@NautArch one of the guidelines for this stuff is: is someone reproducing material from a book which largely removes the need for someone to buy that book to make the content useable? then in that case they are helping people circumvent copyright and it is probably not fair use.
i can't tell to what degree that spreadsheet is just a huge list of spell information reproduced, or just an analysis on it
I've come across a question where the querent has some facts majorly wrong, and they seem to be a substantial cause of the problem they're describing.
I know that we refrain from answering in comments, and I could imagine pointing out those corrections in an answer.
How should I handle pointing...
I am a big fan of the series of books and graphic novels by Ben Aaronovitch, collectively named after the first book in series, Rivers of London (sometimes also called the Peter Grant series after the main protagonist). For those not familiar, here is a brief extract from the main novel's descrip...
I am about to start running a Norse themed Pathfinder campaign set around 800 AD, most likely in Norway. I am looking for ways to make the characters feel as though they are part of the culture of the period without boring them to tears.
I am hoping to have a mix of classic Norse monsters and ...
I want to run a game which as both an historical and geographical background matching our own reality.
Description of lore should be quite accurate, but can have a pinch of myth, legend and magic as perceived in the ancient time (oracle, healer, tribe's shaman, witches, healing plants, deities, ...
@NautArch No, Body Work is a graphic novel that was originally published as a series. The first book is "Rivers of London"; in the US they titled it "Midnight Riot" for some reason
@Javelin "Body work" refers to what you do on a car :D
@SPavel I think the best thing about The Defenders series is that in all of the promotional material I've seen with the group together, Matt is always looking somewhere different from the rest of the group.
@GreySage oh, right, Ye olde theory about the game ending. Yep, I know of that. But to be fair I was just referencing the cosmic horror thing, in this case represented by the "you cannot grasp the true form of Giygas' attack" thing
@BerislavLopac Hm, has no-one made a wiki about it that could be pilfered for hard constraints? (I did encounter recommendations for Rivers of London some time ago, but I hardly find the time to read, so I can't help with adapting it's magic system to any kind of RPG.)
@Derpy Not really a theory when the game designer flat out said that is what it is, but the cosmic horror aspect actually makes WAY more sense than what is actually going on (Earthbound was weird).
@GreySage Never even found the actual source of that to be fair. Not that I have really looked much into it in the first place, but I used to think there were conflicting sources on that claim, some attributing it to miss-translation, some to hoaxes and such. Never took the time to confirm any version.
@Rubiksmoose I thought it was possible. Basically this started with nitsua60 asking for GMs go-to spells for Contingency and I replied with this, which started a bit of discussion about Contingency + Dimension Door.
nitsua60 wanted to write an answer about how DD is targeting a point and not you, while I would say that it can target you (it doesn't need to have a range of self or some wording like that)
Dimension door's not a viable contender, as far as I can tell, because it doesn't/can't target the caster. (Unlike, say, misty step. Dimension door targets a point w/in 500'.)
Yeah, but "You teleport yourself" is "Choose a spell [...] that can target you." in my reading and currently I am inclined to just rule that Dimension Door should work with Contingency.
@Secespitus Yeah I can see that point of view. I really hate how vague they left spell targeting. It causes a lot of issues honestly. And there are massive holes in the rules that they have refused to clarify or fix.
@Secespitus I would agree with you for a few reasons: 1) Targeting is very unclear in 5e so much of the time it will come down to the DM kind of adjudicating those unclear definitions when appear. 2) As a DM, I see nothing overpowered about allowing DD to be rules as targeting the caster. 3) I see nothing overpowered or broken about allowing DD with contingency even if it was clarified to technically not target anything.
@GreySage Exactly that is the infuriating part. Fine take you standard english definitions, but then don't also expect us to rely on those blindly for cases when the game uses it as a pseudo game term that happens to never be defined.
@Secespitus I'm leaning toward allowing it. It's just annoying as hell that misty step has a "statblock" range of self and teleports you up to 30', where DD has a statblock range of 500' and teleports you to that point. And teleport has a range of 10 feet and teleports you and up to 8 other creatures via ranges further discussed.
(I.e. MS is range:self and the "effective range" is in the description, DD is range:effective range and calls out who can be hit in the description, teleport is range:group of targets and calls out effective range in the description.)
This Q&A establishes that if you suddenly find yourself mid-air (e.g. by teleportation), you only have time to use a reaction before starting to fall (examples include casting feather fall, or using a readied action if you previously took the Ready action set the trigger to something like "when I...
@NautArch The phrasing isn't great, but at its core it's asking for solutions to a specific problem, which I think is narrow enough. It will come down to Good Subjective Bad Subjective, but editing it would help.
@Rubiksmoose I decided to, mostly because of @DavidCoffron's comment. He's right in that official DO cover a lot of what he's saying isn't covered, and the answer is obvious and doesn't require the community. Unless they're shopping for a sheet, in which case it's off topic.
