"Come with me, and you'll be. in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you'll see, into your imagination. we'll begin, with a spin. traveling in a world of my creation. what we'll see will defy explanation!" ~Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
their is no light without dark. no calm without storm. no heroes without villains. I, unfortunately am the dark. I am the storm. I. Am. The. Villain (not really considering I'm a forever player and never get the chance to DM)
i watched a desert get hit with so much water that traffic here was snarled for two weeks, lol.
no, I meant I am dealing with bad infection from teeth. Has me mostly knocked down.
Florida is not a subject I can speak to here 😉
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Question of the Day: Have you got a favorite "monster" you like to use? And if so, why/what about them makes them fun?
of "official" monsters, lol, my favorite(s) are all the "not what you thought they were" things, lol. Which puts the mimic at the top of the list, and honestly, I think people seriously under-utilize them.
But also Cloakers and lurkers, piercers and shriekers. Of course, I tend to include Gelatinous Cubes among them, and I mean, that is always a super cool monster.
Outside of that, I like planar beings. There is a reason I opted to put so much effort into the thought around my palanes and why I made them more like Dimensions -- it gives me the ability to use them in ways that aren't expected, or shift them towards their more traditional stuff.
Pennywise, as a concept, is a terrifying thing that is really useful. He didn't really do much possessing, but the way his power worked was always based in the perceptions of the victims -- and this means he plays with perception, which in terms of 5e, gives you a lot of ways to make rolls that people often look at as routine (I check for traps, I see if they are lying to me, I search the room) suddenly less reliable and more subject to the manipulation of others.
But no doubt in my mind mind that Mimics are my favorite. Doors, walls, chests, beds, floors, ceilings, curtains, desks, chicken coops, fireplaces, chimneys, wardrobes, trash bins in an alley, low retaining walls...
I also adore dragons. Too much. So much so that I rarely use them. Because to me dragons are the absolute top of the food chain, something that should give a Beholder not merely a pause ut a serious reason to consider existence in a different plane. SO I use them that way.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Question of the Day: Have you got a favorite "monster" you like to use? And if so, why/what about them makes them fun?
of "official" monsters, lol, my favorite(s) are all the "not what you thought they were" things, lol. Which puts the mimic at the top of the list, and honestly, I think people seriously under-utilize them.
But also Cloakers and lurkers, piercers and shriekers. Of course, I tend to include Gelatinous Cubes among them, and I mean, that is always a super cool monster.
Outside of that, I like planar beings. There is a reason I opted to put so much effort into the thought around my palanes and why I made them more like Dimensions -- it gives me the ability to use them in ways that aren't expected, or shift them towards their more traditional stuff.
Pennywise, as a concept, is a terrifying thing that is really useful. He didn't really do much possessing, but the way his power worked was always based in the perceptions of the victims -- and this means he plays with perception, which in terms of 5e, gives you a lot of ways to make rolls that people often look at as routine (I check for traps, I see if they are lying to me, I search the room) suddenly less reliable and more subject to the manipulation of others.
But no doubt in my mind mind that Mimics are my favorite. Doors, walls, chests, beds, floors, ceilings, curtains, desks, chicken coops, fireplaces, chimneys, wardrobes, trash bins in an alley, low retaining walls...
I also adore dragons. Too much. So much so that I rarely use them. Because to me dragons are the absolute top of the food chain, something that should give a Beholder not merely a pause ut a serious reason to consider existence in a different plane. SO I use them that way.
Hah! I am (was?) a huge Mimic fan as well. However, player eventually become paranoid of everything, and so they lost their "charm" (I can't count how many doors found in some ancient ruins now have an arrow shot at them "just in case"), since rather than the traditional "chest" look they're known for - I usually used them as doors - because if the someone isn't just opening the door, they're typically sending the Rogue/Thief/Bard person to "examine if the door is locked or trapped." And rather than it be just that one mimic - it's typically a colony, where the other nearby doors are also mimics that then engage in combat.
Like you, Dragons are top of the food chain. I've given them something that Dragonlance had in the books (and mentioned in the single AD&D book back in the day) - which is they emit a Dragon Fear aurora that players must save against if they invoke it.
