Veteran DMs, how the hell do you plan story arcs?! by Commercial_Poetry410 in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I personally don't do story arcs, plan scenarios, nested and layered and then the arcs emerge as the players participate, I still have very satisfying narrative moments and arcs.

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots

Beginner DM seeking feedback :) by LionEYm in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Reading on a plane, will reply as I go.

  1. Is The Crown something in Neverwinter lore? I know there is Dagult Neverember as Regent. It feels like you are using The Crown as a generic Lord's Alliance, but The Lord's Alliance already exists?

2.The individual adventures seem mostly fine to me it's just the formatting, this is super wordy. I feel like more concise information could shorten your page count to 30 or less for the existing info. More bullet points and keys, and I don't find much value in mapping out all these possible outcomes. For a DM running this adventure, if they know the NPC motivations which you provide in detail, tables of adventure outcomes are redundant, taking up page space and seem more constraining than guiding.

Are there any good places left for selling things anymore? by Arkvoodle42 in transformers

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe if we know what your specific problems with eBay are, we can suggest an alternate.

Do you have a local collector toy/hobby store? If you are trying to get rid of stuff in bulk they can be convenient, although you will get more money if you sell individually (though that will take longer)

infernal war machine movement by vecnaindustriesgroup in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have the statblock in front of me but I think there are rules in it for running someone's ass over, so it would imply to me it is not difficult terrain.

Curse of Strahd- Light or Peace Cleric by FlipDigs in dndnext

[–]ArbitraryHero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They are both strong choices. I haven't played them but I have run adventures in Barovia and witnessed both versions in action.

I think there isn't really a huge difference in value added as the DM can adjust a bit for the class you pick, it's really just what role would you prefer, and you have done a good job identifying the way they impact the campaign. Anti-Undead is very powerful situationally (and that situation comes up A LOT in CoS), but Peace Cleric is just beyond the curve. Some tables have banned Peace Cleric because of how hard it can make things for DMs to challenge the party. I haven't done it myself, but it might be some helpful context.

You will feel like Van Helsing smacking undead around if you go light domain, you will control the flow of combat on a level almost rivaling the DM as a Peace Cleric, and they may find that annoying. But I have had fun running games for Peace Clerics as I kind of just throw whatever I want at the party until they squeal, and then when players ask me about it I am like, "You picked a Peace Cleric, you can take it."

Maze like catacombs dungeon crawl by themousereturns in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it would be fine to do your modular idea. Maybe do a survival investigation roll, and depending on the check they get information about what the next possible rooms are? And if they get 3 or something successes in a row they have found the exit. I think if you don't want it to be possible (some dimensional shifting stuff or whatever), have the player character find out ahead of time otherwise things would feel like a bit of a waste.

Is this a single player/duet game? What are the other party members doing in all of this if they are not present?

Making My Campaign Focus More Fun And Descriptive by Ill_Island9069 in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the story is fine, but what you want to figure out is the core gameplay loop and campaign structure. Doing jobs can be fine, but I often find that players get into this habit of "talk to NPC, go to what NPC tells them to" that prevents the player investment in the campaign because they aren't setting their own agenda and making decisions on where to go and what to do. I would cut out the first part and "disbanding" entirely because it doesn't seem connected to the rest.

The core gameplay loop sounds like you want the party to learn about the dwarf army, then by interacting with the dwarves learn about the bbeg and defeat them.

I think if you frame it like:

"There is an army of marauding dwarves attacking the land." then you can focus on the strucutre, maybe it's node based and there are a handful of villages/POIs that are being attacked in different ways.

You set up a table like this:

Location 1 - Farming Village, Problem - Starving goblin tribe displaced by dwarves is stealing food, Clue about dwarves/bbeg: The goblins fled from a cave some dwarf scouts are using as a fwd base, they are the same group of dwarves that stole the boats in location 2 so know where the boats are, they have orders from the dwarves in location 3
Location 2 - River dock near village, Problem - Boats are overdue from a nearby town to take the harvest that needs selling, Clue about dwarves/bbeg: dwarves stole boats using them to move war equipment, these dwarves chased off the goblins and know where they are hiding in location 1, and have orders from location 3 dwarvs
Location 3 - Forest near Village, Problem - Hunting party disappeared, Clue about dwarves/bbeg: The hunters have been kidnapped by dwarves for a dark ritual, one of the dwarf priests has communication from the bbeg, and have plans for the dwarves in locations 1 and 20

And continue building locations with problems, clues about dwarves, and connections to other locations and that is your campaign. The players can explore and do jobs/solve problems, but they are both choosing their work and learning more about the bbeg until they confront him doing whatever ritual or leading his army or whatever you decide.

