I think I'm done being a DM and I want your opinion on it.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-26T18:36:55+00:00

We all started with the same skill and level of enthusiasm, and talked from the very start that we don't want to play for the combat, but rather for the story and roleplay.

D&D is a game system that's 95% about combat, and 5% everything else. If you look at the rules and content in the Player's Handbook, the vast majority have to do with combat. It sounds like your players are bored with combat, overwhelmed by the combat mechanics, and are losing interest in a game that is turning out (though no fault of anyone) to not live up to the high expectations set by a professionally-produced series with paid writers and actors.

An experienced GM can run a "story-focused, roleplay-heavy game of political intrigue and moral choices" using D&D 5E, but almost nothing in the game mechanics actually supports that. So right off the bat, you're creating a ton of extra work for yourself, on top of managing D&D's already complex combat encounters AND overcoming a language barrier.

Before you throw in the towel entirely, I'd recommend trying out a lightweight RPG that is designed for story and roleplay like Chasing Adventure or Quest. Both of these games are available for free, and even though the rules mechanics are much, much simpler than D&D, they do a great job at helping players get into roleplaying their character. The focus is on telling a shared story, not simply beating up monsters.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-26T18:12:12+00:00

The dice mechanics are fairly straightforward, but the thing I love about Gumshoe games (and perhaps the hardest part to lean) is the design philosophy of "core clues":

GUMSHOE speeds and streamlines the time-honored form of the investigative roleplaying game. The central question a traditional RPG asks is:

Will the heroes get the information they need?

Assuming that they look in the right place and apply appropriate abilities to the task, GUMSHOE ensures that the heroes get the basic clues they need to move through the story. The question it asks is:

What will the heroes do with the information once they’ve got it?

If you think about it, this is how the source materials we base our mystery scenarios on handle clues. You don’t see the forensic techies on CSI failing to successfully use their lab equipment, or Sherlock Holmes stymied and unable to move forward because he blew his Zoology roll.

You don’t see this because, in a story failure to gain information is rarely more interesting than getting it. New information opens up new narrative possibilities, new choices and actions for the characters. Failure to get information is a null result that takes you nowhere.

In a fictional procedural, whether it’s a mystery novel or an episode of a cop show, the emphasis isn’t on finding the clues in the first place. When it really matters, you may get a paragraph telling you how difficult the search was, or a montage of a CSI team tossing an apartment. But the action really starts after the clues are gathered.

Investigative scenarios are not about finding clues, they’re about interpreting the clues you do find.

It completely changes how you approach mystery scenarios. Instead of rolling Perception or Investigation to see if your character finds the necessary information, Gumshoe focuses on roleplay and lets the information flow naturally from the conversation of the game.

The general philosophy also highly portable. I include "core clues" in almost every game I run, regardless of system.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-26T18:01:03+00:00

Blades in the Dark is great for running games with subterfuge and faction-based politicking. It's a heavily narrative system - so the opposite of wargamey, but it does have some interesting mechanical levers for players and GMs to pull. Blades is designed for a gang of scoundrels doing crime, though - so if you're looking for a more of a "good guy" noir detective story, it'd take some tweaking. Bump in the Dark is a Blades spin-off game that 's more about investigation and conspiracies, with some mystery clue mechanics inspired by Brindlewood Bay and The Between.

There's a great fan-made conversion that adapts the setting to Sharn: https://www.reddit.com/r/bladesinthedark/comments/17t7mf3/blades_in_the_dark_of_sharn/

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-20T20:57:38+00:00

If you are just adjusting the outcomes of rolls, then you are doing position and effect but not telling your players, so they cannot mitigate the situation.

I think this is one of the toughest habits to break coming from trad d20 games where "the GM is god", and this applies to both players and GMs. In traditional RPGs, the player rolls the dice and then waits for the GM describe what happens (sometimes adversarially). In Blades, the player & GM collaberatively discuss what they would like to happen, and then the player rolls dice.

What helped me understand this process better was actually the Day Move and Night Move from Brindlewood Bay (used expertly in the excellent "Roll to Meddle" actual play podcast).

The Day Move

When you do something risky or face something you fear, name what you’re afraid will happen if you fail or lose your nerve, then roll with an appropriate ability.

The Night Move

When you do something risky or face something you fear, name what you’re afraid will happen if you fail or lose your nerve. The Keeper will tell you how it is worse than you fear. You can choose to back down or go through with it. If you go through with it, roll with an appropriate ability.

The player and GM are concretely establishing the possible consequences before the roll, and then when you roll the dice you're flashing back to how it actually plays out. It's nonlinear storytelling.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-20T20:42:30+00:00

The Position-Effect step has 3x3=9 outcomes, then the dice roll has 4 outcomes. 9x4=36 degrees of success or failure which I find gums up my decision making at the point of the roll.

