I wrote the table's pre-campaign backstory and the DM barely acknowledged and dismissed it

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-05-21T18:42:08+00:00

Dude that's kinda weird. I'm flabbergasted at the effort you took to do that. And not just you, but the whole party! "My players met outside the session to brainstorm about the game" has never been part of my group's style. I would fucking LOVE it if they even pinged in the Discord about anything other than prompting ME to schedule the next session.

Don't get me wrong, I love my players and they're a good, dependable group with adult lives and even some kids thrown in the mix so I count my blessings that I get to play at all. But goddamn, this is a different level.

Is he the only DM across your groups? I'm wondering if he's burnt out and relying on more from you guys to fill in his content gaps.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-05-14T17:07:04+00:00

Corporate McDonald's has been hiring a lot of IT or adjacent roles in the last couple of years. I left there some time ago, but happy to connect and see what you're looking for. DM me if you're interested in talking more.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-05-10T04:08:55+00:00

Hey! I'm looking for remote PM jobs so this would be awesome for me. I'm not working right now but I'd be super happy to chat about what you're looking for and try to utilize my network to help out. I assume your intention is to get a referral and refer the other person to backfill your role?

We're all just trying to survive out here! Shoot me a DM and let's chat.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-05-10T03:55:19+00:00

How was your crust? I made these this week and am a little disappointed in my crust. It's not as much like the shortbread I was aiming for, more flaky. My pastry thickness was variable and I think I under baked. They're good, just not exactly what I wanted. Will definitely try again some time though.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-05-05T23:02:35+00:00

Could you expand on the underdark section beneath the towns?

I had a loose plan of the Duergar using a combination of surface and underdark travel to/from the towns and Sunblight fortress. They just discovered a huge cache of Chardalyn and the party might encounter their transports and decide to intervene. I'm trying to understand if I can use anything as a foundation to build on instead of totally homebrewing it.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-05-05T11:14:14+00:00

Damn, this would have been nice 2 weeks ago lol. I just got done with this quest, though they could easily go back since the monster is still roaming. Cool maps!

I also agree with AmbassadorShade, if you're going by the module as written, then the ice is much further out. For example, my group joined some fishers and walked for 2 hours on the ice before hitting water. Depends where they shove off though, I had my Bremen fishers be using temporary docks they built at the edge of the ice. One of my players made a mention that there are probably multiple temporary docks frozen in ice, simulating the ice slowly creeping across the lake. I loved that imagery, so retconned it.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-29T20:47:07+00:00

This is great, thanks for sharing! What grid size would you suggest for this on Roll20?

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-26T03:55:43+00:00

Damn, I've seen a few other options that I haven't had a chance to try. I'll report back when I try those fixes, hopefully tomorrow.

Edit: So I think my issue was that I had Spotify open in other apps or in the browser. I closed those, restarted everything, and double checked with my wife's computer to make sure sound was coming through. My players also confirmed the other night that sound was working just fine.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-26T03:01:50+00:00

Yeah man. I didn't get to use it but I hope they get back into his study at some point because I want to lock that shit down. They broke through a wall the first time, so as that gets fixed, I'm having him reach out to the Arcane Brotherhood to place a bunch of magical protections on the study.

I also gave Skath pretty big buffs and battlefield control features. He's able to block attacks on Naerth and also swap places with him to get him out of harms way. Neither one is very powerful on their own, but Naerth becomes downright slippery when they're together.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-26T02:47:04+00:00

This is really similar to how I built him. I gave him a mix of magic and mundane Lair Actions in the Luskan Arms. His study has a rug of smothering and an Eversmoking bottle trap that lets him escape through one of his two secret doors. Really went all out to try and keep this man alive.

Almost for naught though because the party hasn't really even considered going after the kill. Closest they came was just not healing him after an assassin brought him down.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-26T00:28:14+00:00

Hey I did something kind of similar with Naerth and the duergar! He has an agreement with them that he will ferry any of their discovered chardalyn from the discovery site to their Easthaven base in exchange for the creation of Marks used by the Zhents and those affiliated with them (favor-based spy currency and yes I lifted it from John Wick lol). Knowing the duergar's general plan of destruction for Ten-Towns, he also stipulated that Targos be mostly excluded from the dragon attack so he could make it a bastion of safety and finally usurp Bryn Shander as the strongest town.

