#dungeon mastering

[oldschoolfrp]

Gamemaster at work (Didier Guiserix, Casus Belli 33, June/July 1986)

[lokiago]

Something I wish I saw more of in RPGs:

Lots of games give stat bonuses because of the quality of the equipment's design or materials, and of course there's the nebulous "magic" bonus. I want to see more equipment that gives morale bonuses based on the emotion they make the player feel. I want the armor my friend died in to make me fight harder. I want the dagger I drove into my rival's back to make me feel more confident. I want the rifle I've scored 50 headshots with to feel preternaturally familiar to me. I want more medals, more outfits, more gear with a story behind it. If putting on a chef's jacket in real life can make me feel more focused and prideful of my cooking (and it does, it's weird as hell, but it does), then the stories our in game gear tells should mean something too. Items should level up too, not just be upgradable or replaceable, but earn their own form of XP, or at least attachment to the player using them.

[dndspellgifs]

adding more details to my court intrigue adventure and now I have to think what the prince NPC’s favorite (not real) books are and how do I make it so it communicates their personality to the players

[flightyquinn]

Steal this encounter -

Before you stands a crumbling courtyard, uneven paths of mossy cobbles weaving between choked and overgrown flowerbeds. In the far corner, what remains of a statue sits covered in climbing ivy. In the nearer, an old, weathered well which might once have been covered by a small roof, now rotted away. The rope coil from its decaying timbers terminates in a frayed end, but a crude wooden bucket has been left nearby. A lone tree sits near the center of the garden, its roots thick and twisting. One particularly gnarled root has pushed up a thick chunk of soil, beneath which there is a faint glint of something metal.

Casual examination of the lifted soil reveals a half-buried wooden chest, fitted with brass.

A more careful examination and the right skills is needed to notice signs that the chest was placed after the soil was lifted by the root, not before.

The chest is unlocked, and contains only minor loot, but is also fitted with a fire trap, which will douse those nearby in flaming oil if it is still armed when the chest is opened. Breaking the chest open will also set off the trap.

The bucket by the well is actually a mimic.

The true value of the garden is in the medicinal herbs it contains, which can be harvested by a character with the proper knowledge to make potions at a reduced cost.

[cosperclick]

BG3 has fundamentally changed me as a DM, cause every time I have to introduce a new NPC I think: "Is there a voice actor from Baldur's Gate I can parrot?"

[ashknife]

A couple of weeks ago, my D&D group completed a modern psionics campaign with lots of weirdness and crazy things we never thought we'd see happen in a game, like taking over ownership of several fast food restaurant chains as a vehicle to help bring down some alien invaders. I think that campaign will always be remembered for that and for the army of elves who recreated Amazon.

Tonight, we will begin retelling the original Final Fantasy game using 5th edition D&D instead of our usual go-to of Pathfinder 1st edition. I might write the sessions up, especially if there's plenty of goofiness going on.

[the-goblin-dm]

If you're the kind of DM who absolutely loves worldbuilding and lore but struggles to write up an actual plot*, have you considered just, not writing one?

There are lots of great prewritten adventures out there that you can plug into your setting. And I don't just mean locations. You can ask "What does this look like if the cultists serve [your hombrew evil entity] instead?" odds are the only adjustments will be flavor, and hey, you rock at flavor!

Here's a tool you can use to search adventures by environment, types of monsters, and more.