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Question: Who was the first person you ever interacted with on the DDB forums?

 

I don't think I interacted with anyone specifically - there was a megathread back in 2017 about Subscriptions I had posted in as my first post.

I don't really recall who I first really interacted with.

Stormknight, firehawk2324, and Matthias_von_Schwarzwald. (Transfer Character Ownership.)

That's the magic of the "View Posts" button.

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

Question: Do skeletons talk in your games? RAW, they can't, but idk how many people know that, and I prefer talking skellies anyway.

They don't talk, but they do use "gestural language" at least some of them.  One of the things the party Sorcerer did when I ran Descent into Avernus was unearth the altar that could animate dead skeletons.  And would always create a squad of them whenever she ventured somewhere.  They would high five each other when they'd make good hits, kinda sulk with arms in a "what" akimbo fashion if not being utilized, have just enough vitality when crushed by the enemy to gesture a digit at said enemy, etc.

Just realizing I sort of have a skeleton/zombie polarity axis.  My basic skeletons generally have a sort of cartoonish Sorcerer's apprentice Disney halloween vibe, whereas my Zombies are more gory and horrific.  That's not by design, but just realized that.  So given that:

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Quote from MidnightPlat

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

 Maybe not comic effect, but one of my players is terrified of owlbears because of an incident that happened when they almost played. They think of owlbears as the most dangerous monsters in DND, so of course I make sure to include an owlbear in every adventure that they are in.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Just things like the aforementioned Flameskull NPC for the "Off Week" game I run.

And in the regular weekly game I run (opposite of the off week), there was a goblin who rode on the back of a cloaker he'd rescued - the goblin was named Nor’Orn Greenskin. His name is a reference to Norman Osborn (so first three and last three letters) - who if you're a Marvel fan might know as the Green Goblin (Spider-Man villain) who rode a mechanical bat. So my goblin was an alchemist - who promised to help the party find a cure to a poison that the Drow had introduced in the Dwarven Kingdom's water supply (they had to fetch a bunch of monster parts for components). And he was absolutely crazy - and whenever the party tried to rest in his cave, there was always alchemy explosions. He was also a lot of fun.

Oh, for something that wasn't "monster" NPC based - Stirge. I use them all the time as now, pretty much comedic relief. Every time they show up in a cave, the party (purposely) overreacts because of the constant history of encountering stirges. They will fireball an entire ceiling to not have to deal with them (knowing that is way, way, way, way overkill).

Quote from Quar1on >>

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from DrakenBrine >>

Question: Who was the first person you ever interacted with on the DDB forums?

 

I don't think I interacted with anyone specifically - there was a megathread back in 2017 about Subscriptions I had posted in as my first post.

I don't really recall who I first really interacted with.

Stormknight, firehawk2324, and Matthias_von_Schwarzwald. (Transfer Character Ownership.)

That's the magic of the "View Posts" button.

 Yeah the View Posts was how I looked back to the first post I made...

I am far more a blabber mouth since the ordeal that triggered the initial thread here. (Much to the dismay of many I am sure, lol)

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

Quote from theologyofbagels >>

Quote from ChoirOfFire >>

Worlds: Ehh. I have a spicy opinion about players knowing monster stats, but this probably ain't the place for it. There's pros and cons to both approaches and they're fairly evenly matched in my estimation.

 I wonder if we have the same opinion...

 

<snip>

Conclusion: If you're going to be switching up your monster stats to keep players from getting too comfortable, you owe it to them to use those monsters multiple times. Preferably in sequence. The fact that players already know how a troll works is not a downside. It's a time saver for you. Now you only have to send trolls after them once, to get the full troll experience. I don't think it's bad for players to be curious about the damn game. I actually think that's cool and good and should be encouraged. I think everyone should read whatever books they want to read. Reading is fun and rewarding and attractive. I think player and DM are actions, not types of people. I think the number of monsters you can "break" just by knowing something is exceedingly low, and I think it's easy to play a character who knows different things than what you know as a player, when you do come up against one.

Curious. We end up with similar opinions, but we come at them from different angles.

I don't care if players have meta knowledge of monster stat blocks because I often modify mine. The published stat block is a springboard for me, nothing more, so I couldn't care less if players know what the Monster Manual says. I enjoy subverting expectations and making things fresh, so their pre-existing knowledge makes my innovations stand out more. And on the occasions I don't alter the stat blocks, the naked dread that comes over my players when they realize they're up against something they know is scary just adds to the experience.

I will say, however, that I have reused monsters in my campaigns and the subsequent battles were no less fulfilling or challenging when the players knew what they were up against. I homebrewed some high CR cultists who were hard counters to my party. The first battle was...let's call it humbling. The next ones were all-out strategy fests that saw them teaming up and getting creative to earn their wins. Knowing the cultists could teleport as a bonus action or enshroud themselves in a 5ft cube of darkness once per combat didn't break the encounters at all. And for players who struggle with anxiety, knowing what a monster is capable of can help them manage stress.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

 Not a monster, but I often do recurring gags with ability checks.

The bard once tried to jump into bed and volunteered to roll an acrobatics check to see how much style he did it with - and got a nat 1. From then on, he rolled "bed checks" at the end of adventuring days. And the barbarian once RP'd having a bad hair day, so any time there was a reference to combing her hair, touching it, or putting something on her shoulders/head, I called for athletics checks to see if her frizzled mane would allow it. 

 

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

 Of course! We have plenty, but two are currently the most popular.

One recent one is that mind floaters are actually TSA employees who need to do cavity checks. We have had some hilarious strings come out of this!

