong emotions can have devastating effects on the weather. Most of the farmers are slightly angry at them. However things are remaining held together by the few 'good fairies' that help to maintain vegetation through their magic. The problem there is that the fairies rely on 'fairy dust' for magic, it is their only source of magic. And unfortunately, the fairies make their dust from a specific magical flower located in a specific location in the Feyeland Forests. The snow storm has become quite severe now and those flowers are dying off because of the severe cold, those flowers require a specific temperature and atmospheric balance to grow. Without those flowers, the fairies are unable to produce the Dust which gives them their magic, so their supply is dwindling to dangerous levels. In short, No Dust, no fairy magic, therefore they will no longer be able to sustain the crops that are being affected by the storm. It's now becomming a mess.
Thanks to our pirate friends ,they have been able to ship in some food supplies from neighboring islands, but that won't last for too long, it's costly and also sea travel is becomming more difficult by the day because of the storm, so sooner or later that option will be no more. The storms are getting worse each time.
I should mention that the storm isn't constant, there are temporary breaks in them, but each time, they get stronger and stronger, temperatures aren't getting above 10 degrees now and they are continuing to drop.
Those are just some of the highlights that I could put together from the story update the DM sent me. That's pretty much all she sent me, no information on any actions being taken by any of the numerous NPCs. She needs to let me know something so I can prepare my starting point. Without any info, I'm still stuck.
I do want to take a look at that "Icewind Dale" adventure, is there anywhere I can find some information on it without having to purchase the book? If I could get some ideas from it, I could pass them along to the DM, I'm not sure if she has read it or even knows of it. You know, sometimes I wish I was the DM. I could at least get things going again. But, she is my friend and I don't want to say anything too bad about her methods. We'll see what happens tonight, looks like she has the storyline ready anyway.
She's probably busy playing around with that AI program...wouldn't be surprised at all.It's supposed to be able to create your world, creat characters for you, and even it's supposed to be able to give suggestions on what the DM should do in game. I guess pretty soon they'll have AI running these games, not too sure I want that, YIKES!!
Ok, well...things went pretty well tonight, we weren't really able to do much with two of us not having video and only audio, but we did manage to get in some storytelling and roleplaying.
We did implement a few of the ideas you guys gave me, and they actually worked out great. We now have a goal set and a purpose. Thanks to all who gave me ideas. I'll post some highlights to morrow some time, I have to gather up my notes first and get a grip on everything that happened. I can say the storm is causing some really serious problems though. Temperatures are staying below freezing, snowfall has reached around 4 inches on the ground, higher in some places. The Sovereign Queen of the Empire called for a special meeting of all rulers,Fairies (the good ones),elves and other important persons. The meeting took place and she set down some laws. Me and one of the Elven Princesses were ordered to travel to one of our allies (not part of the Empire) to ask for help. We arrived there and got snowed in, so me and her are stuck there for now. that's about it, things got kind of held up there at that point. We ran out of ideas at that point. Next game session is next week, hopefully my new webcam will come in and the other player will get her computer back from the shop. We just couldn't do a lot because we couldn't do any real game play without video. I guess that's one of the Quirks of playing online.
Hope I was in any way helpful. Mostly I was just trying to approach things from a politicoeconomic standpoint, as opposed to a storytelling or game mechanics one, since those were already provided by the other posters.
Phantom Menace to Society
You and everyone were helpull. Thanks. I will be getting those highlights up as soon as I ca. The DM is going to be out of the country for a while, she has gone overseas to be with her family for the hollidays. they are military so she don't get to see them too often. The game has not been put on hold however, she asked me to step in and DM while she is gone. Since I know about as much as she does, I was the only one qualified to take over. I have a few ideas I need some help with that I want to add to things. I want add them right away, but I will do it later, it's mostly mechanics that I need help with. I know how to roleplay the ideas, I just need some insight on the mechanics. That's always been an issue when I DM, is getting the mechanics right so as not to cause any issues with game flow. I'll post the ideas after I post the highlights.
I hope this doesn’t sound patronizing, but if yours looking for ways to handle different mechanics, you should read the DMG. The 24 version especially. It’s got lots of good mechanics for doing a lot of different things. I’ve been playing for more than 40 years, and I still read it cover to cover. It’s full of great advice.
Agreed, the 2024 DMG is a great book and head and shoulders over the old one. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Also the more of the official rules you learn the easier it becomes to see the patterns and logic behind them which allows you to make your own rulings from a firmer foundation
I'll look into getting that. I have the old DMG, but it's not that much help, I've read it and it does help somewhat. Just doesn't cover enough. Bassically right now, I want to run a couple of possible scenarios by you and see if it is a good idea or not. I have a couple of things I want to do to lead into the Quest I have in mind. I've already figured out how to roleplay the quest into things, I just need something to lead up to it and make it a necessary quest.
