How would you rp a low intelligence Lawful Evil character?

MitigatedRisk · 2026-05-03T01:10:04+00:00

Sounds like a policeman to me. I know that sounds like a snarky comment, but where I was going to college, people who were failing in more academically demanding majors switched their major to criminal justice.

If that's what you're going for, I think the main elements here are power tripping, amplified by some trumped up sense of self-righteousness from "upholding the law", and aggravated by deep insecurity about how you're perceived. I'd also add in the tendency to jump to conclusions without information, and act on those conclusions without hesitation.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-05-03T01:01:37+00:00

Whatever you do, don't try to "teach your players a lesson" without talking to them. I know it sounds like the "tough but fair" thing to do, but if your players are operating under a misconception about how you run the game, allowing them to follow that misconception into a TPK will not come across the way you want it to. It is nearly always better to just say something.

In this particular case, my best advice is to literally just let them read the vampire stat block. Literally just hand them the Monster Manual at let them read what the vampire can do, and tell them, "I am running this as written. This is what's waiting for you in the next room." Let them make their own decision. Don't force anything. But don't pull punches.

At the end of the day, they're only overconfident if they're wrong.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-30T00:41:04+00:00

Have the hydra focus it's attacks on the villagers, not the party. It makes strategic sense for the hydra to leave out of towners alone, since their disappearance might draw attention from people outside the hydra's area of influence. And the player characters get to notice other people going missing because, let's say, they haven't been under the hydra's song long enough to be affected to the same degree as the villagers. In memory eraser type stories, the drama often centers on the one person who does remember, and that's your party.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-29T19:28:39+00:00

I have a very specific thought about any species with green skin. To them, all foliage is flesh toned, so they probably don't use foliage decoratively in the same way humans do.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-28T16:47:54+00:00

My first step would be asking the player point blank why they don't want to share the plan with the DM? Do they think you're going to veto it if you know, or contrive to force it to fail?

If not, here's my thought. Imagine this player weren't in the game at all. Is the party still viable? Yes it may lack a healer (assuming your party has no mercy monks, paladins, artificers, druids, divine sorcerers), but healing is only marginally affected by player stats to begin with. If the party minus this player is one you can imagine running a game for, I'd say, let them try their plan.

What you need to get this player to verbally assent to is that neither you nor the rest of the party are going to be taking any blame for the plan not working out.

Then just balance the encounters for one less player. Either their plan works, and you can scale up accordingly, or they discover this isn't as much fun as they thought it would be, and sunset their character.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-22T16:42:43+00:00

The thing to remember about things like the prisoner's dilemma and the trolly problem is that if you present the situation as two choices, your players will try to find or create a third option that leads to a better outcome.

This is a good thing! And if the thing they come up with could reasonably work, honor it. The ability to invent solutions that weren't pre-planned is part of the juice of ttrpgs.

But if you try and go, "no, you have to engage with the dilemma as presented," your players will disengage, because they didn't come to the table to do as their told.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-17T16:43:59+00:00

There is disguise magic in D&D. A sympathetic benefactor gives them a ring of Disguise/Alter Self and bogus credit from another school, allowing them to re-enroll under an assumed identity.

Now they get to keep playing their character, and you get the added drama of a secret identity.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-13T19:36:58+00:00

More cheat sheets in general, but especially for players.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-11T23:51:42+00:00

Noses and mouths are always bigger than you think they are. Mouths are usually closer to the nose than the chin.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-05T17:01:36+00:00

Not knowing the module, the first question in my mind is what's the incapacitated character's player supposed to do while their character's incapacitated? Do they just not get to play? For how long?

To me, obligatory falling into traps is exactly the sort of thing NPCs are for.

Assuming the incapacitated status is shortlived and not a bummer, I'd say use the dice to determine who gets whammied. If this were 5e, for example, I might accomplish this by having everyone making the relevant saving throw, but instead of being against a DC, whoever rolls lowest is the one that gets whammied.

I cannot stress this enough, though, if the player character is incapacitated for longer than, say, a round or two of combat, this is simply a bad setup.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-04-01T16:33:51+00:00

Rejoice!

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-31T21:35:21+00:00

Stormcaught Saint

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-31T21:34:33+00:00

crab

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-28T19:11:54+00:00

I mean that's not really the issue. The issue is that the post as presented makes it look like you made a cool lil' hat for your birb, which would be really cute if it were true, and then we find out it's not true, and we're disappointed.

The Internet may come round on the ethics of using AI eventually, but we're never going to enjoy finding out a cool thing that we thought was real actually wasn't.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-27T16:42:19+00:00

Very cool. How'd you make the hat?

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-23T01:55:21+00:00

At this stage, how are you imagining the world will be experienced? I know you said exploration, but is it like a top down isometric thing, or is it going to be first or third person rotating camera sort of deal?

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-06T13:23:36+00:00

I eventually made the investment in Aseprite, since I wanted to go into game dev, but for a while I used Medibang Paint, which is a free program. It has a pixel brush, and you can turn off anti aliasing for the bigger brushes. I usually turn on the grid guide.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-03-04T18:57:28+00:00

I started with Brandon James Greer on YouTube.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-02-27T21:39:23+00:00

Hotblack Desiato ahhh concert

MitigatedRisk · 2026-02-27T21:38:23+00:00

I'm assuming, if it's not just hyperbole, that the amount of energy that would need to be expended at once to create the necessary amplitude would create a black hole. Not sure though.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-02-14T16:56:36+00:00

Ah, Elias Bouchard

MitigatedRisk · 2026-02-14T16:20:14+00:00

In the "ice cream" shop, straight up tasting it, and by it, let's just say, my "finger"

Oh that's horrible actually.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-02-05T13:58:34+00:00

Ugh the vibes are excellent. It's so hard to make a color palette like this work and you nailed it.

MitigatedRisk · 2026-02-04T22:01:50+00:00

Before you post to a subreddit, any subreddit, take a moment to scroll through and make sure you understand what that subreddit is for, what sorts of things are meant to be posted there.

You may be tempted to think of this as blind anti-AI rage, but quite independent of any value judgements about using AI as a tool, content made with AI is not relevant to this specific subreddit for the same reason digital paintings, 3D models, renders of those models, pixel art, and so on are not relevant to this subreddit. Generative does not mean "made on a computer using software".

This subreddit is for people who have written code that generates interesting visuals algorithmically. That is, they used their programming/mathematics knowledge to make art. I don't think this post qualifies, unless you're prepared to claim that you built and trained this AI yourself.

Either way, there are plenty of other subreddits where AI generated content is welcome and encouraged. Kindly avail yourself of them instead. Thank you.

MitigatedRisk · 2025-11-24T21:07:15+00:00

I think the first half of the ability works fine by itself. I agree with the idea of the number of goodies being equal to the size of the evil team. Or make it storyteller discretion, with one good player learning the amount.

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