@Ben you get out the wand of wonder and see what happens next. *we just found one in my brother's campaign and our bard, who is as a player, kind of random, attuned to it. There will be shennanigans aplenty next time.
I got a 4 on the AP European history test!! No score yet for the AP world test (it says code 96, which google says means that itβs taking longer to process my test), but Iβm happy with my score so far
I also got up at 4 am to check as soon as it was possible, so now Iβm very very tired.
@bobble Zones are what Fate uses to describe the relationships between physical spaces and the people in them, instead of a grid. When tracking spatial relationships is important to a scene, you break the location up into zones like the Bar, the Parking Lot, the Back Room, and the Alley. Zones aren't specific sizes; rather they're roughly defined as a space where two people in the same zone can easily interact with each other, for whatever value of "interact" the scene is prioritizing.
Sometimes zones are social instead of spatial, but that's much rarer, and there's other kinds of zones some games mess with. Uprising uses zones for spatial relationships and for conditions like "Undetected" simultaneously and I'm very curious what that looks like. But it's a cyberpunk dystopia game and I'm so very uninterested in that.
Zones are ways of describing space as something with qualities and relationships, like a character. It can be the place your PC is, but it can also be On Fire or have a stress track that means the building falls down when it takes too much damage.
But using zones to describe abstract relational states that can be shared by multiple cahracters is... well, I've never seen it done in a way that made me want to emulate it.
@AncientSwordRage That's the grumble, I'm curious to know but I'm not inclined fork over $40 for a game I'm otherwise unlikely to get any use out of just to find out.
@AncientSwordRage I'm interested in any thoughts you might have. I intend to expand on the document in the future but don't have much feedback to work with.
Way back in the day we started salting Gravatar image URLs, but only for new users. Older users do not have a salted Gravatar URL.
Today we performed a backfill so we can drop an old column Users.Email which contains an email address only used for this purpose but we didn't take into account that...
It's probably my most manifesto-like work to date.
@AncientSwordRage I'd be very happy to pay $40 for a game that's likely to give me and my friends several sessions of joy; after all, D&D was a $100 minimum investment per edition when I was playing that, and board/card/video games frequently exceed that price point for less payoff.
But for a speculative investigation into a potentially useful page or two... maybe less so.
...gosh, looking at this layout is embarrassing. I think it was one of the first things I made that was entirely Adobeless and I was still very unsteady with my new workflows and tools.
@BESW I very much enjoy the way you've embedded some safety and communication principles: talk about what you want to see, what you're worried about, and get buy-in before introducing heavy topics.
There was a mechanic in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, a Castlevania-style game, that had a library maintained by, well, Dracula basically. He let me borrow his books, and which books I picked out modified my attributes. At first I was only allowed one book, and only a small range of books. Later I could borrow more books, and from a broader range of books with unique effects I didn't have access to or stronger effects than I had access to before
That makes my goopy goblin gamer brain all excited about the prospect of, in this epic fantasy librarian setting, getting to pick up books of unique power, and getting to choose between taking them with me or leaving them with a villageβand I could just keep them on my person at all time, but I'm a librarian, and the books do better when I share them.
@doppelgreener Heh, yes. The core guiding conceit of the piece is that the concepts which inform the campaign, can and should be generalized and taken on board in other parts of our lives as well.
@doppelgreener Oh, interesting. It's always fun to see what people latch onto and extrapolate by bringing their own schema.
(Aside from the phrase "epic fantasy," the document gives no indication of the supernaturalness of the imagined campaign; it uses real-life examples and language. For me, the epic fantasy is simply being a traveling librarian. But I used the phrase ambiguously, to leave room for the reader.)
I am literally describing a thing real people are doing in the world today, and giving it a framework inspired by real-life community empowerment projects.
And that's part of the point of the thing: it's using a game to introduce people to attitudes and actions they can take to make the world a better place. Maybe not by becoming traveling librarians, but by applying the principles and structures to their communities.
Like I said, it's very much a manifesto... and it's not a gaming manifesto.
@doppelgreener I'd be VERY fascinated to see what that 5e player is taking from my guide, because I can't imagine a traveling librarian based on my guide being folded into D&D without fundamentally altering the nature of the world they travel through.
D&D doesn't tend to think of people, or communities, or enrichment, in compatible ways.
(The very first time I ever played a PC in a D&D game, I gave him the trait that any new group of people he met, he'd ask to see their books. The very idea that every group, every town, every lair, might have some books, transformed the world as my PC walked through it. The GM and other players looked at NPCs and societies through new, humanizing eyes.)
