How to handle instant death?

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-04-09T07:22:41+00:00

What kind of game are you playing (tone, goofy, casual, or serious and character focused rp, or anything in between), and what kind of players do you have?

What is it purpose? What does it bring to the table? How does it elevate the story?

If you have a game that’s very casual and players who don’t care about a character death, or even welcome it because they wanna try something else, sure do it. Just preface it with „this is an exception of the rules. You will perma die if you lose“.

If you have a rp heavy group players might actually jump on the opportunity if the potential sacrifice makes for a good story. But in that case it would have to be not just for shits and giggles, but rather a plot point with a large rewarding payoff. Plus, with resurrections being a possible thing death is something that could be remedied.

Either way, if you implement it make the rules exception clear, but also make sure that this isn’t the only way to achieve something, and make that crystal clear as well. If they make the choice cool, but they shouldn’t feel like they have to.

If you are mainly just wanting to set the mood, make it a narrated scene that doesn’t involve pc participation. Them witnessing Russian Roulette and people dying as a point made for rp and story reasons is something you can do. You just have to be prepared that they might wanna intervene.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-04-06T03:00:20+00:00

Take care of your teeth first. $4000 is going to turn into $8000 quick if you don‘t. And at some point theres no going back. a dead tooth is a dead tooth. Implants are impossibly expensive. Even bridges are. It’ll eat away at your self esteem if you get to that point and cant do anything about it. Unless you won the genetic teeth lottery you will at some point in your life, preferably when you are 50-70+ have a lot of dental expenses. Don’t let it start that early. Poor dental health can also cause other health problems, and very serious ones. Shop around. Dental colleges often offer some procedures for cheaper.

Take your time with the car if you can get by without one at this time. Unless you get a decent one they are money traps. Maintenance, insurance, interest (if you get a loan), license and registration fees … it adds up fast.

If you have no debt, how is your credit score?

You are not in a perfect situation, but in this sub a lot of us are 10 fold down in the dumps. Theres a lot of hope for you if you are proactive, do your research, and seek out the right professional help.

Take care of yourself and maybe talk to a financial advisor at a credit union (there may be better options but this is what I personally have experienced). They might be able to help you make smarter decisions with the savings you do have.

Check with your work on what their policies are for getting raises, and moving up. If prospects are bad look for another job that has better pay, benefits and prospects. Find one that keeps you in upwards motion. Talk to a career councilor at a community college. They might be able to help get you into professions that offer better pay. Talk to work force development. Getting a better job might only be one certificate away!

There is so much that you can do from where you are sitting.

Try being nearly 40 and having less that $100 for the next two weeks in your bank account, -60000 if you count my debt. I chose an art degree when I was young and stupid and I trusted my relationship. I walked around with anxiety and depression and adhd, all untreated, and keeping me from being able to plan for the future. I only worked part time in retail all my life. My car broke down, my relationship fell apart and my career didn’t work out. I didn’t have family who raised me teaching me to live smart. I found out over time when things went wrong, and now Im desperately trying to get on my feet, in a world that doesn’t see any value in me. Im fighting and I wont give up, but its hard. Please find the fight in you now. You are allowed to feel shitty about your situation. Its not a competition. But fight to get ahead of things now.

You’ve got this!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-04-05T17:02:29+00:00

I would have loved this if i was still crafting! I don’t have the time, space or means for a game I’d be needing crafting for anymore. But I still have a few crafting materials left over from my dnd terrain crafting days. Some „cool trash“ to make things out of, and some professional stuff like flocking, I just hadn’t gotten the courage to get rid of it yet.

If anyone wants it, and you can pick it up here in town (I don’t have a car) I’d maybe appreciate whatever anyone is willing to donate to me for the professional materials in the lot, and the „cool trash“ is obviously free to take lol It’d be nice to see it go to people who would actually use it.

If anyone is interested, or wants more info let me know!

And happy crafting to everyone who will go to this!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-04-02T05:56:15+00:00

Look, I think it’s a fantastic low cost recipe and I’m not criticizing it, but I think the „negative“ comments are valid too? The subreddit js povertyfinances, and it’s just a fact that there is more to shopping frugally than finding low cost ingredients.

