TRPG General Chat - 2017-07-11 (page 2 of 2)

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12:00 PM

> MONSTER BALANCING: Monsters on a tightrope.

Describe your monster and pick a quality from the list (or roll 1d6):
1. Sticky; 1/round you can re-roll a failed Balance check.
2. Grabby; 1/round when you fail a Balance check you can force another monster to make a Balance check.
3. Cheater; 1/round you can subtract 1 from your Balance check or add 1 to another monster's Balance check.
4. Symbiotic; 1/round you can gain 1 Balance when another monster wins their balance check.
5. Parasitic; 1/round when you lose 1 Balance you can choose another monster to lose 1 Balance also.

Hrm. Need work.

the psychic is just better than the sticky, that doesn't sound very... balanced!

Mark II:

> MONSTER BALANCING: Monsters on a tightrope.

Describe your monster and pick a quality from the list (or roll 1d6):
1. Sticky; 1/round you can re-roll a failed Balance check.
2. Grabby; When you gain 1 Balance you can force another monster to make a Balance check.
3. Cheater; 1/round you can subtract 1 from your Balance check or add 1 to another monster's Balance check.
4. Team Player; 1/round when another monster gains 1 Balance you can make a Balance check.
5. Sore Loser; 1/round when you lose 1 Balance you can force another monster to make a Balance check.

More dice rolling.

12:28 PM

@doppelgreener wait, don't we have to wait a few hours until it's googleable?

@daze413 Not sure about this one, but Google is usually very quick (on the order of minutes) in indexing SE

Multiple times I've googled some idiosyncratic terminology from a question just asked only to have that question come back at me as a top result

12:46 PM

The team player sounds like blessed with suck. Why would you want to make a balance check?

(actually I can see some moment when you want to, but that's not common at all)

1:18 PM

Anyone know a place where I can find information on a particular book's sales? Specifically, I'm curious if we know (ballpark) how many copies of Tales from the Yawning Portal (D&D 5e AP, sort of) are out there.

@ACuriousMind i find it's pretty quick, yeah. (@daze413)

That means the google bot is sitting around reading our conversations for funsies.

@doppelgreener The Google Bot? You say it like there's only one. Google is Legion.

Hm, seems like I got pretty good answers on my 13th Age question. Also the answers I hoped them to be.

@nitsua60 Very few RPG publishers or distributors release that kind of data.

(Evil Hat's the only one I can think of off the top of my head.)

1:45 PM

@BESW Yeah, I wasn't sure if maybe it'd even hit a NYT list, or if it'd generated some datum I could use for SWAG.

@nitsua60 amazon sales figures

also found this stack question

@NautArch interesting, thanks.

apologies if you'd already found those :)

Amazing that Ingram's updated to the level of having an 800 number. I remember back when they'd mail us a weekly updated tally of all their books in stock. On microfilm.

(Amazing in that they didn't just skip over a step like a dial-in service and go right from microfilm-push to a web-based service.)

2:20 PM

Out of curiosity, was Forgotten Realms the only setting that was butchered to make room for 4e?

define butchered

you mean the events of the spellplague?

@godskook As far as I'm aware, yes. There was another setting created explicitly for 4E, called Points of Light. The rest of the settings never came up in 4E, AFAIK, so they weren't altered.

or addition of things like dragonborn and tieflings every other house

Now that I think about it... I did not pay much attention to Eberron. I'm not sure if it got a 4E treatment.

@ShadowKras, I'm not sure I could define it, but it looks like an Elephant Test

2:24 PM

It was relatively recent, as WoTC settings go, so they may have carried it forward.

2:34 PM

Why does dmsguild force me to put a pdf into a cart to then proceed to checkout where I have to create an account to buy my 0$ product? Why can't they just let me download the pdf?

@nwp $0 is still a price, probably. In the same system as something you have to pay for so it must follow the same process.

