Anything BUT whatever dumb ass 💩 WotC has recently done or is currently doing, literally ANYTHING

Quote from Wysperra >>

Do you notice that players often hold on to consumables for forever? They seems to be so reluctant to use a spell scroll or potions or magical fruit. Why do people do that?

Well, if you use it, you don't have it anymore, do you?

“I can’t let this potion of healing go! One of these days I’ll be lying dying on the ground, and this 1d4 health could be the difference between success and a TPK! And this dispel magic spell scroll will definitely come in handy if I ever run into a rug of smothering!”

If I ever run a Faerun campaign again, I’m gonna make it so that potions of healing are highly addictive and strictly controlled by the Lord’s Alliance. If my players are ever found with them, they’ll end up with a court date in Waterdeep. That’ll teach ‘em not to loot every corpse they find . . .

Quote from Nothic2SeeHere2 >>

 That’ll teach ‘em not to loot every corpse they find . . .

 That is another thing I have noticed. For me there are two types of groups - Those that take EVERYTHING and those that take almost nothing.

The second type are the hardest to deal with. So often clues and keys are on the bodies or in the room of the bad guys and the party just walks away from it all. ARGH!

hi

Quote from Nothic2SeeHere2 >>

QotD: It’s late at night. A friend texts you, saying they have some friends that want to try D&D and their DM bowed out unexpectedly. You offer to run a quick one-shot.

The campaign is tomorrow afternoon, so you don’t have a lot of time to prepare.

Do you use a published campaign setting or a homebrew world? Likewise, do you use a published adventure or something you made yourself?

Bonus question: if you choose something that’s been published, what world and what adventure do you use?

 
I run them through The Secret of Havenfall Manor. (That exact situation happened, and I created that adventure for that!) 

But really, I'd just create something new - because I thrive on that. 

Quote from Wysperra >>

Do you notice that players often hold on to consumables for forever? They seems to be so reluctant to use a spell scroll or potions or magical fruit. Why do people do that?

 
I tend to use consumables if they are readily replaceable. If they aren’t I hold onto them for emergencies because I’ve been in emergencies and thought to myself, “self, you really should’a aughtta held onto that/those extra [whatever(s)] instead of being frivolous with it/them.” (I always call myself “self” whenever I’m discussing something important.) I’ll get that spell slot back tomorrow, but who knows when the next potion will come along? 🤷‍♂️ Unless I got potions coming outta my ears, then they become the more readily replaceable thing and the spell slots become more valuable. I always burn my most easily replaceable resources first. Now, unique consumables, those are a different story altogether. It would take a TPK type situation for me to crack open a unique gift from the Saint of the North for instance, or something like that. Those get scrapbooked for posterity. Those are my memories. Those are worth more than all the gold in the game.

Quote from Wysperra >>

Do you notice that players often hold on to consumables for forever? They seems to be so reluctant to use a spell scroll or potions or magical fruit. Why do people do that?

With D&D being so emergent, not knowing what dangers might be around the corner, the opportunity cost of using up a consumable is very hard to judge and easy to inflate. "Maybe using this now would be helpful, but there might be a more useful situation later, and I'll regret not having this anymore." I know I find myself almost needing my hand forced to make that kind of decision.

Quote from Wysperra >>

Do you notice that players often hold on to consumables for forever? They seems to be so reluctant to use a spell scroll or potions or magical fruit. Why do people do that?

 I am honestly one of those players. I once got inspiration on the first session of a campaign and I never used it. I just forget I have it.

I use that habit to my advantage, lol

So, 2nd level character find a potion of X. It is in a silver chased phial, sealed with faintly perfumed wax.

Around 8th level, they find out that something they are likely going to face can only be harmed with Potion of X is used. THis is the trick -- you have to let them know, in game, and ideally kinda bluntly, that there is a need coming up for it.

Suddenly they will hold on to all the consumables -- even Potions of Healing, because they are certain that they will have a need for them down the road -- and sure enough,  they always hear about a likely circumstance.

I did a couple backgrounds centered around magical items in the three sentence thread, and I use that as well -- after reaching 13th level, now they suddenly have found the thing they were looking for, and have to take it back -- but along the way there are a gazillion reasons to use it, and not using it makes it harder, so by the time they do get there, they are freaking out over how useful the thing is.

IOW, you crete reasons for using them, lol.

getting close to end of day, everyone is low on spell slots, kinda beat up a little? Well, rando bandits show up, and stop them from getting that full night's rest (no long rest benefits), so now they are starting to stress, still low, those potions look mighty good since this one bandit chief is just really out for them since he thinks they have a potion of X and he needs it to cure his daughter of a poison sickness. And, as a bandit, it is always easier to kill and take than talk and bargain.

Quote from Nothic2SeeHere2 >>

Quote from BoringBard >>a

Well, are they already at a set level they wanna play at?

Let’s say 1. They’re new, so they want the full experience and want to level up naturally.

