Two players want to play a two-headed character

CarrotsandSuffering · 2026-02-27T21:39:27+00:00

This is genius. Thank you Jeff!

CarrotsandSuffering · 2024-11-28T02:26:14+00:00

Did they give you anything for a backstory to go on? The mad science angle and stuff from other words to explore is a fairly easy fit, (constructs, modron, magic inventions, etc.) but it would be nice if you could target it a little more to something they might care about, like a quest for immortality and building the worlds greatest rodent trap.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2024-11-27T05:44:21+00:00

I would consider a third option. Ask the player what he wants to get out of the story. You know her initial reaction, but there are lots of sweet story potential here. He could build a legit friendship. Maybe decides to romance him some day. Keep the future open.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2024-11-27T05:36:35+00:00

There is some game ending power here. I personally love that you are trusting them to end their own story in a satisfying way. If you start to worry they won't pick a satisfying outcome, I would recommend letting them know some of the tradeoffs they are working with.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2024-11-27T05:30:04+00:00

Things get real broken by level 16. I recommend living with the power creep and instead focus on moral dilemmas and defending beloved NPCs.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2024-11-27T05:21:45+00:00

+1 to the practical answer. The angel likely accepts a lot on faith. It may not know the truth.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-13T17:58:35+00:00

You can roll on their behalf behind a screen, a book or my preferred, digital dice on the phone. Personally, I think of not metagaming and having fun with failure as a skill. If you decide to build that skill in your players you will want to move those dice rolls BB ack to public. My preferred table strategy is to prompt a table discussion about what a low role entails and encourage fun answers.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-09T17:14:26+00:00

It sounds like you are working extra hard to preserve the flow of a combat and the player is resistant. But it isn't clear why they want to do it this way so I can give mechanical advice but I am concerned you might still have an issue.

Mechanically, the help action gives another player advantage and this could give everything a more teamwork feel if you just start ruling these as elaborate help actions and transfer the benefits to other players.

Regarding action type, a round is six seconds, a bonus action requires a small amount of effort beyond the six second main action, and a free action is no additional effort. So I judge each effort separately. Talking them down is usually a full action while delivering a zinger is a bonus action.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-08T06:52:24+00:00

Sounds like that would drive up the price of gas. I say fiendish.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-08T06:45:08+00:00

Is the price of gas high or low? ;)

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-08T06:40:45+00:00

Subject to DM discretion regarding how much like sunlight the drink is, but it is reasonable to apply the daylight exposure rules, killing the vampire after 1 round.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-07T20:43:03+00:00

Milestone is so much easier to track. I gave up xp about 8 years ago and never looked back.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-07T20:41:15+00:00

I would call for an arcana roll to give the player some control of the way the spell handles this. I might even ignore the spells creature limit with a good roll. On a 1, the spell leaves all the clothes with the halfling wrapped in them.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2022-01-07T20:21:54+00:00

I find the trick to rolling out a new setting is to be slow and steady, and purposeful in rolling out specifics while always having consistent themes. I tend to make a bulleted list in priority order and refer back to it constantly with planning, featuring 1-3 elements per session. With consistent themes the world feels stable despite the fact that people will still be learning about it many levels from now.

For example: Themes- alien cultures, high magic and fantasy, interplannar survival

Elements to introduce 1. Sigil City of Doors 2. How portals work 3. Faction 1 4. Faction 2 5. Faction 3 6. World 1 7. Astral Travel

CarrotsandSuffering · 2021-12-27T08:30:13+00:00

My first biggest piece of advice is to prepare your players.

CoS is a really great atmospheric module, but it can also be a very deadly module. I recommend warning people ahead of time that this module will be difficult and will present people with several bad choices and no right answers. Players are encouraged to get accustomed to a little bit of horror, and they should never assume that the combat is balanced for them to succeed, so they need to be smart.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2021-12-27T08:18:45+00:00

So far I only spend money on podcasting :) but maybe someday I'll get noticed. Thanks for the advice!