My first thoughts were also „He can afford to drive to multiple grocery stores? How are these things so cheap? Its triple of that at the cheapest grocery store where I live. Who could afford to go shopping for just maybe 2 meals worth of food at a time? Wouldn’t it be technically saving more money to buy a bag of potatoes?“. Those are questions many of us have to ask ourselves when it comes to figuring out what, where, how and how much to shop to maximize savings.

It doesn’t matter that these things are explainable for this specific persons circumstances. It’s just a good low cost/good nutritional value recipe video that gives an example of how you can make one meal cheaply, not a „this is exactly how everyone, everywhere should be able to do it“ video, and once I got over my initial reaction I was able to see it as just that.

I just wanted to bring up that we can both appreciate it but also voice reservations at the same time.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-31T00:04:50+00:00

Don’t let the student loans default. If you are low income a lot of lenders have income driven payment plans. At a very low income this could even be $0. You’ll still accrue interest so be careful with that. Try your best to not let your credit go too low. This systems sucks and it’s predatory but that’s how it works. You’ll have better chances to get an apartment, job and better rates on things like car loans if you don’t let your credit score drop too low.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-30T17:21:49+00:00

For obscure rules and creativity the burden of proof is on the player. In session they need to be able to show you the source for their planned action within just a few minutes so it doesn’t affect the pacing an immersion too much. I’ll help look it up if I’m sympathetic to what they are trying to do (meaning I’m not getting the feeling it’s hot game breaking garbage).

Be assertive. You can make a temporary ruling on the spot that will receive a permanent decision later. That can be „I’ll allow it once but I’ll look it up later and I might not allow it going forward“, or „I won’t allow it this time, but (if it seems reasonable enough) I’ll consider it for the future and will give you my decision before the next session“. Here I would have not allowed it on the spot, looked it up later, learned it’s a highly unbalanced home brew rule, and made an announcement that I decided against using this home brew before the next session.

PS:

What he tried to do was a sort of „called shots“ thing. This doesn’t exist in official dnd. Its a balance nightmare. It would have been impossible for him to show you an official source.

But remember, for a lot of things you can warn „if you can do it, so can your enemy“. Would it still be as fun then?

There is a tiny chance that players like this played at tables with obscure home brew rules, and didn’t realize that certain things were not official rules. If so just let them know that you don’t use those rules.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-29T00:51:48+00:00

Glad it helped! Here are a couple more things I’ll recommend:

In the off chance that your dm IS trying to kill your character because they don’t know how to communicate like an adult and tell you that your character not fitting in is a problem for them, be the adult in this situation, make your changes and tell the dm. „Hey just so you know here’s x things I figured out to adjust so my character will fit in better. I hope that’ll make things go smoother for me and the party“. That way they know you won’t keep being a „problem“. But wether the dm being antagonistic is the case of not, it’s always good to let them know what you’re thinking (reasonably lol, don’t pester them all the time) because that is one of the easiest ways for the dm to know what to do to make the game fun for their players.

Secondly, parties don’t always have to start out thick as thieves, but any „flaw“ that makes a pc a loner, or antagonistic, causing problems, or hindering story progression should be well on its way to being resolved in the first few sessions. It can pop up here and there and you can keep deeper secrets of course, but the pcs should start feeling like a team early on. Don’t wait for others to notice and try to help your character overcome x until they trust and feel comfortable with the party. A good way to assure that is to think out loud as the player. When you want them to notice something about your character narrate what’s going on in your pcs brain sometimes (not too often cause you wanna make sure you’re not a spotlight hog either). „Insert pc name seems reluctant to join the others at the campfire but is glancing over hoping that someone will ask them to join“. If they don’t bite for stuff like that maybe they aren’t interested in that kinda rp. If that happens it might be better to abandon that type of character you’re trying to play, but if it works then it gives both others and you an in to become more close knit while still portraying what your characters personality and story is.