(This was not my intent going into it, but GOSH did I learn a lot in reflection later.)
Vince Smith asks on twitter for "recs for games *THAT USE GRID MAPS* that aren't the Dragon Game or Pathfinder," and PanzerLion points out "Grids as an accessibility feature" and wonders "ow can they be implemented without going down a wargame hole of mechanics and complexities?"
Demond Does podcast Episode 59: "6Q w/James Mendez Hodes, Cultural Consultant."James Mendez Hodes is a writer, game designer and martial artist. We talk about his work as a cultural consultant, what that entails, the gaps in his martial arts training and more!
Kickstarter: A Compendium of Lesser-Known Cryptids by Zaire N Lanier. The Compendium documents the research of the Seldom Valley Cryptid Society through collected ephemera for a glimpse behind the veil.
Meguey Baker wrote a twitter thread about questions that can be the foundation of worldbuilding.
A public bookcase is a cabinet which may be freely and anonymously used for the exchange and storage of books without the formalities associated with libraries. When in public places these cabinets are of a robust and weatherproof design which are available at all times. However, cabinets installed in public or commercial buildings may be simple, unmodified book-shelves and may only be available during certain periods.
== Origin ==
Closely allied with the BookCrossing concept, the original public bookcases were conceived as artistic acts. Very early examples are the creations of performance artist...
I had the advantage of running across the "Free Little Library" project several times in the past, so I knew the kind of words to look for though I couldn't remember the specific name of the project.
(Unfortunately, most of the times that the FLL crosses my timeline, it's in the context of people being Very Gross about it and getting upset that 'their' library isn't being used by the neighborhood in the exact way they'd imagined.)
To my mind, a major difference between a public bookcase and a traveling librarian is that the bookcase does not inherently build community connections.
I'm slowly going through the TL game guide, and it occurs to me that "Librarians are neighbors, not missionaries." probably doesn't apply in many game cases, without extensive background or being flexible with developing the story as you go
a side bar helping people get over that way of thinking might be good?
I suspect it'd be rather system-specific, so probably not something I could accommodate in the generic guide. But definitely a major component of the librarian engine I've got percolating.
I wanna bring in inspirations from Bubblegumshoe and Lovecraftesque for that.
In particular, I'm imagining that when one librarian PC is visiting the people on their route, the other players are taking on the roles of the people being visited.
the last section, about planning, reflection and action are the bits that probably need expanding the most, but also probably thats both harder to write, and something you've though about the most if you're make a TL engine
To my eyes, each principle of play has a first paragraph about what the principle looks like in the fiction, and a second paragraph about what that looks like in terms of choices at the table.
@BESW yeah... there's meta-discussion of in-game concepts ("short campaigns are about patrons finding joy..."), and then there's straight up out-of-game concepts like challenging themes for players not say, patrons or characters
well there's a difference to me, between "I'm fine our characters spreading challenging topics in game" and "I don't want to discuss challenging topic XYZ myself"
@ThomasMarkov I know that quite a few DMs use Tome of Beasts at table - I play with two of them. (Well, my nephew stopped Dming for our group, so one now)
The purpose itself was to have an item for the players to "finish" the campaign once they have reached all their goals and / or what they want to accomplish in this world
Not really, the book basically is a magical creation, created by a evil good to destroy the world over and over again. Once a person attunes to it they can start reading it - in order to read the whole book they would have to go different stages of necromancy, become a litch, slay some dragons and so on.
Why is it important (to you and the players, not for in-universe reasons) that the necronomicon needs to be used that way? Do the players know that using the book would end the campaign?
Campaign lore aside, the crucial part of the question is that the players are annoyed by the book. Why are they annoyed? What do they want but aren't getting? What are they getting but don't want?
@NautArch its not an evil campaign, but we all agreed that good and evil are very personal views, if the world would go for a world war because king a thinks king b is stupid, why not remake it?
@MikeQ the effects of the book are thr problems, the book tries to corrupt them, e.g. They have nightmares, are exhausted, mindflayers and other creatures hunt them to get the book and so on.
@NautArch that also was my idea, but my players decided to just run randomly into this stupid forest and roll 30 on perception, find the chamber, roll 25 on arcana to find the book...
@Insax You did this to yourself when you made the book radiate beyond lead in another plane, and in your own restrictions on not using another plane. So, only you, Its Creator, can solve this.
It seems that the only reason that throwing out the book (which the players want to do) would end the world is because you said so in your lore. Thus the obvious solution is to change the lore. Make it possible to scrap the book without ending the campaign.