Instead they provide non-features such as letting me buy multiple copies of it.

user image

@nwp don't you dare pirate that $0 product, though, think of WotC's gold ferraris

@Yuuki Jabroni Manual

2:41 PM

@Yuuki I think he should have a higher charisma. That smile... [swoons]

@Yuuki That looks more like Handsome Jack from Borderlands.

indeed.

3:04 PM

@NautArch Antimagic field will block a suggestion/suppress it while the affected creatures are withing

@Adam yeah, there's a lot. I'm not sure if i should keep adding stuff that others are putting into my own answer. Consolidate and whatnot.

@B.S.Morganstein A nice list is compiling, but I"m worried about your particular situation and a DM that often does things outside the book.

i'm not sure how helpful this is to you

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch Yeah I know, but I'm hoping with a bunch of different options I'll be maximally prepared to deal with whatever he throws our way (or at least be prepared to argue why one of the listed strategies should work)

I'm also surprised that Dispel Magic wasn't listed by someone already. That's kind of what it's there for.

@B.S.Morganstein "argue"...that's what I'm worried about. The DM has already done things that suggest (get it?) traditional responses won't work. Throwing rules back at him may not be a great idea - but you can at least try what should work...just don't be upset if they don't.

@Adam good point!

@B.S.Morganstein In my experience this doesn't work. Especially if your GM is using a unique spell or effect, they will probably just say "It still works, roll for save"

B. S. Morganstein

3:09 PM

@GreySage Again, entirely possible, and if he's bending the rules to screw the party over or get his desired effect there's nothing I can do anyway (short of walking away). But I do think that if we can present a solid, RAW case, he will have a much tougher time and opposition from the party

Personally, I think that Suggestion is a really poor spell to use against the party. Mostly because of its "has to sound reasonable" clause. It just invites contention. The DM gets to unilaterally decide that his suggestions are "reasonable" to the player, even if it's something the player doesn't feel they would do...like attacking their friends, or abandoning them during a fight.

I'm much less opposed to something like Dominate Person where if I failed, I'm not in control of myself anymore, so we don't have to worry about that. It still sucks, but it feels more consistent.

B. S. Morganstein

@Adam Couldn't agree more, and it becomes especially problematic with a DM like ours who has shown in the past he isn't afraid of bending the rules to achieve his desired outcome

@B.S.Morganstein How experienced are the players and GM in your group?

@B.S.Morganstein Ultimately, the DM has a goal he(she?) is trying to achieve. Let the effects happen and see where the DM is going with it. If it ends with a TPK, then the DM set it up and move on. BUt otherwise, either walk away or let the DM run the game and try and enjoy where it goes (even it isn't raw.)

B. S. Morganstein

@nitsua60 Players are very experienced (probably 10+ years playing each). DM is less experienced than that (maybe a couple of years)

3:14 PM

If the DM can use Suggestion to get the party members to attack each other, the players should be able to use Suggestion to get enemies to fight each other.

@B.S.Morganstein I ask because, from reading your questions, it doesn't seem to me that you-all have the level of coherence and mutual-cooperation that comes from growing characters from L1 to L20 together.

@Yuuki This too @B.S.Morganstein. Once the DM opens the door to certain things, the door is open for all to use it. If they say it doesn't, you can ask why not.

but again, accept the answer and move on or walk away

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch Totally, and I'm open to being brought along for the journey, it's just hard to tell if the effects are something that we should be countering somehow (and we just don't know how - hence the question), or if it is a narrative device we can't avoid. i figure the only way to know is to try to counter it - if it works, great, if it doesn't, then accept it and move on

@godskook 4e released specific setting books for Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, in addition to its default Points of Light setting which drew on various previous concepts but was distinctly its own. I'm not sure what you mean by "butchered," so can't comment.

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch this is also why the question is about how to counter it, and not a question about railroading or plot devices (I've taken the feedback from previous questions and understand that the game is at a point where if I don't like what the DM is doing it's time to move on)

3:16 PM

@B.S.Morganstein fair enough - im' just sensing a theme in your questions, and it's a place I've been :)

29

Q: Is there a core campaign setting for DnD 4e?