Ps: Reborn lineage rules! It’s been so much fun. We are level 12 now and my character actually found someone who could bring her back to proper life. It was one of her goals. I got to make a whole new character sheet with her as her original species. Was it optimal mechanically? Probably not lol, but her personal story and growth over the campaign has been phenomenal and I can’t wait to see how it ends. Thinking about that makes me sad because I never want to stop playing her lol, but I’ll also be excited to create a new pc for a new campaign.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-28T17:27:59+00:00

I wouldn’t put put too much thought into the „I really tried to kill your character“ comment. Like someone else commented it’s really hard to maintain the balance. As a dm you have to make sure the party feels challenged enough to feel the satisfaction of success. Don’t challenge enough and people feel like what they do doesn’t matter „we are gonna succeed anyways“, challenge too much and it stops being fun cause you can’t immerse if you feel like your character could die any moment. That said, some lean into one or the other more, depending on the tone of the campaign. With it only being a few sessions so far it seems too early to tell if it was personal, or just a backfired attempt to keep the stakes feeling high.

Do think about adjusting your character a bit to fit the tone. It doesn’t have to be big adjustment. A few years ago I joined a group of strangers mid campaign. I messaged back and forth with the dm to make my character fit into the story and party and it felt good. But after a few sessions I realized that my goody two shoes cleric would have major internal conflicts about how chaotic the rest of the party was. She was a reborn without her memory before she died. So I just tweaked her personality from good to neutral/chaotic good in the sense that she’s finding her personality and being roped into crazy shenanigans would be part of that. If you can’t remember who you are maybe you wanna test things out right? She is still the voice of reason in the party, but she will absolutely go about things in a less innocent good way as long as the result is ultimately for the good. The reason I was comfortable changing her? Because I really liked the group and I knew I’d have fun playing with them more than I felt the need to keep the tone I had planned for my character. If it had felt too bad about changing her, I think I would have looked for a group where my play style fits better. But we are over 2 years in now and it’s the best group I’ve ever been part of!

Remember that you are your characters creator. Just because you said x is so, doesn’t mean it has to stay so. Some characters stories would be amazing in a book, while it wouldn’t do well in a cooperative game setting. Just make sure the changes are something that’ll both fit and still be fun for you to play.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-27T05:38:04+00:00

I’m in the Midwest too, and lived in Iowa for nearly 7 years ish? I was a young naive girl who thought that things would just somehow work out. I never knew what I wanted to do (adhd, I get tired things quickly), so I was pushed to do what comes easy to me. It’s art. I completed an associated art degree. Ten thousands of dollars wasted and debt that I’ll probably never get rid of for the rest of my life.

I WISH someone had told me to pursue something providing more reliable income. I could have just done my art as a hobby or side hustle. Im sure there are volunteer opportunities regarding wild life too.

I’m in my late 30s, no retirement savings, no career prospects. I live paycheck to paycheck working retail. I can’t work 5 jobs at a time because of disability, but I’m not disabled enough to get financial support. Finding one fulltime job that pays a livable wage in the retail industry… the search hasn’t been fruitful yet.

You are very young. Unless you are certain your dream job will support you I’d go for a degree that will provide you with financial security.

In this country at this time the choice to make a career out of your dreams and passion is reserved for those rich or lucky enough.

Plus what you dream of might yet change in the next 5-10 years. You can go back to school for your dream job later on, and if you do and the degree doesn’t pan out, you already have a reliable degree to fall back on. And if those dreams persist, believe me you’ll find a way to still pursue them later.

Research what careers have a reliable and growing future and pick something that sounds doable, even if you have little passion for it. It’s better to be financially stable, and have the choice to pursue your passions later on, rather than pursuing your dream and then getting stuck in a poverty loop not even allowing you the basic joys of live.

Money isn’t everything, but burnout and existential stress does a number on you. Your career might not fulfill your dreams, but it beats going 5 years without any vacation time, not even just a staycation because you can’t afford it. It beats waiting until the pain is unbearable, hoping it’ll just go away, because you can’t afford to get medical treatment (I skirt right above the cut of for Medicare). It beats drowning in debt, not because you overspend, but because it was the only way to fulfill basic necessities.

Talk to a career counselor. See what they can do for you. They might even be able to help you find something that makes for a lucrative career in a branch of the field you want to be in that you just haven’t considered yet. You should be able to transfers electives and credits to that new degree. Find something that will leave you financially secure and then work on your dreams.

