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@dungeon-oracle
Welcome to the Dungeon
Hi, I'm Athena, and I'm a friendly neighborhood Dungeon/Game Master. This blog is mostly for collecting D&D and TTRPG stuff to feed my addiction. I also run D&D and other TTRPG games for hire, check out my links below!
StartPlayingGames Profile:
Hi, I'm Athena. I'm 23, female, and queer, with a love for my cats, videogames, and tabletop roleplaying games. I've been playing D&D sinc
I've had a couple of people ask for a digestible version of the whole "the real problem with Dungeons & Dragons is false advertising, not anything that's present in its text" thing I keep alluding to, so here's the bullet point version of that argument:
Dungeons & Dragons is owned by Hasbro. Yes, the same Hasbro that owns Monopoly and My Little Pony.
Hasbro wants D&D to be the only tabletop RPG that anyone plays.
In order to accomplish this, Hasbro needs D&D to be a universal entry-level game.
D&D is not a universal entry-level game.
All game rules are opinionated about how the game ought to be played, and as tabletop RPGs go, D&D's rules are more opinionated than most. This is not a flaw, but it's not what Hasbro needs.
D&D is also on the high end of complexity as far as tabletop RPGs go, and it's complex in a way that strongly rewards system mastery, so it's pretty far from "entry level".
Hasbro could produce a version of D&D that's at the very least less opinionated and more entry-level than it presently is, but they don't want to, because they've determined that certain rules features which run counter to both of those goals are critical to D&D's brand identity.
They also don't want to produce multiple versions of D&D tailored for different audiences, because they want every single D&D group to be a potential purchaser of every single D&D product; they'd be effectively competing with themselves for their own customer base if the published game was actually modular in any meaningful way.
So how does Hasbro square that circle?
Simple: they lie. They insist that D&D is in fact a universal entry-level game in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and back their advertising up with sponsored thinkpieces and podcasts and such to "prove" it.
Further, they've spent decades fostering a culture of play which conceals the gap between the game they're advertising and the game they're selling by ascribing any appearance that D&D isn't a universal entry-level game to the incompetence or malice of individual GMs.
The game the rules want to produce disagrees with the game the group wants to play? Nonsense – even the rankest beginner should be able to produce any experience of play using any set of rules, and if your GM can't, they're a Bad GM.
The game is hard to learn? No, it isn't – your GM is merely gatekeeping you. This wouldn't be a problem with a Good GM.
The upshot is that the published rules are more or less irrelevant with respect to achieving the desired experience of play, because they're operating within a culture of play which dumps 100% of the work of making that desired experience of play happen on the GM.
Indeed, much of what modern D&D presents as GMing best practices are really methods of working around the fact that the rules you're using disagree with you about what kind of game you're playing.
(It's not a coincidence that D&D's entrenched culture of play also insists that it's normal for GMs to be miserably overworked and treats GM burnout as a big funny joke, then turns around and loudly wonders why there's a constant GM shortage.)
The trick is, because you're still at least notionally using the rules of D&D, the fruits of all that GM labour are perceived as the product of "playing D&D", not of the GM's hard work.
In essence, Hasbro's business model for Dungeons & Dragons is selling you your own GM's labour with a D&D sticker on it.
It's a very neat trick, if you can pull it off.
Now, at this point some readers may be asking: well, sure, but not all GMs are doormats. What about "killer" GMs who do gatekeep and railroad their players and otherwise act like complete tyrants? I hear horror stories about them all the time.
That's the second trick: these are not opposites. The GM as human Xbox and the GM as tyrant of the table both represent the GM doing all the actual work of making the game happen. The latter isn't the outcome that Hasbro wants, but it's a logical conclusion of the position the want the GM to be in.
A Secret Santa gift for @kingoftherose from last year - his D&D character Kelsin from my TAZ: Balance game. She's a hyperactive severe ADHD Astral Self monk who keeps almost dying b/c she keeps throwing herself headlong into the BBEG of the arc.
My retired D&D character, Seneca. They're a protector aasimar, Circle of Stars druid/Way of the Astral Self monk. This was the outfit they wore to the museum gala on the Rock of Bral right before our BBEG sent them, our other druid Aliester, our fighter Lyra, and our rogue Crispen seven thousand years into the past, where Seneca broke time and changed all of our DM's plans for the rest of the campaign.
