oky ghost chickens and it's so fucking stupid.

So they found the Dooms of Tomorrow in B29 and after some experimentation determined that the Annihilation Beams were specifically triggered by creatures passing by rather than having a physical trigger that could be interacted with. Their first plan to disarm the hazards ended with the inventor's construct companion getting Annihilation Beam'd into lots of tiny little pieces, so they decided to buy some chickens and lob them in. They were hit with beams of pure tsunami, inferno, earthquake, monster, and undead. First two were pretty easy, I went with falling debris for the third, big godzilla hand for the fourth, and void energy for the last. Gonna be real with you, the description is "From Monster" and I just don't know how that works as a beam.

The thing is, quite apart from the ethical issue of throwing a defenseless animal into something called an annihilation beam, the whole campaign explicitly revolves around a spooky lighthouse that makes undead. I've been more subtley referencing it through various random encounters, but the first big event of the story is the lighthouse shooting a giant beam of light that creates undead where it lands. And there are a bunch of haunts and undead inside. Like there's basically a sign over the entrance saying "Undead made here". So now the chickens' ghosts need revenge on their murderers.

Honestly, no idea where I'm gonna go with this, but I've made tokens for an undead ghost chicken and a kaiju ghost chicken, so I'll give them some nightmares next time they go to sleep and see where that takes us.

Nestled on the northern Sword Coast, between Neverwinter Wood and the Sword Mountains, is the town of Phandalin. Centuries ago, Phandalin was a thriving settlement with deep ties to its neighboring communities. But then bandits overran the town, and Phandalin lay abandoned for centuries.

Only in the past few years have settlers built a new village on the ruins of the old. These townsfolk hope to grow Phandalin through hard work, camaraderie, and the shared purpose of building a lasting home. Threatening their efforts and their survival are bandits, brigands, and monsters.

Some of you may be aware of the iconic 5e D&D adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver. This is its sequel. Characters start at level 5 and may advance up to level 12 by the end of the module. You don't need to have played D&D or LMoP in order to join this group, as we'll get everyone up to speed during "session zero".

I'm looking to run this adventure for 3-6 players. Plan to organize via Discord and play via Foundry VTT (all you need is a web browser). If you're interested post your available times and we'll see how we can squeeze everyone in - my preference is a weekday afternoon but I'm flexible and can do any day after 3pm (California time). I expect each session to last 3-4 hours, one meeting a week, and the full adventure to last about 3 months.

As for me, I'm an experienced DM and a TTRPG player for about fifteen years. I've played in and run games recruited on this site and loved doing it. I keep the games I run PG-13, so don't expect anything gratuitous that you might see on prestige TV. I'm open to allowing homebrew, with the caveat that I can issue a balance hotfix if necessary.

Reply or DM me if you're interested.

It was great, I remember being part of a Mortal Kombat rp session where I made an OC and we used a dice roller for combat (kombat?). I also remember being part of a Final Fantasy one based on ShinRa's military. Creative stuff.

The rogue went down at the end of a running chain of 4 encounters the party charged through, right as they decided they had bitten off more than they could chew and turned tail to run. Just walked off and left him with the remaining mini boss. If it weren't for the mini boss's tactics of getting other people to do things that require him to leave his throne, the PC would have been killed on the spot. As it was he regained consciousness about 10 minutes later, and slowly and carefully crept away with the aid of some great stealth rolls while the morlock tried to work out how to get a second casting of telekinetic manoeuvre.
And then the next morning he decided to be the bait in a plan to lure a drake out of its lair, got stuck trying to scrabble up an embankment out of the way, and was obliterated in a flurry of teeth and tail lashes. It was brutal, even with PF2e's generous dying rules he turned from alive to dead in only 4 seconds as the first strike knocked him unconscious and the next two burnt through his dying condition.

Luckily the player already had a backup ready so when the party turned tail and ran again I was able to maintain a natural flow of roleplay to reach a point where I could introduce the replacement, but it was sudden and shocking for all of us. For the players it was shocking because in a single turn the drake turned him from slightly damaged to chunky salsa, and for me because its not actually a difficult fight - I mean, a drake is still a dragon, so it is more dangerous than raw stats make it look, but if they'd put the tank front and centre instead he'd have easily withstood the initial barrage and they would have steamrolled it.

