The Party

• Jeff, half-elf Druid 6 / Fighter 4 / Magus 4
• Lee, gray elf Fighter 4 / Magic-User 4 / Thief 5
• Oryn, high elf Magic-User 5 / Thief 6
• Rudy, halfling Druid 2 / Thief 3
• Takeshi, human Ranger 4
• Varda, human Cleric 6 / Magic-User 4
• Vordt, half-ogre Cleric 4 / Fighter 5

Ran the group through some werewolf hunting the other day. Thanks to the local army scouts, they knew where the hideout was; a chapel on a hill in the badlands, about ten miles from town. The party arrives, takes a look in one of the side windows, climbs the bell tower for a vantage point around the thing, including the graveyard and mausoleum, and then pushes their way into the building.

There's no light inside, but Takeshi has a broadsword with continual light on it, as well as a ring that increases the radius of light sources he commands, so the hall and sanctuary ahead are well lit through the 80' of luminescence in his hands. As they enter the sanctuary, three people materialize behind the altar, outlanders in appearance, claiming to be using this building as protection from the elements. Some players noted the lack of a "lived in" feeling here, no bedrolls or typical litter you'd expect of a temporary living space, and these people appeared well-fed and hale. Sensing that the party is about to lash out, the werewolves attack pre-emptively and gain surprise.

(Round 1) Takeshi and Lee ended up targets between these three werewolves. Four more tried to ambush from behind, but Vordt was in the back filling up the hallway, blocking their way. Oryn casts amplify damage at one while Varda fires magic missile and Jeff fills the hallway with web as Takeshi and Lee retaliate in melee; Rudy provides missile support with their sling. (R2) Oryn and Varda wait for an an opportunity to capitalize on while Takeshi and Lee continue trading blows, with Rudy continuing to provide missile support and Jeff casting a magic missile; Vordt is 5' deep in the web begins to leverage his obscene Strength to break free of them. One werewolf lies dead. (R3) Varda continues waiting, confident in their allies' abilities as Oryn charges in, Rudy provides missile support, Jeff supplies another magic missile, Takeshi and Lee continue trading blows with the two remaining werewolves, and Vordt is working himself free of the webs. Three werewolves lie dead.

Over the next couple of minutes, Vordt breaks free from the web. Not wanting to try and jump through windows, the party opts to wait for the spell to expire, as the remaining four werewolves trapped in it yell muffled requests for mercy. Their progress was much slower than Vordt's, and they had to go through 8' of web rather than 5', but after about an hour they'd all suffocated. During the wait, both Takeshi and Lee ate some belladonna to stave off potential infection.

The party finds a trap door to a cellar and checks it out. There's a wight hiding in the shadows, but it doesn't surprise them. It still slaps Lee and eats about 5k XP off his thief levels, but it dies by the end of the first round. In exchange, they found an iron chest, within which was 21k gold, 13 gems, a scroll of protection from magic, dwarf-sized field plate +1, and a pouch of dust of dryness.

Then Takeshi and Lee both vomit up their lunch and pass out on the floor. Lee is no longer breathing. Ingesting belladonna does a few things: (1) small chance of curing lycanthropy if taken quickly after infection, (2) incapacitates you for 1d4 days, (3) has a 1% chance of killing you. Lee is the 1%.

They get both of their bodies and the treasure out and back to town, then broker a deal with the local lordling MU to get Lee poked with a rod of resurrection, which drops him from 20 to 19 Constitution, removing his natural regeneration. Takeshi remains incapacitated for a day and Lee for a week, due to resurrection sickness.

Kingmaker was last night. Some minor spoilers to follow.

Party, Level 3

• Marisiel, Elf Witch
• Nok-Nok, Goblin Rogue
• Linzi, Halfling Bard
• Amiri, Human Barbarian
• Titus, Human Fighter
• Valerie, Human Fighter
• Stik, Kobold Monk

Variants in Play: Ancestry Paragon, Free Archetype, Gradual Ability Boosts, Slow Leveling, Stamina. I also allow Hero Points to adjust the degree of success on a check by one step rather than re-roll; this primarily gets used to either mitigate a crit fail or turn a failure into a success.

Realizing they had just under a week before the Stag Lord's bandits tried to strong-arm Oleg's Trading Post for goods again, the party stopped their trip towards the tatzlwyrm lair and immediately turned around to return to Oleg's to stock up and then head towards the fort.

On the way back, they encountered yet more bandits and, on one evening, an owlbear and its mate. Once at Oleg's, they spent a day turning in their quests and buying some of the goods available at the trading post. When ready, they set out. About twelve miles from the fort, they were about to start cooking dinner when some of the Stag Lord's bandits showed up in a neutral manner, presuming the party to be aspiring recruits. Linzi takes the opportunity to try and get some information out of them by indulging their fantasy.

Titus eventually gets bored and challenges one of the bandits to a duel. The bandit rightfully declines, but Titus begins pushing forward with intent to attack him anyways. Linzi threatened to force him to spend his night in a laughing fit to get him to back off, and he calmed down. Unfortunately, after dinner was taken care of, the bandits took their leave, not wanting to be shanked in the night by the crazy man.

The next morning they stop a few hundred feet from the fort and Marisiel sends her familiar, Youmu, forward to scout the hills since the bandits don't seem to be paying them much mind. Youmu returns shortly and informs Marisiel that something's off about the hill; he suspects undead. Armed with that information, the party decided to waltz up to the front door and just infiltrate by providing the password.