I mean, it is earnestly looking for a solution to a problem (good) but then rejects the easiest solution (bad) and doesn't explain why it won't work for them (probably worse).
I was thinking about the harsh tone he takes when discussing the official sheet and his non-acceptance of the easy answer and was going to ask if it warranted an edit to be nicer
with the best case scenario is that it's a shopping topic and off-topic.
@DavidCoffron I'm also trying to figur eout how to answer yours. I've got an answer, but I don't really have anything to back it up besides common sense.
My little brothers all decided they wanted to play dnd randomly yesterday (I haven't dm'd them in like 4-6 years) and they want paper char sheets and I'm like why! Digital ones are so much easier to handle
@DavidCoffron I like paper for everything except spells. Spells I either do on my device (laptop/phone) or just print out a list of the spells I am likely to use and look them up if I need to.
@DavidCoffron You know, I am a pretty tech-savvy and gadget oriented guy. But I really dig paper character sheets because they are just so fool-proof, simple, and versatile.
@Rubiksmoose I just personally dont see why it makes a difference to people. (I'm also in the digital books are fine camp), but I guess a physical copy can be nice since you can flip through it faster (or not have to scroll, etc.)
I also add in new features and icons digitally when I gain them and then print it.
@DavidCoffron I actually prefer the digital books for most cases. Much faster to find things most of the time. Though I wonder if I would feel the same way if I only had the books digitally.
@Rubiksmoose I mean I prefer paper copies on my first reads of the book (so I can read it at the park and stuff) but once I'm familiar with where things are, digital is faster for me
But I don't like having electronics at the table and I also don't want to have to find/edit/save as I go along during a game. I think the printed version updated after session digitally is a nice solution that covers my desire for paper at the table, but a digital record for myself.
Apparently I have a bad habit of rushing things in-game because I'm trying to be efficient DM and not bore the players, but this sometimes means accidentally forgetting plot elements or fast-forwarding through "free time" for the PCs in game. Rather than relying on retconning, do folks have suggestions on good pacing strategies?
@MikeQ what are you players most interested in? Do they like the 'free time'? Do you feel they want more plot elements? Or do they really just want the combat?
@NautArch That's an issue I have to consider. At least one player has the mindset of getting through challenges as quickly as possible, literally rushing ahead (and away from the other PCs). Like a "get to the end and win" attitude. It's bad because the other PCs want to explore and take their time.
@MikeQ Suggestion in case we can't come up with a solution that'd help your specific group: Ask the players (whether they like what you're doing and how you're doing it, or whether they've thought of improvements). They know themselves better than we do, and if they're dissatisfied they've probably put more thought into it. But we also might be able to discuss some stuff
As an extra: What system are you running? It's mostly irrelevant on the actual pacing issue, but some systems have more tools available (or subsystems) that might be able to help
(I.e. Pathfinder has actual rules for skillful and neat Chase scenes, but I'm pretty sure e.g. 5e or Paranoia don't)
@MikeQ Any time you start wanting to "fast forward" to something, just ask the players if they want to do anything else before that something occurs. Or is there a reason that doesn't work?
@NautArch I know, and I'm not even structuring the challenges that way. In the last session they skipped over the main objective (social encounter) because they heard about some monsters, which means dragging the rest of the party to the monster fight instead of doing other stuff
@MikeQ You could always hide the monster encounters behind the social encounters (i.e. we know of XYZ monster, but have to go talk to the Duke of Birmingham at his party to find out more about them and where they are)
@goodguy5 is right, @MikeQ. Be interesting for them to show up where they think a 'fight' will be, only to discover there isn't, and now they ahve to travel back. And time has moved forward...
@NautArch especially if they can look back at the information that they got and come to the realization "oh yea... that guy seemed pretty .... erratic. maybe he didn't have a hot tip on monsters around the area"
@NautArch I've done this before. They whined about it. But yeah, you're right, it's better to enforce it than to let the inmates run the prison, so to speak.
@NautArch No, he went to the pub to drink more, finally got the courage to speak to a buxom wench, hit it off, got married, and went to a honeymoon in Belize
So now that the PCs need something from him, too bad, he's not there
They must deal with his secretary, a crotchety old gnome coasting towards a cushy retirement, with 400 years of institutional knowledge that renders him un-fireable
Other question @MikeQ: Have you actually talked to the players about this difference in behavior (i.e. that you're dissatisfied and think the party is dissatisfied with the one speedrunner/murderhobo's thusly named habits)?
@Delioth Not yet, but I'm holding on to that card. I'm keeping an eye on the player because they have a history of being a problem player in various campaigns.
@Delioth Not yet, but I'm holding on to that card, in case they become moreso of a problem player.