If they're level 1, I'd probably go with one of the best adventures in Candlekeep Mysteries: The first one (Joy of Extradimensional Spaces). The Murkmire Malevolence is a level 1 adventure for Keys From the Golden Vault and I don't have it on me at the moment so I can't look it over, though I might consider giving it a try. Though if the players are new, doing a heist about avoiding encounters probably wouldn't be the smartest.

In future, I might build one-shots and.or regular adventures for levels 1 and 3 just because they're some of the primary levels for starting out as an adventurer.

Quote from The_Summoning_Dark >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

Do you notice that players often hold on to consumables for forever? They seems to be so reluctant to use a spell scroll or potions or magical fruit. Why do people do that?

 I am honestly one of those players. I once got inspiration on the first session of a campaign and I never used it. I just forget I have it.

Honestly, I'd classify myself as someone who does that. When I was newer I got inspiration from helping clean a temple out of kindness and used it almost immediately. But now I think I conserve resources too much: I mean, I hardly wanta use wild shape or spells slots in our PMs campaign for instance.

Another neat example this dynamic reminds me of is perception: I feel like some groups constantly use perception and investigation, often on basically every group. And then some just wander into stuff and never do that.

I think a lot of this stuff correlates to wanting to conserve resources or just caring more about mechanics the more experienced people get. Which is sad , because among other things - the idea of blindly walking into a room or cleaning out a temple for no requested mechanical benefit - all seem foreign to be now. Honestly, this makes me wander if I'd remove being able to roll perception the second you enter a room from any RPGs I make, though you can limit the loss of in-game carelessness over time but blocking it completely is nigh impossible.

ANyone else have "just a quick question" and then end up going down a rabbit hole that makes your "real fast thing" turn into a whole "now I have to learn a whole thing" deal just to make a dungeon?

No?

Just me?

Quote from AEDorsay >>

ANyone else have "just a quick question" and then end up going down a rabbit hole that makes your "real fast thing" turn into a whole "now I have to learn a whole thing" deal just to make a dungeon?

No?

Just me?

 
No, it’s not just you.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from AEDorsay >>

ANyone else have "just a quick question" and then end up going down a rabbit hole that makes your "real fast thing" turn into a whole "now I have to learn a whole thing" deal just to make a dungeon?

No?

Just me?

 
No, it’s not just you.

 Sposta’s right, it’s just you. Sorry

Quote from AEDorsay >>

ANyone else have "just a quick question" and then end up going down a rabbit hole that makes your "real fast thing" turn into a whole "now I have to learn a whole thing" deal just to make a dungeon?

No?

Just me?

 It's just you...

and a lot of other folks.

So, as  follow up to the above, I just determined that a game standard red dragon would need a territory large enough to provide roughly 5.2 million pounds of biomass a year for it to eat, assuming it only eats about 20k pounds of biomass a week.

A Game standard red dragon is roughly the equivalent of two elephants, which following the cube law would be needing to about a fifth its body weight a day in biomass.

Biomass is the total of nutritious food it needs to consume.

That's basically a decent sized Bull a day. Call it a half dozen barbarians a day.

Now, the worst part is that I figured this out not as part of my prior question, but I could figure it out because of my prior question, which was all about coming up with a decent set of random encounter tables for each biome, so I could start making determinations of what the stats for certain critters would be (based on the biome's general occupancy) and what they would be in the anticipated simplified ecology of the game that is messed with by the presence of monsters.

No, the dragon question was a reddit thing.

Now, note that I am the gal who is always saying that "reality doesn't count"...

... but I do like to have a good understanding of things so they feel 'right". Kinda strange to encounter a bear in the swamp or an alligator in an alpine forest.

Now, do your calculations include the possiof a dungeon’s occupants eating each other and reproducing to maintain a sort of homeostasis?

Quote from AEDorsay >>

ANyone else have "just a quick question" and then end up going down a rabbit hole that makes your "real fast thing" turn into a whole "now I have to learn a whole thing" deal just to make a dungeon?

No?

Just me?

 That happened to me once.

i believe it was about the accurate wingspan and weight of a dragon twice as tall as Smaug.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

ANyone else have "just a quick question" and then end up going down a rabbit hole that makes your "real fast thing" turn into a whole "now I have to learn a whole thing" deal just to make a dungeon?

No?

Just me?

That's the most AEDorsay thing I've ever heard. ;)

It doesn't happen to me for D&D adventures but does for history projects and stuff, so I definitely see how it could occur while building an adventure.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Now, do your calculations include the possiof a dungeon’s occupants eating each other and reproducing to maintain a sort of homeostasis?

`So, yes...

They presume that the Dragon is not the only top chain predator -- merely that it is the largest in its territory. Hence why I figured out that there needed to be 5.2 million pounds of biomass available in its territory -- that enables the structure of the web to support the amount of food required by such a being.