I'm completely new to RPGs in general, so I apologize in advance if this is an odd question. There's such an overwhelming abundance of lore on all the different campaign settings for DnD that I've spent days poring over handbooks and wiki articles, but the one question I've had from the very begi...

dnd-4e campaign-settings

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch Oh don't get me wrong, I definitely appreciate the advice! I'm just trying to show that the whole blowback coming from the past few questions and my meta question have not been lost on me :P

@B.S.Morganstein :) But seriously, it took me a long time to get over the issues I have with my DM. Honestly, they're not totally gone, but I've accepted how the table is played and just try to have fun with it.

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch yeah, and I think it is something I will get better at in time. our current campaign is ending soon, and we will be creating new characters, so I think that will make for a good opportunity to have some sort of debrief with everyone, and figure out what worked, what didn't, and how we can move forward to the satisfaction of everyone involved

@BESW, Forgotten Realms went through MAJOR upheavals to accomodate 4e, including killing Mystra, changing the landscape, merging planes, etc, etc, etc.

3:29 PM

@B.S.Morganstein A true Session Zero is something that should happen. Get all your houserules on paper so that everyone is playing from the same book.

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch If leomund's tiny hut would work, is there not a similar WIzard spell that conjures some sort of mansion that may also work? (sorry, not sure what its called, downsides of only playing melee)

@B.S.Morganstein those actually take you outside the material plane.

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch Agreed, I'll be speaking to the group about a session zero (thanks for the new term!). Definitely important, since if we aren't all playing on the same playing field with the same rules, we might as well be playing different games

@NautArch Ah my bad

Mordenkainen's magnificent mansion, or just Magnificent Mansion in the SRD

B. S. Morganstein

@Adam That's the one!

3:33 PM

I"m assuming anything that takes more than action to cast is out, but listed them anyway.

3:46 PM

The short answer is... "There's a whole slew of things to resist Suggestion, and a 20th level party should have access to many of them."

I so want to ask if they started at lvl 20. I feel like a group of legendary heroes should be able to figure out the abilities they have.

@nwp you can right now. @B.S.Morganstein is in the chat.

@T.J.L. THis was an interesting question after I answered it :) I never really thought about the variety of ways there are to counteract suggestion/magic.

@B.S.Morganstein, is this "Session 0" for the game you've been asking questions about lately?

@nwp Yeah... suggestion is a pretty early power, and honestly... "attack your friends" is a pretty weak use of it. I semi-derailed an entire AL module with it.

3:48 PM

@T.J.L. The problem is in the use/allowance for it. "attack your friends" shouldn't work unless there was an underlying hostility being tapped into.

@nwp, as far as I can tell, no, but the new DM inherited the campaign, iirc.

@B.S.Morganstein By definition, "Session Zero" happens before the game has begun. You're already too far along. Anything you do now is bandaids or retroactive.

@T.J.L. Wwe were discussing session 0 for AFTER this campaign ends and before they start a new one.

@T.J.L. Suggestion: "This world is not real." <insert Inception plot>

B. S. Morganstein

@nwp No, we didn't start at level 20, we started at 10 and have been playing regularly for a few months now. I'm the Barbarian (surprise), so I ask this question from a position of ignorance, since I'm not familiar with the relevant spell lists (or many spells at all for that matter)

3:50 PM

@NautArch Yup... because the suggestion has to be at least somewhat reasonable. In the AL example I mentioned, I told a (potentially corrupt) investigator that we were innocent of a crime we'd been accused of, and he needed to do his job the right way. It kept him at bay long enough for us to do our own investigation and prove who was framing us.

@B.S.Morganstein This question and your character also make this Metagaming. not necessarily wrong given you're 20th level and have the experience to know this, but beware of what YOU know vs the Barbarian's knowledge.

@B.S.Morganstein I feel like "hey, magic users, can you do anything about that suggestion crap?" would be much more fun in game than asking on rpg.se.

