Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Ah, it's just going to be in FR. That's too bad.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
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Homebrew (Mostly Outdated): Magic Items, Monsters, Spells, Subclasses
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I agree 100%.
Modules in the old days could be easily fit into or slotted into any world, campaign, etc.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I hope some of them would work as One-Shots, too. We need some official one-shots.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
What does this even mean? You’re aware that if they have a work stream capable of developing two sourcebooks per year, and another work stream that can develop two adventure books per year... this doesn’t take up a “slot”. It just means they’ve staggered the releases based on team development.
New article on the front page. 17 all-new adventures written by up-and-comers from outside WotC, not all set in Candlekeep, but using it as a framing device. They are all one-shots, explicitly designed not to be played through campaign-style, but as 1-2 session short adventures.
This is maybe the best possible version of this idea, and I am into it.
“Mystery games” are only as viable as the DM is able to develop them. Your reductionist take of “roll investigation until you find the next clue in a sequence” is probably why most mystery games have never worked for you - it’s droll and boring and any DM that adopted that should probably not run mysteries either.
Your gripes about the groups you’ve played with don’t really count as any sort of argument against DnD, but about demotivated players and DMs trying to cram a skill check into a plot device.
DnD as a “Role” playing game is highly adaptable to mystery scenarios. Just because whatever group you’ve played with can’t seem to figure it out doesn’t reflect poorly on DnD at all.
They don't always do two adventure books each year, it's often just the Q3 slot that is filled with the annual Campaign-Adventure book. Last year we had one adventure book, two settings, and one player-options book. They could have done the same thing this year and have had this book be a setting or monster book instead of this one-shot compilation.
I'm going to buy it, as I buy every official D&D 5e book, but I would have preferred something else. This takes up a slot that could have been something more interesting (IMO).
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
And further puts to rest any concept that this was somehow taking up development time from any other projects. Nice find, I’m into it too 🙂
I'm sure people will still find a way to complain about it, though.
Counterpoint: if the DM has to invent absolutely everything about how to run the Mystery Game, from the plot, setting, and mystery itself to all of the extra mechanics and gameplay systems needed to make it work, and gets absolutely no help whatsoever from the game devs or the books to do so...
How is that not "D&D handling Mystery poorly"? The fact that an exceptionally talented DM can do mysteries anyways is not praise of the game, it's praise of that specific DM. Furthermore, the game itself is designed in such a way as to prevent or discourage players from engaging with a mystery properly. Most players will default to throwing dice at the problem until it goes away, or casting "Locate Answer" however they have to. Very little investigation, i.e. examination of the mystery and deductive logic and reasoning concerning what one's search says about it, happens in a typical mystery game.
The DM needs to think differently about building the game, the players need to think differently about playing the game, and in both cases the DMG/PHB actively teach both the DM and the players to do it wrongly/poorly/badly. Primarily because 5e is very little save a combat engine that had some extraneous trappings of noncombat fluffery bolted onto it after the fact, and Wizards bloody well knows that's exactly what they did.
Please do not contact or message me.
Well this one is on my wait for a coupon list. Don't hate it. Will probably get it but not quite worth full price for me
This book has 17 authors and there are 17 new D&D adventures in this book. So it's easy to see that each adventure was probably written by a different author. That really fits the theme that each of these adventures are like books in the Candlekeep Library that sort of transport you (figuratively and literally) into these settings of mystery and intrigue. It's certainly interesting. As a player in a group that prefers creating homebrew worlds and settings, I don't think this will do much for me. However, I can certainly see why some people are excited for this.
Also that Alt cover is sweet!
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Yurei,
Why would the DM need to invent new mechanics? I run mysteries all the time. I’m running one as the current campaign. For one thing, they should never be allowed to just keep rolling Investigation until they find something, mystery campaign or not. That’s just DMing 101.
I am personally a fan of using 4e style skill challenges for group clue gathering. If they can give me a plausible explanation for how Athletics might help them find a clue, and they’re proficient in Athletics, I say rock on. (Actually what I say is “You can certainly try.” 😉) I set a DC, they make the check, no new mechanics required. Sometimes I run them as each success gets a clue until they get them all or fail 3 checks as a group. Sometimes I run it so that each clue gatherer can make a single check, the base DC gets them a base clue and the higher they roll the more clue they get. But degrees of success and failure are nothing new in 5e, I’m just borrowing what already exists and using it in a new “off-label” application. But hey, it’s me, if something isn’t at least a little “off-label” it wouldn’t be my style.* But no matter what, even if they fail the DM should be thinking of ways to let them “fail forward.”
