I think that there should be more incidental big bads

Your characters go through a door and find a boss arena with a lich in the center cackling to himself. "Finally! I have collected the seven keys to the Apocalypse Throne! Soon, the prophecy will be complete and a thousand years of blood shall descend upon the world! Mwahahaha!" No-one's ever mentioned an "apocalypse throne" or its keys or a prophecy about a thousand years of blood all campaign, and you have no idea who this guy is. You stop him and the game just goes on. None of this ever comes up again.

Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/2609/

theres ALWAYS a relevant XKCD for everything huh

(via @karama9 )

The state of TTRPGs if it was video games

“Oh I wanna play a Half-life video game; instead of playing Half-life 1, Blue Shift, Opposing Force, Half-life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2, Portal, Portal 2, E:0, or E:02, I’ll just download 10,000 mods for Skyrim until all the draugr are replaced with Combine soldiers.”

dude they have this thing called a rulebook

I watched so many lets plays. None of them installed mario on my computer.

so here we are

funniest thing our wizard has ever said after spending several seconds going through their spell list:

"oh who am I kidding? fireball."

something I've recently noticed with characters -- mainly my d&d characters -- is that backstories are especially fun if you take a trope or a common backstory but change your character's role in it. Bonus points if they're the "villain" in this trope, whether by accident/misunderstanding or actions they intended to do but will/do regret after character development.

"my parents were killed by a (vampire/evil wizard/raging maniac/whatever)" but you're the one who killed someone's parents and now they're out to fucking Get You.

"my spouse/significant other died and I'm out to avenge them" but you're an undead or have the Reborn lineage or something and you're the dead spouse trying to find your revenge-obsessed lover before they do something they'll regret.

"my village was taken over by a tyrant" but you're the tyrant who's been chased out and fallen out of power and now you have to get Away From Here Fast.

"my noble family's manor burned down and I want to find the person who did it" but you're the housemaid who's been cast aside and put out of a job, and needs a quick way to make some money.

it sort of instantly gives the character more depth and makes the backstory feel more three-dimensional. Your character has done something wrong, whether by accident or on purpose, and that makes them feel more human. Not to mention the fact that many of these automatically create the easy-to-harness plot device of Someone Is After Me.

Anyways, hope that's helpful in some way :> happy character making!

I don't care about Dungeon Meshi otherwise but "Tallmen" is SUCH an elegant solution to placing humans in a fantasy setting that it's still blowing my mind. Just the term itself is enough to instantly recontextualize humans. They're no longer the default race. They're those big goobers with long legs, striding about all the time. I can so easily envision much more interesting relationships between humans and non-humans because of it. Like perhaps "tallmen" are stereotyped as shepherds by other races because they can watch over their flocks better, or as vagabonds because they are better suited to long travel on foot. And of course, they don't *literally* have to be taller than everybody else, they were just the tallest around whenever the label became the norm, or something like that. I just feel like it's so much better than what I've seen in settings like D&D that go "and humans are the... adaptable, generalist people :)!"

tags by @the-warlock-syndicate

You always wanted to be a Healer. Unfortunately, your dad was an Necromancer and your mother a Demon Summoner. So your healing was a bit… unconventional to say the least.

“Listen, is he alive? Technically, no. But his body is moving and his soul is controlling it, so frankly I don’t see a problem.”

Sometimes you just have to ask.

Based on a submission by @dearratroi

got sent this homebrew ability to give to strahd and i absolutely am going to when i run that campaign because i will NOT be interrupted when i am monologuing

It’s easy for combat to drag in D&D.

Speed it up by repeatedly mentioning how the orcs are sighing and passive-aggressively tapping their watches while they wait for their turn in the initiative order. 

#YOU TAKE YOUR TIME NOT LIKE THOG HAS LIFE OF OWN#NO NO YOU TAKE ANOTHER MINUTE#THOG NEED CALL GIRLFRIEND AND CANCEL DATE ANYWAY

Rolls to Alarm Your Players

Want to spice the game up? Why not try alarming your players for no real reason? Make sure to make a show out of counting the dice before you roll.

So imagine a DnD character who's whole motivation is 'X guy killed my parents and I need to find them' and the party just thinks 'ok, revenge quest, that's normal'

But when they finally find the guy the person with dead parents is just like "Hey buddy, long time no see. It's a shame we got separated, here's some money" and they're super chill.

The party is just confused and goes "Wait, why are you giving him gold?"

The guy just goes "Cause I owe him money?"

The party "But he killed your parents???"

"That's why I owe him money!"

D&D has become so much more fun since it clicked for me that I'm not the character, I'm the writer in charge of the character

If you're the character, bad rolls and bad calls reflect badly on you. You want to Win because that means you're doing D&D right, and if things go wrong, it's because you're doing it wrong.

If you're the writer, your number one job is to do things to your character that the character does not like because that gives them the chance to be interesting.

Likewise, running a campaign becomes SO MUCH EASIER when you realize that the people sitting around your table aren't just your audience, they're your writers room for this show you're all making together and you can invite them in on the creative process so you don't have to bear the burden alone.

D&D has become so much more fun since it clicked for me that I'm not the character, I'm the writer in charge of the character

If you're the character, bad rolls and bad calls reflect badly on you. You want to Win because that means you're doing D&D right, and if things go wrong, it's because you're doing it wrong.

If you're the writer, your number one job is to do things to your character that the character does not like because that gives them the chance to be interesting.