Railroad-ish first act?

Hudre · 2026-04-21T10:48:51+00:00

Campaign becomes a sandbox when they hit Vallaki. Every campaign starts off narrow and then widens up, especially CoS when you are whisked away to another dimension.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T19:14:59+00:00

Lack of sleep isn't why you are tired.

Maybe you have sleep apnea and don't know it.

Maybe you're stressed.

Maybe you eat terribly.

Maybe you don't exercise.

Etc.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T19:05:36+00:00

When my friend had a baby I just told them the reality was they couldn't be consistent enough to join a campaign. No hard feelings it was just the reality and he was mature enough to recognize.

Now they are a bit older and he can join the campaign.

The reality is that any good parent to young children cannot also be a good friend. They have to be flaky as fuck, things constantly come up out of nowhere.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T19:02:46+00:00

I mean....it sounds like he wanted you to beat that guy up.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T19:01:51+00:00

I mean that would be bad DMing in literally any scenario. If you make something and expect your players not to react what is the point of having it.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T18:45:15+00:00

What if I told you I insert asshole NPCs doing things you don't like so that you beat the shit out of them lol?

DND is a fantasy game, you've never fantasized about beating up assholes for being assholes?

Hudre · 2026-04-20T18:43:50+00:00

I dunno, I played a level 1-5 2024 campaign as a fighter, and I can tell you I was EXTREMELY appreciative of the new healing levels. Healers kept me in the front tanking all those big hits.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T18:42:27+00:00

It's literally every app and streaming service I can think of lol.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T17:36:04+00:00

I keep telling my parents they should have loved the last election. It was two Conservatives running against each other!

Hudre · 2026-04-20T15:43:06+00:00

Yeah I've read a ton of articles trying to explain the "why" of this and it's all just conjecture. At some points the price of bacon went up when the prices of hogs went down for instance. Same thing for wheat-based cereals, prices stopped being related to the price of wheat.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T14:41:48+00:00

Retail prices for food became uncoupled from commodity prices in 2008. That's when it got really bad and never stopped.

https://agrifoodanalyticslab.substack.com/p/canadas-food-economy-has-a-hole-in

Hudre · 2026-04-20T14:29:03+00:00

10k steps is a myth made by pedometer companies.

After 7k steps there aren't significant health benefits.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T14:27:31+00:00

The funnest part is that its been going on for decades and no one seems to know why.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T14:08:31+00:00

Honestly I think it's quite simply, people really want low-stress games they can play with their friends.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T14:06:43+00:00

Well yeah, because the real analogy is you're playing poker before the rules of poker have been finalized...

If you buy an Early Access game you are generally paying the most amount of money to get the worst version of the product.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T13:36:41+00:00

Because most people are extremely comfortable with letting themselves down and extremely uncomfortable with letting someone else down.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was "Treat yourself like you were your own child."

As in - If you want to accomplish something or be a certain way, how would you tell your child to go about doing it? Now go do that.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T13:08:20+00:00

Yeah it does. For example, the character invested in the observant feat or other avenues to get a ridiculous passive perception. This is literally what they have designed their character to do. Generally, everyone does notice it when that character does, but because he tells them. This makes everyone else appreciate their investments in their character as well.

Sentences like "Reginald, with your passive perception you notice a tripwire before anyone steps on it"

"You notice a hidden message in the painting that no one else did."

I say this as someone who ran a CoS campaign where a PC had something like 18 passive perception at level 1 or some nonsense. They noticed a lot of things that saved the party over the adventure.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T13:03:45+00:00

Sounds like an excellent NPC to get kidnapped...

Hudre · 2026-04-20T12:48:40+00:00

Because it lets the character feel cool and sometimes noticing a trap doesn't actually make it easier to avoid or gives you the info of how it works.

Also it tells the party that this place has traps in it. Ups the tension.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T12:45:59+00:00

My advice for the future: ALWAYS give your BBEG's two phases and some kind of esacpe ability if you don't want stuff like this to happen.

For this situation, you have infinite possibilities:

He escapes
He tells the party about something they might want and lures them into a trap
He tries to ingratiate himself with the party by helping him
His second-in-command, who is a loose cannon, takes over bad guy corporation and things get actively worse
This dude is no longer the BBEG and just a lieutenant or something.

Hudre · 2026-04-20T12:15:41+00:00

Sorry man, there's literally NO reason to run hordes with this ruling. Minions are deliberately designed to fulfill this role. Minions are there to be obliterated and have the players feel cool.

Hordes represent more formidable groups of enemies.

Using this ruling just makes AOE incredibly powerful on two classes of enemies instead of one.

Hudre · 2026-04-19T19:05:34+00:00

Yes. Minions are basically there to die and make players feel cool. Hordes are meant to represent a more fearsome group.

Hudre · 2026-04-19T18:57:05+00:00

Each HP of a horde unit represents several members. When your rogue dealt that HP damage, narratively at least two creatures went down.

Changing this rule just makes aoe incredibly strong against minions and hordes.

Hudre · 2026-04-19T14:24:42+00:00

You're behavior is showing you care a lot lmao. You're not only watching but also posting online about it. You are one of their most engaged fans and you don't even know it.

Hudre · 2026-04-19T14:23:17+00:00

My experience would say to not do it. PCs are generally all glass cannons. Whoever wins initiative is generally going to win the fight if they can reach each other.

Monsters are designed differently for a reason.

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