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Iris van Herpen | Fall/Winter 2026 Couture

#stuff we wore on our last performance #red #white

sclappin

How convenient it is to attach small, useful objects to your clothes at waist level

#wait a minute #the stage hand #carabiner #keys

unusual-suspects

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#lanterns #circus summer eladrin #purple #circus druid #wild beyond the witchlight

dailyadventureprompts

So one of the things that you don't notice about D&D until you start playing other games is that by its very design (and despite the complaints of almost every single dungeon master,) D&D conditions players to be passive and uninventive.

Think about it this way...If a player wants to do something, they require:

the DM to allow them to do so (either in their role as referee or narrator)

the mechanics to be arranged in their favour (everything from class builds to environmental penalties to limited use abilities)

the dice to cooperate

If any one of these things isn't checked off, the player simply CAN'T do what they wanted to do. How many times have players come up with a solution for a challenge that SHOULD work, only to be foiled when either DM fiat or poor dicerolls said no?

Unless it’s something they’ve specc’d their character to be good at, players become pessimistic about the outcome of their actions, so they don’t try things. They don’t speak up in dialogue because they don't want their uncharismatic character to roll persuasion, they don't poke around the room because their afraid their unperceptive character will trigger a trap. They wait until the DM HANDS them the answer

DMs lament that their parties aren’t taking risks (because risks are supposed to be where the fun is), despite the fact that they’ve thoroughly punished players for taking risks in the past. This problem’s gotten so bad I’ve had completely new players start compulsively checking EVERY room for mimics because d&d’s “gotcha” attitude has pervaded out into the cultural consciousness surrounding the game.

Compare this with something like blades in the dark, which uses a d6 system where 1-3 is a failure, 4-5 is a success with a drawback, and 6 is a complete success. That’s a 50% chance of the player getting to do (at least partially) what they want, and that’s before we get into tossing multiple dice or expending resources to affect the roll.

Games like BitD train their players to be proactive about making moves in story/gameplay because those moves have a (mechanically incentivised) likelihood of paying off. It's one of the reasons that one of the best D&D hacks that I've ever used is the Tales of the Valiant's version of inspiration, which encourages players to make rolls by giving you rewards when you fail.

#dm inspiration #dice #homebrew