Once inside, introductions are made, stories are shared, and after the party learns that there's a late shipment of alcohol and the Stag Lord loves the stuff, Stik taps into their knowledge of alchemy (via dedication) to create a bottle of booze. The Stag Lord quickly comes out and snatches the bottle before returning to his chamber.

Stik is quickly inducted as the brewmeister, but instead of delivering alcohol to the other bandits, they deliver lightning. In a bottle. One Extreme encounter later (as they triggered the entire compound, including the Stag Lord, and the owlbear was let free at some point), the Stag Lord lies dead on the ground along with most of his lieutenants.

PF2, Kingmaker tonight. Minor spoilers re: names of potential companions and side-quest details.

Party, Level 3

• Marisiel, Elf Witch
• Nok-Nok, Goblin Rogue
• Linzi, Halfling Bard
• Amiri, Human Barbarian
• Titus, Human Fighter
• Valerie, Human Fighter
• Stik, Kobold Monk

Variants in Play: Ancestry Paragon, Free Archetype, Gradual Ability Boosts, Slow Leveling, Stamina. I also allow Hero Points to adjust the degree of success on a check by one step rather than re-roll; this primarily gets used to either mitigate a crit fail or turn a failure into a success.

The group had set out at the end of last session with the intention of picking some radishes and hunting two local monsters of some renown, a boar called Tuskgutter and some tatzlwyrms. Amiri was especially excited about going after Tuskgutter.

They arrive at the radish patch to find four kobolds suffering from The Itis™ that quickly scramble to protect their patch, but the monk eases tensions and ends up receiving an entire basket of the spicy radishes.

They spend a few days following the edge of the forest, crossing a rickety old bridge, disturbing some hunting spiders but dispatching them quickly. One evening, just after a meal, several of the Stag Lord's bandits had managed to sneak up on them, which turned out to be the last thing any of them did. Another afternoon saw Stik, Amiri, and Valerie attacked by thylacines while out foraging for ingredients, but by now they're used to that kind of thing.

They get into the general area of where they expect Tuskgutter's lair to be and spend the day searching for it. They eventually find it and have themselves their third proper Solo encounter since starting the game; I took the base profile for Tuskgutter and scaled it to be a Creature 7, so as to make the anticipation set up by the bounty poster and Amiri's vibrating in place worth it. With some good use of debuffing actions/spells and Hero Points, they take it down within a couple of rounds, albeit Titus did fall to an attack routine. One lesser healing potion and a soothe later, along with a short breather, and he's fine.

Trophy in hand, they make camp. As they're breaking camp in the morning, a hunter approaches the group to warn them of the dangers of Tuskgutter, only to be offered bacon.

Next stop, the tatzlwyrm lair.

Party hit level 3 at the end of the last session. Started tonight's session with an encounter with three hunting spiders (Low threat). Barbarian got inflicted with the poison and managed to stay on stage 3 (2d6 poison, clumsy 2, off-guard) for the majority of the six-round duration, which ran its full course.

Still on the way back to the trading post, they encountered more thylacines (Moderate threat), but they push through that just fine. A wolf approached them as they were walking alongside the great forest and was beckoning them to follow. They did, and were led to a man bleeding out and trapped under a couple of boulders. In the distance they hear crashing and bellowing as something big approaches them. They get the guy out from under the boulder and put an elixir of life in his mouth, which wakes him up. His immediate suspicion of the party allayed, he quickly fills them in on the fact that a troll is approaching and tells them to use fire or acid. Also don't let it get its hands on you.

The fight ended up being a bit of a slaughter due to dice rolls. I kept rolling low, they kept rolling high, so the troll went down at the very end of the second round despite being Creature 6. They nab the cold iron kukri and +1 light hammer from the troll's sack, and the man, a ranger, accompanies them back to the trading post.

They spend a week here doing various things; retraining, crafting, Earning Income. At the end of the week, they get their 70 gold reward from the quests they turned in, as well as the +1 striking bastard sword they'd ordered from a relatively distant city.

After spending some time going over their plans going forward, such as what quests to tackle, they head southwest to pick some radishes for the wife of the tradesman. We ended the session after wrapping up a bandit encounter during the camping portion of the day.

The party tonight consisted of

• Jeff, half-elf Druid 5 / Fighter 3 / Magus* 4
• Lee, gray elf Fighter 4 / Magic-User 4 / Thief 5
• Oryn, high elf Magic-User 5 / Thief 6
  • Henchman Takeshi, human Ranger 4
• Varda, human dual-class** Cleric 6 -> Magic-User 3
  • Henchman Rudy, halfling Druid 2 / Thief 3
• Vordt, half-ogre Cleric 4 / Fighter 4
  *Magus is a custom subclass of Magic-User I created.
  **Varda intends to become an occultist, another custom class of mine; becoming one functions similarly to bard, where you begin as Cleric, transition to Magic-User, and then finally become a proper occultist.

To recap the prior session, the party went into the dungeon again and explored a new direction, finding a long hallway with bas reliefs in brass decorating the walls. Behind a set of brass double-doors was a 90' by 40' chamber with four major points of interest.

