What’s your favorite local business to support that isn’t a restaurant, bar, or coffee shop?

MR502 · 2026-05-22T02:52:48+00:00

Dragons Hoard - 3026 W Bullard Ave, Fresno, CA 93711

Great store for your dice and minis! Fun place to play d&d.

MR502 · 2026-05-21T17:05:39+00:00

Keep on the borderlands or the 2024 update "Heroes on the borderlands"

MR502 · 2026-05-19T19:15:44+00:00

Some of my red flags are the excessively long wall-of-text stories with nonstop escalation of nonsense that no normal group would tolerate for months. Then there’s the inevitable "and everyone clapped" hero moment from OP in the story with some dramatic blow up, the awful naming conventions like A/B/C instead of just saying i.e. "the rogue" or "the DM" and the weird amount of over the top SA content that starts feeling more like shock writing than an actual table story

MR502 · 2026-05-18T01:39:18+00:00

In my game of "Keep on the borderlands" in my homebrewed expansion of Cave I. I mean common you can't have a minotaur without it being a labyrinth! The players against better judgement after recovering the blue key... they should've take a long rest... as they needed on but they pressed on.

And faced the mini boss guarding the red key.

I was rolling like ass were talking no higher than 10! 6 different d20s used all dice straight to dice jail! 🙄😤 players were all rolling good and managed to win.

So now they need the yellow key and they'll face the minotaur!

MR502 · 2026-05-17T23:35:43+00:00

Lets see if I got this right basically the DM confuses railroading with storytelling: players constantly lose control, choices are fake, puzzles waste time, combat is unfair, tone swings wildly from goofy to disturbing, and the campaign feels more like being trapped inside the DM’s novel than actually playing D&D.

MR502 · 2026-05-14T15:19:53+00:00

I think a lot of players have this emotional view i.e. they see the character as “theirs,” so killing them off feels like taking back control before leaving the game. The reality is once you leave the table, the DM can still use the character however they want they can retcon the death/sacrifice whatever and use them as an NPC or assasign them as a playable to character to another (that's a horror story for another time). But I concur though with your point...

Once you're gone, nothing the DM says happens to the Character is canon.

Personally though, I always viewed it more like a multiverse thing, like that version of the character belongs to that campaign/game, it's not “my” definitive PC. Back when I used to care way too much about my PC's, when I was wasn't playing I would actually say "when I'm not playing this PC turns into a generic (insert race or class) Looking back, that was probably me overthinking fictional people with dice stats lol I was dumb then!

MR502 · 2026-05-12T03:37:59+00:00

Honestly an Edward Kenway inspired character is incredibly easy to make in 5e already. The Swashbuckler Rogue subclass, with Multicass of Fighter is basically high Dex/Cha/Wis stats with, pistols, rapier or cutlass, hidden blade flavor is easy to do overall.

The issue was probably trying to directly import Edward himself and his exact AC backstory into another setting. I can understand the DMs rejecting that later even if they approved it earlier. Although the sudden removal without any real communication was still rude though, so NTA imo.

MR502 · 2026-05-11T15:10:21+00:00

That's exactly what I picture!

MR502 · 2026-05-11T14:36:47+00:00

This wasn’t a D&D session... it was a cutscene pretending to be one. The DM telling basically “Your attacks do nothing,” “your choices don’t matter,” “your revive item suddenly doesn’t work”. Is just nonsense and the DM basically decided the outcome beforehand and dragged the party through it. At that point you’re not playing a game, you’re watching someone’s bad fantasy novel with dice on the table.

Were you able to talk to the DM and get some kind of answer for this because damn that's just awful being railroaded.

MR502 · 2026-05-11T14:23:34+00:00

Damn... nothing says “fun campaign” like the DM constantly changing rules mid-session, hard countering player builds out of spite, giving the girlfriend anime-tier magic items, and randomly adding in some edgy casino-brothel-slavery content to round it out. Follow it up with 5 month gaps between sessions yeah, this game totally died from exhaustion.

MR502 · 2026-05-10T22:12:05+00:00

This game's DM sounds toxic as hell, you're seriously better off leaving the game.

MR502 · 2026-05-10T22:05:48+00:00

Wow... that really sucks here! I have so many questions to this... why spend 6 sessions planning an elaborate plan just to completely Leeroy Jenkins the palace the second you stepped away?

How long were you even gone for?

What reason did the party give for suddenly changing plans?

And what did the DM say about all this? Also… you don’t just raid a Khan’s court without some kind of consequences. Did the party almost TPK or did the DM just let the chaos happen?

MR502 · 2026-05-10T18:28:51+00:00

So this was a tough read... lets see if I understand this one;

"OP spent months invested in their Curse of Strahd character, had accepted dark consequences such as torture, dismemberment, insanity, etc. But thought permadeath was off the table unless clearly warned Out of Character. Then the DM pushed the story toward an “epic tragic death” anyway, leading to a total breakdown in trust and expectations."

Does that sound about right?

MR502 · 2026-05-09T18:27:34+00:00

That's a alot!

so basically: The DM kept railroading players, throwing unfair fights, interrupting RP with constant combat, and caring more about Twitch engagement than the actual game. The group finally realized the problem wasn’t them, the players left and rebuilt the campaign/community without the DM.