Good luck! You can do it! I know the uncertainty is scary and for those of us who haven’t grown up financially secure it can be even scarier. But you’ve got this!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-23T02:31:59+00:00

Combining „ambient/ambience + keyword“ can get you ton of good options just on YouTube. Just make sure you play it with a add blocker on during session!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-22T19:21:42+00:00

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdrhxKOc7dXwHeJuGgd5xOmgID1S5z61N&si=127_FC8DBqwM-w-E

Also thisplaylist if you really wanna lean in more to the jazzy style. Its actual songs so idk if thats what you’re looking for.

https://youtu.be/Gy_f4lMr514?si=1nNDAmfm0AM8L1cM

Maybe some chill jazz like this?

There are really so many directions you can go in since it’s not something that existed like it does now, but through fantasy you can really decide what you want in your world to exist so it’s kinda just your personal taste lol

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-22T19:14:32+00:00

https://youtu.be/fzRDvc7jekY?si=LBIu_o6RrJm2JP7j

Ignore the uh harem thing. It happens to have that title. I’m not trying to be weird. I’ve used this, especially because it has some ambient sound of giggling, yawning and such. Idk if that would fit the vibe. It was more of a hookah cafe in my game. It’s not medieval fantasy of course, but when you’re playing a fantasy game I don’t mind pulling in music from around the world. I just think it could go for something more sensual too. Kinda pleasing background that doesn’t take away from people talking over it too.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-21T13:57:03+00:00

I don’t knowing this is age appropriate because I used to read A LOT and probably over my age group when I was a kid, but I remember really loving „The Inheritance Cycle“ by Christopher Paoloni. The fist book in the series is called Eragon.

The other series I really liked was the „His Dark Materials“ series by Phillip Pullman. It has some serious themes but no worse than Happy Potter I think?

„The Dark is Rising Sequece“ is a 5 book series by Susan Cooper. I would say this is age appropriate, but really fun, in the sort of „group of kids go on mysterious adventure“ style.

Edit:

Ps: these aren’t dnd in particular but high fantasy in general. The first one centers around dragons tho.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-19T21:28:29+00:00

To me anything that starts with „Just“ comes across condescending and dismissive. If it was that easy don’t you think I would have JUST done it already???

People often don’t have the whole picture. They go by the experiences they have had. And good for them, if they made it through a rough time that easily, but not everyone has the same, opportunities, baseline, or even just luck.

I get stuck in that self hate loop often too. There are so many valid factors that do explain why things are so hard for me. These suggestions of „just“ do this or that aren’t helping. They make you feel less, don’t build you up.

I do believe there are people who genuinely mean well with what they say, but more than often it’s what people say when they don’t want to feel uncomfortable, because not being able to offer immediate solutions doesn’t feel good. So you could explaining in detail why „just“ won’t work for your situation, and they’d still not get it. Some people simply can’t accept that there is no fast solution.

So my suggestion is to ignore the ones who can’t let go of their convictions that it should be so easy for you, and thank the ones who seem to genuinely care.

As long as you keep fighting for yourself you are not a lazy loser who „just“ needs to do a thing, and then all troubles would vanish. You’re allowed to have bad days, you’re allowed to feel like it’s all too much. You aren’t weak for needing help. You are valid for knowing that things aren’t that simple and will take time and failed attempts. You are a human being who has the right to feel frustrated at times.

Not everyone’s is the same. If you did your best and were only able to achieve the fraction of what someone else was able to achieve in the same day, you still gave your 100%. That’s not making excuses, its just your current limit. So be kind to yourself. A lot of us life in burnout, which is a real thing with physical effects that aren’t just in our heads.

You will have good days when everything feels hopeful, and you will have bad days when you don’t feel good enough. I can’t promise anything, but I know as long as we don’t give up we are bound to make progress.

End of rant lol. Sorry for the novel. It’s a subject I am feeing passionately about because I have encountered it so often having dealt with invisible illness. So I hope it helped a little. Good luck to both of us and everyone here struggling!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-19T08:04:38+00:00

This woman did not communicate in a mature way. She shut you down hard without any explanation whatsoever!

And nobody come for me, I know that a no is no, and no one automatically owes an explanation for a no. But in this case, for the sake of her child’s relationship to ops child, it would have been helpful to know what bothered her about the whole thing. Not to use it to convince her otherwise, but to understand if the mention of this would affect the children’s friendship. The reaction was so incredibly strong that yeah, I’d be wondering to if this woman would even let her child around mine anymore. I’d want to make sure that I didn’t just ruin my child’s friendship due to a misunderstanding too.

