One of the things I appreciate about Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition over any previous edition of D&D is the simplicity of their rules regarding underwater adventuring. Trying to fight something underwater? It’s either impossible or you’re bad at it. Unless you’re used to being underwater due to exposure or training, have magical aid, or are a type of person who just lives under water. In previous versions, there were a lot of rules about the types of actions that you can take under water, how shooting things works, how to attack things when the attacker or the attackee is out of the water and the other one is in it, and then all the fiddly little compounding numbers that come out of those declarations and determinations.
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Withholding Information At The Table
There is a seductive delight in knowning something someone else does not and wishes to. As studies of behavior on the internet have taught us, most people’s motivation for engaging with people on the internet outside of their social circles is to feel superior to other people. Is it any wonder that some people find it difficult to share information that they alone lay claim to? Is it any wonder that some people fall prey to the delight of withholding information someone else wants in order to drive some tension and drama into what might otherwise be a calm, peaceful moment? Even I am not immune to the allure of gently taunting someone with knowledge I have the power to share or withhold.
Continue readingThe Horror Game Is Off To a Great Start!
After approximately a month and a half, I got to return to my main weekly D&D campaign and run the next session (the first full session) in the extra-universal domain I built way back in 2020 when I was bored due to only working alternate weeks. I set up a whole mystery thing I was going to unveil for a different campaign since one of my core players loved mysteries, but she wound up withdrawing from the campaign because only doing stuff online became too much for her, so I recycled it into a different D&D campaign. Now, one kidnapping and a side character later, my players have fully immersed themselves in a world of betentacled eyeball sunrises, screams instead of clock chimes to mark passing hours, and a massive mystery to solve before the constant wear of terror and nothingness grinds down their very souls.
Continue readingAt the Far End of the Bell Curve
When I spin together a world for a tabletop roleplaying game, I always make sure that I, at least, understand why the world works the way it does. I don’t need to know every single law of physics, magic, or society, and I have no interest in filling in every potential gap, but I make sure I know why things are in their current state. Most of the time, this is economics, politics, and society, the reasons people do things, what they want, and what their goals are. In one of my D&D games, this means that I had to know why the world exists in the state it does.
Continue readingMy Horror-ble Need For Tabletop Music
Trying to find the right music for a tabletop roleplaying game is a pain in the ass. You have to find something that evokes the right emotions in people other than just yourself without asking your audience since that would risk revealing something. You need to figure out how to incorporate it for the right dramatic tension if it applies to what you’re doing. You need something that either no one will recognize or that will evoke the right feelings even if it is still recognized. Not to mention finding enough music in the first place, equalizing it all so a song never comes on that completely interrupts the tension you’re building, and knowing the songs well enough that you can time things out. Or just finding stuff that can repeat endlessly.
Continue readingDungeon Master Chris’ Complex Custom Content
One of my strengths as a DM is my ability to create customized, interesting content. I normally wouldn’t assert this because it includes a value judgment and is based on preferences, but part of the nature of customized content is adapting things to fit the interests of the people involved. It can be incredibly exhausting to do when the various players have very different interests (shoutout to my lovely but incredibly interest-diverse D&D group that meets no more than once every other week), but it is incredibly satisfying when it works out.
Continue readingThe Best D&D Story Genre Is Mix-And-Match
I’ve begun introducing some elements of horror into one of my D&D campaigns. One of the BBEGs of the whole homebrew world is essentially nothingness that is something. The Void, since I can’t help but enjoy an allusion to a common phrase. Because when you stare into The Void in this homebrew D&D world, it literally stares back into you. It provides a great tool to mechanism ennui, doubt, and questions about the purpose of it all in a D&D game where some of the players are interested in asking those questions.
Continue readingA Verbose Guide to Vexatious Villain Introductions
It is always dangerous (and frequently difficult) when introducing a villain in dungeons and dragons, especially a big villain meant to last a while. If they’re near the players in power initially, there’s a good chance the players might just take them out immediately, bringing their villany to a premature end. If they’re too powerful, the players might take a shot at them and be wiped out by the response. Additionally, there’s the stretch in credibility that comes when a super-powered entity doesn’t just lay waste to the plucky young heroes at their first meetting. You can make a good story out of the villain taunting the weaker protagonists, egging them on for some dramatic final confrontation, but that requires a certain style of story and it is difficult to smoothly employ in a shared storytelling medium like a tabletop RPG.
Continue readingPlaying Outside The Session
I’ve been experimenting with different ways of playing Dungeons and Dragons lately. Not in a “these are the rules of the game” kind of way, but in how the sessions are formatted, how time passes, what kind of activities are available during those times. That sort of thing. I was prompted by my desire to run three d&d groups combined with my inability to run three groups every week. One game stayed weekly, another is monthly, and the third is sort of every two or three weeks, depending on people’s availability during the one time each week we all had available.
Continue readingA Focus on Power Fantasies Ruins TTRPGs For Everyone
I saw someone post on Twitter that Dungeons and Dragons is all about power fantasies and, as a result, most people play characters that are like them in an effort to roleplay situations that make them, personally, feel powerful. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this idea and a WHOLE lot of thoughts about how it can play out in actual games. Part of the problem, of course, is that making any blanket statement based on your personal experiences shows your personal biases, privelege, and frequently overlooks the experiences of people who aren’t like you. I’m going to try to avoid making any such statements here by talking about my experiences specifically, but I will have to generalize a bit unless I’m going to write an entire novel. Which has a certain appeal, but this isn’t really the medium for discourse at length.
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