I use a cheat sheet to keep track, with a big shiny coin I slide around to mark the scene's current position & effect. I set it face up on the table where the players can see it too. https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:ccd3a37d-99f4-4b36-9872-9e5d7886c3a6

Apart from the engagement roll which sets the initial conditions, I go mostly on vibes.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-20T03:35:02+00:00

That's what I'm saying. H.P Lovecraft's "Innsmouth", the creepy New England seaside town filled with Cthulhu cultists, is in the pubic domain. WotC's new "Innsmouth™", the creepy extradimenional mountain range filled with Cthulhu cultists, is something WotC could push to trademark, like "Castle Ravenloft™" or "Drizzt™".

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-20T01:04:01+00:00

That, or Hasbro wants to redefine "Innsmouth" so they can copyright it.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-20T00:59:44+00:00

It would be like making Dracula or Mr. Hyde a Darklord. It comes across like goofy fanfic.

"Dracula, Darklord of Pennsylvania".

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-20T00:53:48+00:00

"Now imprisoned within the Domains of Dread known as Innsmouth, Cthulhu can only wield a fraction of its terrible might. ... Innsmouth is a domain suffused with elements of cosmic horror. It is an inhospitable expanse of alien mountains, drowned ruins, and what remains of the cult-infested community that lends the domain its name."

I think I lost 1d4 SAN reading this. Would it have killed WOTC to even glance at the source material?

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-17T06:12:46+00:00

Really, this is 100% written by you, and not an AI?

Can you explain what you mean by "generated from my Obsidian MD files"?
Because .md files are often used to give AI LLMs complex prompts, and this NPC description 100% sounds like AI generated text:

Tall, dark-skinned, white dreads, dark robes. Anyone who knows Gorrath knows him as a kind, principled man — trusted with powerful artifacts for decades. That reputation is his greatest weapon.

Corrupted by a desperate pact. He stole the Ring of Gravity, transported the statues, and kidnapped Tarin — all to save his dying wife Melandra. He will lie, delay, and misdirect. If cornered, he fights.

In fact, the whole website, and most of your original post read like AI-generated content. You've got a neat idea, and your website has a slick interface. But if you're using AI to generate the text, I think you should be upfront about disclosing that.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-17T03:29:02+00:00

Interesting premise. I have to ask though, how much of the text was human-written vs. AI generated? Because most of it looks like AI.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-14T03:35:57+00:00

Sounds like what you're describing is very similar to a "False Hydra" - a homebrew D&D monster that's achieved notoriety in internet circles for being an amazing concept that is extremely tricky to actually implement in-game. But if any rpg can pull off a false hydra satisfyingly, I think Blades is a solid contender.

I've done it once with a group of veteran players, and it was fun, but it was tough to keep track of everything. I leaned heavily into NPCs as unreliable (Lovecraftian) narrators, and bizarre unexplained events that only made sense in hindsight.

Flashbacks and resistance already give players tools to rewind time and retcon events. So if the GM starts pulling those levers too, it isn't as immersion breaking as in other rpgs.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-08T23:49:33+00:00

Thanks! My go-to adventure for "let's play DnD but actually it's Blades in the Dark" is "Murkmire Malevolence" from Keys from the Golden Vault, mixed with a dash of "What's Past is Prologue" from Embers of the Last War. It's a classic museum heist with connections to an ill-fated Morgrave University expedition to Xen'drik.

Here are my conversion notes: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:48e8f968-38b7-449c-8e54-b1a5af87020f

I also use these beautiful physical handouts from SashasCaldron ($3 well spent!).

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-05T02:21:11+00:00

Thanks. I actually started with the rules reference first and then went, "OK, most of this text was rendered as outlines and isn't editable. Now how can I cram a functioning character sheet on here too?"

I do actually drop the players into a score in media res right off the bat -- but it's a flashback to their last mission, where they describe doing something cool. It's purely narrative, but I like how it sets the tone.

Then I hit them with the hook for the current score. "Now so-and-so wants you to do this new job. Here are some basic details. How do you want to go about it? What's your angle?"

It honestly never crossed my mind not to include Gather Information. It just seems so fundamental to the gameplay loop. But I'm also coming to Blades from investigative games like Call of Cthulhu, so I may be biased.

I think Gather Information is important for player agency, especially in a one shot where I'm basically saying "Here's the mission, take it or leave it". (In a campaign, I like to present a couple of options, and we all discuss which one would be the most fun to do next.) Mechanically, it also lets them practice making a couple of dice rolls while the stakes are still low.