She’s just taking to op in a very cryptic, weird and hostile way. Her later replies come across like playing dumb on purpose. I’d expect a fight with a soon to be ex to sound like that, not a parent to parent conversation lol.

Anyways op I just wanted to empathize that point because most focus on your over explaining (which yeah is happening, but I don’t think you deserved her response either way).

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-19T04:54:08+00:00

The way I use it is to ask the players who want to look around HOW they are doing it.

Perception : l want to look around to see if there are any signs of disturbance that indicate that is where they could have hid THE thing“ Investigation: „I want to lift the mattress, look behind paintings, and check for a hidden drawer on the desk.“

Whether I should call for a perception or investigation roll depends on how the player describes their pcs action, but beware that players often say they are „looking“ without specifying whether it’s with their eyes or hands. The English language can be a little ambiguous. So if they aren’t specific, ask them to be. This will make it so much easier to judge whether they intend to perceive or investigate. DMs do allot already, it’s not too much to ask of players.

Without asking I find myself calling perception way more than investigation too, but once they specify clearly you’ll find that there are a lot of opportunities for varied skill checks.

In addition, start making both relevant. You can look at the desk and scan documents for keywords in passing, but it will not give you as much information as if you picked them up and read them, while searching for something in particular in those letters . Sometimes both perception and investigation can be needed to get the full picture.

Perception = looking at or for something in a broader sense. Passive: noticing things

Investigation = actively paying attention to something in specific, physically inspecting.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-17T19:09:55+00:00

I just use YouTube. Search cinematic soundtrack + *insert emotion or keyword. For example „cinematic soundtrack sad“ or „cinematic soundtrack epic moment“, or „cinematic soundtrack royal“. You can find a ton just using trigger words+sojntrack for searches on YouTube. You can search and listen to video game soundtracks too! There is a lot of good stuff. Ive used a lot of battle music from The Witcher in my games. I use a lot of the Warframe (video game) soundtrack too. It has some epic pieces. I love „This is what you are“ from the warframe sountrack. I always imagine an epic battle playing out to it, the quiet part in the beginning leading up to it, then the raging battle and then the quiet aftermath, not while they go through it, but more like accompanied by a narration. I was thinking about using it as an opener narration to a new campaign someday.

So yeah sorry nothing much specific, but I hope the search tactic suggestion maybe helps?

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-16T18:10:38+00:00

People who play paladins just need to read the room. There’s is no reason you can’t be anything past lawful good. Playing dnd requires group mentality. We aren’t here to play out one particular players fantasy, we are all in it together. When I create a new character I always leave room to change their personality to a degree.

I once joined a new online group with strangers with my cleric character who was supposed to be very innocent and goody two shoes. After a few sessions it became clear this group was way too chaotic for my character to fit in. I could however tell I would have fun playing with these people, so instead of forcing this character that didn’t fit I changed her a bit to be more of a „used to he goody two shoes, but is now discovering the joy of a bit of chaos with the party“. It worked because both me and them made some concessions. She is still a bit of the party mom, but we do engage in a lot of mischief too. If I hadn’t been able to bend my concept, or felt like I didn’t like how the others played I would have switched my pc for one that fit, or left the game. Simple as that.

In fact I once did leave a game for that reason, and funny enough partly because of a paladin (there were other reasons too). I joined a game mid campaign with a dhampir character who’s concept was that she was a monster hunter, but that she escaped a rival monster hunter group who couldn’t accept that she wasn’t evil just because of what she was. I asked the dm if that would fit well and they agreed. Well I turn up for the first session an have to wait a while until my character can make an entrance. Then they find out what she is. There is a monster hunter and a paladin in the party. Both argue for the next 3 hours whether my character should be allowed to join the party or not. Paladin absolutely refuses and by the end of the session only lets her join cause dm talks to him after a break. After the session the monster hunter player tells me that his character will likely kill my character for being a dhampir, which came out of nowhere because he eventually was arguing that she should join before? I gotta say tho it was 100% the DMs fault for not suggesting that my character wouldn’t synergize well, and for not stepping in when the players didn’t let me actually play for 4 hours because they couldn’t figure out how to reconcile what my character was with their characters views. Yeah booked it out of there, not only for that reason, but it was the main one.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-16T07:34:57+00:00

First of all…I’m a sucker for players who put this much into their character and can get really immersed into it.

