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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • The modules I like have:

    • A DM map with a bunch of numbers on it, and text sections corresponding to the numbers detailing an encounter in a certain area. I personally skim these ahead of time, to know which parts to read out to the players when/if they get there. These should be traps (with exposition hints), puzzles, and combats.
    • A hook, escalation with two options, and resolution, all encompassing a possible plot. TBH, this should be something that a DM can discard and replace with their own plot, if they have the inspiration and energy to do so. But if they don’t, then your prewritten plot is there for their use. This is required reading either way, to know what’s important (or what to replace).
    • Some NPCs that have basic goals and motivations, for the DM to RP if the players find them (or need a push.} You don’t want more than a paragraph or two for each, because all the extra details should be ad-libbed anyway. Motivation is key tho–why are they there, what do they want, and where their lines lie. Two one-liners from a Background table along with an alignment can usually cover most of that, TBH. Limit the required reading to 3-ish named NPCs per session, or less, with fewer introduced in subsequent areas of the module.







  • I enjoyed watching Harmonquest, the episodes of which have parts video of the table and parts animated story. It’s a comedy show, for the most part, which genre appeals to me. Past, that, I enjoy a good actual play podcast, sans video, like BomBARDed or NaDDPod, both of which are also comedic stories.

    Just watching a group play a game can indeed be boring. But if that game is just a format for the genre of entertainment you already enjoy, that’s the appeal.








  • In 5e: Simon the Devious and the Leather Skins (from What We Do In The Shadows) as a Dhampir Hexblade Warlock with Pact of the Chain.

    Between the chain familiar (Count Rapula), a zombie from Undying Servitude (Ken the Accountant), Summon Undead (Blagvlad the Exsanguinator, or Desdemona the Shrieker, or Impussa) and an Accursed Specter (Carol), you have a 4-person posse by level 6. It grows situationally or permanently when you gain access to Danse Macabre, Create Undead, and Finger of Death.

    Mechanically, you’re done by 13, and can either finish off with Bard (probably Whispers) or Paladin (Oathbreaker). Either way, take Inspiring Leader once you’ve maxed Cha, and then go get yourself that cursed witch’s hat!






  • Post office too. Really any government office where the public is allowed inside.

    Underpaid workers trying to explain bureaucratic minutiae (for which they are not responsible) every single day to people who are not versed in that minutiae, do not want to learn it, cannot learn it, and are preemptively frustrated that they have to have this interaction in the first place. There is no winning–mental health isn’t cheap, do the workers’ resilience only lasts for so many years/months/days before they default to hating the clients, and the clients don’t trust publicly available instructions, thus dooming themselves to the shitty interactions.

    The only way to fix this is to take both people out of the equation–preprocess everything that might need to happen for everyone, to the point of turning every transaction into a single trasaction. That requires for every city, county, state, national, international agency to federate, so that you never have to file multiple documents to do a thing.