Now, the real question is what does a dragon eat. If dragons are carnivorous, the math gets a little rough -- but it always functions from the position of the dragon being the highest position in the food chain within its territory. If dragons are herbivorous, things shift a great deal, as the Dragon is then shifted to a different location and position -- and suddenly we need to start looking at what does dragon poop do in a soil system!

I presumed that they are omnivorous - they eat a LOT of food, compared to other beings, and while omnivores generally only make up less than 5% of a biome's species, they also are able to compete more efficiently and reduce the impact on the consumer side of the ecological system by combining both consumers and producers. 

Take the largest living land animal -- African Bull Elephant. Big suckers eat 375 pounds a day. Cross referencing that with the food of other herbivorous creatures and then a selection of carnivores (all large size), I came up with a gamified figure of a being needs to eat ten times its weight in a year in biomass (for omnivores -- it is 12% for herbivores, and 7% for carnivores).

Dragons, per the MM, are about twice the size of an African Bull Elephant, and the cube square rule for mass/size would apply when determining the rough weight, so i just used the basic calc there. So, around 36 to 40k pounds for a Red Dragon. Cut out a fifth for bone, and that's a LOT of biomass to deal with. But 360,000 pounds of biomass is only about a thousand pounds a week, and dragon's are active predators, who fly, hence the massive jump given the size and kcal needed to move such a thing through the air.

Something this big would impact at about 20% of the total biomass (33% if carnivorous, 12.5% if herbivorous), based on overall existing systems, so that's where you get the yearly point of 5.1 million. That also tells me that a Dragon entering that territory would be an immense burden -- but the next question is how much area is needed to support that amount of biomass?

It is shockingly small. A temperate forest generates 256,000 pounds of biomass (including insects and plants) per square foot, or 713,687,000,000,000,000 pounds per square mile. For an Apex A-O predator, only about 10% of that is needed at most, so the territory of a dragon can be as small as a square mile without any issues. If they are Omnivorous. Carnivorous changes things dramatically, as we then have to factor in size, and that means that something this size, focused mostly on temperate grasslands and forests for a hunting space (because of the need for ungulates and related groups), we get about 10 to 20 square miles per beasty, and that's when we run i to issues of chain breakdown should an outside force alter the ecological balance.

Edit: The reason it becomes so shocking is that without the 80% of biomass from plants, you only have about 4.25% of biomass from cattle and wild animals, as a total, so you need a much larger chunk of space that such prey can survive on. Hence why I shifted Dragon to an omnivorous position -- from an evolutionary standpoint, for an animal that active with that much mass, it would make sense that they would be shifting to survive on more than a portion of 4.5% of biomass, they would need a larger capacity -- and that's before we get to brain size and intelligence as additional factors, which burn through protein and fats (two things hard to obtain in quantity from herbaceous material).

Then I had to determine what can support that kind of massive consumption, while also supporting a broader ecosystem around it (since if you don't, everything dies) and that's how I got the figure of 5.2 million pounds of biomass -- to support a broad ranging ecosystem beneath an A-O predator, you still have to have the appropriate steps down.

Now, the reason it sucked me into a maelstrom of learning is that my models in my head were still sorta stuck in some older format stuff -- the pyramid basis, essentially, which doesn't always accurately reflect actual world systems and makes computer modeling get pissy. So, I learned a whole new layer to add to my collection of knowledge about biological systems on a large scale (regional, continental, planetary) just so I could make better encounter tables.

Ya shouldn't have asked, huh?

And all of that led to me creating a list of general biomass structures by category of thing, which, in turn, gives me a rough idea of the overall population in comparison, lol.

I started with Earth, then adjusted it slightly for the changes around Wyrlde in relation to having to include things like dragons and slimes and mimics and the assorted other whatnots and wherefores.

Was a surprise to realize there were so many of my Trolls out there, and how few of the native beings (dragons and related creatures) there are. May flip that about down the road.

As a note, this is very close to Earth in terms of overall breakdown. Changes were made strictly to account for the addition of entire new critter groups. More plants, added in an entire chain based off of plankton types. Faunalia and Floralia are terms I use for "monster" animals and plants of a more "regular kind" -- jackalopes and almiraz, awakened shrubs and the like. Monster is a the term for all the stuff that eats but really is pure ick -- Beholders, etc. I did not include planar beings, though.

Surprisingly, part of the goal here is to simplify an ecological system structure so that it can be gamified more easily. Life-webs for each of several biomes are an extremely effective way to determine what all is encountered and what may be attracted, distracted, or detracted from any violent encounter. Since one can encounter animals that are considered North American in the same places one encounters animals that are considered Asian or African, if the biome is the same, it becomes a kind of key thing to be sure that such is able to be workable when doing a world that can change as a result of player actions.

And now you have an idea of how serious I take worldbuilding (excessively, without limitation, fanatically) despite building my worlds off stuff like a throwaway line in a movie, lol.

I do draw the line at astrophysics, though. I am not that gifted mathematically.