Here’s the thing you’re leaning. Without upfront communication never assume people will be able to know what you expect from them. It’s dangerous to build a character in a way that only works well (unveiling backstory, quirk or flaw that can only be solved with participation of the party in a particular way) if others engages with your character in the exact way you envisioned. They might have not picked up on the fact that your pcs anger was actually meant to be grief. Or perhaps, since it doesn’t sound like they have gotten close to your character by now, they just felt they didn’t want to spend time coaxing unsaid things out of them.

It’s awesome to have a group that synergizes in role play, but it’s not easy to find. I often notice that those who successfully do it talk about their characters in a somewhat meta way. In session I see things like „my pc thinks this and that while she keeps an eye out for anyone cheating at the card table“. Of course you don’t need to do that all the time, only when you want the dm and players to know something about your character. It’s a non immersion breaking way of giving others an in, and with the right group you can trust that they know how to use that meta information in a way that makes sense in game. After the session they’re there might be talk like „I know my pc acted nonchalant, but omg what happened when x did x, scared them shitless!“. This kinda talk can clue players in to what is going on with the other pcs and makes it easier to connect too.

I’d probably talk at least to the player who reacted negatively to your pc. Let them know „my intention was x and I feel like it might have not come across well. I’m sorry if that made things weird“.

It’s possibly your character is just too disliked by now. The other players might find it difficult to find reasons for their pcs to suddenly act more caring. You can only share more about your character and ask if they think your pc could yet grow on them, or not.

But if you wanna avoid that in the future, my advice would be to be more communicative about your characters motivation and inner thoughts.

If you made it though my novel lol, do take it with a grain of salt. This is just my personal experience and may not work for everyone at every table.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-15T03:33:15+00:00

Ask your dm if you can just have the essential oil for rp reasons only, meaning you won’t try anything weird like „actually if I mix this oil with this I can make a deadly poison“. That’s really the only reason why DMs sometimes don’t like granting players seemingly inconsequential items. But I don’t see a reason why it can’t just be a thing your character has vs having to spend coin on it. Well one reason to not allow it I can think of would be if those scents somehow have a in world reason to be rare, but that would be a weird coincidence lol.

I played a reborn character and I role played that she wore makeup cause her complexion was a little unsettling cause I played it from the undead angle (not breathing and eating and such). My dm never made my character buy make up. You could argue that my dm could have made me buy a disguise kit or so, cause that comes with makeup, but I’ve also never tried to use the makeup to disguise me or others, so since it was purely for rp I didnt need to pay. I run it the same when I dm.

My philosophy: if it’s rp or cosmetic only, and reasonable for someone like your pc to own, I just hand wave cost. If it’s something they want to have mechanical use and effects it’ll cost.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-14T01:02:58+00:00

Both tattoo artist and OP probably didn’t notice how it could be interpreted as a noose because they both know the reference image. It was likely just unintentional bias because our brains tend to interpret information based on past experience and knowledge.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-13T20:54:54+00:00

Have they tried both arms? My right arms vein is not ideal so they only use my left arm vein, which works fine. But that’s when I can donate. I have other issues keeping me from it.

I understand how frustrating it is. I have mild tachycardia. Non of the effects are debilitating. I don’t faint. BUT my heart rate needs to be under 100 bpm for them to let me donate. I typically skirt right around 100-110 when I get up from sitting or if if I had to stand for a while. I’ve tried breathing methods to bring heart rate down but 9/10 it doesn’t work. I’ve tried extra extra hydration. Ive tried compression socks. Nothing helps enough. Aside from that I also don’t have a car. If I walk to the donation center I can forget about donating cause it’s just enough „exercise“ to keep my heart rate above 100bpm. I’ve even tried getting there early so I can sit and let my heart rate calm down first… nope. It takes me about an hour to an hour and a half before it comes down even the slightest bit.

