The General D&D thread

Not to mention that there are so many overpowered NPCs running around in the source material. Any DM worth his nachos simply has to edit them out (either with the excuse that they're busy elsewhere or by flat-out ignoring their very existence), otherwise you wind up with the PCs as spectators.

Gatekeeping in the sense of telling people how to enjoy their hobby, not in the sense of the lore as barrier to entry. You don't really need to know most of the lore's history to pick up and play a game. Some might say it's a better setting if you don't know that history. You can go into it fresh.

And I'm not saying 4e is why you personally don't like the Realms, I'm saying that part of the reason they're going so hard on the most generic elements of the setting is because in 4e they were very eager to make the Realms distinctive. But a lot of people who like the Realms like that it's plug and play. They want it to be somewhat generic, mostly just background for those big characters and events they remember.

And that's fine for them, but D&D can be a lot of other things. 5e's done well for them, so I hope they start spreading the wealth a little.

While it might not possible to have true faith in the Realms, but I like the idea of exploring that kind of direct relationship between the gods and mortals, in terms of how people treat their gods and commandments in real life. Plenty of settings allow for a more distant relationship with the gods, but FR's not even really alone in D&D as far as taking some of the wind out of the gods' sails is concerned.

edited 6th Jan '18 8:49:01 AM by Unsung

I mean I guess there is all this lore but tbqh I don’t know any of it and my games have not suffered. All you need to know is that there exist dungeons and there exist dragons and sometimes people’s ears are pointy. I’ve also technically been running my own world, but since FR is so generic, i’m able to just plug stuff in from the campaign books with minimal lore editing.

The high level NP Cs are actually kinda nice for when I need a quick Einstein or Churchill or Musk type figure to mention and never revisit but my random table of npc names aren’t loading because Google docs is the slowest thing when you have more than three pages

My hate for FR is certainly not gatekeeping in that sense. I'm never claimed that there aren't valid reasons to like FR, and I've definitely never told anyone they're wrong for enjoying a FR game.

I'm just saying that: a) I, personally, am probably never going to use FR because I find it easier to create my own setting and transplant in any FR setting elements I want to use, and b) I would like more variety in the official material.

i mean, unless you're just using a campaign book, does any GM actually straight up use any world without spinning it to be a bit more personal/custom in any way

edited 6th Jan '18 11:28:56 AM by ch00beh

Even if you are using campaign book, you should customize things for yourself instead of running everything raw

Like, if you get better idea after reading the thing, then obviously use the better idea instead of complaining that module doesn't use the better idea

I'd like to see more setting variety precisely because usually plunder the official modules and transplant elements from them to my own world. That's the main reason I've loved the Plane Shift articles so much.

edited 6th Jan '18 11:33:50 AM by Xeroop

Some more thoughts on the ratlings:

Yeah, I didn't realize I made Russian Reepicheeps at first, I like them even more when I did.

Anyway, technically the ratlings only worship a single god. Technically. Sort of. Their god is known as "Virtue" and has three aspects—honor, loyalty, and mercy. They're actually worshipping Bahamut, Moradin, and Pelor as one god. They don't technically worship the "Lady of the Lake" (better name pending), but they functionally do, so theirs is a pantheon of two gods. Except she's also an amalgamation of Corellion and Melora, the benevolent goddess of magic and the wilderness. Then there are the Saints who don't definitely do not worship, but very strongly revere, wise and powerful heroes from another age...or the other gods in a ratling-themed hat.

Definitely only one god though. Except for the god-like Lady and all the godly Saints.

As for other abilities:

• Proficiency in Acrobatics. Was thinking of advantage for balance-related rolls but then "Acrobatics" may as well be called "Balancing", and I have few doubts someone would argue that backflips require balance that a tail would help with, so they get advantage on that.
• Once per long rest, during a short rest, a ratling heals all party members for their Wisdom modifier, minimum 1 HP. Ratlings are natural healers due to a combination of folk remedies and the blessings of their gods, not-Pelor and the Lady. Ratlings are basically level 0 paladins who have the faintest form of laying on hands who make it work by scrounging medicines from the vicinity.

So, I'm running a D&D campaign in a sci-fantasy setting I made. I was thinking, maybe looking at Planetary Romance for some inspiration?

What sort of stuff would you suggest to give it that sort of pulpy feel?

Well, the most obvious answers would be classic pulp sci-fi stories like John Carter, Flash Gordon and the original Star Wars: A New Hope. For modern examples, I'd recommend Planet Hulk and the Warlord of Draenor expansion of World of Warcraft, the last example admittedly more for its world design than its tone or genre.

edited 7th Jan '18 12:13:07 PM by MapleSamurai

Checking out material released for Starfinder cannot hurt either.

Avatar probably would've been a lot more fun if it had been more self-consciously pulpy. Just saying.

Distant Worlds also looked interesting, haven't read it yet.

Numenera might not immediately strike the right tone but it's chock-full of ideas to mine. Into the Void, the recent space book, had some nice Ringworld-esque ideas. The Strange also does this with every other recursion. Ardeyn, with its Anubian jackal-headed Qephilim, is doing some particularly interesting stuff that kind of made me wish the individual recursions were a bit longer at times.