• An oblong, 4' tall x 10' wide altar with a basin filled with water and treasure.
• A fountain streaming endless water without overflowing.
• Four pillars with gargoyles atop them, unmoving.
• A drape along the south wall covering something.
  After a cursory search, Rudy set to looting the basin, which triggered the entire altar to begin rolling forward and the marine life carved into it to animate. Rudy jumped out of the way as several combatants closed in. Many attacks and spells were slung its way, and it lashed out with teeth, tentacles, and pincers as it slowly rolled to face individual combatants. As Lee was caught by the fury of the altar, the gargoyles animated and began flying in to harass the party. Though the altar was defeated, the gargoyles seemed keen on taking Takeshi out, as by the end of that round he is bleeding on the floor. Varda then invokes a chant and uses a limited wish to revive Lee and transport everyone to a safe location. As everyone blinked, they found themselves in the domicile of the two old clerics hiding out in Woodpine, sage and incense filling their noses rather than the brine of the altar chamber.

They spend a week licking their wounds and allowing the clerics to tend to them, then set out again. Oryn casts invisbility, 10' radius on the party as they leave town and travel to the Temple dungeon. They work their way back to the altar room and have an easier time clearing out the gargoyles, afterwards noticing that these appear to be zombies wearing cloaks. All but one of the cloaks were too damaged to be of any use or value, so they remove the one and continue on.

They enter a room whose main attraction is a pool with a triton in it. The triton telepathically connects with the party and pleads for assistance before a kraken is summoned through his sacrifice and they all die. Varda, through knowledge granted by their patron, is slowly becoming suspect of the situation. The triton pleads individually with several party members, attempting to suggest they enter the pool and remove his chains, unbeknownst to them; I am rolling their saves in secret and they're passing them. Lee attempts to shoot it with an arrow, and the arrow dissolves before reaching the triton.

Finally, its gaze meets with Vordt's, who was ready to leave, and he fails the save. Vordt begins removing his armor to jump into the pool. Lee (4'9" 191 lbs accounting for gear) attempts to stop Vordt (7'8" 441 lbs accounts for gear) via grappling. He gets a lucky waist cinch that is immediately broken by Vordt as he lands a knee to Lee's jaw, dealing a staggering 11 points of subdual damage to him, but he takes it like a champ as he sits out, stunned from the blow.

Jeff casts web in a wall between Vordt and the pool as they figure out how best to handle him as Oryn and Takeshi move to open the door behind them. Varda, in a desperate attempt to save Vordt, utilizes a clerical dispel magic and fails to remove the charm from Vordt. Varda then utilizes their anything item to turn it into a rope of entanglement, which then hogties Vordt.

The party drags Vordt out of the dungeon safely and regains his senses the following day, shortly before the rope returns to its original form, t hen makes the several-day journey back to town to split the loot. Varda will receive no XP this go around, but the gems the party found elsewhere amounted to the PC shares totalling about 3700 gold each. Oh, and Oryn is now partially gargoyle, as they put on that cloak I mentioned earlier and then took it off.

I'm in the planning stages of a custom setting for a new campaign I'm aiming to start next year with my current table. We're doing PF2's Kingmaker and AD&D's Temple of Elemental Evil in the meantime.

The game is to be Viking themed, in that the starting locale and civilization will be structured in similar ways to the coastal Scandinavian settlements and there will be an on/off season. During the on season, they will board boats and sail many hundreds of miles across water to distant lands to find dungeons and ruins to loot, with a clock they have to keep an eye on; the expedition can only afford to be out for so long, and they need to ultimately make a profit. During the off season, they will be home and can spend time locally engaging in low-tier politics, explore the untamed parts of the continent, or both.

I'm intending for gods to play a more concrete and available part in this game and have been chewing on how best to represent that mechanically. I discovered that one of D&D 5e's supplements for a Magic: The Gathering setting, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, does something similar and has mechanics for tracking Piety with a given deity, which comes with boons at specific breakpoints. I liked the idea, though I'd be making my own boons for my pantheon rather than use these as-is, especially since I wouldn't be running this game in 5e, but rather in AD&D 1e.

I have a group chat with a few of my players that I can trust for this kind of thing to bounce ideas off of for various things, so I put this forth to them and got their thoughts. They universally thought the example boons from 5e were too personal and individual for the kind of stuff Norse gods would get up to, and there wasn't really a way to track a given deity's disdain of you in a similar manner. They also didn't like that you could track the Piety with a discrete score and could reliably measure when your next boon would be.

What we settled on doing is utilizing my custom tarot effects we're already doing in my regular AD&D campaign, but having it apply in certain regions or during certain stretches of adventure. This would allow for randomly coming across an avatar of a god and earning a minor boon or bane for assisting or denying them.

I’m starting a new 5e campaign with some friends, and I think I have some performance anxiety. I’m not the most creative person, and the last thing I want to do is kill the fun. The only other time I've played a ttrpg was years ago in high school.

I’m curious what you all have found detracts from a session as well as any advice that enhances the experience for everyone.

I'm in the planning stages of a Viking-themed game I'll be running sometime next year, and I'm noticing a nice little progression in the armor types that ends with chain mail. When combined with a silver-based economy that cares more about the weight of the silver over the number of coins you have, that puts a lot of emphasis on looking towards magic for your better AC values, as armor will generally be more expensive and the (typically) highest tiers of armor--namely, plate mail, but also things like splint and banded mails--are simply unavailable for sale or amongst the majority of the enemies you might face.

That magic will most commonly be from the runecaster, probably, since there's a rune available that can be worn like a necklace and improve AC, as well as another that can reduce damage taken. Magic armor will still be--likely even moreso--coveted and sought out by the players.

A PC with average Dexterity can reasonably hit AC 3 (or AC 17 if you're used to ascending values); this assumes chain mail, shield, and a protection rune. Normally AC 3 (banded mail and a shield) is the best a starting PC (with no adjustment from Dex) can hope for in a traditional game.

