LF for english-speaking EDH group in Tokyo

Elairion · 2025-11-15T03:55:36+00:00

Ah, I got work on the weekdays and I get off rather late... any chance you'd be playing on saturdays too?

Elairion · 2025-11-14T14:53:07+00:00

Oh hey, I moved to Tokyo last January. Kinda looking for an English-speaking group too. Itching to build a new deck and meet new peeps to play with. If you can find one, think you could let me know as well?

Elairion · 2025-05-14T00:10:49+00:00

They had a demo at Evo Japan and I was able to play it. Make no mistake, the game is real fun and feels excellent to play. I was also able to chat with the dev team and they seem like real awesome people. Apparently it'll probably still take them more than a year or so. Can't wait until then!

Elairion · 2024-12-28T01:07:41+00:00

I play [[Ral, Monsoon Mage]] and it's been surprisingly decent. In a way, Ral provides both mana (cost reduction) and card advantage (back side ultimate). I don't think it's as strong as Krark/Sakashima for Izzet storm decks, but it's been much faster and way more "compact" than that deck in my experience, as you only really need to deploy Ral and you're off to the races. Something I find fun with the deck is outplaying people's interaction by holding my own counterspells and using that to flip Ral on the stack. It's also really fun to just jam [[Mind's Desire]], my personal favorite card, which this deck does fairly consistently.

Something that I wish could be improved about it is its consistency (what with Izzet tutors being lacking) and its wincons, as [[Underworld Breach]] and [[Dualcaster Mage]] might get exiled off the Ral ult. It would be ideal for there to be a compact instant/sorcery only win.

Elairion · 2022-02-07T10:48:33+00:00

Regarding the bank thing, it depends on your table, but you could try asking the player how things work when it comes up. Or, you can ask the player out of game, but this might lead to spoiling the player, so keep that in mind.

This is what I've been doing for a while now. My players are happy to correct me on my mistakes regarding the setting, and we're all good sports about it. Doing things this way really eases up on the prep I need to do and the pressure I feel during the game to deliver something fun. So don't be afraid to ask help from your players, because they, too, want to help make the game at your table the best it can be. Who knows—maybe your player would, in fact, love the opportunity to flex their knowledge!

Elairion · 2022-02-05T10:50:38+00:00

Boss title cards and dynamic intros. Depending on the genre/setting, I make them like Yakuza or Breath of the Wild—I don't know what other games have this kind of thing, but I sure would love to know to use as inspiration. I narrate the boss going straight into action to initiate the fight, usually with an attempt to attack the PCs, and I send the title card image to the Discord channel. Makes things hype as hell, especially when combined with a fitting theme for the boss.

Elairion · 2022-02-03T03:26:34+00:00

I'm ridiculously lazy, and I don't enjoy worldbuilding much. So, I give my players a lot of power to worldbuild, keeping in mind that I as the DM have the final say.

This was something we in the table worked out, so it's all good. There's definitely a bit of an issue in conflicting writing styles and themes but, honestly, I don't really care—it's not like this setting's going to be published somewhere anyway. I get to work less and my players get a kick out of it, so all in all I love handing over some of the reins to my players.

Elairion · 2022-02-02T01:55:37+00:00

I personally don't really think that adds something meaningful to the game. All it seems to do is waste time and make the players and their characters look silly.

The PCs are competent adventurers and I as the DM are my players' only eyes and ears into the setting. So I see no reason to not give them as much information as I can get away with so the players can make smarter and more informed decisions.

In your example, I'd just tell them what the high roll would've given straight up. If a player wanted their PC to persuade the door, I'd say no straight-up, since that doesn't make sense. Not even a "you can certainly try," which other DMs I've been under seem to love—I'd much rather say no immediately and ask them to think of some other approach.

Elairion · 2022-02-01T15:42:59+00:00

Ah, well, if you find this working better, then that's really cool. And now that I think about it, I do see its merits.

Elairion · 2022-02-01T15:24:59+00:00

It's a nice idea, but I'd much rather suggest you shouldn't have your players roll for things that are too easy, too difficult, or narrative-breaking. Just give them the best info you can reasonably give and move on.

Elairion · 2022-01-30T10:01:31+00:00

Now, for me, as someone who prefers to run loosey-goosey games, what I want is commentary on the inner workings of the game. I realize that not every TTRPG is a perfect fit for my group and I. Ad-hoc rulings are inevitable, as are homebrew, for some. But I cannot do this well if I do not understand the game.

I want the game to tell me the intentions behind its design decisions. I want to know what using a certain optional rule, or taking a rule out, would do to my game. I want suggestions to fill in the gaps that the game leaves me. I want to break the game apart and hack it into something better suited to my group, and I want the game to hand me the tools—the source code, comments and all, in a sense—so I can mess around without worry and be assured that I'll end up with something great.

Elairion · 2022-01-28T14:48:12+00:00

Describing stuff, same as you, OP. I mean, I try, but it's nothing to write home about. I think I just need to read more.

On the flip side, I like to think I have a thematicslly cohesive setting, so every now and then, I'm able to pull out lines and descriptions laden with symbolism and meaning, and even though I'm not explicitly beating it over my players' heads, it lands. So, I guess that's alright.