When they take their protector form, they merge bodies with their celestial guide, a god named Gemini. The staff is the Quarterstaff of Wildspace, and the sword is called Libra's Equinox - Seneca was gifted the former by the dragons of Strixhaven and obtained the latter by cutting out their own heart and weighing it on Libra's scale.
Someday I'll finish their reference sheets and post them. . .even though our campaign ended last year. (If anyone is wondering, we flew our Spelljamming ship through the body of the BBEG as the final blow and it was fucking awesome).
The famine spirit, a ravenous undead whose corpulent form projects the constant agony of starvation on your hapless heroes! From the D&D 3e Monster Manual II.
Support thirdtofifth
Come follow me on Ko-Fi, where I am converting the entire D&D 3e Monster Manual II to 5e! Already up to the F's, which is almost halfway through the whole book!
Describing Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game
I need to post about my work now that it’s released or else nobody will know it even exists so here it goes. Imagine you’ve just asked me “What is Death Bed: An Impenetrably Medieval Dungeon Game?”
I would say it’s another game by the makers of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, A.N.I.M., the guys you probably know for being really knowledgeable and opinionated about TTRPG game design.
It is our take on a fantasy dungeon crawler in the vein of things like AD&D, though it has little in common with any edition of D&D in terms of its tone and setting. It does have swords, spells, resource management, dungeon exploration, and hex-crawling, but it doesn’t have elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, etc..
It also uses “roll-under” for most skill checks.
It is post-apocalyptic, but that apocalypse was in around 1390, not 2026. It is about survivors who have to build up a settlement for themselves by venturing out and exploring abandoned, corrupted, and dangerous places in search of anything valuable, and figure out how to haul it all back without getting killed over and over again in the process.
Yes, they can be killed over and over again. The default Death Bed PC is undead in a very Dark Souls way, resurrecting after each death with a reduced sense of self. Staving off hollowing is a primary concern and one of the main reasons these PCs find themselves venturing out on expeditions in the first place.
Death Bed is aiming for a certain spin on a very old-school dungeon-crawling experience. Old-school dungeon-crawling has often been likened to the Survival-Horror video game genre in recent years, and I don’t think that’s inaccurate. It is about skulking around and trying not to encounter anything too dangerous, and only picking fights you know you can win while carefully conserving resources. In a classic dungeon crawling game, most characters in the party wouldn't even be equipped for direct combat, combat was only one role a character might have. With Death Bed we hope to expound upon that even further. Parties will do well to have a few people trained and armed to defend them, but will also need non-combatants in various roles, and not just diplomacy and trap-finding. Cooking, moral support, and spiritual guidance are just a few I can name off the top of my head.
Please give it a look (it's playable!), and send us a few dollars for it if you can afford to, it really helps.
This is the funniest thing I've seen in a TTRPG rulebook.
To date it’s probably the funniest thing I’ve put in a rulebook. You can thank team artist @chaospyromancy for the artistic contribution, and everyone else can download Silk & Dagger: A Sensible Drow RPG at this link.
Navigate a deadly social gauntlet in this satirical TTRPG about Drow and their underlings.
Is there perhaps a game where I can play as a bug? Well, other than the Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG you recc’ed to me.
THEME: Insects
Hello friend! There sure is! Here's a few that I think you might like.
Cuticorium, by usducktape.
A microcosm TTRPG of insects and intrigue. Explore the mysterious bug city of the Cuticorium, orchestrate plots for supremacy, and uncover the secrets of the outside world.
Playing as a tiny bug is a daunting task without help. Using the unique Web system, you can build and burn connections with the land, other bugs, or yourself. Web tokens are used to power friendships or preserve the natural order. Mix and match from 21 Features to define what type of bug you are, opening up new ways to spend Webs and lay out your schemes. Cuticorium uses a GM/Storyteller, 2-5 other players, and d4 dice.
It’s a good idea to make sure your fellow players know that this game is designed for politics first and foremost, and adventure second. There are rules for exploring and combat, but most of your bug’s abilities and moves will influence the insects around them. This game also works better as a longer campaign or series of sessions, rather than a one-shot - just so that the group can learn how to use their webs and their bug features to their best ability. If you want to tell stories about fighting your buggy instincts and fighting to become more than what you are, you might want to check out this game.