This thread is for organizing a group to play Scythe online. Everyone mentioned has either been in my specific thread about Scythe months ago or mentioned it elsewhere. I FINALLY got around to getting the Steam version in addition to the Invaders from Afar dlc since it was a bundle.
I'd love to get a Discord group started so we can all finally play together and ultimately shoot the shit and have some fun.
Also I couldn't figure out how private messaging works which is embarrassing but this is way easier, anyway.
If this gets enough traction in the next couple of days I'll make us a discord group and we can go from there as far as scheduling goes. I'd also be open to other games if the group wants to do so. 🤘
@0d_billie
@guissmo
@Beowulf
@Notcoffeetable
@TreeFiddyFiddy
@ocdbear
@AugustusFerdinand
@TownshipTeleporter
@clerical_terrors
@KapteinB
@Spongey

GMs: do you have any gaps in the worldbuilding of your setting that you're looking for help filling? Post them here!

In case it wasn't already clear, I need help as well. My setting is a near-future hybrid of Shadowrun and Cyberpunk, in 5e. There are two major gaps. First, in my setting North America has fractured into a handful of nations - but the middle part split into a radioactive wasteland and a loose coalition of city states. What locations might be concealed in the wasteland? (A fallout vault-like society living in the NORAD mountains of Colorado?) Which city states would have survived and what would their character be?

I also need ideas for more megacorporate factions.

Here is the work in progress for the setting, if you're interested.

Help me and I promise I'll help you!

Artificer school is rough. You have to learn so many ways to manipulate magic forces and try to shove it all into small items. Sometimes it doesn't work as well as hoped. Even if every student gives it their best effort, someone has to be the worst passing student in the class.

In my campaigns, I try to explore this concept by adding niche items or items of student project quality. Often times these items end up adding quite a bit of fun to the lower levels before access to "real" magic items is available.

I would love to throw this idea out to the world and maybe get a bigger collection of these items for all of the Tildes DMs to use in their campaigns if they fit in the setting.

There's a popular trend on Reddit at the moment that they're struggling to engage with. The idea is that someone will post the question

"Ask me anything about my world"

And this does two things. It gives them an opportunity to show off their setting, and more importantly it gives them a prompt. Someone may ask a question you don't have an answer to, so you're supposed to come up with one. Doing this enough will help you flesh out your world in ways you may not have considered on your own.

I think the reason this is failing on Reddit is because there are a dozen people jumping on the bandwagon and filling the RPG subs with spam, which is causing other members to lash out at them out of fatigue.

I think we here on Tildes could probably handle it a little better, and it would be better served as a single thread. Top level comments are for asking questions, and then anyone is welcome to reply to those with their answers. By sharing the same pool of questions this will allow us to compare and contrast our worlds with our friends here and maybe help spur on the creative juices.

There have been a lot of complaints from DMs over the years about Critical Role and the "Matt Mercer Effect" causing new players to have unrealistic expectations of tabletop RPGs. Baldur's Gate 3 has the opportunity to introduce many new players to the d20 system/5e DnD specifically. Though it's a bit different in that the game is obviously scripted and you can't do literally anything, the game provides a ton of options and fleshed out paths, including full support of niche spells like speak with animals/speak with dead. Do you think this might have a similar influence on expectations from some new players moving forward or do you think since BG3 is a video game it will have less of an impact than CR and other tabletop shows have?

My friend and I embarked upon a journey over the past few months to create a tabletop board game. The interesting part is that we were motivated by the emergence of generative AI and the capabilities it had in rapid prototyping concepts. On a whim we said, let's see how far we can push making a board game. We pushed Midjourney, ChatGPT, and a variety of creative tools to help build the foundation for our game. We both have design chops and are into diy, creative design, and 3d printing, and technology to help get this thing past the finish line.

We are now at the point were after many iterative sessions, we have a functional and fun to play game! Our intention is to give it away as a free downloadable that folks can 3d print and paper print all the parts so they can play too! Huzzah! We are balancing the rules and creating the instructions which is not something we are relying on AI aside sticking to the theme. We are in search of inspirato on what makes gameplay fun for folks today.

Question What are the most fun, exciting, or challenging aspects of any tabletop or board games you play? What keeps you engaged?

EDIT
I didn't give many specifics on the game itself, and figured it might help. Remember we used AI to come up with this storyline. The prompt was to write a story for a "Sci-fi Christmas Horror" board game...

The basic premise is that you are attending a party at the North pole celebrating the research of Dr. Frost on ancient Christmas magic. Predictably things go bad, and you have to find your way out before it's too late and you are killed by a troop of Christmas themed monsters.

The games objective is to work together to escape the facility by collecting sleigh parts, fighting monsters, navigating a maze in dark hallways, and visiting special rooms to solve puzzles. It's all kinds of ridiculous but fun it its own way.

This is a follow up to this discussion from the other day where I was getting ready to DM my first session of 5e. tl;dr from that is that I was chosen to be the DM by my group and we're playing through the Essentials Kit campaign, albeit with certain elements tweaked to give it more flavor.

Our first game was last night and I think I crushed it. Typical of our group we got a later start than intended, so we only made it through most of a single quest. But man it was so much fun. I was expecting the group to go routes I hadn't expected, but I really didn't account for them splitting the group...whoops.

Basically the first quest was to retrieve an elderly woman from a windmill. When they arrive, the windmill is under attack by a manticore. In my head the solutions were A) fight it there, B) distract it and save the woman, or C) go hunt with it for food.