It has stopped snowing at least, but a lot of damage has been done, and now we have another problem (this was actually put in motion by our "evil" PC, I liked it so went with it. Even though the snow has stopped ,the weather has now become out of control. We're having storms, flooding rains, and all sorts of things at random. There is a reason for it, we just don't know what that is yet. With this new scenario, I should be able to lead up to our 1st quest, of course we have to gather up who is going to go on this quest. I really want it to be PCs and maybe one or two support NPCs. I know I will have to involve the 'pirates' because we will have to leave the comfort of our continent and travel the seas to other lands and the 'pirates' are the only ones with ships capable of traveling the open seas. All the Pirates are NPCs. How the heck do you do Sea Travel in D&D, never had to do it before?
Same way as overland travel. Either you hand wave it and just say, ta-da, you arrive.
Or you throw in a few encounters along the way. Either some little island or port they visit on the way, or a ship-to-ship fight, or they’re attacked by some kind of sea creatures or flying creatures or something. Or some combination.
If we did have some sort of attack at sea, wouldn't there be some sort of damage assesment mechanics for the ship? Or could I just "wing-it" and do a sort of "average damage" roll or something without having to actually design the ship to have stats, could I do like a damage roll and give the ship some HP and if the HP reaches 0 it's destroyed, how could I assess damage for any PCs on board when it sank? NPCs are no problem, I can just RolePlay those, but there would be some PCs onboard, how do I asses their damage or survival for that matter? We are talking about being at sea where there is a possibility of drowning or being eaten, all sorts of things. It wouldn't be as simple as a battle on land would it? I've never been able to cover sea travel before, because all of the advice I was given in the past from different DMs, they all say I have to more or less build my ships as if they themselves were players, and I have to calculate all sorts of damage and stuff. that's why I never incorporated sea travel in any game I ever ran. but since our DM put it in there, I can't just get rid of it. That would make things a bit messed up. I assume she had some idea of how she was going to run sea travel and/or sea battles. She didn't pass that info along to me though. How would you do something like that, should I just allow them to go on their mary way and arrive without incident (not much fun in that), or should I throw in some sort of challenge for them?
Oh and by the way, the snow has started up again, but it's an all out blizzard this time. Moral in the Empire has started to drop and people are ,as someone on here sugested, getting angry and some are actually blaming the Elves for not having control of the situation. I had to do some rolls for all of this to take place. I just did a d20 roll for moral ,and anger, then just role played the rest. Was that a good way to do it? I couldn't think of any other way to do it in-game. Food production has come to a complete stop now. The Kingdoms do have several collected food stores, and are distributing them to the people, but that won't last long.
We are facing another problem as well, remember a while back that I said the 'good' fairies were doing all they could to help? Well they have been, but the problem is, the plant that they use to make their fairy dust (the source of their magic) has all but died due to the ice and snow. So now, they have no way to make dust. Meaning their magic will soon be no more. Also, remember I said we were brought here to this modern world by an unknown evil force? Well, we've adapted and since there are no medeival vehicles to travel with, we had to adapt to using small cars, but here's the problem, originaly these cars ran on fossil fuels, well, it was decided a long time ago not to use fossil fuel because of the enviromental impact, so one of the fairies (the Queen to be exact) is a tinkerer and she came up with a way to use fairy dust as a fuel for the cars. Problem solved. However, since there is no more dust being produced by the fairies, fuel is now running low and soon we will have no means of transportation. No Dust, No Fuel. So now getting food supplies to the people will now be an issue. The Avrial elves can help somewhat because they can fly, but not in this heavy snow where vissibility is less than 1/4 of a mile. And we only have a handfull of Avrial elves.
So things have 'snowballed" at this point. I don't think I will put any more hardships in right now, I think we have enough to keep us busy for a while. I want to lead up to the 1st quest which is one that could help significantly if we can pull it off. I'll explain what it is later, I have a few 'bugs' to work out, not too mention how to lead up to it. There are actually 2 quests and the PCs will have to convince our Queen which one is most important and then put that chosen quest in motion. Our Queen is understanding, but stubborn. She is a PC BTW. A very good player, she knows her stuff and how to play her character.
