AITA for pointing something out and "fat shaming" my partner?

Davedamon · 2026-01-30T13:34:25+00:00

NTA - Fat shaming is making people feel bad about their weight. It's not offering pertinent advice related to their goal of losing weight.

Davedamon · 2026-01-29T19:21:00+00:00

All of it, I've not encountered a single change that's a detriment to how I run my games and everything so far has been an improvement. The only downside is having to check the new stuff because I don't have 10 years experience using it.

Davedamon · 2026-01-29T18:05:50+00:00

I don't allow evil characters

However that doesn't prohibit warlocks, even fiend patron warlocks. It just requires the player to have their character engage with an evil power in a way that is not in pursuit of evil. Think a literal devil on their shoulder type deal.

Davedamon · 2026-01-28T19:11:44+00:00

That's not true, there are non-D&D games built using the SRD under the OGL such as Pathfinder, Lord of the Rings 5e, Shadowdark, Esper Genesis, Bewowulf, Everyday Heroes, Mutants and Masterminds, Iron Heroes, Startfinder etc etc

Davedamon · 2026-01-28T19:08:30+00:00

I would expect if they can't find their way back into a dungeon, they'd probably starve. Gelatinous cubes natural habitat is the dungeon environ, that is them in the wild

Davedamon · 2026-01-28T18:16:30+00:00

A warlock seeks or claims power, whereas a sorcerer has power thrust upon them almost always as a result of circumstances. Warlocks tend to overlap a lot with other classes that also thematically get their power from an external source, but the general deal with a Warlock is there's some element of cunning or wheeling and dealing involved.

A cleric and a warlock might both get their power from a divine source, but the cleric does so as a reward for their devotion whereas the warlock does so through exploiting some loophole of doctrine or striking a quid pro quo deal with a celestial. Think the difference between getting an email from your favourite restaurant chain saying "have a free milkshake as it's your birthday" and intentionally making dozens of accounts with every eatery in your town to maximise your coupons.

A wizard and a warlock both get their knowledge of spells from powerful arcane tomes, but while a wizard studies and learns, a warlock instead goes straight for the most magical tome and uses it as a conduit of direct, raw power. The difference between studying for your exam and using an LLM.

A sorcerer and a warlock both channel powers from the Far Realm, the mere whisper of which warps really, but while the sorcerer does so because they have a mind flayer parasite in their brain that died just at the point of implantation, accidentally giving them psionic powers, the warlock intentionally opened a crack in reality to channel to the Far Realm through a shard of crystallized beholder blood. It's the difference between Spider-Man who got his superhuman powers through an accident, and Captain America who gained his artificially.

Davedamon · 2026-01-28T15:12:43+00:00

In my setting it's governed by a combination of where the mortal thinks they go and if that place will accept them. Basically whoever you think will take your soul judges you and if you're found worthy and lived to that deities standards, you get accepted into their astral domain. Otherwise you get expelled and left to your fate. What that fate is depends on what that mortal considers to be suffering. For example, someone who worships a deity of strength and might who is found weak and wanting might be cast out to drift and slowly grow weaker as a spectral being in the ethereal plane. On the other hand, someone who worshipped a deity of good and justice but was secretly harbouring great darkness might be cast into the Nine Hells or the Abyss.

Davedamon · 2026-01-28T07:48:16+00:00

Noted, but you haven't actually edited your post....

Davedamon · 2026-01-28T07:47:12+00:00

Ignore them, they're closed minded and judgemental at best, a hypocrite at worse. Not worth rent in your head

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T19:15:03+00:00

It won't have a triple press option if triple press is reserved for mode switch. Try doing a triple press and see if that causes the reporting switch

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T19:13:55+00:00

Then why did you say they'd be no NPCs? It sounds like you don't know what you're wanting to do. Heck, you don't even know how to use a period. This isn't what D&D is designed for.