Fireflies, by Pyrefly Studio.
Fireflies is a pocket-sized ttrpg about being a firefly on a warm summer night.
The humans are out and about, enjoying the tail end of a summer barbecue. It's your job as a firefly to bring them joy and whimsy, while avoiding sticky little human hands that want to put you in a jar.
This game was made using efangamez' Re-Roller System. All you need to play is this index-card sized document and 1d6 (or a digital dice roller) for gaming on the go!
This a simple, sweet game with two stats and a different outcome for each number on a d6. As you play, your little bug will gain points in either Flight or Flicker, which can be used to re-roll future rolls. The whole game fits on a business card, easy for carrying around! With such few rules, it’s safe to say this one works better as a one-shot.
Bees in Mechs, by Fleet Detrik.
You're a team of bees... in giant mechs
Bee-nji, get in the f***ing robot.
The humans are tearing down the forest! It’s time to get into your giant mech and take the fight to them.
This game uses the Honey Heist system. This means it uses two stats, which will wax and wane according to your success or failure. Your characters will take on different code names, bee types and call-signs, which you can use to add a second dice to your roll in order to give you a better chance at success. Gain too much in Bee? You sting someone and die a noble death. Too much in mech? You are fused with your machine, and become emotionless.
This is a great game for a short pick-up game, but it will be a very good one.
Happy gaming!
There's an interesting alchemy by which, for certain TTRPG fans, WotC's misbehavior makes it more moral to play D&D if you're broke.
The logic goes something like this: WotC is bad, and therefore it is good to steal from them. Indie creators are good, and therefore it is bad to steal from them. Therefore, if you don't have money to spend on games, it is moral to play D&D and immoral to play indie games.
For some reason, the fact that this unimpeachable logic only benefits WotC and only harms indie creators is not relevant.
Always conveniently forgetting the extremely high number of games, systems etc that are 100% free
Some Free Indie Games
Interested in solo games?
One Page Left, by M. Kirin, is a solo horror roleplaying game inspired by slasher movies. You survive as long as you can fit words on a single sheet of paper; run out of space and you die!
Want to play as a group?
Cryptid Creeks, by HatchlingDM, is inspired by Stranger Things and Gravity Falls; you are a group of kids trying to save their home from something terrible. It uses a generative mystery mechanic that is super light-prep for the GM and encourages collaborative storytelling.
Want fantasy instead?
Slay, by Trollish Delver Games, is a stat-less dungeon-crawler that cobbles characters together using descriptors, gear, and skills. High-danger, rules-lite.
Want something more light-hearted?
Havoc Brigade, by Grant Howitt, is a high-energy one-shot about orcs on a special undercover mission. The game is all about "stupid plans and wild distractions", according to the game designer.
Want space or sci-fi instead?
Monolith, by AdamHensley is a sci-fi hack of Cairn and Into the Odd, perfect for a galaxy full of aliens, adventure, and danger.
Want something more collaborative?
A Perfect Rock, by Deep Dark Games, is a world-building game where you explore planets using your own personal rock collection, inspired by Interstellar, Subnautica, and The Outer Wilds.
All of these games were found in the free section of Itch.io. If you want more, you can browse there.
You can also check out some of my recommendation posts below.
Free TTRPGS 1/2
Free TTRPGS 2/2
Free Solo Games for First-Timers
Affordable Vampire Shenanigans
Reblogging for Free Rpg Day
You see, if you enter into a pact with me, I'll grant you supreme power in exchange for your service. And you can in turn grant others supreme power in exchange for their service, and so on. It's definitely not a pyramid scheme. Don't look it up.
Hear ye hear ye shameless self promotion
I'm Athena and I run TTRPGs for a living, and I'm looking for players for several new weekly D&D campaigns I'm starting. This here is a masterpost of all the campaigns I'm currently recruiting for - but if none of these catch your eye, worry not! I run monthly rotating oneshot games every Monday, so there's something for everyone. Beginner/new player friendly! Thursday 6:00 PM CST - Curse of Strahd - NEW! Beware ye who enter the Mists of Ravenloft. This classic gothic horror campaign is set in the dreary land of Barovia, the first Domain of Dread, home to Count Strahd von Zarovich.