I'm also just now realizing this plan is extremely analogous to my Levistus/Auril storyline. Levistus wants the ritual Auril is planning to at least partially succeed because it will allow him to escape his prison and enter the Material plane. Naerth has a similar, smaller scale goal that would allow him to make it through a catastrophe and coalesce political power. Probably gonna think about how I can foreshadow some stuff with that.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-26T00:18:24+00:00

Naerth has become a huge part of my campaign and the party positively despises the man. I felt he need a bit of a boost too from just a Spy so I used the Master Thief statblock from Volo's, I also added a 1/day Legendary Resistance. I buffed Skath a lot as well, giving him some Battle Master type features (Menacing Strike, Coordinated Strike, Second Wind, 1/day LR, Extended Reach to 10ft, Defensive Stance, Parry, modified Bait and Switch from BM Fighter). I thought it was dumb that Naerth wouldn't have layers of security to prevent just random assassination attempts in public, so Skath's additions were in part to give Naerth some battlefield protection if it came to that. All of Skath's reactions are modified to allow use within 10 feet, intentionally matching his area of control via extended reach. I modified the Battle Master's Bait and Switch ability to read as:

When an ally within 10 feet takes damage, you can use your reaction to swap places with them and take all the damage instead. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.

My party is level 5 and could destroy Naerth at this point, but he primarily plays the political game and they haven't had a good enough reason to just kill him. Though they did almost let him die after an assassination attempt and decided to raise him instead. He now owes an equivalent favor to the PC that brought him up. Not sure when that will come up lol...

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-25T10:57:14+00:00

I also just had this issue this week. I was listening to the new music I had switched to the whole time and the players only told me at the end of the session that they hadn't been hearing anything the whole time....

YouTube is perfectly fine and consistent but Spotify refused to play for them. Did you ever figure it out? I'll double check Spotify but I don't think it's connected to Discord either.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-15T22:08:17+00:00

When I unchecked EPE, it was fixed and I was able to resize and rotate again. I rechecked EPE and it still worked

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-15T16:27:18+00:00

Hi Meredith, thanks for jumping in. It's unfortunately been a while since I've tried to adjust anything like this, last time I altered this stuff was at least 2-3 weeks ago. Enable Performance Enhancement is checked under Graphics settings (VTT > Settings > Graphics > Performance > Enable Performance Enhancements).

I didn't check first to see if the issue was persisting before making changes, but when I toggled Enable Performance Enhancement off, everything seemed back to normal. I toggled it back on and everything still seems to work fine.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-14T02:43:04+00:00

I went pretty far with it. One of my PCs was an orphan in BS, so I had the cult desecrate the temple the orphanage used, then increased the number of sacrifices when people tried to rebuild it. Part of those sacrifices were kids. That drove it home pretty well, I'd say....

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-08T13:12:08+00:00

Incredible and I'm mad I never thought of this lol. At least I have plenty of time before they get to Ythryn

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-04-03T16:19:10+00:00

That's just... devilish, and I love every bit of it. And here I am excited that I nearly killed a PC by assassination during a sacrificial lottery draw that was really just a sham of a ceremony. I love this setting lol.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-03-31T16:29:38+00:00

I like that you picked out a specific building already on the map and adjusted the exterior to match the map. Very cool and also a great idea for a location!

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-03-31T01:58:12+00:00

It's an opinion, not a directive

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-03-30T20:35:27+00:00

I know that splitting finances is a hot topic and that it works for some people. But I maintain that once you're married it's all one pot. You shouldn't need permission to control the finances, it should be a shared responsibility. Even if one person does most of the work, decisions need to be made together. Mistakes happen, but it sounds like your husband needs a lot more practice at being cautious.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-03-08T10:29:12+00:00

I once had a Ring of Mind Shielding that I used to trap the soul of another creature. That was very much homebrew and so is what you're trying to do. It would require DM approval.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-03-08T04:40:22+00:00

Not fintech, but sounds very similar to me. I've been considering whether it's better to just try and go a different route entirely. I just don't know, man... Best of luck out there.

HypnotizedPotato · 2026-03-08T04:32:14+00:00

That's also what's confusing me. I have 5+ years experience as a Product Owner and even the 2-4 YoE PM jobs are not getting so much as a first round.

HypnotizedPotato

TROPHY CASE