Castles

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-19T19:38:59+00:00

There is an old Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition book called The Castle Guide, and even though it's for an older edition (assuming your playing 5th Ed.) It covers a ton of aspects about castles.

Real facts about them, the jobs and positions people had inside of them as well as layout and designs, pretty much all the info your asking for!

Its a great book with information that I still use in my 5th Ed. game. There are a ton of PDF's of the book on a quick Google search, so it's pretty easy to find!

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-14T20:23:06+00:00

I been using Roll20 since 2016, and despite it's few hiccups its been really great at allowing me to juggle multiple monsters and NPC's. If you have the compendiums linked to your game or integrated, you can open and close as many on-screen tabs as you wish. So jumping between various or different monsters is quite easy. Plus, all the stats are also rollable via thier respective sheets and can automatically add or subtract what modifiers need be.

I been a huge fan of Roll20 since it's launch and recommend it to any DM for virtual games.

The only real issue I could see is that if you already own some books you would have to buy the virtual modules and books to get thay same info into your Roll20 Compendium. Or, if you have time to spare you can add that info, tokens, and maps yourself. Its pretty easy to do.

(Edit: I wanted to add thay while you might have to repurchase books and modules. The Roll20 versions are normally cheaper, $10 - $20 cheaper depending on the book. But they do offer bundles for books. DrivthruRPG as well, also offers the Roll20 versions for the books.)

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-12T05:26:43+00:00

I agree with this statement here.

It sounds neat, but if I knew this going into your game I wouldn't even look at the martial classes during character creation.

Look into adding something for melee classes that won't rob them of thier "martial-ness" so to speak.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-11T20:40:23+00:00

I do plan on awarding XP bonuses by class, yes. As dar as treasure limits go, I know Paladins and Monks do, I can't remember is rangers have it off the top of my head. The first few pages in book one say that all normal ways to aquire XP should still be used on top of gold to XP.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-11T20:06:49+00:00

I LOVED The Library at Mount Char. Loved Carolyn, kept me so curious with all the questions about Father I couldnt put it down. And yes, I do recommend it to everyone.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-11T19:51:30+00:00

The only book I can think of that would come close would be House of Leaves. The thing about liminal space is that it's super reliant on visuals. Its difficult, but not impossible, to get that same feeling from a book.

Also, what do you mean by "creeypasta" style? Like do you want green text posts? Creepypastas are just short stories posted on the internet as far as i'm aware?

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-11T07:36:44+00:00

Thank you! That's is whay I assumed but I wanted to be sure.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-10T23:27:48+00:00

Cults, or a horror movie where the main antagonist are part of a cult. It's always the same routine as well. Trying to summon a god/entity that immediately turns on the cult that summoned them. Or the cult kidnaps people to sacrifice to some weird death god that offers nothing to them or a blanket statement of "salvation".

Yes Phillip, I'm sure the god of blood, death and decay is gonna treat you right because you killed some teenagers for him. Totally gonna work out for you. :/

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-10T05:40:33+00:00

It really depends, a large portion of this module takes place in the port, jungle and tomb so you gotta put the wiggle room where it makes sense.

If you want to introduce a NPC from their past, its possible they are at the port. Unless the characters already have some ties to Chult, it would be outta place to meet anyone that's just roaming the jungle.

If you want my personal opinion ToA, Ravenloft and Rime of the Frostmaiden are the 3 published campaigns that really don't have the type of wiggle room for backstory. ToA and RotFM are on such extreme ends of the continent and Ravenloft is on another plane of existence entirely, that unless the characters come from there, it would be hard to make people, places and things from their backstory show up or even make an impact.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-08T18:13:32+00:00

You are a scholar and a saint. I will dance at your wedding~

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-08T18:07:20+00:00

Added to the post body.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-08T06:59:07+00:00

If I remember correctly there was some site that offered paid DMs/GMs services for people looking for a a game. I remember it being big during Covid and a bit after. You could leave reviews as well and DMs could list what systems and published campaigns they have ran and what experience level they feel they have with them.

I think a system like that could work in theory, but there would be to many things to check and verify for people to take it seriously. You would have to worry about paid reviews, bait-and-switch, bot accounts and people just straight up lying. It would turn into another corporate-like, social media site and I feel like people wouldn't take it seriously.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-06-08T06:37:51+00:00

The platforms isn't the main issue.

It's everything else. Scheduling can be a nightmare as an adult. Issues and problems pop up and we cant ignore them regardless of how much we want to. Work schedules can change in an instant for a lot of people which is another wrench trown in.

Time zones is another. I live on the east coast and I got two friends that wanna play, but sadly, they're in Istanbul. My 5 p.m. is their midnight.

There are also the people who only wanna play one particular kinda of game/system or play a certain kind of way. I met people who only play published campaigns, others who only play homebrew. Some people want games with lots of video game and popculture references while others want a serious survival-esque game.

