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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • KurtDunniehue@ttrpg.networktoRPGMemes @ttrpg.networkMy brain hurts
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    11 months ago

    The secret is to not work from what you’d like to do, but to work backwards from what your players want to do.

    Seriously, throw out all the prep you have that isn’t landing, and just ask your players what kinds of things they want to do. Then, make stories inspired by the actions or accomplishments they want to undertake.

    … This does require that your players have some idea of what they want to do, though. If you have checked out or uninvested players, there’s essentially nothing you can do I’m afraid.

    So now I will soapbox to the players reading this: Your job is to be invested in the game. If you don’t put energy into being invested, you’re not fulfilling your side of the arrangement at the table.




  • I don’t think you picked up that I playtested both, though.

    The monks played okay, if rather awkward in my playtests of the rules. They should do more damage, but they were all suitably impactful in a fashion that this dance bard cannot replicate with the ribbon features it has been given.

    The bard was just a bard with what is effectively a free melee attack cantrip that doesn’t scale with their casting stat. They do not step on the monk’s toes, because they were too busy casting shatter, fireball, and other uses of their magic action.

    It’s flavorful and fun, but the impact of the dance bard is not on their level 3 features. It’s their level 6 features that give the class a tonne of impact.


  • Because I have playtested monks, and their ability to control and knock enemies around while punching more often and for more damage while being quicker than the dance bard.

    The dance bard in my playtest was awkward, and did less single target damage than the monks in my other playtest. It also was not able to attack and disengage for free, giving it much less of a skirmishing feeling.

    A bard without any subclass features is a strong and versatile character. With the dance bard subclass, the bard is actually playing suboptimally, and does not outperform the monk in my playtest.










  • A tale that is perpetually dark in tone becomes tiresome very quickly. It needs to feature the occasional ray of light for contrast and to create a sense of hope. Monsters and other terrors must be offset with creatures that are kind and lovable, giving the characters even more reasons to stand against the darkness. Here are a couple of ways to add glimmers of light to a tragic tale:

    • In a land as dreary as Barovia, take the time to describe the occasional scene of beauty, such as a pretty flower growing atop a grave.
    • Make sure that the heroes have contact with NPCs who are honest, friendly, and helpful, such as the Martikovs in Vallaki or the Krezkovs in Krezk.

    -Curse of Strahd, Introduction. Marks of Horror. 2016.









  • I’ve seen Sealioning used quite a bit in a particular Lemmy instance that would self describe themselves as Pro-Russia & Pro-China, as a way of shutting down discourse between people who disagree with them. There are people who disagree with a particular narrative, and they’re discounted immediately for wanting to know how someone would arrive at a pro-Russian & pro-China position.

    Also they’ll just “whatabout!” and change the subject whenever unassailable critiques of these regimes come up. As if its is only possible to hold outrage in a single direction at a time.

    I’ll have you know I’m capable of disliking EVERYONE mentioned in a given conversation.



  • Modern capitalism as we know it began forming in the Renaissance, particularly in colonial European powers who were getting to the Colonization of the rest of the world game earlier than their peers. This notably includes Portugal and the Netherlands, followed swiftly by most everyone else.

    There were promissory notes that were carried by travelers prior to this, in the form of Crusaders traveling from Europe to Jerusalem, in the relatively brief period of time that it was conquered. But this did not interact with market economies as we’d know it, and is directly analogous to traveler cheques, meant to make you less of an appealing robbery target on the road.

    No, these kinds of shenanigans were concocted rather recently, and are not reflective of baseline normal human behavior. It’s mostly a system that was created by accident, with conventions that were forming being purposeful altered during creation by the people with money, for their own benefit.









  • Not really this post is burying the lede.

    A 5e fighter gets another feature called “action surge” which let’s them perform another full attack action once per short rest. This means that each time they get another attack, their damage potential for a single round of combat goes up by two attacks. This makes them about the best focus-damage Nova builds.

    Well, outside of conjure animals and paladins because WotC fucked up hard with them (but that is getting fixed in the 2024 revision).

    edit: Besides I remember the dead levels of 3.5e.