Under raging storm clouds, the vampire Count Strahd von Zarovich stand silhouetted against the ancient walls of Castle Ravenloft. Rumbling t
Friday 6:00 PM CST - Wild Beyond the Witchlight - Ongoing (1 seat available)
A fantastic, whimsical Feywild adventure in the splintered domain of Prismeer - the current party is exploring the splinter realm of Yon, where the Dame of Unhappy Endings spins tales of tragedy and woe from her mountain castle, the Motherhorn.
Once every eight years, the fantastic Witchlight Carnival touches down on your world, bringing joy to one settlement after the next. Its own
Saturday 12:00 PM CST - Phandelver & Below: The Shattered Obelisk - NEW!
An expansion on the original starter set adventure, The Lost Mine of Phandelver, this is a classic high fantasy campaign staged around the frontier town of Phandalin - and the rediscovered legendary Forge of Spells hidden nearby.
More than five hundred years ago, clans of dwarves and gnomes made an agreement known as the Phandelver's Pact, by which they would share a
Saturday 6:00 PM CST - Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos - NEW! A magical world boasts many places where students can study magic and many sages who take eager learners under their wings. But being accepted to Strixhaven University is a special honor, the dream of many young students.
"Dear Prospective Student, Thank you for applying to Strixhaven University. We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen to join
Sunday 12:00 PM CST - Light of Xaryxis - Ongoing (2 seats available)
A swashbuckling space opera set in the Astral Sea, the party is in a race against the clock to defeat the Xaryxian Empire before their home planet is consumed to provide energy for the star Xaryxis. The current party is en route to Vocath (the moon and the mercane who named it after himself) to persuade the mercane to call in his debts in Doomspace - forming a coalition meant to take down the Xaryxian Empire.
When a cosmic enemy threatens to destroy their world, brave heroes must do everything in their power to save it. This quest will take them a
Sunday 6:00 PM CST - Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus - NEW! There's a certain irony in going to hell on a Sunday - specifically the Nine Hells, where the fate of an entire city rests solely on the classic struggle of good vs evil.
In the independent city of Baldur’s Gate, the city’s gates are sealed, keeping hundreds of refugees from the neighboring land of Elturgard o
Hello, my little woodland critters. Today just for fun I'm going to walk you through the process of generating a character for the original 1974 edition of Dungeons & Dragons. I'm just going to use Men & Magic for this one but might do another one later with the supplements!
First, we get some dice. Three six-sided ones to be exact. I'm actually going to grab some with pips rather than numbers because that feels more authentic. Then, we roll and record their sum, repeating times, generating six ability scores. Here we go!
Strength 9 Intelligence 17 Wisdom 12 Constitution 16 Dexterity 13 Charisma 13
Yippee! As a witch these make me very happy indeed.
Next, we'll pick a class to play. Based on the abilities I rolled I'm of course going to pick the magic-user (the witch class didn't exist yet, alas). And as a magic-user, I'm actually allowed to futz with the numbers a bit, removing two points from Wisdom to gain an extra point in Intelligence. This gives us our finalised array, and we can now know the effects of each ability on the character.
Strength 9: no effect Intelligence 18: +10% to earned experience, eight extra languages Wisdom 10: no effect Constitution 16: +1 to each hit die, 100% chance to survive certain spells Dexterity 13: +1 to missile fire Charisma 13: maximum of 5 hirelings with +1 loyalty
Okay, languages. The character speaks the common tongue of the continent she lives in, along with an alignment language. I'm going to pick Neutral as my alignment so that's the language I speak. I also speak eight creature languages, which I'm going to pick later.