Kobolds are creeping up to be some of my favorites - but not because they're deadly - but because the RP they're providing. In my off week game I run - the party befriended these Kobolds (which was supposed to be a combat thing) - and that evolved into the kobolds in the swamp gathering these herbs for the nearby town - in exchange for the town giving them leathers and food. So this whole trade happened. It's been a fantastic RP (they keep popping up in other sessions now too).
And in my most recent game, I mentioned this a few posts above - I did a whole improv, random encounter rolled by the player - which landed on Winged Kobolds - and again, an entire fun RP session happened out of it.
I do like kobolds, lol. But I liked them before they became "dragon kin", lol, and was always more partial to the "small lizard man" varietal, and I totally did a whole Tharks of Barsoom workup on them like 20 years ago and have never been able to let it go. So I have had kobolds in almost every world that they could even remotely be squeezed in.
For Wyrlde, i have an entire set of totally "secret" lore about Imps (one of the peoples that make up the whole of humanity) that appears nowhere in anything that goes to players, and is only for DMs as part of side quests and such. It completely changes the calculus of the world from the Player side to learn, and so I suppose it makes them my "favorite" of my current baddies.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I like nothics, I think. They're playing on a different axis to how monsters usually attack you. They're a little threatening but a little pathetic as well. You can use them in a lot of places.
But idk if I'd say they're my favorite. If I have a favorite... Idk, I like the commander-type guys. Hobgoblins, knights, gith captains. The ones that are only a little tougher than usual, but have a special support role and give orders. I like having enemies with different levels of tactics and discipline. Goblins won't surrender so long as their hobgoblin commander is standing, but if you take care of him, they very well might.
Question of the Day: Have you got a favorite "monster" you like to use? And if so, why/what about them makes them fun?
But also Cloakers and lurkers, piercers and shriekers.
Try adding a roper to the midst, but hanging from the ceiling like a stalactite. Tons o’ fun.
I alway forget about Ropers.
They are part of it, for sure, lol. I think I forge them as a kind of mind block, lol.
So, my very first character was the prototypical half elven Ranger (1e, 1979). I got to the third room in my very first adventure and died...
... at the tentacles of a roper.
It was heartbreaking, lol but it started my love of D&D. So I probably have a ting about ropers.
And since I revealed mine...
QOTD:
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
Way back in the early ‘90s (‘93ish I think), in 2e, my very first character would have been a Conanesque human fighter with a giant axe that I was super excited to play, but a friend of mine did me a favor and persuaded me to instead make a ranger litter out as an archer that I wasn’t really interested in instead. I say he did me a favor because…
In the very first room we explored my character found a coin purse with 1 pp inside of it, which was a small fortune to a 1st level character back in those days. After trying to dump the coin out of the purse to no avail, my character stuck his dominant hand into the pouch to extract the coin, and the pouch bit it clean off at the wrist. Turns out the pouch wasn’t a coin purse at all, it was a bag of devouring (they worked differently back then), and the coin wasn’t real at all.
So luckily, instead of being totally heartbroken over what happened happening to my axe wielding fighter that I loved, it had happened to a stupid Ranger I didn’t really care about at all.
I learned a valuable lesson that day, not to get too attached to a character because life was cheap in D&D, at least back then. And I learned to be a it more careful with my beloved characters too.
Yeah, bags of devouring were like mini-mimics back in the day. And a PP in 2e could get you a great THACO, lol.
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
So, this is why I love NPCs... and the "friction" they can create.
So the party is currently traveling with 7 Earth Genasi rebels (they're there to fill in the roles in case players miss sessions - so far really only a cleric named Moonstone and a fighter named Terra have really been used). Moonstone and Terra get used quite a bit as back ups (because I've not had a full party of players in weeks - someone is always missing a session). So, Terra has gotten into the habit of always taunting the Paladin in the party - where she rushes into battle (she's completely brash). Moonstone is her opposite - quiet, reserved. But the two are best friends. Terra always brags about what a great healer Moonstone is and how she's kept her alive and vice versa.
So the party is fighting one of the Everlasting Frost Giants, and Terra gets drilled. Like over 100 HP in damage (she's only got 4 HP left, but I don't allow discussing how much HP anyone has - you're either OK, a little bloody, bloody (half way mark), or very bloody when a player describes their health status).