B. S. Morganstein

@T.J.L. We would have a debrief session after the game. Don't know if this session qualifies as session 0 (I was just introduced to this term in chat today), but I think a debrief session is definitely in order

@NautArch Absolutely, I'm more looking for confirmation it is possible, since our wizard ran away as soon as he saw us being suggested. My Barbarian may know a little bit about spells just from being a well-traveled level 20 Barbarian, but anything specific would be outside his knowledge

@B.S.Morganstein The implication is that it's the start of an ongoing campaign. In some games, Dresden Files for example, a Session Zero is used to allow the players to tell the GM what they'd like to see. It's not all about the GM handing down house rules.

@B.S.Morganstein If the Wizard fled, he's probably poorly played, likely entirely too focused on blasting and not on all the other things he can do.

B. S. Morganstein

@nwp Lol absolutely. But by then my character was already suggested, so it was a little late for me to say anything other than "DIE!!" Though I may use that in our next session to prompt something in game, so thanks for the suggestion!

@T.J.L. I can't speak for how well played the wizard is, but it was definitely frustrating having the main spellcaster completely bail on the fight instead of trying to counterspell or somehow help with the effects

3:54 PM

@B.S.Morganstein In a normal game, where the party works together and you have knowledge of the spell, the right answer would have been to tell your GM that attacking your friend isn't a very reasonable suggestion. Of course, a good GM wouldn't have tried something so ham-fisted to begin with.

Now... Dominate Person is a different matter. That can make you kill your friends.

@B.S.Morganstein If I remember, was this the encounter where he tried to use a level 9 counter and the DM said it was a higher level spell (which he cold still have rolled his ability check). The DM probably should have said it was a feature and not a spell :)

B. S. Morganstein

@T.J.L. In hindsight I would agree, though my unfamiliarity at the time with the spell did not work to my advantage

@T.J.L. And a bad DM will tell you that it's his decision what counts as a reasonable suggestion, and that this is reasonable to him :/

@NautArch Yeah, if it isn't actually the Suggestion spell, the options lessen slightly.

@T.J.L. right - but we don't know what the DM was doing (i have a feeling it was ham-fisted attempt)

3:56 PM

@Adam Which gets back to other questions B.S. has asked... wherein I suggested walking away.

Which B.S. has acknowledged, and so we end up here

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch The very same encounter

@NautArch Taking everything B.S. has said at face value, the GM is some combination of weak and inexperienced. So... I'm reasonably certain it was ham-fisted or poorly understood by the GM.

@B.S.Morganstein I knew it was you as soon as I read the first line of the question :p

B. S. Morganstein

@T.J.L. Yes, walking away is an option, but this question is not about the DM or strategy (in fact I have deliberately omitted to mention anything about the DM railroading us or using house rules). This is purely an informational question, the answers from which I hope will give me better insight into how to counter future attempts to suggest members of our party

3:58 PM

Speaking of ham... lunch time. I think a hamburger is in order.

B. S. Morganstein

@Adam @NautArch Should I be worried you guys are beginning to pick up on my questions as soon as I ask them? :P

@T.J.L. yeah - it's a shame because there ARE ways to do this within the ruleset - just not necessarily 100% win ways.

@B.S.Morganstein haha - no. But I do suggest thinking about the WHY you're asking and what you can actually do with the answer

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch Agreed. I think understanding the rules surrounding suggestion and how to counter it will go a long way in identifying whether or not rhe DM is house ruling the shit out of this, or if its a problem with the party not "playing their roles", or some combination of the two

@NautArch and more generally I think a debrief will provide a great opportunity to air some of these grievances, and attempt to resolve them diplomatically

@B.S.Morganstein Or...you could just ask the DM "Hey, are you houseruling the bananas out of this? I mean that's cool if you are, I just want to know."

@B.S.Morganstein But even if it does - there's nothing you can do about it at this time. I tell this to everyone in life: Don't ask questions that you don't really want the answer to and Be careful asking questions that you can't act on. Both can lead to a lot of frustration.