For equipment, we're going to grab our trusty 3d6 again, roll them, and mulitply by ten to find out how many gold pieces we have. I rolled 10, so I have 100 GP. I'm going to buy a dagger, the only weapon a magic-user is allowed. In addition I will buy 50' of rope, a large sack (for treasure), a leather back pack, a water skin, six torches, a flask of oil, a small silver mirror, a bunch of wolvesbane (in case of werewolves), a bunch of belladonna, and a bug of garlic (in case of vampires, or pizza). Not sure what the belladonna is useful for but you can never be too sure. This leaves me with 48 gold pieces that I will use to buy rations when I'm heading on an expedition of some sort. To calculate my encumbrance, I add my dagger's weight in gold pieces (20) to that of my miscaellanoues equipment (always 80, though a referee is allowed to make sure this stays within reason), for 100 GP of weight. I'm well within the limit for light foot movement, which will likely mean I'll have the responsibility of hauling loot out of the dungeon. Maybe I should invest in a second sack…
As a magic-user of the 1st level, I am titled a Medium, and will require 2,500 experience points to reach 2nd level (Seer). I roll 1 die (six-sided), adding +1 for my Constitution getting a total of 2… Tha'ts how many hits my magic-user can take before death. Let's hope she rolls better on the next level, assuming she survives. She fights with the strength of one man!
I can memorise one 1st level spell for my journey. Not knowing what I might face in the dungeon, I pick something witchy that I think can really save the group's butts: Sleep. All level 1 spells are in my spellbook so I don't need to worry about which ones I can memorise.
And that's pretty much it! Now we just give the character an imaginative name… How about Naiviv?
Onwards to adventure and glory, Naiviv the Medium!
Wares of the Wandering Wayfarer
Need a general store for your TTRPG campaign? The Wares of the Wandering Wayfarer is a system-neutral shop with NPCs, inventory, and more!
→ Check it out here!
My friend's D&D character for my Saturday TAZ: Balance campaign - he's a witch/wizard named Victoriano (or V for short). The little eyes are all of the spirits he can summon! This was my Secret Santa gift to her for my personal hangout server.
Many D&D 5e DMs ignore the game's own suggested structure of having multiple encounters per adventuring day, and while they aren't entirely wrong to do so (the suggested number of encounters per adventuring day doesn't quite line up with the actual math of the game nor does it produce enjoyable gameplay for those who don't enjoy D&D's combat, i.e. the part that D&D is the most about so you know what are we even doing here). Instead they focus their attention on trying to run only a single, narratively satisfying combat encounter. Which often works against itself because you will find yourself hard-pressed to get a dramatic combat out of a single battle in D&D 5e when player characters will be going into battle at full resources.
Because in most cases D&D's resource management is really at its best when it's not about managing resources within a single encounter but over multiple encounters. If you can expect only one encounter per adventuring day "should the wizard cast fireball now or save it for later" really isn't a relevant question in most encounters. In most cases the answer is "cast it now because the more enemies are dead by the end of this round the fewer attacks the party will have to potentially suffer next round."
And it often ends up eliminating all tension as well. If characters can count on having all their resources available for their one combat encounter of the day then they can pretty much rest assured that they will have enough healing and damage at their disposal to eliminate the enemy. The GM can hope to alleviate this by adding enemies that can take out party members quickly, but it is a risky proposition in many ways: the dice can swing one way and eliminate a player character before the group has a chance to react at all, which isn't exactly a failure on the party's part, it's just dumb luck (now, dumb luck is sometimes a valid way to introduce tension, but in the context of an encounter that is supposed to feel dramatic a character being taken out during the first turn before there is any input on the player's part can feel anticlimactic). Characters have very limited resources available to them to actually actively mitigate damage. Most of the time if a character loses initiative they are at the mercy of the enemy, being entirely reliant on the enemy rolling low on their attack/them rolling high on their saving throw. Some characters have reactive defenses available to them, but that's the thing: only some of them.
On the other hand things swinging the other way and an enemy having a single bad round during which they fail to deal meaningful damage to the party can conversely begin a death spiral for the enemy, where characters will be able to reserve resources that would normally be spent fighting back against enemy assaults on simply focusing on damage.
Of course this hasn't always been the case in D&D: the conventional wisdom in older editions was that player characters would have to delve into dungeons on limited resources and conserve those resources throughout the adventuring day. And this basically is how 5e is supposed to be run: but for a variety of reasons it also runs against the idea of combat being dramatic. If most combats during an adventuring day are just obstacles to be overcome, it eventually does make combat feel routine. Which, you know, somewhat also undermines the idea that combat is supposed to be dramatic.
