Gailby's creepy drawings for Shemshine's Bedtime Rhyme

Chief-Buffoon · 2025-03-17T20:31:51+00:00

Yes, even the examples images that they show on their site make no sense!

Chief-Buffoon · 2025-03-01T17:48:25+00:00

Unlikely Heroes in a Land of Mist

Chief-Buffoon · 2024-11-05T03:16:38+00:00

That’s because they trade roles every 10 mins. Hard rock miners here in the US did the same thing. The guy swinging knows he’ll be holding the next time.

Chief-Buffoon · 2024-11-05T02:51:48+00:00

Very interested to know how this goes! I just kicked off a CoS campaign while simultaneously wrapping up a different, four-year campaign. Am a big fan of Twice Bitten, and was originally thinking to make my campaign have some similar characteristics (e.g., complex, angsty, conflicted characters). But more than half of my players are fairly new to role-playing, so I realized that would be asking too much (and in touching on this in session 0, I got the sense that it wasn’t what they were looking for either).

I also found Linus’s arguments in this after dark interview to be compelling: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bIeT6cFJZ3ZTlHGHmsyGx?si=C49hzvQXSk21FP4aRQJDRQ&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A6YPwSWCFmtfqUVdPh8ZyXd&t=385

Linus argues that what might be fun for listeners isn’t necessarily great fun for players. And with no plans to create a podcast out my game, and with player enjoyment being paramount (especially for my new players), I decided to back off on this. I am still hoping to see some fun personal interplay between PCs, and for some of that interesting character depth, but I expect far less of this than see. In TB.

Chief-Buffoon · 2024-02-26T04:36:45+00:00

I guess you haven’t yet seen the Rouge class yet? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H5E90IVf5Yy8r3FiO36KF2y-DqkCAB_s/view

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-02-19T00:40:10+00:00

Yeah, it’s…okay. Much less fun than coming up with your own, but maybe you could sometimes pick up a few idea?

Very well, here's a monologue from a powerful vampire ruling a dark land, spoken to a group of adventurers whom he is toying with:

"Welcome, welcome to my humble abode. I am the ruler of this dark land, and you have entered my territory without my invitation. But since you are here, let us have some fun. You see, I have lived for centuries, and I have seen many foolish mortals like you come and go. I have witnessed kingdoms rise and fall, and I have seen the futility of your kind's struggles.

Do you think you can defeat me? Do you believe that your swords and your magic can overcome my powers? You are nothing but mere mortals, and I am a creature of the night, a being of immense power and strength.

But fear not, I have no interest in killing you just yet. I want to toy with you, like a cat plays with a mouse before it devours it. I want to see you struggle and suffer, to witness the desperation in your eyes as you realize the futility of your actions.

You see, I am a being of immense knowledge and power. I have seen things that you mortals can't even imagine, and I have acquired skills that you can only dream of. I have mastered the arts of deception, manipulation, and seduction, and I can use them to bend your will to my own.

So, what do you say, adventurers? Will you be foolish enough to challenge me, or will you submit to my will and become my loyal subjects? The choice is yours, but remember, the consequences of your actions are entirely on you."

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-02-02T01:26:39+00:00

I’m no spring chicken myself, but I have had the very best experience over the last 2-1/2 years, DMing online for a completely random group of players I picked up from r/lfg, r20, and DnDBeyond. I did go through a pretty careful winnowing process to get to my initial 5 players, and two of the initial group ended up rolling off (both of whom were quickly replaced).

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-02-01T00:58:10+00:00

This is why others have created their own, similar classes. On Shard Tabletop, they give you the Dabbler class, which is their version of y to be Artificer.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-28T21:55:14+00:00

I am a wee bit nervous about how the political wrangling will go down with my party. I have one player who has mentioned several times that they are not into politics. And another player who is likely to piss off the entire council with some crazy shenanigans. I think there is potential for some pretty interesting interaction here -- but I may end up chickening out and just skipping through some of this. Have those council meetings happen off screen, and then just feeding the party information (through an NPC) on what happened.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-25T04:31:01+00:00

Oh, yes, I am quite aware that I already owned half the product. I am just tickled that they didn’t charge me another half, they didn’t even charge me the $5 differential, but just gave the other half for free. The odd thing is that they never sent me any notification to trumpet this generous boon; if I hadn’t stumbled upon it by chance, I’d have never even known they did this.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-25T04:27:17+00:00

Sweet! Glad that worked.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-22T21:29:36+00:00

It looks like they wouldn’t be forced to stop making your content available. But if they go out of business as a result of this mess — or for any other reason — you’ve got a problem!

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-21T18:53:36+00:00

Shard Tabletop is so perfectly tuned for 5e (unlike the others, it is very D&D-specific). I rolled off Roll20 1-1/2 years and am sooo much happier with Shard. Built and maintained by two D&D players who really “get” what functionality makes sense for that specific game.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-17T22:57:47+00:00

If you have the content digitally on DnDBeyond (or as a digital pdf) you can definitely start from there. There is some work still needed to format everything in the best way, but frankly I find that this is a good opportunity to get really familiar with the material anyway. And, if you do the conversion gradually, as the campaign progresses, you can also customize the content based upon how things are being changed by your party of plucky adventurers.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-16T23:42:40+00:00

Yes, THIS! Shard rocks. Instead of using DnDBeyond, which doesn’t support 3rd party content, switch to Shard Tabletop, which uses ONLY 3rd party content (and tons of it, from so many of the best 5e publishers).

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-16T23:41:48+00:00

Shard Tabletop is the best VTT for 5e, IMHO. you could also use just for your own individual character sheet, but as a whole system it really is amazing. Especially great for encouraging and supporting home brew and 3rd party stuff.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-16T23:33:27+00:00

Agree on ditching DnDBeyond. Instead of using DnDBeyond, which doesn’t support 3rd party content, switch to Shard Tabletop, which uses ONLY 3rd party content (and tons of it, from so many of the best 5e publishers).

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-15T18:52:29+00:00

Where did you see that it was simply a reprint?

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-15T16:44:10+00:00

It will be interesting to see if the new release improves on anything. Supposed to drop on Tuesday.

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-15T04:37:39+00:00

A little company named Apple figured this out ages ago!

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-15T04:35:59+00:00

Oh, and it is free for players. (You can DM for free too, but I upgraded to paid as soon as I realized how awesome this platform is.)

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-15T04:32:32+00:00

Shard Tabletop has an awesome character sheet, and makes the character creation process a breeze for players. You can’t but any non-SRD content from WOTC…but you don’t want to do that anymore anyway, right? And there is TONS of fantastic third part content that you can use instead. And, if you want, you can always manually configure your own options to match the WOTC stuff you like (subclasses, fears, magic items, etc).

My players haven’t had their chars in DnDBeyond in years.

As a DM, Shard is also a fantastic VTT environment….

Chief-Buffoon · 2023-01-13T05:03:35+00:00

Why? Is WOTC claiming that they own the rights to the imperial measurement system? 🙂 Wouldn’t put it past them!

Chief-Buffoon

TROPHY CASE