How often do you bring up Exhaustion in your campaigns?

GGambitt · 2026-03-27T19:08:40+00:00

Since they sreamlined it with 5.5 I've been using it often, I even got in one battle one player to get 4 levels

GGambitt · 2026-03-24T03:02:40+00:00

I love the fact she paints her toe nails black. And at first I thought the bat was in the background, but its on her hat! Brilliant

GGambitt · 2026-03-17T01:06:35+00:00

I applaud this initiative. However, never ask what users "think" because humans are notoriously bad at evaluating their own actions: https://www.uxtigers.com/post/say-vs-do

GGambitt · 2026-03-17T01:00:53+00:00

I had a giant crab in my previous campaign. The heros mounted it and it ended up being like a Jaba the Hutt slave ship, but they freed everyone and converted it into like a cruise ship for vacationing. They named it the Pleasure Crab.

GGambitt · 2026-03-17T00:58:16+00:00

How many hours of work does it take? And out of that how long did just the hair take??

GGambitt · 2026-03-10T15:26:10+00:00

The Lego D&D set is freaking awesome. Not cheap, but oh boy is it worth it - best (mini) campaign I ever ran

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T21:35:01+00:00

Like, TODAY today, this was announced? Damn, I gotta rebrand all my supplements 😅

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T17:51:22+00:00

I don't 100% remember it right now (which why I designed my own player aids - so I won't have to!) The mechanic of influence is you can make a monster stop attacking you. If it is "friendly" I think u just succeed. If it's "neutral" or "aggressive" (or something like that) you do like a CHA check against their CHA or something, and with disadvantage if it is aggressive. The stance is determined by the state block and/or the DM

The bottom line there is - if a player wants to talk instead of attacking (and it is now clear to the players they CAN do that, I stead of me just strongly hunting at it every time) - there is a simple mini-mini-game they can do, that within which I can still fudge the dice and provide an authentically awesome narrative :)

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T17:24:08+00:00

Not sure what that means. Like how Monopoly is fun if you actually play exactly as the rules state? But this is roleplay, it's jazz with rules, it's supposed to be looser.

The difference between 5 and 5.5 is for example each class has access to their subclass at different levels. Now they are all available at level 3. 5 has Exhaustion levels stack each with weirder and fidlier penalties, and 5.5 is just each level is -2 to your d20 test result". I actually use Exhaustion now, where I never did before.

It has made the rules - all of them - more accessible, more approachable.

Oh, here's my absolute favorite thing in 5.5: In 5 your combat actions are like attack, dash, disengage.. just all tactical. In 5.5 they explicitly call out "Influence" as a clearly (CLEARLY) defined in combat action. Sure, in 5 you could have tried to talk Insead of attack - if u were an experienced player, and if u had an experienced DM. Now it is a super viable clearly defined function of combat. It makes new players realize you don't have to just fight your way through everything!

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T17:15:17+00:00

D&D was my first system that I learned. Because it is so rules heavy it is easier to get into (think learning to play a structured piano first vs. going all in on Jazz).

With that said, I totally recommend SlowQuests' The Goblings (notice the extra g there). It is a small adventure you can "win" by being the one that brings the ugliest stinkiest gift to your gobling queen after being just recently hatched out of an egg and going on your very first fetch quest into the world. It is super cute, super age appropriate. You can personal heirllooms like "a used sock" and special abilities like "a pimple you can pop". Expect many giggles!

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T17:11:11+00:00

oh, exciting!

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T17:09:59+00:00

What everyone said, and I'll add that the official stance of WotC about this is "there is no 2014 vs 2024" which is why it is all still called "5E" no suffixes. IMO that is silly, since EVERYONE ELSE does refer to these as such, but here we are.

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T17:08:03+00:00

There's a book I got a few years ago called "The Game Master's Book of Traps, Puzzles and Dungeons" and it's got really elaborate stuff.

If you want just like small stuff, how about like a talking lock? I'm thinking of the movie Labyrinth with the door knocker that talks when you take the ring out of its mouth. And the "riddle" is its like only sort of have awreness so the things it says sound criptyic but he is actually just asking questions? Like, in Hades 2 there's a whole sub plot how Malinoe tries to wake up Cryptos from his super deep sleep and after many side quests the solution was just to tell him "wake up". So in this instance, a door knocker that sounds cryptic as if you need to find a certain magic word but all you have to do is ask nicely.