You could also look into the stuff like Vance's Dying Earth, Moorcock's Eternal Warrior books, and maybe even Wolfe's Book of the New Sun— again, for ideas, if not necessarily tone

Lovecraft's Dream Cycle is also in a similar vein. And if you're not totally sick of cosmic horror creeping into other genres (I wouldn't blame you if you were), his other books do provide a certain sense of scope, exoticism and weirdness to the universe.

edited 7th Jan '18 12:28:16 PM by Unsung

The setting has some cosmic horror elements (Cthulhu and Slenderman exist in it), but it heavily averts Devil, but No God. The Lawful Good faction is a transhumanist religion worshiping a super AI, and Slenderman is terrified of him due to a Noodle Incident involving a giant robot.

Elves in the setting are expies of Na'vi, they're tribal aliens with a psionic connection to nature, so there's a check. Dragonborns are a dinosaur-loving Proud Warrior Race. Tritons are pirates in the setting. There are Greys in the setting. I want there to be an arctic race-I cant decide if I want Dwarves or Goliaths, probably won't do both. I think Goliaths because they're a bit less "human" in so much that they're a lot taller.

Goliaths make more biological sense. Arctic species are bigger because the square cube law means they lose less heat than smaller species.

So, Davrix introduced me to a Youtuber named Matthew Colville. We've been watching his series about GM advice, aimed at helping players cross over into GMing and it's pretty solid stuff as a whole, even if half of his advice makes me feel like an utter asshole GM.

Anyway, the main reason I bring it up is this: an interview with Jim Murphy. He's an experienced GM who was on the forefront of the hobby in Southern California during its infancy. If you want a glance at the earliest days of Dungeons and Dragons it can be a good watch, or rather listen to it while doing other stuff.

My favorite highlight is Murphy's newbie girlfriend becoming the most powerful known wizard in California thanks to the Deck of Many Things and a discussion with the actual TSR GMs. "Most powerful known wizard in California" literally, in real life, because everyone started at level one and took their characters across games and groups and it was a very small social clique. He describes the two of them being invited to a higher level game with the other highest level characters in the state...or rather they wanted her but his little 3rd level character is also "welcome"; he got to drive her to the game and held her purse while she played with the big boys.

Just fascinating stuff all around with the game in its earliest days, when virtually nobody knew what an RPG was.

edited 11th Jan '18 8:09:51 AM by Rotpar

Matt Colville is great. His upload schedule tends to be super irregular, but what he releases is all gold.

Yeah, I've enjoyed Matthew Colville's videos too

Colville is pretty good. I also like Web DM.

Colville's book is also pretty entertaining if you want something light that involves nature paladins and an ornery cleric.

I've been meaning to dig into his books at some point. Mainly I've been putting it off because I've yet to get myself a kindle; Colville himself emphasizes that when you buy his books on kindle not only do you as a customer pay less money, but he also gets more money off it as the author.

i wouldn't go out of my way to read it, but i did enjoy it. i'm most likely not going to dive deeper than the first ratcatcher book since there are many other things on my backlog

I read and liked both his books. The third should come out this summer, I think.

There's a mechanic I'm thinking of for my warforged but no sure how to implement it. I'm thinking of giving them a free feat and set of tools because they were specifically built for a purpose and it shows. If you take War Caster other people can tell you're some kind of battle mage because you have glowing runes and armored plating; if you take Healer then you get a healer's kit and have built-in holsters for potions and the like.

The tools are built-in and people can figure out your job pretty easily. I'm not sure what mechanical effects either of these would have in this system.

Like maybe you can conceal your tools because they're retractable, so a warforged rogue could keep his lockpicks after being searched. But if you took the Skulker feat as well then the guards would assume you're a rogue because you're designed to look stealthy; like a built-in face concealing "hood", a camouflage paint job, etc.

Also toying with the idea that they have equipment hardpoints. Not modular equipment feats like the original Ebberon warforged, no specifically having a sword-hand. But being able to securely mount your sword to your wrist for...reasons. I don't want them to just use weapons without occupying their hands, but I still like the idea that they could install new gear for some other purpose.

If there's any race that warrants level adjustment in this campaign, it's the warforged. There's some cool stuff I want to do with them but don't want the things to be overpowered.

Our DM allowed our Warforged Fighter off-tank to purchase up to three (prohibitively expensive) upgrades from the Magitech Hero homebrew from MFoV. That was fun, and it allowed for a lot more variety with the way he played whenever he swapped his upgrades around.

So we’re in the final level of the rise or tiamat module we have decided to disrupt the ritual by blowing up the volcano. Problem is i’m only a 14th level wizard with at best 7th level spells. What we’re thinking, and the DM has said he’ll allow this because he thinks it’s awesome, is I cast wall of water and then teleport that 2000 odd gallons of liquid into the heart of the volcano and let physics do the rest. Still need to figure out the escape plan. Any other ways that people can think of for blowing up a volcano with countless chromatics and an evil army surrounding it while our own army is still 3 days away?

Ps. We got to the final lair by disguising a metallic dragon as a chromatic and flying over it then jumping off its back and casting featherfall at the last possible second

Well, I'd suggest having Plane Shift handy too, or possibly Teleport for making that quick escape.