If the DM is relatively new, they're learning, too. MIstakes are okay as long as the table is having fun. But keeping an open communication is really important (I don't even have this at my table) FInding a way to do that will vastly improve everyone's experience.

B. S. Morganstein

4:04 PM

@NautArch Understood, though I think given the knowledge I now have access to surrounding suggestion and countering it, when he inevitably tries it again I will have some sort of response other than failing the impossible will save and attacking my party

@Adam @NautArch Agreed, open communication is key. If these RAW approaches fail again I'll definitely ask if there is some house ruling going on, if only to confirm that I as a PC haven't done anything wrong or misunderstood anything

@B.S.Morganstein Yup, you can definitely prepare better, but a lot of those things you don't have/aren't available/take too long to prep. ut nothing should really be an impossible save - you're level 20!

B. S. Morganstein

@NautArch I know, but when I have a +2 to wisdom, literally roll a 20, and then get told I failed the check, I am put in a situation where there is nothing I can do without help. This is also another motivation for the question

If you fail on a natural 20 you shouldn't even roll.

@Adam Why would anyone want to houserule out bananas? They're a good fruit that's not too sweet and they're good for you when you're having diarrhea/vomiting problems.

@Yuuki I don't know why either. I love bananas too! But that's why it's important to ask :)

B. S. Morganstein

4:08 PM

@nwp I agree, I don't know why he had me roll. It was literally impossible to beat

We had a similar effect foisted upon us. He gave out magic items and then took them away by "charming" us and forcing us to hand them over.

4:24 PM

@NautArch We lost a magic item when a player left the game and derezzed with it.

I should elaborate that it wasn't like their core gear or anything, it was a wondrous item that any of us could have used, but it just happened to be on that one person who ended up leaving and never coming back.

@Adam that's happened to us, too. I'm more okay with that :)

Agreed. The thing was causing nothing but trouble anyway. I'm glad to be rid of it.

@Adam the thing=the player? 'cause that was our trouble.

@nwp I've been trying to pull off the compliment to that in my games; saying "no, you don't need to roll, the task is trivial for you to complete"

Oh no, the thing was the item. It was a cube of force, but it was just plain player hostile. It had a nasty habit of switching which sides did what. I only ever used it once and ended up losing 2 or 3 turns trying to fiddle with the thing to get it to work. Gave it to the other player who never used it as I recall, and then that player left 2 sessions later.

@T.J.L., I made my final edit to the Yuan-ti post

4:33 PM

@Adam I would house rule that automatic success and failure on natural 20 and 1 apply to skill checks too. It seems much easier than keeping track of DC vs bonuses.

@Adam That seems like the DM being mean, I thought the face effects were supposed to be fixed?

@nwp Totally reasonable - although some classes can turn 1s into successes RAW (like rogue)

@NautArch They are allowed to feel awesome then :P

@Yuuki We talked about it later, and he said he was trying to make the item more fun, in that the sides would switch depending on who attuned to it. The problem was that none of us knew that. And when our 20th level cleric patron identified it for us, and then demonstrated it to us, he didn't mention it either.

@nwp We play 1s are failures, 20s succeses - but I can tell ou at times it's frsutrating. We use proficiency die and I could roll a 1 on the d20 and then an 8 on my proficiency die, and with my modifiers clear 10.

but the 1 on the d20 ends all that

4:38 PM

So, when I pulled it out to shield us from some archers in a tower, I kept hitting the wrong buttons. The arrows hit anyway that round, and next round I accidentally switched it so that nothing could get through, so our wizard wasted a slot trying to shoot out of it.

@Adam that magic item sounds...unfun.

There was actually a pattern for how the sides switched around and everything. It was a well laid out plan on his end. But in the heat of battle, I just thought the thing was broken, got frustrated, and refused to trust it ever again.

@Adam Sounds like something that would take 2 episodes of experimentation, after that it would be fine. But you stopped after the 2nd episode.

@GreySage Exactly. I felt pretty terrible about it afterwards actually.