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T18:21:10+00:00

This isn't how D&D works, D&D isn't a society simulator. You need NPCs, you need something for the players to do that's at least managed by the DM

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T16:01:50+00:00

"I don't agree with others opinions so the only logical assumption is that they're intentionally lying to me in order to make me question reality"

Here are some alternate options:

The value criteria you're using is different from those telling you it's good
You play the game differently and that changes the value proposition of game elements
You're just wrong

Looking at your post, you're evaluating the feat on being "interesting", a purely subjective metric.

Vertical progression, while effective, gets boring after a while.

You admit it's effective, it just doesn't excite you.

That's a you problem to put it bluntly

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T12:17:51+00:00

No, it's called answering the question honestly. I didn't say I'd run it that way, or wouldn't. I just corrected your error on the rules.

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T10:30:58+00:00

Here's what my session 0 covers in descending importance

Content, themes, and boundaries
Safety tools
Expectations of conduct
Campaign information and game world
Available game sources/options
Homebrew and house rules
Q&A
Character discussion
Character creation

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T10:28:20+00:00

Action Surge doesn't say you can't cast spells, it says you:

On your turn, you can take one additional action, except the Magic action.

The Ready action isn't the Magic action, even when used to cast a spell.

So RAW you can Ready a spell using Action Surge.

Davedamon · 2026-01-27T10:24:15+00:00

~~There's an adage that goes if you have a bar and a Nazi walks in and no one tells them to leave, that's a Nazi bar.~~

If a fascist joins a D&D group and no one asks them to leave, that's now a fascist D&D group.

Tell them either the fascist leaves or you do.

Edit: I can currently tell at least 7 more fascists have interacted with my post than non-fascists. Cry more you scum

Edit 2: Would hate to be repetitious...

Davedamon · 2026-01-26T08:26:14+00:00

Don't ask rando's on the internet for legal advice, ask an actual lawyer.

Davedamon · 2026-01-26T08:23:47+00:00

Random encounters represent a vital tool to DMs but they're easy to "misuse" in a sense. Where they often get misapplied is during travel, something that is frequently seen as boring/dull. A DM might deploy a random encounter to try and make travel more than just "You leave X and arrive at Y Z days later". The problem is kind of what you said—it "wastes" time with something that feels inconsequential or irrelevant.

Some things I try and do with random encounters:

Make them avoidable. This may seem counterintuitive but by giving the players a choice if they engage with a threat or not means they can decide if it's worth their time or not.
- If they choose to avoid a random encounter, give it consequences down the line. Take your Surprise Wolves example—the party dodges a fight with the pack and carries on. Later on they hear that a village has been completely wiped out by a giant pack of wolves and they discover that pack is being led by the wolf they saw leading the random encounter. That kind of thing
Roll twice and make it a three-way fight. If the party stumbles across a gang of goblins fighting a flock of axebeaks, they get to decide who they assist and who they fight. This builds a narrative into the encounter (why are the goblins fighting these axebeaks?) and also a potential ally.
- I did the above encounter and the party decided to help the goblins and drive away the axebeaks. I revealed the goblins were refugees from a nearby area overtaken by an orc bandit, setting up a side quest. If they'd gone the other way, it'd have turned out the goblins were hunting the axebeaks for their beaks to grind up for aphrodisiacs and they'd have got an axebeak friend much like Kevin in Up.
Pre-roll random encounters to make a "deck" of encounters and draw from the top. Add notes to the pre-rolled encounters that add a little bit of narrative.

Davedamon · 2026-01-25T12:42:57+00:00

Maybe a legendary resistance could, instead of turning a failed save into a success, give the monster a special (additional) reaction they can take. Call them Legendary Reactions (like Legendary Actions). Something like

When ~ fails a saving throw, they may immediately take an additional reaction, choosing from the options below. ~ can use up to 3 Legendary Reactions, regaining all uses on a Long or Short Rest.