But also, on a per encounter level, there was a brief moment in a bygone age known as "fourth edition" when player characters regardless of class had meaningful decisions to make within an encounter: compared to 5th edition, daily abilities were at a premium, which makes sense, because in 5th edition the assumption is that characters will have more daily resources they must juggle throughout a long adventuring day. 4e does also assume multiple encounters between long rests, but its adventuring days are noticeably shorter. Furthermore, healing is a finite resource in 4e on both a day-by-day and an encounter level. Characters can take a second wind action once per combat to spend a healing surge to recover some hit points, after which they are reliant the party's leaders (whose standard healing abilities are limited to two uses per combat. Scary!). And while 4e combats could also get swingy, the numbers were usually set up in such a way that a single swingy round would usually not take a player character from 100 to 0 percent. Like in 5e, most characters lacked reactive defenses, but they usually still had time to act before they were dropped.
But even 4e didn't fix one issue of D&D combat: that it often lacks permanent consequence beyond just "your character is dead." This is of course not an issue for the type of play that D&D natively supports and there are exceptions to this rule in the form of some creatures that can inflict other consequences on characters, but due to the abstract nature of D&D's combat the outcomes of combat are usually "my character fell to 0 hit points and died" or "my character dropped the enemy to 0 hit points and they died."
Speaking of those alternate consequences, an encounter with a basilisk that turns a party member into stone isn't necessarily fun as a dramatic combat encounter because it simply takes out one party member from the action, meaning they don't get to enjoy the afterglow of having defeated the enemy. Or if they do it's because a party member could cast a spell that undoes the petrification which is like. Oh, the character was only dead temporarily. You know what genre of play temporary death as a minor setback works really well in? Dungeon crawling. It also ties nearly into the logistical side of the game.
Anyway, point being, there are multiple contradictory design issues inherent to the very idea of combat and how it should be handled in tabletop RPGs and not a single correct answer. But D&D does not natively support a model of a single dramatic encounter per day, because that runs against the game of resource management and attrition inherent to it. D&D's combat can often lack tension on a per-encounter basis, but that tension arises are the very latest once characters need to start conserving their resources.
Or idk.
Part of this is due to 5e being a poorly written game that doesn't really function properly even if you know what you're doing, but the players also deserve some blame for the common conflation of "adventuring day" and "game session." I always see Reddit comments like "but how am I supposed to fit 6-8 combats into a 3-hour session???" Who said anything about sessions, fool?! An adventuring day doesn't need to end when everybody goes home! Have you heard of a cliffhanger? Have you noticed how sometimes in your shows it takes the characters more than one episode to do something?? Argh!
Rant over.
(Funnily enough, "1 adventuring day = 1 IRL day" seems to be the model assumed by AD&D 1e, and is kind of the only way to viably run an open-table megadungeon, but resources are much more scarce in 1e so it all works out.)
Probably the most dramatic combat encounter I've ever run in D&D 5e is the time I ran Castle Ravenloft as a five session siege in a no-long rest zone, as the finale of a Curse of Strahd campaign. By the time my players were ready to attempt to storm Castle Ravenloft and kill Strahd, they were armed to the teeth with anti-undead weapons and spells. The fighter was a werewolf, so physical damage (bludgeoning, piercing, slashing) was negated, and they had made allies of the werewolves, wereravens, Van Richten and Esmerelda, as well as a few DM PCs I introduced. The only way to produce a narratively satisfying ending where the party didn't curb-stomp Strahd the moment they found him was to run the whole castle as a siege and only allow short rests. By the time they got to Strahd in the final session, they were almost out of healing, running low on spell slots and class abilities, and had used most of their magical item's single use abilities. It made them actually think about when and where to use what they had - more than they ever did in any other part of the campaign. And it made their final confrontation with Strahd more exciting and desperate.
Casio's Familiar: Playpen!
Playpen has 8 unique forms based on the emotions his egg was imbued with (by Casio) before it hatched. Each form has a special breath attack he can use once a day.
Each day, Playpen's form is decided based on rolling a 1d8 die. You never know which one you're gonna get!
Aside from that, Playpen's stats and abilities are the same as the ones listed in the Find Familiar spell and pseudodragon stat block!