The group ultimately chose all 3. One character started telling the Manticore riddles while another snuck around behind the windmill to try to get the woman out of the house. But conveniently the window was too small. It culminated in the Manticore going hunting with a Harengon alone, the rest of the group realizing what a bad idea that was and then shadowing them. And then ultimately the group jumped the Manticore and we had our first encounter. Thankfully I had nerfed the Manticore's health about 40%, so it was a pretty easy fight.

The weakest part was definitely the combat. I was never any good at that as a player, so me running it was a little rocky. But nobody died, everyone got to participate, and they defeated the Manticore at about the right speed to keep it interesting. The best was just the roleplaying. I got to play as 3 distinct characters (the starting zone guide character, the Manticore, and the old lady) and had a blast. The old lady's voice slowly slipped into a Terry Jones inspired cockney woman's voice, which is just so much fun to do.

Long story short, everything went really, really well. I know what did and didn't work, so I'll be adjusting accordingly for next session. Although very little didn't work. I was really pleased. And since we didn't even entirely finish the first quest (the turn-in part at least), I still have a quest/dungeon written up that I can use for next week.

I'm currently reading over and learning Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e I'm moving more and more away from D&D and Pathfinder games towards others due to different mechanics, fantastic design, etc.

I've seen much conversation about WFRP 4e online and how it's not as good as 2e, or too complex, or other arguments. I'm not looking to start edition warring, but how many of these arguments still hold true in 2023 with the newer rules from Up in Arms and Winds of Magic?

If there are complexities/gaps in 4e, what variant rules, house rules, or homebrew are you using to fix those things or fill them out?

I'm not especially creative, but I love having props at the table for games. Some games seem like a better fit for props than others - for example, Call of Cthulhu's focus on investigation makes having prop newspaper clippings, diaries and journals, maps and other ephemera feel natural and rewarding. It's made that much easier when the publisher provides them with a scenario, which is what Chaosium does for Cthulhu - the starter set handouts are freely available at their site.

Recently, I've added a mix of etsy and more premium products to various games:

• a fun set of inn menus, maps and store price list handouts for Lost Mine of Phandelver (link)
• I'm waiting for the Silver edition of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist to release from Beadle and Grimm (link)
• For the introductory Cthulhu adventure 'The Haunting', I found some really nice non-combat maps on DTRPG (link) and added the handouts from the HPLHS Classic Game Prop Set (link)

I'm curious to know how other people use props at the table, if you make your own, or have found something on etsy or elsewhere that you'd recommend.

Dungeon Crawl Classics

I think this game is great and I was surprised to see nobody recommended it in their non-D&D game lists. At the system level, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a rules-light version of 3.5. You never need more than one sourcebook and there are quick-start rules to play for free on the website.

At its core, though, DCC is an old school sword and sorcery setting heavily inspired by the authors of Appendix N. For those not familiar, in the first edition of D&D, Gary Gygax published a list of authors that inspired D&D in an appendix in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide. It has some obvious ones that I think most RPGs pull from (Tolkien and Jack Vance {of the Vancian magic system}, for instance), but there are also some deeper cuts that I don't think are really leveraged in many tabletop RPGs (Robert Howard of Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane, and H.P. Lovecraft). Those last two in particular, pulp-y fantasy writers who defined a genre, heavily influence DCC in my experience.

Aside from this, though, there are a few very unique and fun mechanics that got me totally hooked on this game.

The 0-level funnel and death as a narrative device

Traditionally in D&D, you end up spending the majority of your first session designing and building a character. In my experience, it usually takes around 2-4 hours depending on complexity. This results in mechanically unique characters, but it also ups the stakes for the DM. When was the last time you played a game of D&D and the survival of your character was ever truly in question? Nobody wants to spend 4 hours on their character only to have it killed off in the first play session -- that's not fun. But, in the end, it's also not challenging.

In DCC, it takes about 5-10 minutes to create a character (and there are online tools like The Purple Sorcerer that will generate them by the dozen). Every character starts with a profession (and by extension, a tool of their trade), a random piece of gear, and a block of random stats (3d6 rolled in order, none of these "points" or "4d6 drop the lowest" business). In the first session, you roll 4 of them and you play all 4 in what is termed the 0-level funnel. Over the course of this adventure, 2-3 of your characters will die -- after all, adventuring is a treacherous business fraught with peril -- and your surviving character(s) become level 1. At this point, they get a class and a couple additional abilities.

The core interesting thing to me about this is the emergent gameplay that results. Oftentimes, the character that rolled the best stats aren't the ones that actually survive. A single unlucky roll or an undiscovered trap results in unceremoniously striking down another one of the PCs, whereby they pick up the gear leftover from them and continue on their grim quest. I've seen the character with the lowest luck somehow being the one that survived and it forging a bond with the person playing it unlike anything I've seen in D&D. What did they do to earn that? What is in store for the doomed character that somehow managed to outlast 3 of his fellow villagers? It gives you a ton of tools as a DM and as a player to craft interesting narratives. And it also reminds the players that this character probably won't last forever. That opens the door for dramatic moments involving death that you don't really get to explore with D&D. Magic that restores life is exceedingly rare and would require a quest of comparable bravery to discover.

Magic as a dangerous and unpredictable tool

I've heard some complaints about Vancian magic in other topics and DCC also does away with this, but it does it with two chaotic and, at times, hilarious mechanics: the mercurial magic table and the spell table.