Eh, I feel like your DM shares equal blame for this. Didn't seem like he provided any clue that this cube of force worked in a specific manner.

4:48 PM

maybe if @Adam hadn't eaten his brain...

@Adam Based on this and other things, I am thinking of asking a question on GMing techniques. Basically, sometimes I will encourage my players to do something, like "You should probably visit <specific_place> before going to that dungeon", and I wonder if it is a good idea. Thinking of @Adam's story, I would probably have encouraged the players to experiment more with the Cube in their downtime. Would this be on-topic and not-primarily-opinion-based?

@GreySage Let an NPC say it. That's what they are for.

@nwp I'll take that as a 'yes'

@GreySage Don't take it as a 'yes' for whether it is primarily opinion based. Most questions on rpg.se seem primarily opinion based to me.

@godskook Works for me. Have a green check. :)

5:03 PM

good morning

howdy @Forrestfire

how goes?

@GreySage I added a link in your question going back to the top of this whole cube of force discussion. You may revert that addition if you like, but I think the context is useful.

5:20 PM

@Skyler It is a gift from a Russian artist, depicting one of my D&D characters.

5:37 PM

Haggles are MOST fun when you've successfully convinced the PCs to make an offer they wouldn't accept.

hah

that reminds me I need to check with my DM about the value of some loot we sold offscreen

@Forrestfire why does this remind you of that?

@Forrestfire Our economy is always in favor of the DM. COsts a lot to buy, never get much when we sell.

just thinking about haggling

we chose to go "yeah this was sold offscreen" to save time and get back to beating up cult members

hell if I know what a mummified goblin corpse would be worth anyway

6:15 PM

lol.
Anyway, selling offscreen is usually the safest way.

I love shop haggling scenes

but they eat time from the session

@Forrestfire I... I vehemently hate myself for not being good enough after most haggling scenes.

I see

it's mostly a practice thing

I guess. I am also terrible at them

mostly because... lack of practice, it's hard to get them to happen without eating a session ><

I need more games to play in XD

6:41 PM

XD Given the nature of the games I usually play when I don't DM, talking to merchants to buy things is something that happens very often to me.

Maybe you recall that I like this kind of "second life" D&D games - and most settings I play in have character options that can make you better at buying or selling things, making those characters interesting choices if you want to have lots of people want to play with you.

In one game I'm at the point where I wish I could monopolize the merchants and use their discount mechanics every month. In the other one, I have a character that fears telling others how rich she is. So she has to use intermediaries who of course make me think I could gain a lot of extra money if I could just gather the courage to sell first hand.

hah

Presently, in my freeform group, I'm playing a magical merchant, but she doesn't haggle

as it is an urban fantasy game, and she is running a normal-ish-style business

she has a cash register and everything! Pays taxes.

~~sells enchanted fidget spinners~~

6:57 PM

I want to sell my Book of Shadows after showing off how it gives me access to interesting spells. Such an artifact should fetch quite a price.

It's just that I have a feeling that after pulling it off once every merchant will be familiar with them and send the guards after me for even attempting to sell it.

Maybe I'll try that on the players I may one day have.

@nwp Just make sure you sell it blackmarket, so if they complain they get arrested for dealing in illegal goods

Selling familiars goes in the same direction.

Just make sure you're not selling to a Hag.

It appears that many people DID consider my question opinion-based

Interestingly, close votes on your own question don't show up in the review queue

"Be careful with the Book of Shadows. It has a tendency to disappear on people it deems not worth. But you are a capable person who would not need to worry about that, right?"

8:08 PM

@GreySage I think it is opinion-based, but I wonder if there was a way to frame it for the stack? The root of the question is in campaign building and player agency vs GM storytelling.

@GreySage, my answer is better served to give in chat anyway: Imho, no, but you should be providing clues based on how difficult you want it to be and how important to the long-term quest it is. You should also be teaching your players through lesser versions of these actions that these sorts of actions would possibly lead to an interesting result in your game.

Look at old Zelda games to see how this principle is applied.