But ultimately, to make a mystery really work, it cannot be something that simply challenges the characters. This is an area where the players themselves must come together and consider the clues and figure out what is going on. The challenge to the characters is finding the clues (and surviving). The challenge to the players is actually solving the mystery. No roll can do that, so no mechanics required.
Kinda like how you say that skill checks are done backwards, same principle. If the characters’ skills are solving the mystery, you’re doing it backwards. Make sense?
*(Except MM, for some reason I’m the only person I know of who plays that RAW. 🤷♂️)
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I would expect that a mystery game would require more roleplaying rather than just trying to figure everything out via skill checks.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Think I mistyped it earlier, but Relics and Rarities is a good example of how investigative gaming can work. Mysteries are just really another form of exploration, but instead of terrain you're usually charting out relationships to determine a why. You could run one that was skill check driven, but usually the paths to resolution tend to be multiple at the outset (set a wide net) and at each step the players figure out what they're characters know and then determine their next move. I think this format and genre is particularly useful for DM inspiration as a contrast with the campaign adventures. I mean it models not so much a campaign length build up of character power to overcome something; but rather is about exploring wonder, something that could use some more attention as a way to play to D&D. Mysteries tend to be a "closer" space in terms of genre (ranging among claustrophic to hard boiled to the cozies genre). Could be fun.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I watched a few YouTube reviews of Companion. I think Ed Greenwood didn't contribute anything "new" but rather his prior writing was sort of consolidated. MT Black I think just contributed the "Directors Cut of DiA" which I didn't think worked really well (and the good elements aside from one were put elsewhere in the published Avernus). It sounds like a map will be in it, and I'd be surprised if that map isn't a print reproduction of the map in the Companion. Mentioned some monsters and items,
I could picture the death egg being a device in a mystery.
And monsters like the book worms etc. Then there's all that time-based magic stuff which doesn't exactly make sense in the book, but maybe could be devices in mysteries?
FYI the whole text of the Companion is available as preview prepurchase on DMsGuild. I didn't drop the $15 for it because it was too uneven, but if what I liked makes it into the adventure book, I'd be more inclined to pick it up because of that and get some adventure material more in line with the setting.
Dang it! Yes, it does. (E-mails game store re: pre-order).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Using 4e skill challenges is literally inventing new mechanics, since 5e doesn't have skill challenges anywhere in its RAW pages. Yes, I know that James wrote about them here on DDB, but there is nothing in the printed primary sources (PHB, DMG, MM, XGE, Tasha) to cover skill challenges. So you ask why a DM would need to invent new mechanics to run a mystery in 5e, but you admit you co-opt an old mechanic that doesn't exist in 5e... This is an admission that 5e is inadequate to handle mysteries -- which is exactly what Yurei said.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well, I guess technically correct. But supplementing D&D mechanics with other D&D mechanics is hardly “inventing” new mechanics. I didn’t “invent” skill challenges, I just borrowed them from D&D. If I can take something created by someone else and use it whole then I can’t claim to have “invented” anything. And it’s not like I’m borrowing mechanics from Shadowrun or World of Darkness here, it’s still all D&D. So, while yes, I am using a rule from outside of 5e to supplement 5e, I am also by no means “inventing” mechanics new to D&D.
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You will, however, have to invent rules to make them work with 5e, because the 4e skill challenge rules used the rules for 4e task difficulty, which 5e lacks an equivalent to.
But the fact that you had to borrow from an edition something that no longer exists in 5e, because 5e neither has that rule nor something adequate to replace that rule, means that 5e does not have sufficient RAW to encompass what you need to do. You're using non-5e rules to run your game because 5e doesn't do what you need it to do. Whether you invented the rules or someone else did, whether they came from D&D or another system like Champions, Ironsworn, or Savage Worlds, doesn't really matter. You still felt the need to graft a non-5e system onto your game to make it work.
Which proves the point that Yurei was making -- that 5e is inadequate to do the sorts of things you are doing (which is why you needed to borrow skill challenges from 4e).
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.