@MikeQ @Insax Or create a somewhere or someone that can keep it 'safe' while they do what they need to do. Then maybe later, they discover it's not 'safe' and bingo, final quest.
I was just watching this video from Geek & Sundry while I was preparing some content for tomorrow's session. If you click the link you should be at a specific time in the video. If you watch those couple of seconds the DM says that a natural 20 on perception makes the character learn everything t...
@Insax I think you are a bit 'stuck' in your own lore. You created the artifact, created the lore, but then allowed your players to get it way too early. That means you need to introduce something new to undo that event, but not in a way that takes the players, or you, out of the story.
@KorvinStarmast i did, but the problem is that they nearly got tpkd by an ahune and now they cant stop thinking about that issue and only discuss that issue.
@Insax Aah, what you need is a disatraction - which is another quest!
Three major subordinates of the seven great evils are on their way to kill the party. Proceed from there. (I am getting a Diablo III vibe as regards your seven evils trapped in the soul stone book)
What do the players actually want from the campaign? Do their characters have investment in any other parts of the world, NPCs they like, towns to save, etc?
Building a town can be fun. Hard to do when an apocalyptic book is involved and is causing monsters to constantly attack. So scrap your GM notes about the evil book. It doesn't sound like it's contributing to the campaign in a good way. Change how it works. Create some new way the players can toss the book without worrying about ending the world.
@KorvinStarmast well, most of the gods/celestial beeings besides a few exceptions dont really care. The warlocks patreon especially doesnt care (they know that because he smashed azmodeus to "just protect his investment")
And there is a great part of their backstory, the start of the campaign starts in the previous era - sentenced to die until they were "moved to the next era" by the warlocks patreon
And thats why they are the Roy Greenhilt of their own world
@Insax I think what we're all saying is you need to alter your lore about this book. You made a slip-up by giving it to them, so being open about changes to make that action now work is really your next step.
Having an open discussion with your players (not their characters) about this can also help. Campaigns often need direct communication. Discussing players' expectations about the game can't really be done in-universe.
I think i can do one more way, i had a location which they already know where you can go to shadowfell... Around that specific are is a nullmagic zone which also silences the book
@Insax "We left the world better than we found it is boring. We left the world ... because we destroyed it and now need to find a new one ... yeah, that's the ticket!"
The actual problem, it seems, is that you've locked yourself into a bunch of lore that mostly exists in your head and in your GM notes. And you need to understand that none of it is canon or final. You can change the lore to fit the needs of your players and the needs of your game.
@Insax Here's an idea from the DMG. The DM is master of worlds. See MikeQ's comment there. Mix and stir, add two teaspoons of brandy, bake for an hour at 350 deg F, and voila, you have solution cake.
Depends, they told me OT that they really like the world, but they want to do things differently roleplay wise - they want to have more impact on the world itself
@Insax Destroying the world is having an impact on it, just like a really big comet would do. Then what?
@Insax You can also do that whole King Arthur thing. He went to Avalon which exists outside of the spacetime of his homeland. (aka Shadowfell or the Feywild or the land of Faerie). So your PCs go to Shadowfell to hide the book and your players roll up new PCs.
Exactly, the way i understand it they want to become rulers of their own cuntry - or atleast respected persons in the world. What they dont understand is that they already are respected persons in the world, the could literally just go to a king and demand land, and they even would get it since they saved the capital from a dragon
@Insax Take the book to the Astral Plane, head to Celestia, and then give them the book to keep safe while the party does some quests that the Powers that Be in Celestia need done. Problem solved.
Yeah, no free lunch. "You need me to do this for you? OK, do this thing for me" and it can make for good stories when, as usual, a few things go wrong along the way ...
... they also level up a bit so that they get closer to being able to take apart that far realm plane thing that needs doing ....
This is going to be a kinda weird and random post, since Iβve been pretty busy this week, and we leave for a road trip tomorrow. Speaking of that, I picked a project! Last week I was really unsure what I wanted to bring on the trip. Read more »
Two designed sites I checked have their per-site meta orange again:
However, Literature's meta is not:
Looks like a regression of Why did all sites turn orange?
@KorvinStarmast I had not considered the equivalent issue for DMs. The issue I have is treading the line between consequences for actions and the world difficulty adapting to the player choices. In general, if the mechanic was well know to the players beforehand, and they still ran afoul of it... that's their problem. If it wasn't discoverable prior, then it's a nasty surprise and I try to limit those.
