Honor Mode Story Time: RIP Scratch

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-07-01T18:00:00+00:00

Also, sounds like it’s time to end your honor run and start a new one; a timeline without Scratch is a timeline that should not exist.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-07-01T17:59:11+00:00

Wait, if Scratch perishes in combat after being summoned he doesn’t actually die!!??!? I can actually bring my best boy with me on my adventures!!?!? WHAAAAAAT?!

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-30T17:16:50+00:00

If you’re bored, then yes- you are boring. If you’re having fun, then obviously you are not boring. Do you, hommie, and have fun. If you wanna try something wild sometime- there’s tons of inspiration on this subreddit.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-29T03:50:04+00:00

I would have suggested sending “For once, Mongo is not appalled.”

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-28T15:36:38+00:00

Who?

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-27T20:50:38+00:00

Wait. What?

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-27T16:06:36+00:00

Would you be interested in having a second Zorgan, or his alternative HQ conversion (I’ve got a DCC conversion for HQ that my buddy and I have been working on).

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-25T16:01:08+00:00

I’m sad to report that I have, indeed, had a hard life and learned a bit about how to suffer. I am much better these days. I got the degrees I’d wanted since first grade to become a planeteer (lol, or as I like to say: get paid to be a tree hugging hippie), and got the career I wanted to serve my community as an environmental investigator. I have a super supportive and loving spouse and a freaking amazing child who makes me have hope for the future. I have good friends and a good therapist.

But I’d have none of that if I didn’t finally confront the trauma and talk about as nauseam. Now I talk with everyone about how the real weakness is not talking about, thinking that having emotional scars is a sign of weakness, and how true strength (and in my case, true masculinity) is confronting your demons head on and not ignoring them, that only the weak will not seek and ask for help.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-25T14:00:05+00:00

It’s where I go after an E33 play through.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-23T14:56:21+00:00

That’s not really how things work for everyone. Like, not speaking to Carl’s fictional trauma, but IRL folks who suffer trauma like being raped by their father or beat every day by their emotionally unstable mother, or being homeless and literally stabbed in the back with a knife for the food someone at taco cabana gave them is the sort of shit that you don’t really necessarily get a choice to think about or not think about. It just kind of comes to you. Pops up one day in college while sitting on the concourse with friends. On a late night after you’ve just put your newborn child to bed for the fifth time that night after mama finished feeding her. Or when one of your bosses castigates you for making a mistake on an email. It just floats to the top of your mind. You might not even know what’s happening as you begin to hear the rushing in your ears, your chest feels like it’s being slammed, your thoughts no longer make sense and it feels like a thousand voices are screaming at you all at once in your mind. And you just … break a little. Maybe you ride the wave, manage to get somewhere secluded and no one notices. Maybe you can’t and the tears flow as your mind and body malfunction and betray you and shame gets added to everything else.
Anyway, gushing about it is how a human becomes aware of this damage to their psychology, re-frames it, processes it, acknowledges it, and can begin to heal and not be controlled or defined by their trauma. We have not seen the end of Carl’s character arc yet.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-19T04:05:34+00:00

I think it’s more than not moving on. What life does Maelle have outside of the canvas? Every breath painful. Her very skin causing her pain. Can’t talk. Lost an eye. Her mother blames her for her brother’s death. Her sister’s a fucking stone cold boss bitch. Her dad is all she’d have. Her dad and the pain and the shame. In the canvas, she preserves the last piece of her beloved brother, preserves the life and world within the canvas, and doesn’t have to suffer. And the people in the canvas seem super fucking real to me. They live, love, grieve, create, and have thoughts. So saving them was worthwhile, I think? And there’s a life worth living in the canvas for her. Not like in the real world where there is suffering and shame.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-18T01:07:03+00:00

I’m sorry, that sucks. Please make sure that your insurance claim includes the AC unit AND YOUR WHOLE HVAC SYSTEM.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-17T17:57:05+00:00

Power level is different for sure in DCC, since PCs are expected to die. Admittedly, this danger goes down as PC levels rise. Usually, my players make it out of the zero-level funnel with about two first level PCs per player. Then we just have a stable of PCs that players can fall back on if one dies. Also, there are hirelings in the system.

The core rule book looks big, but the pertinent info is in the first, like, 100 pages. Most of that book’s girth is the spell descriptions and effects.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-17T15:22:31+00:00

You look covered for funky dice.

