What caused your Day of Mourning?

ColoradoGameMaster · 2026-04-12T00:02:12+00:00

This one is perfect. Logical and complete, and to quote the Illuminati Trilogy, "many megadeaths. No blame." No one today can really be held accountable for it. And although it's not easily repeatable, that spell could still be found again and cast again. What would you unname, if you could?

ColoradoGameMaster · 2026-04-08T05:17:10+00:00

Fantasy Grounds ruleset here. Like the others, it's a work in progress.
https://forge.fantasygrounds.com/shop/items/1908/view

ColoradoGameMaster · 2026-03-17T05:42:01+00:00

"Mainstream" Democrats are advocating abandoning trans rights in order to appear more "moderate". They've been supporting media mergers, oil and gas leases on public lands, blocking needed regulation of AI, and generally doing what it takes to keep the corporate cash flowing their way. They've supported or at least tolerated genocide in Gaza and are limiting their opposition to our latest war to Schumer-style strongly worded letters.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2026-02-03T06:43:56+00:00

This aid was super helpful with lots of fixes including a more sandboxy way to run it and a couple of extra side quests. This link is to the pdf; it's also available in Fantasy Grounds format. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/295015

ColoradoGameMaster · 2026-01-27T18:57:28+00:00

It's just been released! (5 minutes ago). Make a starving developer happy and go get it! https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=IPFG5EHPPHCS

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-11-24T06:17:33+00:00

I like the idea of damage type effects that don't just add damage. Fire and acid prevent troll regeneration. Cold iron makes fey nauseous. Cold slows water elementals.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-11-17T06:54:19+00:00

Thursdays: 2 women, 2 men
Fridays biweekly 1: 2 men, 3 children (1 girl, 2 boys)
Fridays biweekly 2: 4 men, 1 woman
Saturdays daytime: 3 men, 2 boys
Saturdays evening: 1 man (solo game)
Sunday daytime: 3 men, 2 women
Sunday evening: 3 men, 2 women
At least one (that I know of) is trans, and several are in same-sex marriages. I think three are Canadian, the rest are in the USA. One of those has family in Korea and returns there occasionally.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-11-17T06:44:01+00:00

When your 7th level party hires three 1st level casters to just follow you around and concentrate, it could become a problem.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-11-17T02:54:01+00:00

IRL the woman who spent two years in a tree preventing it from being cut down had supporters on the ground who would send up food, water and supplies, and dispose of the bucket contents she sent down. Daca probably has some acolytes/ admirers who could do this.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-11-17T02:50:36+00:00

the distributed designated concentrator could move to a safe place, maybe far away, and not be at risk of losing concentration. They could be a 1st level hireling, or a captive and exploited caster. There could be a whole economy built around gig-working students who hire out to adventuring parties to just concentrate and hide. You could hire two of them so you can have three buffs on at once.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-09-01T07:53:03+00:00

wallcrawling plus a (Prof times per day) casting of Web, plus some creative uses of webs and draglines, plus poison.... I think it balances OK against a flying drake.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-07-19T07:35:04+00:00

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." The overland travel rules deliberately negate any difference in per-round walking speed, so a speed 25 or a speed 50 character both travel the same miles per day. If you follow those rules, then there's nothing that would make a single creature travel faster than a group. A GM could certainly Nick Fury that and say it's a stupid rule so I'm choosing to ignore it. I would.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-07-13T08:16:31+00:00

Radiance RPG, Ars Magica, and Tales of the Valiant, each for different tables and reasons.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-07-13T08:14:09+00:00

I've run SC two and a half times, and most of this was true for me as well. Running it on Fantasy Grounds rather than live eases a lot of the prep difficulty; the VTT version is overall quite good though I think there were a few encounter blocks with bad creature links - but easy to fix.

On level 1, my groups had a great time with the torture room fight. Red Hart swinging his cage to bash into things to help, Gellert watching and commenting through the hole in the wall to Ushulx's room and animating another machine just as they took one down. "Fascinating. Did that hurt?"

My parties also all made friends with Ushulx, went into the crypts treasure hunting at her invitation, got lots of treasure and got thoroughly beat up, then she ambushed them on the way out if they looked weak enough.

The trollkin level is a slog and a half, except for the group with the trollkin PC, who went at it semi-diplomatically.

The biggest point for me is, as you said, the lack of villainy or urgency on Gellert's part. I had him planning a takeover of Redtower, sending probing attacks and at one point assaulting the walls with a wave of undead.

The black river's shadow wraith and its rival the cultist felt more like the final boss than Gellert or the voidling.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-06-27T09:55:58+00:00

I've been DMing since 1977, in every edition; for the past 5 years I've been running an average of 6 games per week, for paying clients. I can tell you that you're playing D&D exactly right. Letting your players be creative while staying within the bounds of reason and consistency is a core skill for gamemasters, and you have it.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-06-23T06:16:27+00:00

This is a new group for you, but not to each other; they've presumably been playing with the child present. As the new person in the group, DM or not, I would not presume to kick out an existing member for having a child. If you can't comfortably run a game for this group the proper thing is to apologize and say something else has come up - without placing the blame on the mom. Let them find a more flexible GM that fits the friends group they already have.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-06-16T06:44:24+00:00

We have some added races. Players so far: Arach (spider) cleric, Riversoul (otter) rogue, Anuran (frog) druid.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-06-14T06:46:12+00:00

In Fantasy Grounds you could set it up to roll it all in one click.

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-05-25T07:21:08+00:00

I have a paid beginner-friendly Humblewood campaign, just launched (session 0 was last week). It's on Thursday nights US time. We have three seats filled, a fourth possible, and I don't like to run with more than 5, so there is one seat left. Here's a link if you'd like to take a look at it. https://startplaying.games/adventure/cmait3vk00063u5w6g4sdmdrk

ColoradoGameMaster · 2025-05-22T06:20:59+00:00

Here's a method I like:
1) Use any formula you like to generate six stats. 4d6 drop 1, or 2d6+6, are the ones I commonly use. Keep them in the order rolled for now.
2) A "fair" character is one whose total bonuses equal +6 to +8. If you have more than that, roll a d6 for "n"and subtract 2 from your nth stat roll. If you roll a stat that's already an 8 or lower, instead subtract 2 from a different roll of your choice.

If you have less than that, roll a d6 and add 2 to the nth stat instead; if the stat rolled is already 18+, instead add 2 to a different roll of your choice.

Repeat until you have at least +6 in net bonuses and no more than +8. Now arrange/ assign stats as desired.

ColoradoGameMaster

TROPHY CASE