It's a real pain adapting a medieval Empire to a modern world. I hope one day before this campaign ends, to be able to find a way to return us back to our original land. But, before the Time Angel left, she permanantly closed the portal that brought us here because it was being used by the Evil Force to bring other people from other realms to here. We voted and decided that closing that portal for good was the best idea to prevent it from being used as a weapon. So we're stuck here for now.
Most effects target creatures, not objects. So you can generally just ignore ship damage. Also, unless it’s part of a military action, pirates and raiders and such want the cargo; if the ship sinks that’s much harder to get.
That said, if you want the ship to sink, maybe you have a plan for them wrecking on an island, or bring plucked from a lifeboat, you can usually pull that off.
And if the ship sinks, they start to swim or cling to some bits of floating wreckage. Theres only sharks and other things that might eat them if you put them there.
There are some ship stats in Ghosts of Saltmarsh if you want them.
But in general, the extra bit of tracking ship damage and the boat sinking is only a pain if you want it to be, you can ignore it pretty easily.
Or, the easy route is: “Your voyage took about two weeks. What did you do with your time on board?” Followed by “ Great, on with the adventure.”
Yeah, I think I will just wing it, maybe throw in a small complication, and just be done with it. The Pirates have pretty much established a friendship with the offshore islanders, so there shouldn't be too much trouble. The trip will take about a week there and a week back, and that's in good conditions. So it will take a while being as conditions aren't so good right now. Thanks for the ideas though. Helped me decide what to do. Not going to worry too much about ship damage right now. May add that later, but since the pirates only have 2 ships, an extended battle isn't in the making at this time.
Ok, here are a few things that happened tonight. Just ended the game for tonight.
I decided to choose one of the quests myself. Here is what I did. since we now know that the elves were not directly responsible for the weather problems, I decided to run with that. The Fairy Queen has informed the Sovereign Queen that there is a magical device, a stone in the shape of a Dodecahedron. it has 12 flat sides. This stone is known as a 'nature stone'. Now for years, the fairy queen has been using this stone to keep nature balanced. As we all know, magic in this land has a rather unique effect on nature including weather. She was given this stone by the late Queen Talori, the original Fairy Queen. She was told that only a fairy can operate the stone and that it can only be attuned to a fairy. It was attuned to her and her only. The stone was kept in a special secret cavern underneath the fairy forest of Bristwood. Only the Fairy Queen and her Princess has access this hidden secret cavern. However, the Fairy Queen has informed our Queen that the stone is missing and could be the reason the weather has gone out of control. Also, the stone must be returned before the Winter Solstice which is on December 21. (We use real time when possible) If it is not returned by this time, things could become un-repairable and only small control could be done. If this stone has fallen into enemy hands, they could in theory, remove the attenuation and attune the stone to one of the Dark Fairies which would explain why weather is out of control. This stone could be used as a weapon to hold the Empire hostage.
This leads up to setting forth a quest to find the stone, and return it to the Fairy Queen before the solstice so she can restore nature balance. the only thing is, we have no idea where it is or who took it, or even how it was taken. An ivestigation is in order here. Figuring out how it was stolen may lead us to who stole it. It does seem obvious that since the stone can only be attuned to a fairy, that the dark fairies took it. That's the obvious conclusion.
Now I have a question, what stats would be used to have the players conduct the investigation. Would you use INT? or a combination of different stats. Or should I take into account the abilities and skills of the players? I'm not sure how to conduct something as complicated as this. I've done simple things like figuring out who did what and things, that's not too hard, but here we are talking about not only figuring out who, but how,when, and why, then figuring out where the darn thing is. I could Roleplay it, but that would make it boring. I want to make it interesting and fun, and not so easy. How would one of you guys do it? I'm a novice DM and I 'm having to take over from another DM. I'm falling her notes, but eventually will have to take the lead completely. I'm good at roleplay, but when conducting things like this, I'm a bit rusty. I do know the mechanics of 5e, and I know how to roll for magic and damage and stuff like that, but I am not all that up on using players skills,abilities, and other things other than their stats. I want to become a better DM and I am hoping you guys can help me a little with that. If I can get good enough, then I might can get the game up on Discord for the public. I want to use this game right now for gaining experience as a DM. I've always been good at writing stories, just putting them into a game, is a bit difficult. I really don't have the finantial ability to keep purchasing a bunch of books. I know a lot of them you can find online, but I'm a little against getting 'free' pirated material. It's not fair to the writers to do that. If I can't buy them, I don't want them. I've spent a lot of dollars on just what I have, a couple of the books I have were given to me, one of those is the Time Travel book, and the other one is the D&D handbook, the person had two copies and gave me one, he didn't want the Time Travel one so he gave it to me as well. I just need a little help with how to conduct things like investigations.