The Mercurial Magic Table

Magic is, by nature, a chaotic tool for the desperate. No two casters cast the same spell in the same way and the mercurial magic table is a representation of that. The first time a character casts a spell, they have to roll on the table to determine how they invoke that spell. There's a big chunk of the table that's just 'as normal,' but there are also things like 'every time you cast this, a digit on your hand or foot disintegrates. Take a -1 to dex for every two digits that disappear.'

How badly do you need to cast that magic missile? Is it worth invoking the unpredictable elemental energies required to do so? Is it worth....your thumb?

The Spell Table

Once you invoke the spell, you roll your spellcasting check and consult the spell table. The quality of your roll (of which there are a couple mechanics to affect this) determines what the spell actually does -- and they can be wildly different! That magic missile might fire a single missile that does 1 damage or it might summon 1d4 that do 1d4 damage each. Your darkness spell might allow you to create a 20' sphere of darkness at a point of your choosing or it might center a 5' magical darkness sphere on you.

Magic is chaotic and difficult to control. But as a result, it is almost always very powerful. Your spell might not do exactly what you expected, but it makes for much more interesting combat and on-the-fly thinking.

Should I play it?

Emphatically, yes! The rules-light nature of the game allows you to focus more on story-telling and mood-setting than being buried in the books all the time (except for looking up spell effects, everyone at the table seems to get excited when we have to do that). The deadly nature of the game has resulted in both better and heavier storytelling than anything I've done before -- stakes without it getting personal, as it were. And the adventure content is awesome -- there are some great resources on Sample Adventure Paths, but even the starting 0-level adventure in the back of the sourcebook is strong. I swear I'm not a shill, I just want more DCC in the universe.

I think this has to be one of the oldest questions there is in the TTRPG world, but I wanted to see if the general consensus has changed with the rise of virtual tabletops.

When you have a player cancel on you, do you skip the session, or play without them?

What is your reasoning behind your decision?

Personally, I always play without them. This is a change from when I first started DM'ing, as back then I wanted to be 'fair' to my players. As I left University and went into work however, waiting until everyone was able to play became such a rare thing that it would mean hardly ever playing.

My friends and I have been striving for the perfect score of 13 in Just One, and there's almost always one or two cards which make it seemingly impossible unless you're very lucky.

Just One if you're unfamiliar, is a game where your teammate wants to guess a word -- and you each independently give a one-word clue, "Donkey", "Dreamworks", "Ogre". If two or more players write the same word, all those clues get hidden -- so your clues can't be too obvious.

The words vary absurdly in difficulty from words like "Wine" and "Snake" where you can basically break the game by listing wines and snakes -- to words like "Mexico" and "Strawberry" where you can come at them from a few directions. ...But about 10% of the words are things like "Grotto", "Couscous" and "Ramses" where honestly, you could possibly sit down with someone for 30 minutes describing them in excruciating detail, and they might still not come up with those particular words. Could you describe "Couscous" to your 10-year-old nephew who lives on Chick-fil-A and Mcdonalds? Could you disambiguate a "Grotto" from a cave, cavern, bunker or lair? Sometimes it's a vocabulary thing but more often, it's just words with a lot of synonyms.

I call these "land mine" cards and I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this phenomenon. Have any of you gotten a perfect score in Just One? If so did you randomly dodge these land mines or did you overcome them with a really perfect clue?

Everyone always refers to the coming of Eurogames a long time back, but I'm wondering about modern games. Where have they come? Where will they go? I'd say the art has gotten better, more eye-catching, but I'm more ambivalent about very recent (last five years) game mechanics.

I hate that enemies have so low armor class. In earlier editions, you had to be tactical, use flanking manoeuvres and charge attacks, prepare the right support spells, maybe even pick the Weapon Specialization feat for your favourite weapon. In 5e, no need; just stand wherever, roll an attack, you'll probably hit. In addition to removing much of the tactics from the game, this makes it basically impossible for enemy spellcasters to use duration spells. Good luck succeeding on 4 concentration checks per turn.

I hate that enemies' proficiency bonus is based on their challenge rating. No high-attack low-damage monsters here. Don't worry; the tank in your party will never need healing, any level-appropriate monster needs to roll ridiculously high on the dice to hit them! Everyone else just stay in the back and lob your bloody cantrips, and the battle will be over in 3 turns.

I hate that attack cantrips do as much damage as a weapon attack (or more). Why even have weapons at all, when your cantrips do more damage than a longsword, with better range than a crossbow.

I hate that cantrips scale with character level. No need to learn anything new for the rest of the game, your trusty Eldritch Blast will be your most powerful attack throughout. Especially when you get access to Greater Invisibility and don't need to rely on your bloody familiar for advantage on attack rolls.

I hate that familiars can do help actions in combat. Advantage every turn! And since they're no longer a class feature but a spell, they're also available to fighters and rogues, no multi-classing necessary. And unlike in earlier editions there are no real consequences of losing your familiar. All you lose is 10 gp worth of incense to get them back, a pittance at higher levels.

I hate that a long rest fully restores hit points. No need to ever stay in one place for longer than 8 hours, no need to conserve spell slots to do end-of-the-day healing, heck; no need for a healer at all really! And it gets worse when they reach 3rd level and get access to Leomund's Tiny Hut, and don't even need to find a safe spot to camp.

I hate that wild shape is basically useless in combat, due to challenge rating restrictions and the lousy selection of beasts in the Monster Manual.