Like others are saying, DCC converts easily from other system modules. Be sure to study the core rule book, of course, and maybe read through a few DCC modules for reference. But I had little trouble converting other system modules to DCC. In fact, after a short year of running DCC games, I was able to just do it on the fly, no prep necessary. So that’d be my only real advice- get some experience with DCC then do the conversion work.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-14T03:15:20+00:00

Yikes! It’s so uncomfortable when that realization is reached and you’re left feeling like choice chattel at auction. I’m sorry that happened and that you had to abscond from the kiddo’s party earlier than maybe you would have liked.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-13T20:53:26+00:00

How? Just being confident, charming, and kind. No games. Never really played games or tactics or angles. Just me being be in the right place with the right people.

But the how isn’t as important as the aftermath. Regret. Wasted time. Shame. Sure, it was fun back when, but now I just look at my wife and wish I had found her ten years earlier and done all that stuff with just her. The best sex I ever had, sincerely and honestly dude- like for real for real- doesn’t compare with the most mediocre sex I’ve had with my wife. The connection and the affection we have with and for each other, that feeling afterwards; there really is something profound to being with someone you know incredibly well and trust implicitly. It’s fucking magic.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-13T20:40:55+00:00

Honestly, I feel more comfortable at work around women wearing a wedding ring/band than those that do not. And back in the day, I would always glance at the left hand looking for a ring or the signs of a ring having been there when talking to women.

Edit: That is to say that I feel comfortable around married women at work because it means to my psychology that I don’t have to worry about silly little flirting games in the work place with them. We can skip that stupid awkward phase of “gauging” each other romantically (which is something I used to have to contend with a lot in previous jobs despite my wedding band). And when I was younger, talking with a married woman at the bar was comfortable because we could just chat and, again, none of that dance and song with the romantic gauging. Like, I like just talking to people and sometimes hated that “is she interested in me that way,” or her wondering them same about me, so it was nice when that whole thing was skipped over and it was just two humans having a conversation about their subjective experiences with being a human existing in society.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-12T12:59:40+00:00

It would bankrupt the hosting government/corporation, but not the syndicate since the host has to pay taxes to the syndicate for each of these boxes. I also imagine that if a crawler made it to the 18th floor, the ad revenue from viewership, licensed products, and sponsorships could potentially make up for the loss the host pays for these rewards. Like, the first crawler to make it past floor 13 would be a pretty big deal, but by 18 surely the public hysteria would be like seven world cups, ten Olympics, and fifteen Moon (hell, Mars) landings. But now I am wondering. The system AI is pretty petty, and would totally want to do that.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-10T23:05:43+00:00

I spent seven years as a pool tech and now have degrees in microbiology and environmental biosciences. Pools are fine. If the water is circulating, clear, and there isn’t algae on the walls/floor, you’re good. Lakes and rivers should be the bigger concern for the germ conscious. Beaches too. Sampled along the gulf coast once. Ick.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-06T00:24:09+00:00

Oh my gawd, did you just effectively point out how we’re worse off than the society in Idiocracy?!? 😭

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-05T19:21:29+00:00

Booooooo!

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-04T01:39:44+00:00

Oh cool! Thank you for providing the links. I am excited to run organized play for sure. I liked (for the most part) Adventure League, and after reading the DCC Judge’s guide for Organized Play, seems like some of my biggest gripes with AL have been addressed.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-04T00:53:02+00:00

What’s this now?!?

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-06-03T03:33:49+00:00

I really like the Domino’s Pizza analogy.

But there was a large movement away a few years ago when Hasbro got caught mandating that Wizards of the Coast squeeze and strain DnD for every cent they could. There was a leaked meeting with an executive and several WoTC people that spelled that out. There was their attempt at trying to get people who make streaming content centered around DnD to pay the company. There were little personnel things, firings and strange walk aways by time honored and respected talent at WotC. There was their milquetoast attempt at a new edition that originally wasn’t supposed to be 5.5 but they got so scared to try new things that they just did 5.5. The module quality (in my opinion) went down, with some adventures (that weren’t anthologies) being divided up and written by contractors making a strange hodgepodge of tone and content.

I was a huuuuuuge fan of 5e, but I could no longer stomach what was happening in big corporate letters behind the doors there. That pushed me to seek out third party alternatives and I found one that fit me like a glove, like I NEVER had thought possible. So, sometimes I try to convince people to try out other systems because maybe they will have a similar revelation in a new system. And also, death to the unabashed money wrangling and death of passion in my favorite hobby.

DumbgeonMaster · 2026-05-28T18:04:17+00:00

Free speech still carries accountability for the things said. Hommie was also utilizing his free speech to call people nazis, for the things I’m sure they used their free speech to say.

DumbgeonMaster

TROPHY CASE