They're going to be so mad when they realise it's only as tough as the minotaur skeleton they took down instead in order to get some xp and level up before taking it on again.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2435866

Anyone else love TTRPG history?

PC and monster weaknesses are very easy to look up and apply, but finding out what the actual people at the table will fall for is a lot harder, so what have you noticed your players always get pulled in by?

I'm not good at making maps and I need a simple whatever-dimension battle map for a simple 5e encounter along a small path with a mountain face on one side and a cliff with a misty bottom on the other.

DM me or ask here for more details, thanks for any help!

Campaign or one shot premises, world building, systems or mechanics, whatever ttrpg related stuff you've come up with but not filled out yet.

My normal process is to plan a session and then have it almost immediately derailed through a mixture of distractions, roleplay (or skipped roleplay), and sequence breaking. The planning done for a single session generally correlates to either 1/2 of a session or 2-3 sessions of useful content.
This time though, they actually did the things I had planned. All of the activities and events came in useful, and they didn't even try to set any of it on fire. Everyone's character made use of their bit of time in the limelight, and I managed to give almost all the NPCs voices, including the spontaneous ones. We even finished the session exactly where I wanted, with the first combat of the module I'm using

Conceptually I'm aware that there's a nonzero chance of it happening at some point, I'm just a little shocked it's happened to me.

TTRPG history (for over an hour, mind you).

I'd just listen to this while you're doing other things.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1934302

Video is over 2 hours long and goes over 1970s history of D&D and other tabletop RPGs inspired by D&D during this time.

Here's the description:

Just one year after the publication of Dungeons & Dragons, four other games debuted and helped define the new genre that would come to be called "Role-Playing Games." Learn about Boot Hill, Tunnels & Trolls, En Garde!, and Empire of the Petal Throne in this video: who created them and why, the game mechanics they used, and their legacy in shaping the future of roleplaying games for decades into the future.

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Enjoy, y'all.

Listen to it while you're doing other things, ig

I highly recommend subscribing to this channel, even if you're not going to watch or listen to the video, as he does other more shorter videos, and it's always nice listening to the history of D&D and tabletop RPG games from someone that worked on them during his prime.

Welp, again, enjoy.

We've had threads on how D&D itself has a colonial mindset, but I think that undersells how fucked up and racist players can be. I want this thread to be about players who go out of their way to make characters that break the fourth wall and ruin friendships outside of the game.

I'll start: I had a player come to me with their character: "Gucci, the rapping goblin bard". The details were what you would expect. Like he literally put a picture of Gucci Mane in the chat. I told him that this was blackface and I wouldn't allow it. He had a tantrum about being called racist, and now we no longer speak (lol).

I've got competitive tree felling, log flume riding, and caber tossing. There's archery and boxing/wrestling. There's chess, there's a pie eating competition, even an obstacle course.

That gives me all the mechanics I'm interested in settling the players into immediately - ranged and melee attacks, skill checks, saves, skill challenges, and roleplay - but I need more fun side bits to help set the scene. There's food stalls, a bar, a little gambling, and I'm probably going to have a children's storytime place the players can go and make up wild tales, but what other kinds of flavour do you pepper around your festivals for the players to interact with?

The campaign is Abomination Vaults for anyone with setting specific ideas.

Hey, so I'm hosting a campaign of Comrades and next session I'm thinking of having the party on site when a spontaneous strike starts. For context the setting is homebrew, WWI ish with fantasy elements. Obviously they can participate in organizing the workers and talking with people who attempt to intimidate or buy off the strikers but I'd like to have a few more tricks and nudges on standby to keep things going just in case. Any suggestions? Currently I've got "dealing with potential police actions" and "the company sends Pinkertons/infiltrators" but I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Jennell Jaquays is a unsung game developer. She has a really rich history in games and design. Itchio had a game jam in her honor.

Salute to a real one 🏳️‍⚧️

Check out her website. It's old-school and good.

Hey everyone. What the title says. I've run a few sessions in my setting already, but my group is filled with s so I wanna try this campaign idea with a new group.