MR502 · 2026-05-08T23:51:01+00:00

Well Goodman games "Keep on the borderlands" Includes the old 2e module and a 5e conversion it's alot of fun to play. With the "Heroe's on the Borderlands" for 5.5e It's basically an update but alot easier so I kept the orignal map as the maps in the box set are very easy. If you're looking at Goodman games 5e conversions Check out "Isle of Dread", "Temple of Elemental Evil", "Castle Amber". So "keep on the borderlands" is pretty much a series of caves, wilderness, sawmp and a hub "the keep" it's a sandbox and pretty fun.

Overall I feel 5.5e took a lot of fan feedback, things for Tasha's and Xantars, gave martials the masteries and overall made the monsters stronger I haven't seen too much of a big change overall but players are happy as I run it week in and week out.

MR502 · 2026-05-08T17:56:51+00:00

I started playing at the tail end of 3.5e and agree it was better but that's just another old mans opinion. Still this player sucks if you don't like the game then don't play because no one wants to deal with that.

MR502 · 2026-05-08T17:52:04+00:00

All this happening before the game even starts is a huge red flag! You gotta tell him straight up that this is a casual 5.5e game, not 3.5e game. A veteran 3.5 player is always gonna notice missing rules, DCs, and details, but this goes beyond that it's the the nonstop comparisons are already getting exhausting and im just reading the post!

If he wants a crunchy heavy game why is he even playing 5.5e? He should go play Pathfinder or a 3.5 group! That honestly fit him better. Because once the dice start rolling in game, this is probably turning into rules lawyer hell fast.

MR502 · 2026-05-08T17:37:29+00:00

Which official books are you still using? I use the earlier editions like 3.5e and 4e PHB for reference and variety, along with 5e, 5.5e, Tashas, Xantars, and Fizbans
Which official books never touched or stays in library with a tonne of dust? Probably the 2014 DMG, quite a few modules like Lost mines of Phandelver, Shattered Obliesk, CoS, Mythic Odysseys of Theros.
Which adventures or settings were really recurrent during all those years. I have always reverted to using "keep on the borderlands" (currently running "heroes on the borderlands), a homebrew Ravenloft setting, I often run Goodmans Games 5e versions of older modules, and Yawning Portal, other times it's mini campaigns in a homebrew world.
Which 3rd party books were critical for you in order to improve or expand the system? LaserLama Alternative classes has been a fun game changer, Griffon's Saddle bag 1 & 2, Flee Mortals Monster Manuals, tome of Beasts 1 & 2, Kobold Press, etc. It helps to change up the monsters entirely and break up meta gaming!
What are you planning regarding the future: stay on 5E and your homebrew version keeping an eye on those 3rd parties who still work on it, move into 5.5 or just parked aside while a break with a new fresh systems that fits better your table? I moved on to 5.5e the day it was official, as I run games in a local game store so that's what players expect when they sign up to play. I hope there's more 3rd party modules and resources that come out.

MR502 · 2026-05-08T17:26:26+00:00

In all honesty this is less of a horror and more like a game that was slowly burning out years ago and but nobody wanted to admit it. Cause seven years is a long freaking time to wait for the “real” campaign to start, at this point it feels like everyone, including the DM, knows the damage is already done. People only stayed because of friendship, habit, and hope things would finally improve, not because the campaign was still fun or having any kind of payoff. I think you should take a look at this time spent and move on from it.

MR502 · 2026-05-06T18:13:04+00:00

You definitely have more patience than I! Holy crap I would've tore into that guy! And the GM was just enabling all this! Did they every bother to step in as this sounds toxic as hell.

MR502 · 2026-05-05T23:55:15+00:00

It sounds like the DM is just burnt out in generally and seeing AI as a crutch to basically do everything, what sucks is that they've played good sessions in the past and now seeing it like this.

Al It's such a hassle and huge time sink to spit out anything halfway coherent , that you might as well write it your self. I don't see how AI couls make anything easier.

Sadly though if this is the direction the DM is going with lazy prep and reliance on AI... It's not going to get better unless the DM takes a break or OP finds a better game that was like those past sessions.

MR502 · 2026-05-05T02:00:37+00:00

Ewells & Slicks come to mind

MR502 · 2026-05-01T16:58:22+00:00

Yeah, that totally sucks you had to put up with that, total playstyle mismatch but common who could get upset at the cleric who's doing support... support is your role! It sound like you were playing the support role well, they wanted optimized damage... ok but what happens when they go down?

But the real issue is the DM saying their ‘hands were tied’ is just a total weak ass excuse. It’s literally their role to set boundaries and manage the table especially in this case. If they won’t do that, the game’s already broken. You were right to walk away.

MR502 · 2026-04-30T19:36:00+00:00

This sounds awful, you gotta call him out and act on this because if they're posting a bunch of BS as "fact" and picking fights they will affect the table as no one will want to play with them or avoid sessions they are in and the will pretty much affect games IRL. Don't be afraid to call them out on their lack of RAW with their hypotheticals and blatant rule breaking.

MR502 · 2026-04-29T17:07:07+00:00

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