And Moonstone, during the round, has already gone - she cast Freedom of Movement on Korra (player Rogue) to get up there and backstab (and ignore the difficult terrain since they were 60' away). So now it's up to Sephrenia (the player healer)...
And this... this audio recording of that part... still makes me giggle. This was from our last session.
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
I think I previously discussed this somewhere buried in this thread.
But I played in first edition - and one of my friends, Tim - his brother was a DM (John). So I went over there to play some D&D (I had already gotten some of the books by this point, but never played - I was just so interested). I rolled a Dwarf (Fighter) and John allowed us to have one magic weapon since the party consisted of Tim and I. So I asked if I could have a hammer I throw that returns to me (I was really into Thor comics back then from Marvel Comics). He said he was cool with it. So we adventured quite a bit - one day, Tim and John got into a big fight (before school) - and so that day when we went to play D&D - we got a quest to go recover something in a cave.
However, the cave wasn't a cave. Turned out to be a giant serpent's mouth we entered.
We both perished.
That was the last time, I think, I played with John as a DM and took steps into becoming my own DM.
I roped in my friend Chuck, Shawn and Mike to be my first round of players, if memory serves me right.
Back then though, even though what John did was clearly to get back at his brother over whatever the Hades they fought about - D&D back then really was so lethal. Death was literally around every bend. I immensely enjoyed it - but 5th Edition is such a vast improvement as it focuses way more on characters and less of "You enter a dark dungeon - there are 60 different monsters - in this trap infested dungeon - these monsters aren't even remotely connected and they never really leave their rooms unless you make too much noise. What do you do?"
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
Back then though, even though what John did was clearly to get back at his brother over whatever the Hades they fought about - D&D back then really was so lethal. Death was literally around every bend. I immensely enjoyed it - but 5th Edition is such a vast improvement as it focuses way more on characters and less of "You enter a dark dungeon - there are 60 different monsters - in this trap infested dungeon - these monsters aren't even remotely connected and they never really leave their rooms unless you make too much noise. What do you do?"
I think it was something like my 60th dungeon from scratch -- and in those days, it was all hand drawn, pages and pages of graph paper and map keys, lol, -- and I decided that I was done making dungeons that didn't make sense in exactly the way you describe. This mattered, because most of my dungeons were multi-level monstrosities.
that was 81, I think? After that, I still did a few, but they had a reason to be that way, and I started doing the broader campaigns...
... except at the library sessions. I ran the weekend D&D games for my local library, and the conditions were I had to set up and take down and clean up, anyone who shows up is free to join, no fights, blah blah. Those were always just pure Dungeons and a town because that was the only thing anyone wanted to do, lol.
My games have remained lethal, and role playing focused, and I am not above having everyone make a second character at Zero because we all know I have little stress about killing PCs. I talk a good game, and I do care about them, but most deaths aren't "Toni is evil in planning" so much as "bad rolls and foolish decisions". The second character materializes shortly after and "was there all along, you just never noticed".
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Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
Wood elf Ranger, Quarion Meliamne (hence the username). 5th edition, methinks somewhere around 2016. I was hooked by the first session. He reached level 3, became a Beast Master by taming a snake with a steak, and then my friend moved to Texas (as happens eerily often to my friends) and Quarion was lost to the sands of time. Alas.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
I don't allow discussing how much HP anyone has - you're either OK, a little bloody, bloody (half way mark), or very bloody when a player describes their health status).
*that's* what I need to add! We overcame the "I'm a Level 7 Cleric" "in game" thing (they would say "I am a Yeoman or Professional Cleric") but we havent' come up with a good way to do the "'tis but a scratch, a mere flesh wound" part.
I have to add a five stage bit in there. On the character sheet. hmmm. (incidentally, on a lark, I created a literal placement sized character sheet that I can have printed up on Vistaprint and use dry erase markers on).
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
Wood elf Ranger, Quarion Meliamne (hence the username). 5th edition, methinks somewhere around 2016. I was hooked by the first session. He reached level 3, became a Beast Master by taming a snake with a steak, and then my friend moved to Texas (as happens eerily often to my friends) and Quarion was lost to the sands of time. Alas.