Setting? Political Space Opera. Big inspirations include: Star Wars (OT, The Mandalorian, Andor) , Firefly, Disco Elysium, Metal Gear Solid, Deus Ex.
You can read and look through a visual guide of my setting here:
The Aesthetics of the universe, and a brief guide to some big planets: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yaC3-gXn-mO-4nwrXv3vNTBuspqe7XBO3zxCNpS8NTc
A brief guide to the political structure of the universe, and the megacorporations: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fYSHPLo0NV3nhrM9ayiAkY7TG_KPSCDnyPc1fCYC91c

System? My preferred sci-fi system is Stars Without Number. It's light-weight and easily modifiable, so it can handle adding new content unique to my game and playgroup. Quick to learn, especially for dnd veterans.

When? I'm located in europe, in the CET time zone. I'll be running the game in the evenings, which means if you're an american, you'll be playing right after waking up. Expect the game to start somewhere around 6PM CET, and run for 3 hours weekly. Which day of the week we play can be decided later, but it will likely be a weekday.

How long do I have to commit for? It's hard to sign up for a game and then feel like a weekday is locked in for months for a specific activity. We'll start things with a one-shot adventure, and if that goes well, we can plan out another month of sessions.

I'm interested! Great! Please send me a private message with a little about yourself here on hexbear and include your discord, I'll contact you from there.

About me as a DM I have 5 years experience DMing and playing. My style of DMing can be read about here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zcJZyZId7biVoC2iFk2DTQjyNkylmjWEKN5FytCT79s/edit

Review from a satisfied player: "I always felt like we as PCs had the opportunity to make our mark on the world. There were clearly things going on, "hooks" one might say, but if we wanted to handle those in a completely different way than what was obvious, Moondog let it play out. One of the most, if not the single most immersive DMs I've played with to this day in that sense. Real sense of verisimilitude in the world. I think a major highlight for me was playing a wizard and using my spells, even illusion ones. Moondog as a GM plays with you, will ask you to explain your intention and then you'll find a way it would work in the world. "

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/1672667

Hello and thanks for the interest, I've been running a weekly cyberpunk roleplaying game for hexbear users for over a year now, and I'm looking for new people to join a heist/anti-corporate aktion/criminal syndicate intrigue campaign.

The current system is Shadowrun 5e and I can provide all the information to play the game on Roll20 the web-based tabletop simulator we use to play and utilize discord for voice. We'll build a character together to join the existing group of:

Mafia Orcish Gun-guy Ex-corporate Human Medical Mage Ex-corporate Elven Infiltration Mage Shadowy Human Drone Operator

We are looking for one to two people to join us on Sundays for three hours starting at 8:00PM CET / 2:00PM EST

Please leave a comment or send a DM if interested or have any questions

cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/3382952

Why don't we want D&D characters to die?

I'm not interested in your PCs (or PCs you've heard/seen elsewhere), I want to know what the best PC someone else has played at a table with you is.

One of my friends doesn't have lots of TTRPG time, so generally just joins the odd fantasy game with the same character at different levels: Himbo Clerrick. Himbo lives up to his first name, being utterly gorgeous (think young Fabio on the cover of some sword and sorcery romance novel), incredibly heroic, and incredibly dense and oblivious, but not to his second name, being a Paladin.
Himbo had been a simple monk who had taken a vow of chastity to serve his god, but his incredible looks put the other monks' and nuns' vows in danger, so they gave him some weapons and armour, told him to go fight the forces of evil for his god, and then took a very cold bath. Powered by his devotion to his god and complete asexuality, he now travels the land looking for evils to defeat and goods to do.

Now, I'll admit the player has an impressive CV to begin with (experience in film and TV leading to setting up his own media company, Cambridge Law degree, nationally ranked cross country runner, decent jazz saxophonist, amateur boxer, etc), but Himbo inventively combines and subverts tropes in a way I only otherwise see from very experienced players, and the player has been happy to dive into and engage with the worlds as Himbo from the word go. Makes a great change from the people whose first character is Half-Elf Ranger #3752 and are scared to say or do anything even when directly asked.

Good video.

I really like Dicebreaker.