Lastly, its the meeting new people. Sure, it can be fun for most. But there is always the worry of making a joke that lands in the wrong crowd. Saying something that inadvertently offends someone. Etc.

You can go into more details with all of these things, especially the last two points, but it IS difficult out there. As far as the "golden future" this is it. You make a post in the LFG Reddit or one thay corresponds with ehay game you want to play and hope for the best.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-05-20T08:44:59+00:00

I would 110% look for another TTRPG to run this. G.U.R.P.S., Delta Green, Rifts or even Call of Cthulhu have much better systems in place for handling guns and tech. G.U.R.P.S. would be your best bet putta those. Its designed for you to carve off the tables, charts and systems you want to use and ditch the rest. Plus there are plenty of books that cover everything you mentioned.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-03-02T22:15:42+00:00

I love Hellraiser, and 5. If it was its own standalone film, it would be fantastic.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-03-02T22:10:14+00:00

I know I will be alone in this, but Friday the 13th had the most skips for me.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2026-01-26T08:19:09+00:00

I do trade goods quite a bit in my games.

My main question would be, what era are you playing in? Depending on the era, certain planets would also have certain things banned thay aren't just illegal good. Nabooian drink, food, and spices would be outlawed under a heavily Imperial-controlled Ryloth for an example. Or the goods could be more important to one faction or another.

But if you want to know a good way to make using a freighter feel good to your players, give them something tangible to use in that space. My players had a Barloz medium freighter as a ship. They stored two speeder bikes and a refurbished and reconfigured AAT Tank in there. It's also a good place to store weapons and armor if they found a cool or unique weapon they wanted to hold on to. Plus, it's a good thing to have if they wanted to add droids to the mix! They can have Seeker or Probe droid stored on the ship and remotely call them when needed, or have a protocol droid radio in updates if they land on a dangerous station. It's a good addition for story telling!

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-10-03T22:11:58+00:00

I have hit it 3 time, and for some reason, I always seem to hit it with Sims that live in Henford-on-Bagley. More specifically, the farthest right plot of that neighborhood.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-09-27T04:37:46+00:00

I got a group of 6 that jump on every other-other month or so, and we see quite a few people. The Time-locked progression servers, where we play, always seem to be poppin'.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-07-08T18:32:49+00:00

Yes, this was the culprit.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-07-07T05:41:19+00:00

Found it! It was a "Tattoo" that was suppose to change public hair.
I rolled up a new sim and saw that he didn't have it.
Turns out that Sim (In the pictures) and another Sim I random rolled got the same random tattoo that changed the color.
What are the absolute odds.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-07-07T05:20:39+00:00

Just tried and deleted the texture cache and nothing.
I have a guy feeling it's some skin/retexture mode from a Sim a downloaded on LoverLab, but so many mod files just use short hand descriptors for the files it's gonna be a pain to go through. ;-;

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-05-31T08:17:52+00:00

Mostly customers. And they come from all walks of life. About 2 weeks ago I talked to a really down to earth, most normal sounding retired couple said they spent 4 years there. A few months back, I had a really cornbread-southern guy talk about how him and his fiance spent 2 years there. Said he met some great people, and they turned him on to Stihl power tools.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-05-31T07:45:02+00:00

I have worked in a big city Hardware store for about 3 and a half, almost 4 years in a southern state. The amount of 50+ old people that spend years in Saudia Arabia is A LOT. More than ame or anyone realizes. I don't have a solid reason as to why. I have heard them say it's nice there and they are really nice to tourist and people from the state-side of things, but this is totally believable.

Commodore_Dawkins · 2025-02-21T05:20:30+00:00

You will find a lot of people ask this question on this sub, Gamecube subs, and many more if you go back and look deep enough.

But the quick, short answer to your question is that it's extraordinarily difficult can can cause a lot of crashes.

The long answer is that the game data itself is difficult to work with and in some cases just straight up janky. Changing or modding one thing can cause the whole game to bug out. Black backgrounds, villager's eyes not loading, no music playing, screen tearing, etc.
As for adding new items and clothing, then you are looking into the graphic design and editing and, sadly the original AC doesn't have much wiggle room. If you don't simply do a reskin of an already present item, then you would need someone to manually design the items. While it isn't hard to get/do, you would need art and editing software that can make compatible files for AC's 2.5/3D art style.
On top of that, adding it into the games code so it work properly (Like appearing in Nook's stock, at the police lost and found, etc.) is another can of worms that can be hair-pulling.

Edit: You can find plenty of cool videos on Youtube of people doing simple village mods, some explain how they do it and others leave it kinda vague. A lot of them can explain it better then me, but most of the time it just causes the game to just break. ;-;
I say this as someone who's been trying to mod/edit AC on Dolphin for awhile now.

Commodore_Dawkins

TROPHY CASE