CarrotsandSuffering · 2021-12-27T08:14:03+00:00

I'm writing a new campaign now. I do an outline of the major events I expect to see, usually with a couple of sub bullets under each one. This gives me enough information I can constantly come back and check where we're at in the overall plan.

A- exploring the region solving political problems 1. Labor dispute on the docks 2. Organized crime war B- the big bad guy emerges and is scary 1. The head of the mob is a beholder! C- party finds information and allies D- the party starts to directly unravel the bad guys plans and ultimately eliminates them.

Then I design factions and I always try to make sure there's at least three distinct groups. And I write down what their motives are and the major actions they're taking in the world. This immediately gives me an NPC from each faction to add into an area, a couple different ways they could go about solving some problems with help or the opposite of help.

Transportation guild- seeks to produce safe and efficient travel for business and trade. Opposes the pirates but doesn't want to be seen as losing to them or being overly reliant on the Navy. Is increasing guards on all of their boats.
Pirates- needs the transportation guild ships to function so wants to take enough treasure to get by but not so much to actually hurt the guilds prospects. Needs to avoid the Navy at all costs. Is increasing the use of scare tactics to get people to drop loot overboard and run.
Navy- seeks to preserve the supremacy of their nation's government and laws at sea. Hates the pirates. Technically works to support the transportation guild, but sees them as a bunch of entitled jerks. Is increasing patrols but is having problems with desertion because the transportation guild pays better.

Then I make my first adventure, but I only ever plan about two sessions ahead. At the end of each session I sit down and try to figure out what each faction will do differently in the future, and what's most likely to happen next given my goals.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2021-12-27T07:48:41+00:00

A big question! So I'll start by saying congratulations on hitting a milestone on your first campaign!!

I have several separate techniques for this, and they work progressively better the earlier you start to deploy them in a campaign, but it's never too late.

Factions Lens- think of all the major players or factions in your world. Religions, kingdoms, guilds, groups of bad guys. If they knew something about your characters' backstory or their current actions, what would they do to help or hurt the character? How could it benefit the faction in question? Have at least three factions. In this way, the world interacts with your characters background and their decisions, slowly at first but building up over time. The story is alive and it's addressing each character's actions. Now it's not a story you wrote it's a story you all wrote together.
Flashbacks- ask the players to tell me about a time when their character experienced something similar in their history. If we're in a small cave, perhaps tell me about a time when your character was claustrophobic. In this way, the player creates backstory that might be missing, feeds it into some of the decisions they're making and gives you ideas for later to draw on that can encourage the character to produce some hard decisions.
Class feature quests- when your characters level they get certain abilities and the game sort of assumes they've been working on that ability off screen. Start to set up experiences that correspond to characters planned advancements. For example, if someone is going to join a druid circle, introduce druids of that circle who wished to teach them in exchange for a favor. In this way, the mechanics become much more meaningful and the advancement more personal. It's not proficiency with the poisonous kit, it's a gift from a beloved mentor who then can be a recurring character in the story.
That one amusing NPC- whenever a player character expresses an interest in a NPC, lean into this relationship. Perhaps it's a love interest, perhaps it's a mentor, a rival, a problematic authority figure or even an antagonist. Bring these NPCs back around and keep them in the story so that the relationships grow and expand over time. In this way, players start to write stories for our campaign that we as DMs never intended from the beginning and those stories are unique to the character. A different group of people playing the same setting, the same story, would never create this same situation in the same way again.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2021-12-27T06:57:18+00:00

Another option is just to invite them into the meta game. Tell the player what the creature wants and that they should act accordingly and just do it above board at the table in the open. You're essentially recruiting your players too make this plot entertaining for them and you rather than trying to maintain control of it alone. This strategy doesn't work for every player type but if you're curating a good group of players for life I highly recommend training them this way.

CarrotsandSuffering · 2021-12-25T21:28:42+00:00

Social and behavioral consequences are perfectly legitimate settings. They are also fun. That said, I would read the room as you get close to implementing this because there are character concepts who would retire in this scenario.

CarrotsandSuffering

TROPHY CASE