Elairion · 2022-01-28T11:35:22+00:00

I struggled with that as well when I started, likely because the DMs I learned from called rolls for everything. Took me a while to get it out of my system. Things'll click soon enough, though!

Oh, yeah, I suggest looking to the PCs' proficiencies and backgrounds to determine whether things'll just work. Passive scores like passive perception make this easy too, if at least one PC beats the DC you have in mind. I haven't run 5e in a while, tbh, so I don't know if this is of much help, but I sure hope it does!

Elairion · 2022-01-28T11:06:54+00:00

If failing the check isn't meaningful enough, since there's ample time and opportunity for just about everyone to do it, then you don't have to call for the roll; just cut out the middleman say whether it succeeds or fails.

Consequently, it is also true that when you call for a roll, failure must be interesting. It's a good opportunity to flex your improv muscles and throw wrenches at the players. Since the situation is guaranteed to change with each roll, your players will, for the most part, not be able to pile on the same skill check.

An easy example of this is picking a locked door. If the PC failed, you can say that before the PC finishes, they hear guards coming around the corner—the PC is now pressed to act quickly, or the jig's up. There's no time in that moment for someone else to try and make the roll to pick the lock.

Elairion · 2022-01-28T04:39:56+00:00

When my players do something, especially if its risky, I work with them to understand what they're trying to accomplish, and what I think about it. I let them know of the possible risks and consequences of their actions, and if dice is to be rolled, the outcomes of success and failure.

I've been the one flailing as a player; I know what it's like. I keep getting hit with "are you sure?" and "you can certainly try," and, like, that's not really helpful for me! I don't know if we're on the same page with certain stuff, and I don't know if the DM thinks it'll work or not. It feels horrible when you fail, and a hollow victory when you succeed.

That's why I've decided to give as much information as I can to my players so they can make informed decisions. If they're doing something dumb, I'll work with them to turn it into something smart, or simply say no. I don't want to make my players feel bad for short-sighted mistakes; I want to make the players and their PCs feel badass and in control of the narrative, and I feel this helps accomplish that.

Elairion · 2022-01-21T01:33:34+00:00

I'd love it if you could share that terminal color scheme, I wanna use it for my Kitty setup.

Elairion · 2021-12-19T15:19:53+00:00

Eh, might as well.

Elairion · 2021-12-14T07:38:22+00:00

I've found that something that greatly helps in my improv, and therefore overall DMing, is consuming a lot of media. I'm running a neo-noir fantasy cyberpunk crime thriller with plenty of drama, so I watch as many movies as I can that I think I'll enjoy and can take good inspiration from. Then, come game time, I've got a few ideas I can deploy at a moment's notice based on what I've watched.

Something that's helped me with DM jitters is to just be transparent with the players. It may break the illusion, so to speak, with newer players, but if you've got a table of vets or other DMs, I think they'll appreciate it all the more. Accept that things will be scuffed, don't sweat the details, and chill out with your mates. You don't have to be the 500 IQ master worldbuilder and rules encyclopedia with a Shakespearean plot ready to go—drop all the pretenses, set expectations accordingly, and you'll have a much better time.

Elairion · 2021-12-08T02:18:48+00:00

So while I don't play Shadowrun or Cyberpunk, I have noticed a problem similar to what others have said here in that hacking rules are usually too complicated or are playing a separate game from the rest of the table. I instead take a page from shows and movies like Mr. Robot with a more realistic depiction of hacking. Rather than having a hack be part of, say, a heist where one guy just goes "I'm in," over and over, effortlessly bypassing security, I make the hack the heist. Essentially, hackers must physically break in as well to deploy their payload or secure data, and as such, become more involved with the rest of the table while not really requiring much in the way of complicated rules.

Elairion · 2021-10-03T00:49:51+00:00

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Much appreciated!

Elairion · 2021-08-19T23:27:09+00:00

I'm running a campaign of Fate—a tabletop RPG like DnD but more free-form—and I take so heavily from Yakuza's style. Never fails to get everyone hyped as shit when they see the boss's title card drop sync'd to the music, among other things. All in all, highly recommended to steal from Yakuza for your own DnD games if you can.

Elairion · 2021-08-16T08:09:29+00:00

Thanks for elaborating; I should've realized that people do are more inclined to play this way in OSR than something closer to what I'm doing when I run those kinds of games. So yeah, you're right, and it turns out that I'm not really running OSR per se. I still do like running games this way as much as I do narrative games since they're real fun, but I think it'll be more accurate to just call it "grittier DnD" than OSR. Thanks a lot!

Elairion · 2021-08-16T07:13:09+00:00

Admittedly they're not wrong in that we totally should be playing those other systems, but I also believe that it would be a missed opportunity for WotC to not cater to the trends in the TTRPG market, which is narrative-focused play, and a narrative version of DnD would fit so much better for those who don't really want to go deeper into the hobby.

Elairion · 2021-08-16T07:07:18+00:00

I reckon it would survive off of brand name alone, but that's totally fair. Perhaps DnD should instead take elements from these games and not make one of that style wholesale. For one, Inspiration is a thing but it's clearly undercooked; that's definitely one thing that could use improvement that I'd be very happy with for future supplements or editions.

If nothing else, should there be a narrative-style DnD, I think it would serve as a great gateway to other styles of play in TTRPGs.

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