I hate that the only logical combat use of Polymorph is turning into a dinosaur. Prepare for the inevitable discussion around the table: Can my character turn into a tyrannosaurus rex, even if they've never seen one? No? But, uuuuuh, they saw a picture of one in a book at the library!

I hate that you can use Counterspell to counterspell someone else's attempt at counterspelling your own spell.

I hate that any character can use any skill. No need for a rogue, just hand those Thieves' Tools to the character with the highest Dexterity, they'll get that door open.

The worst thing is that this game went through lots and lots of play-testing before it was released. The developers must have known about all of these issues and chosen not to change them, meaning that none of these are bugs; they're all features! This is how the developers intended the game to be!

Did I forget any of your peeves about the game? Add them in the comments. Alternatively, comment with what you love about 5e, let's add some positivity to this rant.

I was inspired to ask this because I see a lot of other groups like ~TV people have been doing periodic discussions, and I got to thinking it could work here too. Every now and then, we could hold a discussion on either a video game or board game, for example. If I were to start this up would anyone be interested?

Edit: Oh, and any suggestions for if I do start it up? What games I could start with etc?

I'd like to start a discussion around collecting-based games, with the following prompt question:

What non-card-based alternatives to TCG/CCGs exist which satisfy the same criteria?

This "criteria" is my understanding of what makes TCGs/CCGs appealing, and includes but is not limited to:

• collectible/tradable (not necessarily monetized),
• portable/relatively self-contained (this could include apps, handheld consoles),
• the constant drive to expand the collection (whether it's through the randomness of distribution not ensuring particular collectibles, or an appealing reward system like in the Pokemon games).

I wish to divorce these criteria from the card format. Of course, the list of criteria not extensive and I am actively seeking a deeper understanding of what makes these card-based games so appealing. Discussions on the nature of gambling-addiction and the impact of secondary market values also very welcome.

The best example I can think of is the Pokemon games for handheld consoles. These games pre-dated the Pokemon card game and are a great example of the appeal of card games existing and thriving in a non-card format (which ironically led to the card game adaptation).

Another is Warhammer and the tabletop wargaming family. This is interesting to me but really seems to be in a completely different ballpark because it lacks agility and thus is far less appealing to many players.

Note: my reference point to what makes games like these appealing" is very biased by card games, specifically the current "big three" of TCG/CCGs: Magic: the Gathering, Pokemon, and YuGiOh. I'd appreciate suggestions of other relatively successful or simply well-designed games which employ collectibility as a core mechanic. They don't even have to be portable, as long as you're clear about that.

tl;dr: let's talk about alternatives to card games which depend on collecting as a core mechanic

Edit: formatting.

No, not the PC classes in your game - the classes that describe the people you play the game with.

Mister Fantastic: Every single number on this player's character sheet has been optimized beyond comprehension to be at least 20% higher than you thought was possible, and it's all legal. Reading one of his sheets will teach you about traits, feats, and rules you never knew existed. Often mumbles cryptic, one-word answers while barely paying attention that end ongoing rules discussions leaving the other players with blank faces. His characters are nearly invincible except for one small key weakness (AC 26 at level 1, but with a CMD of 5). This player can typically one-shot the BBEG and reverse the party's fortunes in a single round. If he's charmed or dominated it will result in a TPK unless dealt with instantly.

The Veteran: A quiet fellow wearing a T-Shirt that says, "Don't tell me about your character: just play." He's never flashy, and seems to do very little, content to let everyone else play and have fun. Always prepared for any situation when no one else is. More likely to aid other players than act directly. He'll only involve himself when everyone else is making a mess out of things, and when he does wake up, his ability to deal with any given situation leaves Mister Fantastic green with envy. Has been known to kill BBEGs via roleplaying. Has the ability to summon natural 20s on demand but rarely uses it. The GM often consults with him on rules issues.

Negative Diplomacy: No matter the class or the character's abilities, whenever this player opens their mouth to talk to someone who isn't in the party, you know the group is going to be in combat to the death in less than three rounds. The GM is uniquely powerless to prevent this from happening. His superpower is always knowing the worst possible in-character thing to say.

Milla Vanilla: Every character this person plays is the exact same thing - even when playing different classes. For whatever reason, this player cannot mentally step into the shoes of their character, and ends up on endless repeat. Often not noticeable until one has played multiple games with this person and notices that their ninja assassin is remarkably similar in temperament to their paladin.

The Conspiracy Theorist: This player is convinced that every single thing that happens is part of some grand tapestry and he is on a mission to figure it out. Often obsesses over small details, makes bizarre (sometimes nonsensical) connections between events, places, and facts. Your worst fear is that he's giving the GM ideas. It's confirmed when some of his wilder predictions come to pass later in the game.

Aaron Justicebringer: The kind of perma-lawful good holy crusader who walks into a tavern and announces, "Greetings! I am Aaron Justicebringer. You may flee if you wish." He's on a mission to smite evil. Since he's always got detect evil running, he finds quite a lot of it and smites often, without concern for trivialities like local customs, ettiquette, roleplaying, and plot. This player always plays crusader types.

Kaboom: Kaboom likes loves lives to set things on fire. Often a wizard or sorcerer, and the kind of fellow who can reduce six enemies to ash in a single round (even if those were six fire elementals). Flaming spells, flaming daggers, flaming hair, and one can track him across Golarion just by following the smoke. Unfortunately, that's all he's good for. Kaboom is a blunt instrument, best kept wrapped in asbestos until the party finds a target he can be aimed at in a location that hasn't got too much potential for collateral damage. This player comes in non-fire flavors too.