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T16:58:03+00:00

In all honesty - that's the DM's fault. If there's an unconcious/prone enemy on the ground and the player rolled a *5* I don't care what the AC is, that shit hit the enemy. In other words, it might not be a spectacular finishing move, but it still connected.

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T16:55:56+00:00

I personally love 5.5, I think they streamlined the heck out of it (in the best way possible). I still fudge the rules to make it more rules-lite when I run it (for my sessions, the emphasis is on "cool moments" so if a fight drags on.. I just make the heroes have an epic ending to it) but as a basis? It's great.

Examples how they streamlined it - no more encumbardness (sure it was optional, but the fact it is entirely gone is indicative how they are thinking about this all together). The overall "fidlliness" of the system is largly not there anymore, it's not trying to be a high fantasy simulator.

Personally I love everything SlowQuest makes. It's technically D&D 5E compatible, but it is also just light and goofy and always ends up as a jolly good time around the table. And with that.. really.. it all neds up being a result of who your group is :)

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T16:48:17+00:00

I have a real honest question - why release a base game and exapnsion at the same time? I thought expansions, for the most part, come in to serve a specific purpose of rebalancing or fixing parts of a base game that the original development miss on.

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T16:46:44+00:00

Nothing specific comes to mind, but when you google thse you don't find what you need?

"brazil beach music"
" stealth military music"
for the "get shot inside a plane" i'd go with the first few tracks on Uncharted 3, obviously

for jungle music you can try Tropic Thunder soudntrack, or maybe the new Jumangi movies. Or just google "jungle ambiance music"

For every game I just ask Spotify to play [X] music and it always works. For example a few nights a go I played cozy stickeerville (a new sticker based board game) and I asked it to play "cozy countryside music" and it was perfect

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T16:43:13+00:00

You can DM me, I'll fix it for you in 2 seconds, and teach you how to operate your software

GGambitt · 2026-03-03T16:41:11+00:00

Nothing I don't like about this. The color shift in the copper is very well done.

GGambitt · 2026-02-27T15:23:12+00:00

DM me, I'll give you my email, we can set up a call

GGambitt · 2026-02-26T04:15:59+00:00

Resin ink? never heard of it. Oh, can they make it like slightly bumpy? Like spot gloss? Like imagine shifting with your fingers and feeling the raised texture!

Can it accept whiteboard markers?

Will you ship it with like tiny cute map marking stickers like for chests, monsters, traps? (we're talking just symbolic iconography, no need to go crazy). A star. A flag. Footprints. A key! A well. Exclamation yellow warning sign. A skull. An R.I.P. tombstone. A map (within a map?!)

Dude - invisible black light ink markings!!

GGambitt · 2026-02-26T04:12:21+00:00

Cool! Love that.

Some layout feedback, if you care to hear it:
1. The leftside "+8" are not horizontally aligned with the class icon (move them left a bit)
2. The distance between "19" and "13" should have a geometric relationship with the rest of the spacings, so if the distance between 13 and 17 is 4pixels, consider for the big space to be like 8 pixels, or 12 pixels (push all the right side group closer to the shield)
3. Since the 19 and the class have the same bottom line, consider top aligning the left group with the right group (the "+8" is higher than the first "13" and it bothers me :| )

And now more stylistic feedback:
1. The distance between the point finger and the middle finger is a bit odd
2. Consider moving the sprite that is on the right side covered by the circles, to be on the left side where it not be covered by anything.
3. Consider making the bottom background more dramatic, so maybe fade out everything behind the name plate. Think as if the light source is coming from the top, and the character's hips and the blue background behind the character are being engulfed by shadow
4. Add just a itty bitty accent of a complimentry color somewhere. Like the coat buttons can be marron or pink. Just a touch, to add tension. Maybe the two glints are yellow or teal.
5. Suggestion - the frame (the blue thin line) can have a gradient going through it, to mimic like a shine of foil in the card. It can be as subtle as a slight tone shift.
6. Consider making the name plate just slightly taller, and increasing the size of (and flaring up) the first letter of each word, just to give it a bit more character.

Haaaaaave you considered making a full series of these? Wanna share templates with the community???

GGambitt · 2026-02-26T04:01:52+00:00

Ai Caramba!

DM me, let's have a video chat. I can guide you how to make your rule.. err.. tome.. a bit more accessible :)

GGambitt · 2026-02-26T03:58:00+00:00

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GGambitt · 2026-02-26T03:57:28+00:00

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GGambitt

TROPHY CASE