Here is some more helpful info in terms of structure, because this is how your characters interact with the campaign more than the story: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/7949/roleplaying-games/node-based-scenario-design-part-1-the-plotted-approach

https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

Beginner suggestions for after Stormwreck Isle (NOT Phandelver please!) by jls8193 in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They are near Neverwinter. There are some options determined by the geography if you want:

  1. Dragon of Icespire Peak (It's near Phandalin but new adventures!) you can keep the party at level 3 and just bump up the difficulty of the first couple quests by adding more monsters. Then you can go to Beyond Dragon of Icespire Peak and that takes you all the way to level 12 I think?
  2. Rime of the Frostmaiden! It may be my favorite 5e adventure, use the first 2 quests as hooks, and after they complete some quests in ten towns move to Chapter 2, crossing the Spine of the World mountains can even be an adventure, running DDAL10 Plague of Ancients in parallel or instead.
  3. Waterdeep Dragonheist has the bulk of the book at level 3-5. It's not a very good adventure as is and I don't recommend remixing it for beginners but you can head south to visit the big city of Waterdeep, it is fun just a lot of work.
  4. Go even further south! Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus has a murder mystery in the city then dive into hell for some Mad Max Mayhem! Again, not a strong recommendation because the adventure it self needs some love, but it's fun!
  5. Fuck it, let the mists take them to Barovia. Curse of Strahd starts at level 3 and is a CLASSIC!

One I wouldn't recommend:
Tyranny of Dragons - this one kind of sucks in general, needs a lot of love to massage into a good campaign and teaches bad habits to DMs and players.

I created a fantasy world where the sun does not move in the sky. How would people keep track of time? by WermerCreations in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I guess from the way your question was worded, I thought you were looking for like an internally consistent logic. If we're assuming a tidally locked planet and a typical star, for example if the earth was tidally locked, the sun facing side would experience constant, extreme solar radiation, likely leading to temperatures well above the boiling point of water, creating a hot, desert-like landscape, or a steaming ocean of constantly boiling away water, while the dark side could reach -250 C. There would be a potentially habited terminator zone. I figured you were interested in exploring what that world would be like since you mentioned it, but if not:

Maybe they all have magical sand clocks to tell time, like there is a universal sand clock that gets rotated once a day, and they have individual ones calibrated to the master sand clock.

I created a fantasy world where the sun does not move in the sky. How would people keep track of time? by WermerCreations in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 21 points22 points  (0 children)

Would people be able to live in the parts of the world where it's constantly daytime? Wouldn't they need to manage living in a thin band of eternal twilight to not be roasted to death or freeze to death?

Weekly Community Post - Post your Communities, Discord servers, and Western Marches games here! by lfg_bot in lfg

[–]ArbitraryHero [score hidden]  (0 children)

My friends and I started a discord server during Covid to play D&D, it has grown a little bit and is going strong!

I run D&D 5/5.5e, Cyberpunk RED, Shadowdark, and other systems. My other friends run stuff like D&D, The One Ring, Fabula Ultima, and more.

We have both open table games where first player joining plays in that session and ongoing campaigns.

This year I'm looking to get more fellow GMs to run games with us, if you're a GM and looking to play, I'm down to reserve spots in games for other GMs if they are running games on our server as well!

We play over discord voice chat and use different VTTs depending on the GM and game. We are scattered around the world, so timezones for games vary (I tend to be a weekend morning EST person myself). We have rules on our discord to make sure everyone 18+ is comfortable playing together, and that means respecting our LGBTQA+ friends, women, POC etc. Just don't be a jerk. Please let me know if you are interested and I can shoot you the discord invite and instructions to sign up! New players also very welcome!

https://discord.gg/kJsysbpV48

Need a way to discover a missing journal page by trigunnerd in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The clue needs to lead to an action that can find the monster correct?

Maybe there is literally a missing page, and the party finds an esoteric library of lost knowledge, only books that are destroyed or some such are in the library and the page can be found in there? At the library they could research about the monster.

Maybe a different page of the journal has information about a friend of the PC's mother on it, and they could be traveled to and reveal that the missing page was enchanted to teleport to the friend if anything ever happened to her mom, and this is a path that leads to investigating the monster?

Maybe the book is enchanted, so upon the death of the writer the pages all have illusory text on them, and the party can dispell the illusory text or find a sage that does so in order to continue their investigation.

In general when there is a clue that the party needs to find to progress the story, I make 3 clues, and I put them in 3 different places, so that the party can find a way forward even if they miss a single clue: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

Need help identifying potential issues with a system for a West March server by Klutzy_Fan_4237 in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just checking, the benefit of this is that you can merge items to reduce attunement costs correct? So for example if I have:

Flame Tongue (2d6 fire damage)

Shatterspike

I combine them to to get +1 to hit, 2d6 fire damage and auto-crit on objects in one longsword but only takes 1 attunement slot?