@GcL Oh, it's there, and it's an easy corner to write yourself into when first starting out as a DM. I think that @MikeQ alludes to the "nasty surprise" bit with his invisible dragon problem somewhat, in terms of what's available for the players to consider as the ponder what to do 'in world' since their only conduit of inworld info is the GM/DM.
I rarely include nasty surprises. Recently I've been going with cursed items as that's a known mechanic to the players. Sometimes I don't even make the curses relevant. E.g. a +1 great axe that has a tracking curse. Who's tracking the axe? Who knows! Keep it as a plot hook or sell it for a more fungible good.
@GcL I have two cursed items when I DM in my brother's world (He has approved both) one is an amulet that keeps attracting assassination attempts on the party. The other is a mask that our barbarian wears that was dormant until this last session. An enemy who he marked by using the mask got away (all others had died to his sword) and the curse just activated. But it will be some months before any of us know how it works out because he's able to DM now.
You need a corresponding cursed item that detects assassination attempts with a chime, but the curse is it only fires after the attempt. [finishes ale][ring of assassination detection chimes]
Could be an entertaining item to pick up off an assassination target of the part. Just after the deathblow to one of the BBEG's captains, they hear the ring chime.
@GcL Given that both of the attempts that the party has weathered have been led by Blood Hunter NPCs (the only thing of Matt Mercer's that I use) I suspect that the next time they see one of those NPCs they may well react ... but I have already scheduled the next attempt, and it will be NPC assassins. The Blood Hunters guild have lost the contract (behind the scenes).
@GcL not quite: the blood hunters tracked them down based on scrying info by the evil pact/cult. The party was coming out of a dungeon the first time, it was a very, very close fight. The second time it was an ambush along the highway that included the blood hunter having a silver horn of valhalla and using it, and two beads of force.
what are some common rules misconceptions in 5e? like things that people don't realize are houserules? i tried finding a list, but most of my search results are "popular houserules" or "houserules you should have in your campaign"
for example, being able to delay your turn in the initiative order is a houserule, i believe
@Yuuki That's a good question. I haven't chatted with many D&D players outside of my groups in a while. thanks, pandemic. My recollection from a number of years ago was a lot of the 3.5 house rules carried over.
I think that's a function of convenience though. I've only had one campaign where we had to do things the wrote way as counterspell played a significant role in that game. Made an interesting bit of strategy for the wizard people.
Monopoly is a successfully failed game. Should have been a "Wow, capitalism sucks for most of us" game, but no such like. Now we've all got to deal with having to politely, but firmly refuse when someone suggests "let's play a game of monopoly!"
We have a houserule that allows a player to do any sort of check at any time of combat without consuming any action or anything, so basically if the sorcerer sees someone casting he can do an arcana check to find out which spell it is.
@NautArch It made for an interesting campaign with a bunch of spell casters. Lots of advantage for working in tandem where one caster uses their reaction to ID the spell, and then essentially shout "incoming!" to clue the other caster to attempt a counter spell.
@NautArch Oh yeah. Similar to how I do NPC tactics now days, they had a set strategy. Predominantly, "start with max spell level" or "start with low tier spells to draw the counterspell". Fit in nicely with the "reserve this spell slot for escape" or "hold nothing back" strategies.
Fits nicely on a little index card, and I don't have to think when running the encounter. Follow instructions on NPC card.
My players also use this rule to identify a weakness of a certain enemy, identify illusions and so on, the fact that it doesnt cost an action or reaction adds more "tactical" combat
For the NPC counterspell use, it was essentially "counter immediately" or "attempt to counter 2nd spell". Wizard battles don't usually last very long. It's a couple of punches and someone sorts out they're on the losing side and dimension door/misty step/tp out.
@NautArch it completly depends on the situation i think, i had a dm once that led us into a cursed house, at some point we found out that everything we identify as an illusion also vanishes - we needed about 3 sessions to figure out the we should check the house itself to get out...
@GcL had an NPC mage teleport out last week (me DM) with 2 HP. @NautArch I made him roll the ability check on the scroll, he beat the target number. π
@MikeQ That reminds me. An unfortunately common house rule is critical fails.
Unspoken house-assumption for country and continent maps.... the world is flat. I think that's also a convenience one because dealing with the effects of projections sucks.
I heard a fair amount of house rules that were essentially called shots of some variety or another. Those seem popular.
It's still good, but I'm coming at it from post nerf and playing a melee Fighter when misconception was in play, so that might taint my perception a bit