The big one though has been going on for four years now. I created this NPC, one who usually runs a shop of magic items, antiquities, or other equally rare things. Her signature line was “What do you want?” in a really gravelly voice. She’s been in every single game I’ve run since she was introduced all those years ago in my Nadrakaur (homebrew world) campaign. She eventually gained a name, Agatha, and became a more prominent part of my games. She’s been an enemy, an ally, a shopkeeper, and so many other things. My game that’s just begun has yet to show her, but I know exactly where she is: running a brand new shop in the Forgotten Realms.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Purple People Eaters.

I call them mites, and yeah, I even added them in here, lol.

They are one of many break type critters, because all you have to do to beat a drum a little ditty and be on your way.  I generally will doa monster on a whim based on something that everyone finds funny or some joke or gag, and all of them use the same basic stats -- not really a threat, but they *could* be trouble.

As for recurring, I love to have Rivals, who are the party just jumbled, and I play them as caricatures of the PCs. They are always just a little clumsy, a little ditzy, a little off, but at the same time they are a real rival, stealing jobs and everything else. Like Beloc from Indiana Jones, but played for laughs.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Purple People Eaters.

 

In my campaign they're called Purple Worm. LOL (I kid, I kid... because they're giant worms who can eat people... purple... people eaters... see the joke?) :D

+1 for making a party modeled after the players' party to compete with them and poke fun at them. Definitely do this. Mine was a group of Harpers intentionally imitating them, in order to gauge their reaction and see whether they would make good recruits. Let's just say my group's response was not in keeping with Harper values.

I guess I use goblins as jokey enemies sometimes. I like their spirit. Even when they're fully outmatched they never stop trying to pull dirty tricks. They're kind of like random children, but more murdery. I put some ogres in a hobgoblin camp with little goblin catapults strapped to their backs. If you put a spikey helmet on the goblin it does more damage, fun fact.

Quote from SirTawmis >>

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Purple People Eaters.

 

 

In my campaign they're called Purple Worm. LOL (I kid, I kid... because they're giant worms who can eat people... purple... people eaters... see the joke?) :D

It is missing the one eye, the one horn, and I don't think it likes rock-n-roll music, but ok, I dig it.

Quote from DrakenBrine >>

Question: Who was the first person you ever interacted with on the DDB forums?

My first interaction was with Quar1on on my first thread.

 Somebody after which I immediately /ignored

Then after about a year I undid it as they became a better person.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Mmmm... Sometimes goblins as they are my campaigns Ferengi.

In one of my games I have a Smeagol type figure but he always whispers "chicken chicken chicken...." after the party fed him chicken one time.

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Stirges. They started as a threat when the party was lower level, but now it's just a running gag that every dark place they peek into -- cave, hollow tree, chimney, cauldron with the lid on, whatever --  is likely to have a swarm of stirges in it that startle easily

Quote from AntonSirius >>

Quote from MidnightPlat >>

Question: Do you have a monster you tend to use more for comic effect or recurring "bit" rather than an actual threat to your party?

Stirges. They started as a threat when the party was lower level, but now it's just a running gag that every dark place they peek into -- cave, hollow tree, chimney, cauldron with the lid on, whatever --  is likely to have a swarm of stirges in it that startle easily

A fellow Stirge lover!

Question: How many of you visit DDB during work hours?

I tend to use it as a pressure valve. Some days dealigng with different governmental agencies and meeting the arcane requirements of medical care is seriously stressful, and I just need to walk away for a bit, lol.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Question: How many of you visit DDB during work hours?

 I don’t have a job, so no.

Quote from AEDorsay >>

Question: How many of you visit DDB during work hours?

I tend to use it as a pressure valve. Some days dealigng with different governmental agencies and meeting the arcane requirements of medical care is seriously stressful, and I just need to walk away for a bit, lol.

 When I work from home, I do. I don't have time on the days I'm in-office. 

I get the pressure valve thing; my PbP kind of functions like that for me. Even if nothing is happening in-game, just being on a Discord server to chat with fellow nerds is a nice respite from the daily grind. These forums have a bit of that for me, too, though I enjoy being helpful and tend to post on the DM forum more in that vein. 

I have a new question, lol.

in a different thread, there is yet Another Chat GPT thread. I had a space open today, I hopped over and asked it some questions and all that. Then I formulated a question to get it to generate a fantasy culture for me. A few more tries, and I managed to get a set up that creates cultures so freaking fast I want to cry, given I can sit for three hours and do it from scratch, if I am in the right mood and mindset. If not, *weeks*, lol.

Before I ask the question, here is the current version of my prompt:

Could you give me a culture based on {blank} and {blank} culture motifs, without mentioning places or religions from earth, and include details on a Fantasy Name for the place, a term for the people and a term for the products of that people, a description of the climate and topography, what they are known for and how they are seen by others; their Government, Politics, and Economy, including naming three persons of importance, name three to seven factions that exist within the culture, their trade goods, what they import, what their most important export is; common caste and social positions, their Arts, architecture, entertainment types and practices, their cuisine; their values, including virtues and sins, and their perspective on the world, their general attitude and affect, their folkways including greetings, showing respect, and manners; kinship patterns, gender roles and expectations, courtship, marriage rituals, how a marriage happens, inheritance and lineage; childhood, education manner, literacy, schools, and colleges; important symbols and symbolic features, and the lifestyle of a typical member of that culture?

You insert your Seed culture types -- say "Lakota and Mali" -- and then send that prompt to the bot. 

So, my question is,

Would you use a generated culture to help you create a new one for your setting?