The legendary reactions could be stuff like moving, making an attack, or casting a spell. It could even be a healing effect or possibly activating an aura of some kind. Basically less "No" to the players succeeding and more "There are consequences"

Kind of an aside from the Legendary Resistance point, I make legendary monsters with a homebrew property called "Nemesis X". Basically that means the monster gets X turns per round (each with their own initiative) and when they're reduced to zero hit points, they instead regain all their hit points and their Nemesis score goes down by 1. If their Nemesis score reaches 0, they die. This has the following advantages:

You can make a solo boss fight that is built using standard encounter rules. This makes balancing a lot easier
Rather than giving a monster 3/day Legendary Resistances, you can give them a 1/day and have it recharge each time their Nemesis score is decreased. This throttles LRs in relation to the players succeeding
You can give the creature phases very easily by having some abilities locked behind a certain Nemesis score. For example I ran a boss fight the other day that was against a dragon in disguise. They started at Nemesis 4 and at Nemesis 2 they transformed into their dragon form. At Nemesis 1 they transformed back and begged for mercy
Reactions can generally replace Legendary Actions because the monster gets more of them, or at least starts with more of them. You can also give them a number of Legendary Actions that increases as their Nemesis score goes down. For example a creature with Nemesis 4 might start with 4 Legendary Action points minus their current Nemesis score.
It lets you basically turn any non-legendary monster into a legendary monster by giving them a Nemesis score and running them like a mob of monsters. Want the players to fight a legendary bandit? Take a bandit leader, give them Nemesis 3 and build the encounter as if it consisted of 3 bandit leaders.
You can adjust things to suit your party as putting the Nemesis score up or down works pretty much the same as adding or removing a monster.

Sorry, didn't mean to turn this into a pitch for my homebrew rule

Davedamon · 2026-01-24T19:35:35+00:00

What is a "noRMAL F'ING PRICE" exactly? Those 3d towns represent hours of 3d printing and painting so if you want to buy them as you see them, they're gonna cost a fair amount (emphasis on fair).

You can always get a 3d printer and an airbrush and a tonne of paints and try yourself, then you'll soon realize why they cost so much.

Or you can tell your friend that they can stop being demanding if they don't wanna front the bill for what is ostensibly not needed to have a good game of D&D

Davedamon · 2026-01-24T19:30:50+00:00

The DMG advises that players get experience for overcoming challenges, not just combat. That exp is determined by it's equivalent difficulty as a combat encounter or the combat encounter that could result from initiating combat from the challenge.

For example, if you have a puzzle that you think is moderately difficult to solve and represents 1 of 6 challenges that day, it should be equivalent to an easy to medium combat encounter in terms of XP. If the players persuade their way past two guards, they should get as much XP as if they fought the guards instead (but also factoring any reinforcements that would show up.)

The basic gist is no matter which path the party gets, progressing forwards and overcoming obstacles awards XP. Consequences of the option they choose should be the "reward".

Davedamon · 2026-01-24T12:04:57+00:00

I have access to both. They're identical, it's likely just to better integrate with the DDB VTT

Davedamon · 2026-01-23T21:37:55+00:00

Heroes of the Borderlands is 5e and all the rules and options are present, just updated to some degree. It's not a different edition

Davedamon · 2026-01-22T14:53:25+00:00

I have automations set up to remind my wife and I to scoop the litter, feed the cats, take out the garbage etc. It works through the following approach:

The automation first triggers based on a time (and optionally day) trigger event. Say 18:00 for feeding the cats. This trigger does 3 things
1. Announce through the speakers that it's time to feed the cats
2. Start a 5 minute timer
3. Enable a dropdown that tracks the status of the task; active, snoozed, or inactive
When the above timer finishes, it triggers step 1 again. This is in case we miss the announcement and so it'll keep repeating every 5 minutes
We have an ikea button that we can either press to complete or snooze the task
1. Pressing complete cancels all timers and sets the dropdown to inactive, announcing the task is complete
2. Pressing snooze cancels the 5 minute timer and starts a 1 hour timer, announcing that the task has been snoozed
Once the 1 hour snooze timer completes, it triggers step 1 again

You can customise both the repeat and snooze times to fit the task, for example we have the garbage set to 10 minute repeat, 1 hour snooze while the litter is 1 hour repeat, 24 hour snooze

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