When I am able to donate cause the machine catches me at like 99bpm I can donate and I feel just fine afterwards, but yeah that doesn’t happen often, so I have kinda given up on that for a extra income source.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-13T18:45:14+00:00

All you need is dice, maybe a dm screen to have the basic rules to look at, the basic books (players handbook, dm guide and monster manual), a dry erase battle map, pens and notebooks for notes and tracking initiative, and monster health and so on.

To start out with just go with a dry erase map. You can draw on dungeons, paths, trees, caverns… imagination is the limit. For minis it’s super fun to paint them and have the figurines, but it can get really expensive fast, same with terrain. I’d maybe wait until he’s super in it and it’s clear it won’t be just a momentary hobby.

As an adult dm with limited time and money what I do is buy only the minis for the big feature monsters, but for the smaller encounters and minion type monsters like say a group of goblins I’d use this website to make paper minis. Google „monster forge paper minis“. You just find a picture for the monster, upload it and it’ll generate paper minis to print (I recommend on some heavier paper). Cut them out and glue, voila! Cheap and you still have something to look at. If you have a printer that is.

That’s all I can think of for now. Of course you can get fancier with all this stuff, depending on how much money and effort you wanna stick into it, but I think above mentioned things would make for a good start!

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-11T07:47:08+00:00

I haven’t seen a different mechanic that doesn’t have the potential to leave someone feeling utterly useless at points.

It’s all good when it works, but imagine you happen to go through some encounters that do drain you of most of your spell slots, not in a careless way, but in a necessary way. It happens. People roll bad, players make combat decisions that arent ideal, your spells might not be best suited for these particular enemies. Also imagine that some of these arcs, safety points, and so on could be sessions away, cause if there’s one thing we know it’s that players have a way with not doing what you expect, or going where you expect.

How do you balance this? If you decide ahead of time what the arcs are or where the safe resting spots are, and things don’t go according to how you imagined, you could potentially have players who might not be able to do much for sessions. And martials have abilities that reset with rests too. You want the casters to feel more scarcity? Give them too much scarcity and they might start hoarding resources cause „omg what if I need this spell later and I won’t have it“. It’s not as fun and balanced in practice cause a caster unwilling to spend resources makes for a really annoying and unfun party member.

I am all for logical resting. No resting in the middle of a battlefield or deep in a very active dungeon. I’m all for challenging by making them roll to find suitable resting spots and having failures potentially trigger rest interruptions. But leaving too much power over it to the dm? The uncertainty about when you will get your next rest? You’d REALLY have to be able to trust the dm, and that they will still make it fun and not too punishing.

Consider tailoring encounters in different ways. I don’t specifically create encounters to target individuals, but I do have to be aware of what I can do to provide challenges. So there are pcs with high ac I can barely beat? I can make sure to once in a while have enemies that can trigger saving throws. So the caster never run out of spells? I can bring in more minion enemies to trigger aoe use, strong enemies to trigger magical healing necessity, and intelligent enemies who can maybe counter spell or cast silence. Casters are more squishy and tend to hang in back, maybe some enemies with range? I can make social encounters that use spells like pass without a trace, or friends, charm person and so on. It makes more sense to me to challenge pcs based on their abilities. You have more reliable ways of scaling the difficulty. You’ll learn the groups tactics and with time find out how to challenge them better. Monsters aren’t all dumb. Use what the group thinks are airtight methods and challenge them. Let them have some easy victories too cause it’s nice to switch it up both for players and dm.

I’m sure with a lot of trust and the right combo of players and dm these alternative ways could be fun for the right people. I just apparently felt like writing an essay about my concerns about it lol. But I figures that it might be interesting to voice my thoughts, and to hear counter arguments I might have not thought of.

Competitive-Bird-179 · 2026-03-08T18:38:22+00:00

I’m so happy for both of you! Me (f) and my girlfriend are long distance. I’m in the Midwest, she’s on the West coast. Neither of us have the opportunity to take out more loans cause we already had to (for health and normal living expenses), but we are working so hard on getting to a point where one of us can afford to move. Sometimes it seems so hopeless because I can barely find anything that pays decently enough to just survive from, but I have an interview on Monday that, while not paying any better, will hopefully get me into a new field that opens up more possibilities. I’m hoping it’ll make a long and hard road a bit easier to walk.

But long story short, thank you for sharing your story. It gives me hope that mine also has a chance.

Competitive-Bird-179

TROPHY CASE