I was also a 5e player first (though I have since branched out to other rpgs and even 3e (not 3.5), 4e, and 1e and 2e clones. My first character was… Amnon Balderk, a tiefling wild magic sorcerer who had found his home among dwarves. That campaign made it to level 7, I think? I have the original character sheet still (technically the second or third rewritten copy because others were messy). It ended because we started in 2019… and Covid came in during 2020 and blew up the world even more than the BBEG could. We played some short games online while we waited for the whole thing to blow over, and then it didn’t. Finally, my GM friend moved to Seoul and we lost contact.
Quar1on and I are eerily similar in our origin stories… I do believe that there is some connection here…
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Poor thing.
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I was in Florida 2 days ago at Disney and we left early so we wouldn’t get stuck. In the hurricane on our drive back.
"Come with me, and you'll be. in a world of pure imagination. Take a look, and you'll see, into your imagination. we'll begin, with a spin. traveling in a world of my creation. what we'll see will defy explanation!" ~Willy Wonka, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
their is no light without dark. no calm without storm. no heroes without villains. I, unfortunately am the dark. I am the storm. I. Am. The. Villain (not really considering I'm a forever player and never get the chance to DM)
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I am opposite side of country.
i watched a desert get hit with so much water that traffic here was snarled for two weeks, lol.
no, I meant I am dealing with bad infection from teeth. Has me mostly knocked down.
Florida is not a subject I can speak to here 😉
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Question of the Day: Have you got a favorite "monster" you like to use? And if so, why/what about them makes them fun?
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
of "official" monsters, lol, my favorite(s) are all the "not what you thought they were" things, lol. Which puts the mimic at the top of the list, and honestly, I think people seriously under-utilize them.
But also Cloakers and lurkers, piercers and shriekers. Of course, I tend to include Gelatinous Cubes among them, and I mean, that is always a super cool monster.
Outside of that, I like planar beings. There is a reason I opted to put so much effort into the thought around my palanes and why I made them more like Dimensions -- it gives me the ability to use them in ways that aren't expected, or shift them towards their more traditional stuff.
Pennywise, as a concept, is a terrifying thing that is really useful. He didn't really do much possessing, but the way his power worked was always based in the perceptions of the victims -- and this means he plays with perception, which in terms of 5e, gives you a lot of ways to make rolls that people often look at as routine (I check for traps, I see if they are lying to me, I search the room) suddenly less reliable and more subject to the manipulation of others.
But no doubt in my mind mind that Mimics are my favorite. Doors, walls, chests, beds, floors, ceilings, curtains, desks, chicken coops, fireplaces, chimneys, wardrobes, trash bins in an alley, low retaining walls...
I also adore dragons. Too much. So much so that I rarely use them. Because to me dragons are the absolute top of the food chain, something that should give a Beholder not merely a pause ut a serious reason to consider existence in a different plane. SO I use them that way.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Hah! I am (was?) a huge Mimic fan as well. However, player eventually become paranoid of everything, and so they lost their "charm" (I can't count how many doors found in some ancient ruins now have an arrow shot at them "just in case"), since rather than the traditional "chest" look they're known for - I usually used them as doors - because if the someone isn't just opening the door, they're typically sending the Rogue/Thief/Bard person to "examine if the door is locked or trapped." And rather than it be just that one mimic - it's typically a colony, where the other nearby doors are also mimics that then engage in combat.
Like you, Dragons are top of the food chain. I've given them something that Dragonlance had in the books (and mentioned in the single AD&D book back in the day) - which is they emit a Dragon Fear aurora that players must save against if they invoke it.
Kobolds are creeping up to be some of my favorites - but not because they're deadly - but because the RP they're providing. In my off week game I run - the party befriended these Kobolds (which was supposed to be a combat thing) - and that evolved into the kobolds in the swamp gathering these herbs for the nearby town - in exchange for the town giving them leathers and food. So this whole trade happened. It's been a fantastic RP (they keep popping up in other sessions now too).
And in my most recent game, I mentioned this a few posts above - I did a whole improv, random encounter rolled by the player - which landed on Winged Kobolds - and again, an entire fun RP session happened out of it.