Things you NEED are often very well telegraphed, to the point where you can brute-force find solutions.

While other things like heart containers are non-obvious.

And sometimes impossible to brute-force, by design.

Choices vs Consequences - What Player Decisions Mean in Games - Extra Credits

@godskook the problem with not providing clues is that the DM has created the problems, but the players don't know what is expected. If that type of game and how one should interact in that world hasn't been defined, then it's not very fair to expect the players to know how to proceed.

8:24 PM

@NautArch Doesn't "You should also be teaching your players through lesser versions of these actions that these sorts of actions would possibly lead to an interesting result in your game." Cover that?

yeah, i guess it does :)

@GreySage that's not the video I was thinking it was, but Extra Credits has a lot of useful and interesting videos on "Choice" in game design.

0

Q: Should we add a [rules-as-written] tag warning, and what should it say?

I’ve recently discovered Stack Exchange has a feature called tag warnings which cautions a person with further information about how a tag should be used. Tag warnings look like this: This example comes from Biology SE’s [species-identification] tag. You can try it out yourself here — click in...

discussion rules-as-written

8:52 PM

@NautArch @godskook Yeah, I've started to form some ideas similar to those.

@NautArch I tried asking chat, but I apparently hit a lull

@GreySage a lull?

I think one of my problems is that I'm running a published campaign, so I am more inclined to present things as they are written, which don't happen to include hints

@Zachiel A lull in the activity of the chatroom

@GreySage ooooh, that's my specialty field.

Sometimes the poor little things need some tweaking, especially in presenting hints that can drive the story forward.

I've been DMing Expedition to the Demonweb Pits once and... well, after the first encounter the campaign would have stopped weren't it for me going OOC to point the direction to the players.

@Zachiel The main plot is pretty well telegraphed, there are lots of leads to get to the final dungeon.

It's just the small treasures and side-quests that I think are really cool, and I don't want my players to miss out on them.

Sadly, my table is definitely not of the "figure stuff out" variety. We'll do out-of-character puzzles, but otherwise, it's pretty much pure combat.

9:00 PM

Specifically, they missed finding their first useful magic item because they didn't search in a specific spot.

@GreySage ah, I see. Well, my character indeed missed a lot of cool things. It's the nature of the game, I guess.

@GreySage Re: looting pools - have them play Baldur's Gate II. With a walkthrough.

I like that you can just take the missed loot and put it into the next room. It's not wasted effort.

@Zachiel I'm new at GMing and all my players are new at playing, so I'm going to have to re-evaluate how I do some things

@nwp Yeah I was thinkng of having some NPCs go through the dungeon after the party, and a few days later will offer to sell the loot to them

@GreySage you should do more clue-dropping in published adventures by the nature of it being a published adventure. If you go "off the rails", the PCs will suddenly be in very weird places.

@godskook -Like when you glitch off the map in a cRPG? XD

9:07 PM

-c- rpg?

@Zachiel That'd be fun: "Well guys, you weren't supposed to get here yet, but you did, so now you fight an adult red dragon. Have fun!"

@GreySage i tried killing a dragon early in tales of zestiria for about 3 hours, before giving up and reading it online that i wasnt even supposed to try that and should simply flee from the battle.

Which, by irony, one of the npcs told me to do and i ignored completely.

@ShadowKras How is Zestiria? I'm a big fan of the Tales series, but I'm also poor

Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom - ProJared

@GreySage i not a good person to ask that, i only played the first (phantasia, about 3 times...), destiny (once, but liked it less than phantasia), and now zestiria. I know, shame on me for missing out the other games.

9:16 PM

@GreySage glitching the map in D&D, also known as "earth glide/stone walk"

@godskook computer RPG

@ShadowKras at least you got an NPC that told you. I'm looking at you, Asylum Demon. >_>

However, i can tell you i had a blast playing zestiria, specially when a friend came over and i pulled out the second controller to play battles coop.