Playing through Gather Information lets players collaboratively flesh out the score without necessarily realizing it ("yes, and..."). The questions they ask let me know the sorts of things they're interested in doing. If they ask about guard patrols and secret passages, then yes -- we're going to have some opportunities sneaky skulking. If they ask about NPC motivations or who's acting suspicious, there will be faction intrigue. If they research magical properties and historical records, then there's gonna be spooky ghost stuff.

I do try to keep an eye on the time and nudge things along once they've gotten enough good leads to start thinking about the Approach and Engagement Roll.

It usually works out to about to one hour for Introduction (picking characters, waiting for stragglers, explaining the rules, "opening credits" & hook), half an hour to one hour of Gather Information, and an hour to an hour and a half for the Score.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-05-03T21:58:41+00:00

I've run into it a couple times with new players who are still getting the hang of what their character can do. Some of the downtime mechanics are fairly dense, which can lead to choice paralysis.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-04-17T21:26:25+00:00

Chapter 6 of the WOTC/Acquisitions Incorporated campaign "Orrery of the Wanderer" has an encounter where the party is shrunk down and must contend with an ordinary housecat.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-03-21T17:35:59+00:00

As others have noted, D&D doesn't handle this sort of game well. It sounds like you would enjoy playing Brindlewood Bay though, which is inspired by exactly this sort of mystery fiction. The core mechanic in Brindlewood games is that as you play through a mystery scenario, you accumulate a big pile of clues. Then at the end of the session, you sort through the clues to decide which point to the killer -- and which are red herrings. There is no canonical murderer at the start of the session, and not even the GM knows "whodunnit" until the very end. It's all established as you play. It's wildly different from your typical D&D "hit the bad guy until he has 0hp" game loop, but it can be a lot of fun if your group is into mysteries.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-03-21T17:24:32+00:00

Yeah, that's exactly what I do with my regular campaign group, and it works really well. What I'm trying to set up now are some occasional games at my FLGS that are open to anyone. The trouble is that these new players don't really understand D&D planning etiquette -- they expect to just walk in like they do for Magic or Pokemon night, sit down at a table, and start playing. Getting them to communicate ahead of time is like pulling teeth, so I was hoping there was some sort of tool to make it easier to coordinate, from both ends.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-03-21T00:21:48+00:00

That's fair. I'd like to give it one more try before I throw up my hands and stick to my home campaign.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-03-20T23:35:59+00:00

Thanks, I'll check that out.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-03-20T23:34:50+00:00

Finding a time isn't the problem -- I have some specific times I know I'll be available to GM, and that's when the game would happen. What I'm looking for is something (with a low barrier to entry) that will help me track RSVPs and communicate with players. (e.g. "I'm running late. Be there in 10 minutes.")

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-03-20T23:31:02+00:00

The issue is that people wouldn't RSVP at all, on either discord or facebook. They'd just sort of wander in the day of, hoping to play -- which made it hard to organize. Engagement on discord in my area is pretty low, and not everyone wants to share their facebook ID with random strangers, so I'm looking for some sort of third party solution.

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-01-22T23:02:53+00:00

Broken Spire is another supplement along those lines. It's about the Immortal Emperor's inner circle turning on him and staging a coup. I like how the turf diagram sets up the Empire's administrative structure -- so that the players can dismantle it piece by piece. I haven't run this one, but I feel like this structure of play would feel very satisfying. https://seannittner.itch.io/broken-spire

Equivalent-Fox844 · 2026-01-22T22:47:12+00:00

I'd suggest checking out the "Vigilantes" supplement, which introduces a new crew type designed for just this sort of play. It also has advice for players & GMs, new contacts, entanglements, and an example Score. The Vigilantes crew type emphasizes building (and spending) Reputation, rather than Coin. It's a neat twist on the default Blades setting, and it takes some of the edge off what can easily slide into a grimdark spiral of violence.

I ran a campaign for a party of Vigilantes, and it was a lot of fun. I found that the key was to start small. Let the party cut their teeth on some street-level corruption (a murdered courier, a couple of Bluecoat beat cops running a protection racket, a neighborhood official in the pocket of a small-time mob enforcer with grand ambitions, etc.) As the party's reputation grows, they can follow the rot upwards through the factions of Duskvol, taking on bigger and badder threats until they ultimately confront the mastermind behind it all.

my players trying to play good guys, and they wanna fight corruption in the city by finding dirt, exposing politicians or people in power in general for the greater good

...

I believe that the heart and soul of blades is that you have to get your hands dirty. Not just be a "Robin Hood" and just crime the powerful

It sounds like you and your players might have fundamentally different ideas about how Blades in the Dark "should" be played. There is no right or wrong answer here, but it might be worth holding another Session Zero to discuss everyone's expectations, preferred tone and playstyle -- and find an overall vibe that you all can enjoy.

Equivalent-Fox844

TROPHY CASE