Check out my publication on DMs Guild: https://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=Tawmis%20Logue
Check out my comedy web series - Neverending Nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wr4-u9-zw0&list=PLbRG7dzFI-u3EJd0usasgDrrFO3mZ1lOZ
Need a character story/background written up? I do it for free (but also take donations!) - https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?591882-Need-a-character-background-written-up
I do like kobolds, lol. But I liked them before they became "dragon kin", lol, and was always more partial to the "small lizard man" varietal, and I totally did a whole Tharks of Barsoom workup on them like 20 years ago and have never been able to let it go. So I have had kobolds in almost every world that they could even remotely be squeezed in.
For Wyrlde, i have an entire set of totally "secret" lore about Imps (one of the peoples that make up the whole of humanity) that appears nowhere in anything that goes to players, and is only for DMs as part of side quests and such. It completely changes the calculus of the world from the Player side to learn, and so I suppose it makes them my "favorite" of my current baddies.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I like slimes and molds. They have so much variety and just about every dungeon environment can be home to one sort or another.
The monster I want to use more is the Remorhaz. Magma hot but live in arctic environs? Swallow PCs whole? Yummy.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
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"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I like nothics, I think. They're playing on a different axis to how monsters usually attack you. They're a little threatening but a little pathetic as well. You can use them in a lot of places.
But idk if I'd say they're my favorite. If I have a favorite... Idk, I like the commander-type guys. Hobgoblins, knights, gith captains. The ones that are only a little tougher than usual, but have a special support role and give orders. I like having enemies with different levels of tactics and discipline. Goblins won't surrender so long as their hobgoblin commander is standing, but if you take care of him, they very well might.
Try adding a roper to the midst, but hanging from the ceiling like a stalactite. Tons o’ fun.
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I alway forget about Ropers.
They are part of it, for sure, lol. I think I forge them as a kind of mind block, lol.
So, my very first character was the prototypical half elven Ranger (1e, 1979). I got to the third room in my very first adventure and died...
... at the tentacles of a roper.
It was heartbreaking, lol but it started my love of D&D. So I probably have a ting about ropers.
And since I revealed mine...
QOTD:
What was your very first Character, Edition, and year?
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Way back in the early ‘90s (‘93ish I think), in 2e, my very first character would have been a Conanesque human fighter with a giant axe that I was super excited to play, but a friend of mine did me a favor and persuaded me to instead make a ranger litter out as an archer that I wasn’t really interested in instead. I say he did me a favor because…
In the very first room we explored my character found a coin purse with 1 pp inside of it, which was a small fortune to a 1st level character back in those days. After trying to dump the coin out of the purse to no avail, my character stuck his dominant hand into the pouch to extract the coin, and the pouch bit it clean off at the wrist. Turns out the pouch wasn’t a coin purse at all, it was a bag of devouring (they worked differently back then), and the coin wasn’t real at all.
So luckily, instead of being totally heartbroken over what happened happening to my axe wielding fighter that I loved, it had happened to a stupid Ranger I didn’t really care about at all.
I learned a valuable lesson that day, not to get too attached to a character because life was cheap in D&D, at least back then. And I learned to be a it more careful with my beloved characters too.
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Frazetta fan back then?
Yeah, bags of devouring were like mini-mimics back in the day. And a PP in 2e could get you a great THACO, lol.
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
All right...
So, this is why I love NPCs... and the "friction" they can create.
So the party is currently traveling with 7 Earth Genasi rebels (they're there to fill in the roles in case players miss sessions - so far really only a cleric named Moonstone and a fighter named Terra have really been used). Moonstone and Terra get used quite a bit as back ups (because I've not had a full party of players in weeks - someone is always missing a session). So, Terra has gotten into the habit of always taunting the Paladin in the party - where she rushes into battle (she's completely brash). Moonstone is her opposite - quiet, reserved. But the two are best friends. Terra always brags about what a great healer Moonstone is and how she's kept her alive and vice versa.
So the party is fighting one of the Everlasting Frost Giants, and Terra gets drilled. Like over 100 HP in damage (she's only got 4 HP left, but I don't allow discussing how much HP anyone has - you're either OK, a little bloody, bloody (half way mark), or very bloody when a player describes their health status).
And Moonstone, during the round, has already gone - she cast Freedom of Movement on Korra (player Rogue) to get up there and backstab (and ignore the difficult terrain since they were 60' away). So now it's up to Sephrenia (the player healer)...