@kviiri heh :) A few guys at my table have made their own - some much nicer than others. I've thought about it, then just get lazy and use a pre-gen.l Now that I"ve got a DNDbeyond account, it usually goes through there.
Fair enough. It's also notable that you could talk to them about some of the issues you're facing and not all of them (and also not calling out a player)
@NautArch Aha! Shawn Morton, Director of the Central Belize Archaeological Survey, and Field Director of the Stann Creek Regional Archaeology Project, both in Belize.
Given enough time you could brute-force character sheets by choosing black or white for every pixel on a paper-sized image. I mean, it'd probably take longer than the heat death of the universe to generate one that was actually something (since there are 2^n possible pages, where n is the number of pixels, at 8.5ish million pixels)
And 2^n exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe around 2^75 IIRC
@Yuuki That's way too much prepwork for an RPG night. I'm lucky to get 2 hour prep. 300 years? I'm not entering lichdom so we can have pizza and beer only to argue that my clay tablets aren't historically accurate.
@Maximillian Hell, 2 hours? I usually spend a month or so building a world (or reuse a prior world, I have one that I really like right now), and then just improvise... everything.
@GreySage I've been trying to figure out if I can get it into my campaign, but it doesn't make a lot of sense (they're pretty much stuck on the plane/world they're on and no in or out access...minus the PC who somehow got there which will provide a good plot hook)
@SPavel Funnily enough, this is exactly what I tried to do in my game... but the players don't seem to care too much because the valuable item had no combat function
@SPavel Yes. Yes it was. And I'm very frustrated about it and willing to just cancel the game at this point. If you have suggestions on how to remedy this, I am all ears
@Delioth That's more of what I've got going on. I do have a main plot that they can choose to ignore (but ignoring it will eventually lead to the destruction of the world so...)
Like: The orcs have taken X important mountain pass fortress, some elven sky-pirates are screwing with our trade, and some people have been found brutally murdered in a nearby village. As a prerequisite to the campaign, you've taken a contract to hunt down at least one flying ship from the sky pirates, with some sort of penalty if they don't in such-and-such timeframe
@MikeQ I meant, if they've been stealing/rude/killing non-monsters, etc. then word may get around. Someone also mentioned, awhile ago, to have other adventuring parties out there. Maybe they start getting the jobs instead?
So some guy asked if the querent was running enough encounters, so that the controllers ended their dailies...
And my brain was all: Ok, let's just play the combats after the controllers used their dailies, the other encounters are boring.
(In real life, I'm DMing a party where there's a big monster that should send the party down holes, but the controller plans on keeping the big guy with a huge threat range under his own control to pound enemies. I'm a little angry at controllers right now.)
@NautArch I dunno. Maybe. For now I'm going to stop dumping plot ideas in here, because I need to abandon the mindset that the campaign story must fit a script of events. Although I'm still open to ideas for individual challenges/encounters.
@MikeQ Yeah - I'm a fan of building a script of what's happening without the players' actions (i.e. so-and-so is preparing X scheme, he'll do Y in a few weeks and next year he'll complete X and such-and-such will happen). Then become the so-and-so to figure out what you do when a wrench is thrown in your plans, with the resources available to so-and-so
Yeah. Sort of. Can't do that for very granular stuff (document gets much too long), but for big-picture things it works. It's especially good if you're getting out of the "script/railroad" mindset - as you get away from that mindset you find actually writing that stuff is less necessary because you're used to getting into the heads of the NPC's and just reacting how they would
Though it's still a good idea to write down your/villain's plans, in case you have a dozen in the works
Though if you do work on that improvisation of what the external forces are doing, you can come up with some neat interplays between multiple forces (that the party is allied with, opposed to, unaware of, neutral to, etc)
I've started mine with a basic set of events that they don't even know are going on yet (and won't until they reach a certain level when I'll start providing clues.) For now, I set up some combat that may lead to a plot if they pursue it (totally by accident, the monster I chose i read later could be summoned and now the players think someone is ummoning them. So...plot!)
Accidental plot is the best kind of plot. Once had some characters set off to cleanse a forest of a vast corruption... because they chose not to kill the werebear that was attacking them. So I had to improvise quite a bit. I think that was the next 5 sessions.
There wasn't even a corruption of a forest when I planned that encounter
Hell, there wasn't even really anything about the forest, I had just narrated them walking through one at the start of the session. They also created the forest, and everything in it. It had been blank canvas... so... net positive?
Anyone here run the Murder in Baldur's Gate adventure during the playtest? I am considering getting that book, even though it seems to have been issued more or less between editions. IT has stats for what looks like 3.5e, 4e, and an early look at 5e.
I've come across a question where the querent has some facts majorly wrong, and they seem to be a substantial cause of the problem they're describing.
I know that we refrain from answering in comments, and I could imagine pointing out those corrections in an answer.
How should I handle pointing...