@Zachiel Yeah, looked it up. Never heard of people distinguishing along that lines. Especially since CRPG should contain everything from Skyrim to Borderlands to FF7 to Diablo.

@godskook it's just to distinguish it from tabletop RPGs like D&D

Especially useful here.

Speaking of Diablo, I need to finda a way to remember to access Nightmare and not Hell, I keep resetting my Single Player maps.

@Adam that breath weapon critted

@Zachiel Press enter on the difficulty selection. That selects the last difficulty you played at and is also faster than clicking it.

9:34 PM

6 yo daughter: Alexa, play something by...
Alexa: I don't know that artist.
6 yo daughter: Alexa, don't interrupt me!

Is there a free adventure/campaign somewhere? Preferably 5e? I mostly just want to see what that actually means (the adventure/campaign).

@nwp Lots. What're you looking for?

Many of these are free, for instance: merricb.com/the-great-list-of-dd-5e-adventures

Something basic for first time players + first time DM. Maybe a single town with a something to explore.

131 free 5e adventures at dm's guild

5

Your First Adventure, Running the Game #1

9:41 PM

@nwp here's the first 4 chapters of Princes of the Apocalypse, WotC's second hardcover adventure.

@nitsua60 I actually found that already

But for first-time all around, I think you can't beat the adventure in the Starter Set, The Lost Mine of Phandelver. It's explicitly written for first-time GMs, so it's got pointers to the places rules can be found, advice on prep, &c.

@nwp you opened me a whole new world of possibilities. Thanks!

@Adam I watched that and made such a thing. But once they exit the dungeon and come to the town I'm a bit lost with all the NPCs and shops and plot hooks and so on.

Maybe I should just suck it up and buy the DMG and MM.

@nwp Reading those wont help you very much with plot hooks or shops or the like

9:44 PM

@nwp Ah, but you don't have to get that from DM's guild. They used to run AL a little differently, so for the first few seasons there were free versions of the first chapters of each hardcover produced.

@Adam this ^^

@nwp How much are your players into it? I've always had really fun times when I can get players to help create a town like that. (If the dungeon took four sessions, call this session 4.5!)

@nitsua60 that looks like what I was looking for, thanks

@nitsua60 I have no players yet, I'm more in the planning phase to see if I and the people around me can get into it. There is a chance that the first get-together will end with nobody ever wanting to play DnD again.

@nwp I mean, technically, it's possible that you should be running that in AL format to access the free pdf. But WotC's still got it up on their site in a different place than it was when season 2 ran....

10:00 PM

@nwp I've never done a published adventure, but it's pretty easy to come up with a short story.

1 hour later…

11:08 PM

2017 Voting will go live at 10 am CDT Today! http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/2017-voting-will-go-live-at-10-am-cdt-today/

Tweeted by ENnies on July 11, 2017 at 1:05 PM

11:46 PM

If you’ve enjoyed something of Evil Hat’s that you bought in a place that lets you leave ratings, please leave one. They really do help!

Tweeted by fredhicks on July 11, 2017 at 9:45 PM

@nwp I have found it best (for me) to run a straightforward, published adventure that I (a) trust and (b) know front-to-back if I'm trying to pull together a new group. That's because I can then devote the most mental energy to the players: does everyone seem engaged, am I sitting back and letting them have fun at the right times, am I taking useful notes of things to call back to....

(And to those in the room who played for the first time with me and found not a published adventure, but my hack-together of a library under invasion, remember that the explicit goal of that experience was not to form a coherent group that'd play together for ages, but to expose those people to certain things.)

@nitsua60 I definitely can't do (a), that would require experience. I'll try to put a lot of work into getting (b) right.

@nitsua60 yeah -- and part of that is that we had transitive experiences to go on. VI and I both know and trust you as a DM, and I know Cody and Aurora both well as players and as DMs, so in a way, I was able to linchpin the group somewhat, offloading that job from you

Thankfully the basic rules have enough monster stats and encounter building to make me feel somewhat confident I'll get that part right.

@Shalvenay True, and it was helpful.

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