And this... this audio recording of that part... still makes me giggle. This was from our last session.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HYEH_CXHvPvLIvD_JIIVwxsBNwEYnRJ2/view?usp=drive_link (link to audio file, it's just that segment)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kcFa1CmzrRGSLNlj2C3Eskz1tRm1zzFh/view?usp=drive_link (link to the spell, but it was Heal)
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I think I previously discussed this somewhere buried in this thread.
But I played in first edition - and one of my friends, Tim - his brother was a DM (John). So I went over there to play some D&D (I had already gotten some of the books by this point, but never played - I was just so interested). I rolled a Dwarf (Fighter) and John allowed us to have one magic weapon since the party consisted of Tim and I. So I asked if I could have a hammer I throw that returns to me (I was really into Thor comics back then from Marvel Comics). He said he was cool with it. So we adventured quite a bit - one day, Tim and John got into a big fight (before school) - and so that day when we went to play D&D - we got a quest to go recover something in a cave.
However, the cave wasn't a cave. Turned out to be a giant serpent's mouth we entered.
We both perished.
That was the last time, I think, I played with John as a DM and took steps into becoming my own DM.
I roped in my friend Chuck, Shawn and Mike to be my first round of players, if memory serves me right.
Back then though, even though what John did was clearly to get back at his brother over whatever the Hades they fought about - D&D back then really was so lethal. Death was literally around every bend. I immensely enjoyed it - but 5th Edition is such a vast improvement as it focuses way more on characters and less of "You enter a dark dungeon - there are 60 different monsters - in this trap infested dungeon - these monsters aren't even remotely connected and they never really leave their rooms unless you make too much noise. What do you do?"
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I think it was something like my 60th dungeon from scratch -- and in those days, it was all hand drawn, pages and pages of graph paper and map keys, lol, -- and I decided that I was done making dungeons that didn't make sense in exactly the way you describe. This mattered, because most of my dungeons were multi-level monstrosities.
that was 81, I think? After that, I still did a few, but they had a reason to be that way, and I started doing the broader campaigns...
... except at the library sessions. I ran the weekend D&D games for my local library, and the conditions were I had to set up and take down and clean up, anyone who shows up is free to join, no fights, blah blah. Those were always just pure Dungeons and a town because that was the only thing anyone wanted to do, lol.
My games have remained lethal, and role playing focused, and I am not above having everyone make a second character at Zero because we all know I have little stress about killing PCs. I talk a good game, and I do care about them, but most deaths aren't "Toni is evil in planning" so much as "bad rolls and foolish decisions". The second character materializes shortly after and "was there all along, you just never noticed".
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
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Wood elf Ranger, Quarion Meliamne (hence the username). 5th edition, methinks somewhere around 2016. I was hooked by the first session. He reached level 3, became a Beast Master by taming a snake with a steak, and then my friend moved to Texas (as happens eerily often to my friends) and Quarion was lost to the sands of time. Alas.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
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*that's* what I need to add! We overcame the "I'm a Level 7 Cleric" "in game" thing (they would say "I am a Yeoman or Professional Cleric") but we havent' come up with a good way to do the "'tis but a scratch, a mere flesh wound" part.
I have to add a five stage bit in there. On the character sheet. hmmm. (incidentally, on a lark, I created a literal placement sized character sheet that I can have printed up on Vistaprint and use dry erase markers on).
EDIT: gonna use emojis, lol)
😁😀🙂😐😕☹️🤕😵💫😵🫥
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
Of course!
Right! 1pp back then was like 100 pp now, damned inflation. 😂
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I was also a 5e player first (though I have since branched out to other rpgs and even 3e (not 3.5), 4e, and 1e and 2e clones. My first character was… Amnon Balderk, a tiefling wild magic sorcerer who had found his home among dwarves. That campaign made it to level 7, I think? I have the original character sheet still (technically the second or third rewritten copy because others were messy). It ended because we started in 2019… and Covid came in during 2020 and blew up the world even more than the BBEG could. We played some short games online while we waited for the whole thing to blow over, and then it didn’t. Finally, my GM friend moved to Seoul and we lost contact.
Quar1on and I are eerily similar in our origin stories… I do believe that there is some connection here…