Whatever Dungeons Your Dragons

dungeons & dragons side blog professional dm || silly goose || pc death count: 4

[shiny-polyhedrons]

fellow DMs I’m always curious what you think your biggest storytelling flaw is

and i don’t mean in terms of session planning or prep but in storytelling/story crafting

i WILL go first:

mine is that i tend to shy away from giving lasting and substantial consequences to pcs for their actions/lack of action

i struggle to find the “natural consequence” vibe versus feeling like im misusing my position as the Game Authority and punishing them unfairly (despite my instincts being within the realm of reasonable response)

anyway since we’re at this sleepover you go next

[nick-nellson]

The Sound of Music (1965) dir. Robert Wise

[nymphoutofwater]

fuuuuck that is my circus. are those…? yep… those are my monkeys….. goddammit.

[contextfreedungeon]

Me trying to keep my party on the quest line (it is not working)

[yutaan]

♫ Then softly it falls by a house near a stream / And over the garden wall / To thee ♫

I recently watched Over The Garden Wall for the first time with some pals! And indeed, every person who said over the years that this series would absolutely be my jam was CORRECT, it was fantastic. What a gorgeous, atmospheric show.

[parkchanwoohoo]

I don't fuck w nerds, the moment I can smell lore correction coming I'm like "Oh Neptune" and I gotta call my mom and ask her to pick me up

If I'm like "I really liked the scene where Gandalf learns the truth about the Ring in the first movie" and someone's like "Oh you mean when he was in Minas Tirith, originally known as Minas Anor when it was first built in the Third Age?" I am pulling the nearest fire alarm

[parkchanwoohoo]

Them: Pelargir prospered further under the reign of the the Ship-kings, and Tarannon Falastur, 12th king of Gondor, built a home there, though Berúthiel, his wife, didn't care for it

Me, sweating: D. Did you know that. That Viggo Mortensen really broke his toe. In that one scene

[tricky-pockets]

hey quick question, probably not important - how did you know all that stuff to put in the hypotheticals

[parkchanwoohoo]

[Throws smoke bomb down on the floor] [When the smoke clears I am still in the room with you but lying facedown, possibly dead but more likely unconscious. There is a visible dent in the nearest door.]

[burlbread]

Idk if I posted my fav rat pic here yet. Here it is:

[lingua-mortua]

@trillgutterbug rly important...

[clutchhedonist]

Lost @shiny-polyhedrons under the couch again

[shiny-polyhedrons]

help

[razzmothazz]

woah this character is so cool i wish they were covered in blood their whole body trembling with a look of absolute horror on their face as theyre struggling to breathe in panic

[swordshapedleaves]

This is I think, my best prep tip as a DM:

When the players are about to visit a new town, pre-generate several NPCs who fit the demographics of the town, but don't give them jobs. Your town is Mostly human, with a number of halflings and gnomes? Make a list that's mostly humans with some halflings and gnomes mixed in, with names that match the vibe you're going for and maybe the barest description + a quirk of some sort.

So the list would look something like this:

Ophelia Bracegurdle, older Halfling woman who laughs a lot

Norabecka Johnson, a young human woman who seems tired

Geraldofinio Babblecock Nimsy, gnome gentleman who takes pains to maintain a fabulous mustache

Etc.

Then, when the players are like, "Can I go to the blacksmith?" You look at your list of NPCs and the one at the top is Ophelia Bracegurdle. She's your blacksmith now. Then they want to go to the tavern, where Norabecka is the innkeeper and Geraldofinio is a patron having a drink at the bar. He's using a straw so he doesn't mess up his mustache.

If they had gone to the inn first, Ophelia would have been the innkeeper with Norabecka as the patron, and then Geraldofinio should have been a blacksmith with some sort of mustache guard to keep the sparks off.

Making the list ahead of time doesn't take much time, and you can often re-use the people you never got to at the next town.

Your world will seem vibrant and interesting and like you have everything planned out.

Have fun!

[swordshapedleaves]

Since this post has been getting a lot of notes, I would like to clarify a couple of points. This method has a few different benefits I would like people to note:

This prep is fairly simple and easy. You could use a random name generator and find lists of character quirks online or you could just make your own shit up. Because no one has any jobs or stats, you have very little you have to decide ahead of time.

It removes in-the-moment decision making from your game. Because you assign NPCs to roles as the players meet them, you don't have to pick who is gonna be the blacksmith or make up a blacksmith ahead of time.

This third point is the heart of this method for me: Randomization thwarts stereotyping. Some DMs struggle with this more than others, but I know I have made my fair share of gruff burly man blacksmiths! How many of us would really pick Ophelia Bracegurdle, older halfling woman who likes to laugh, to be the blacksmith? Honestly I probably wouldn't. But since in the example the players wanted to go to the blacksmith first, there she is. And now we have the option but not the requirement to think about why and how old Ophelia got her job. Maybe she's a widow who took over for her dead husband. Maybe she just always wanted to be a blacksmith or this town just has always had halfling ladies be their blacksmiths. Or maybe you don't think about it at all, and she's just the blacksmith because she is.

I've been in games where literally every NPC except the pretty barmaid is a man, and pretty much everyone is a light skinned dwarf, elf, or human. I've also been in games with awesome diverse characters who bring the game to life. I know I want to be a DM who creates the latter, and this system helps push back against our unconscious biases. When you have the list of everyone in the town, you can see ahead of time if you have a good gender ratio, whether your descriptions include any people with disabilities or people from different points of view.

[probablybadrpgideas]

Biggest DM Red Flag?

Keeps "accidentally" saying "ugly little bastards" instead of "players"

Tries to implement monopoly rules in whatever game they play

Railroads players in the game and also real life.

You see their planning notes and it's just hurtful comments about your hair

Constantly Insists they're the real Matt Mercer and the other guy's an imposter

They don't allow any character except exact copies of Biblo Baggins

On a natural one they perform a 2 hour ritual to lift "the loser curse"

Refuses to play any system except "GURPS but Sexy"

Refers to RPing as "A human hobby for humans like I am yes fellow humans"

When a player misses a session, they just fucking kill them.

Voting ended onJun 8, 2024

[ace-of-dragons-art]

when your DnD character is feeling Some Type of Way at the end of the session and you've gotta spend the next week nursing that emotion in preparation for the next session

[someemochick]

[dailydungeondelves]

Of course I would never

[colinrobinsonscardigan]

D&D is amazing. Not only do you get to make up a little guy, but you get to see the little guys your friends made up to???? Effervescent.

[xratedshinobi-deactivated202406]

[niofo]

i think a big issue about anders and fenris is that they both, despite being victims of systemic oppression, go about their trauma in different ways. on one hand anders tends to distance himself from his trauma, he talks about mage rights, but rarely about what happened to him personally - i can imagine fenris seeing this as being insincere. meanwhile fenris actually talks about what happened to him and what he went through, i can see anders seeing it as being selfish. all in all i won't say one way is better than the other, fenris prob has better chance of actually processing his trauma, but also he certainly feels guilty about lashing out on his friends in anger. meanwhile anders prob has a better shot at actually creating a community (and he should have if bioware didn't try to retcon him as a villain), but also he sets himself as a martyr, while fenris is a survivor.

[lunehowls]

fenhawke sketch

[timo-0126]

😬😬😬😬

練習