Sleepy Pete: Sleepy Pete has a wife, six kids, and a stressful day job. By the time he makes it to the session, he's been clinically dead for two hours already. He'll be asleep within an hour of starting, even faster if food or alcohol is involved. Sleepy Pete is also prone to missing sessions with little forewarning. You're not even sure what his character or personality is because you've been given almost no opportunity to observe him in a conscious state.

Brandon The Builder: A player who in all other ways is relatively normal, Brandon must never be given downtime in any way, shape, or form. With a full set of item crafting feats and flawless mastery of the downtime rules, Brandon will not only rule the entire kingdom in less than six months, he'll find a way to provide every single party member with a Headband of Mental Superiority, Belt of Physical Perfection, two +5 Tomes or Manuals of their choice, and a well staffed keep while doing it.

Broken Billy: This player has no comprehension of the mathematical progression of the games he plays. Instead, he jumps at the first thing he finds that sounds cool. This leaves him with a hodgepodge of abilities that quickly become useless as the game progresses, leaving poor Billy more and more frustrated as the game goes on. Broken Billy steadfastly ignores all advice and all warnings given to him by the GM and more experienced players. Prone to having five first level classes on his fifth level character.

The Novice Namer: Never good at coming up with names, this player has given birth to many legendary heroes: Bob the Barbarian, Robert the Ranger, and who could forget Sheldon the Sorcerer.

The Knife Hoarder: For whatever reason, this player insists on having at least 2 knives on his belt and 4 hidden on his person. He'll never actually use these knives, but as they'd say "just in case."

The 1-Leaf-Clover: This person's dice are trying to kill him. Oh he might roll a natural 20 to get a cheap room at the inn or tell if an item is masterwork (its not), but the second he's in combat, the most you can expect is a 12 or 13.

The iGenie: Only looks away from his laptop when his name is said three times.

The Bookworm: If not taking an action, is found face first in a book looking for a rare never before seen rule that will get him out of the in-game situation. There has got to be rule specifically for negotiating with a different race to reduce the price of a toll. There just has to be!

Secretly Evil: This player almost always plays a Wizard/Sorcerer and takes a Necromantic path. They'll write a sizable and traumatic back-story. Then in game they'll never do or say anything evil in front of the group(in or out of character). In fact, they'll do very little in general. Instead they wait until everyone is gone and tell the DM what evil things they actually did while "no one was looking".

You should try FATAL: Makes all their characters and every encounter somehow revolve around sex.

Spellsaver: Spellcaster that never casts their spells because they think the next fight is going to be harder.

The Lore Keeper: This player may not be the most talkative person at the table, but that's possibly because they're too busy writing down every even happening in the game. Conversations, shared loot, timelines, and character sketches -- this player is devoted to the story, and keeps track of all of it.

What are we missing?

(Some inspiration from this old reddit thread.)

I've recently played really good game of Secret Hitler, so I wanted to let you know about it. If you don't know Secret Hitler, it's great game and I'll briefly describe it below. You can play it online, for free, without ads at secrethitler.io (opensource). You can as well buy it, or even just download pdf, print it and play with paper cards!

Secret Hitler summary

Game for 5-10 players, tabletop. Players are divided to Fascists and Liberals. One of fascists is Hitler. Fascists knows who is who, but Liberals don't know anything. There is chancellor and president, players vote them and they elect laws (president receives 3 laws, 1 discards, 2 passes to chancellor, which discards 1 law and the other one passed). Fascists win, as 6 F laws passed or Hitler was elected as chancellor with 3 or more F laws. Liberals win, if 5 L laws passed or Hitler was killed. If you want to know more, watch some gameplay at YouTube, it's really interesting game about lying to people and manipulating them. And if you will be interested in the game, we might play it together online :-)

I was a Fascist. Right on the first turn as president, I got 3 Fascists laws and I selected Hitler as chancellor - I had to because of order and it would be suspicious not to do so. So I passed him the laws and he of course had to pass Fascist law. But then, he peaked (because 3rd F law passed) at top three cards and lied about it (said FFL, was FLL). Because of this, everyone, after few turns which revealed he lied, started suspecting him. When the liberals had 4 laws passed, I tried as hard as I could to defend Hitler - he just missclicked (no, he would told us!), you know it. After about 10 minute discussion, my propose was rejected, someone else elected as Chancellor and Liberals won the game.

Leave your own stories in comments and be sure to tell, if you would like to play this with other people here, it's wonderful game. And if you would like to, I have other stories - for example when we (IRL) played Secret Hitler to 3 AM, and at the last but one turn, everyone went extremely suspicious and we played one turn almost hour and half (I don't lie about this, I started to measure it after 20 minutes of discussion).

Most of my friends and my husband love board games- the more complicated, the better! My whole life, many board games have given me pretty bad anxiety to the point where I pretended I hated them rather than admit I was just scared.

Over the past few years, I have found a few games I don't mind playing- mostly cooperative (Sentinels of the Multiverse, Betrayal at House on the Hill) or anonymous ones (Cards Against Humanity, Jackbox Games). I still have a hard time playing strategy games like Catan or Ticket to Ride; games which involve guessing what others will do like Rook or The Resistance make me want to die.

A lot of times, my friends just want to sit around and play board games, and I'm trying to build up a list of games I like to play so I can join in. Any advice for getting used to them/learning to play in advance, or games that are fun for serious board gamers, but still sort of low pressure?

Thanks!