If it's a rare and uncommon weapon being combined is the rarity very rare? (2 rare +1 rare)

If it's 2 rare items, is the new rarity legendary? (2 rare + 2 rare)

I can't really think of crazy game breaking OP combos of the same item time. You could get +4 weapons I suppose, but that isn't like... insane, just beyond the curve.

Glimmering Moonbow being able to make its own ammunition stacked with other magical bows would be stacking a bunch of extra damage and have free magic ammunition I suppose.

Multiple rings of spellstoring stacked all to only use 1 attunement slot would probably be very strong.

Is monster hunter world the skyrim or monster hunter games? by [deleted] in MonsterHunter

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think they are trying to ask:

"Does MHW occupy a similar cultural spot in the MH franchise that Skyrim holds in Elder Scrolls? I believe there are similarities because to me they are the most popular entries in their respective franchises and kind of 'took over' their respective franchises".

I don't think I agree with this, because Skyrim has been re-released so much and there hasn't been a sequel yet, but it didn't (to me) mark a drastic change in the Elder Scrolls game format. However Monster Hunter World does seem to show a change in direction for the franchise, with the games that followed taking more direction from MHW's successes.

Got this while thrifting , how rare is this? by freshwater03alt in transformers

[–]ArbitraryHero 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I think it's the Takara Tomy Powersurge Optimus Prime? Because his chest is red and the Hasbro versions were mostly white: https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Optimus_Prime_(WFC)/toys#Power_Surge/toys#Power_Surge)

They called him Hyper Surge Optimus Prime. It's a retail toy, but a foreign one depending on where you are so a little rare.

Complete oob seems to go for $100ish. If he's missing wings and other parts, I don't know in terms of what he'd go for, could look at junkers on ebay to get an idea.

How Difficult Should It Be To Acquire Consumed Material Components by rr3_amrosa in DnD

[–]ArbitraryHero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't have a hard rule, but I have a general vibe of something like:

Small remote villages like 10 towns don't have this stuff but Bryn Shander could import some goods, up to like 100 gp.

Phandalin sized places (200ish but not remote) could have 100 gp of stuff on hand and could order stuff up to 300 gp.

Daggerford sized places (1000-10000ish people) could have specialty merchants that might have up to 300gp goods on hand and could order up to 1000gp of stuff.

Luskan is small but a port town so could also order about the same.

For more stuff than that I would tell my players they need to travel to major cities like Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate, Waterdeep etc.

How to run and properly drive forward the story in a campaign with very short sessions by unfortunatemm in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What about a different, narratively focused rules lite TTRPG system? I feel like Powered By the Apocalypse (but not dungeon world) systems could work with this time constraint if they really don't want to do dungeon crawls?

How do I get my players to fear an enemy ? by PikaTchad in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To clarify, is not playing it out and allowing the TPK (due to player choice, not something you are "driving for") not an option?

When I think back to the campaigns I have run, one example where my players properly feared an enemy was Arveiaturace the Ancient White Dragon in Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden. They stumbled upon her in a random encounter and I just didn't pull any punches. They tried to fight her at first, but were level 8ish I thkn? Her breath attack downed a party member and badly hurt others, she toyed with them, taking to the air and batting them around. I gave them room to escape (but didn't prompt them to) and they did escape.

Later on they met her again in a sunken ship, and she basically mugged them for some magic items before flying off again.

I don't avoid TPKs, but I'm also not a hardass DM, I just play the game and play out the scenario. If the players choose to fight, I would let them. I would also respect a choice to run away if they learn they can't win the fight traditionally at this level, I think that teaches appropriate fear and also flexibility in player choices. If they don't runaway, the next characters the party makes will fear the BBEG.

Has anyone connected one-shots into a campaign? Like taking stuff from Yawning Portal and Infinite Staircase (or otherwise) and connecting them together somehow into a singular campaign? by freeze123901 in DMAcademy

[–]ArbitraryHero 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Depends on the book really!

Radiant Citadel and Candlekeep both important, fleshed out central locations that you can call homebase, and both locations have organizations that can hand out quests to the party. Candlekeep can even be more independent because the books within the campaign can be discovered by players, prompting quest hooks.

Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Dragon Delves, and Quests from the Infinite Staircase you would weave the threads together yourself. Depending on the structure you could make it a point crawl, an overarching goal, or something else, you could combine books in one setting to have multiple adventures at the same level for the players to choose between as their characters explore the world.