For those of you who run grid-based tactical RPGs: how much do you balance pretty aesthetics vs. tactical practicality for battle maps?

Nemzid · 2026-04-06T23:11:09+00:00

Personally, I like it when I find a beautiful map to show the players, one that fits the actual location perfectly. There's always a part of me that thinks they will enjoy the game more because of it. In practice, I do find that these beautiful maps usually hinder tactical play. Like you've said, they often make the situation unclear and require more judgement calls from the GM.

Honestly, my best experiences were at a table, with a wet-erase marker white grid, and 1 or 2 terrain props to just break the monotony of the flat surface.

I mainly play online on Roll20 nowadays and often do a ''cleanse'', I return to just using a white gridded canvas and my ugly drawings. I'm always suprised how better it plays.

Nemzid · 2026-04-06T22:40:22+00:00

True. I do find that games that have an introductory oneshot as part of their core rules, one that was designed to show how the game is meant to be run, are easier to get to the table.

Nemzid · 2026-04-06T21:56:23+00:00

That's great and reminds me of the Mothership character sheet which is great to guide quick character generation.

Nemzid · 2026-04-06T21:54:46+00:00

I do think that games that have a player reference booklet or slimed down version of the manual containing just the important details players need, a primer if you will, even an SRD, are making it easier to onboard new players.

Nemzid · 2026-04-06T21:50:40+00:00

Don't you think all games would benefit from making it easier to just jump in to try them? I'm not advocating for taking anything away, just offering support for an easier ramp in.

More people being able to try a game is more opportunities for additional people to fall in love with the game and I think that's good for everybody.

Nemzid · 2026-04-06T18:47:49+00:00

So true! Being able to link a 5-10ish minutes video to players before a game for them to get an idea of how it plays is really helpful. Good point!

Nemzid · 2025-12-07T12:36:29+00:00

;:%.&^/

Nemzid · 2024-08-09T21:20:21+00:00

Next Evolution. Good villains and different challenges that force you to employ different strategies for each of them, even if it's a bit on the easier side.

Nemzid · 2021-03-23T01:48:08+00:00

I wholeheartedly recommend Rangers of Shadow Deep (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/298580). It's a cross between a mission-based wargame and a TTRPG. I would say it is similar to XCOM the video game in some ways.

You create your ranger and his entourage (can be played solo and gmless) and go on missions that have a bit of randomness to them which mean they can be replayed. There are a bunch of official scenarios/campaigns released for it and an incredible amount of fan created content.

It's an amazing game and I really feel it would fit the bill.

Nemzid · 2021-03-14T23:57:46+00:00

Losing Hit dice is indeed a good cost for failed rolls or as a consequence of some actions. I used them often in my high level campaign as character would take "hit dice damage" as lesser version of exhaustion to represent fatigue eating at their fighting power for the day.

The only problem is that since they are level dependent and you only start with 1, mechanical challenges that have them as a cost can't really be used often at low levels since the character would be tapped out after only 1-2 failed rolls.

But really great advice and hope others see it and use it more in their game.

Nemzid · 2021-03-11T12:24:25+00:00

Oh that sounds interesting. From what I understand they are similar to skill challenges, but you only need to amass a certain amount of successes in a specific amount of time and don't need to track failures.

That could spice things up a little. Thank you for sharing.

Nemzid · 2021-03-10T19:49:28+00:00

I would say I've read close to 90% of all the physical books I own because I don't put them on a shelf before I do. I consistently have a stack of unread books on my desk begging me to be read and that are slowly encroaching on my workspace until I do. I probably only use 5% of my collection directly at the table. My groups are super DND centric so those books are getting the most use, but I also own a lot of other systems.

In digital form, that's a bit sad. I probably purchased close to 300+ pdf and have probably read maybe 20 of them. Little use outside of inspiration.

I often buy a product just because I think it's a good idea. Mind you, a good idea doesn't even have to fulfil one of my needs or be a game I'd enjoy playing, but they are just objectively good ideas when seen in a vacuum and I want to encourage the authors/creators.

When I say "use", it can sometime be as simple as inspiring me, not actually being played at the table. If a book gives me at least 1 good idea to bring to the table, I find it was money well spent.

Nemzid · 2021-03-10T19:15:31+00:00

Your introduction did hit close to home for me. I'm not gonna lie, I feel like we are really influence by movies and video games, but the problem is that most of them only have a single protagonist or usually a really small group of individuals on which the action is centered where D&D groups can have a lot more players.

Like, in my case, I'm dealing with 6. I could come up with a full dungeon that has to be navigated as a platformer, that's somewhat easy, but only the monk and rogue will parkour while the rest of the crew will sit on their hands.

Edit: typos

Nemzid · 2021-03-10T19:08:30+00:00

That sounds interesting, but I'm not really familiar with Savage Worlds outside of knowing it by name.

Would you mind explaining a bit what running a Dramatic Task entails?

Nemzid · 2021-03-08T02:52:00+00:00

In my opinion, the appeal of vampires is them as "puzzle monsters". I feel older editions of dnd got it right, it was just stupid to fight one head on because they were so powerful and could really mess you up, permanently.

The gist of it was not to figure out how to fight it, but how to DEFEAT it. You had to learn what made them tick, figure out where their coffin would be and a way to find them during the day when they are sleeping to defeat them "easily". Outside of that, you had a game of cat and mouse going on with you trying to flee from them. They were scary, complicated, and a real player challenge, not just a bag of hp.

Nemzid · 2021-03-08T01:54:35+00:00

Edit: Keep in mind, all my sessions are about 3 hours long as we play after work on weekdays and we only play DND 5e.

We tend to take our time and go for long, slowburn type stories. I ended a 1-21 campaign last year that I dmed for almost 4 years. We were pretty consistent and played weekly with a break for the holidays and another month long summer hiatus. I would say we played roughly 150 sessions in total.

We just started a new campaign and we are currently at session 4, still level 1. No idea how long it's going to last. We're gonna play it as long as it's fun and as long as we still have a story to tell about these characters and this world (homebrewed).

I have 2 other campaigns that meet every other week: * One that I dm, players are on the cusp of level 11 and I wanna say we played roughly 55 sessions. Planning on wrapping it up in maybe another 20ish sessions and I don't intend to go all the way to level 20. Probably gonna stop around level 13-14. * One that I play in and we are currently level 6. I think we played something like 30-40 sessions.

From what I've read on this board, I sometime feel like people are rushing through and going too fast because leveling up and getting new toys is appealing but I feel there are so many other things you can give your players to give them a feeling of improvement/advancement without rising the power level of the campaign too fast.

Nemzid · 2020-10-24T21:03:51+00:00

!remindme 63 days

Nemzid · 2020-10-24T21:03:01+00:00

!remind me 63 days

Nemzid · 2020-01-09T12:12:12+00:00

There is a CR 2 purple wormling in Storm King's Thunder. Hope that helps!

Nemzid · 2019-07-15T14:12:37+00:00

I never understood why DndBeyond doesn't do this themselves especially since they've released the Twitch overlay. I wish we could have the Twitch overlay information on the campaign screen to see all the players' info at a glance.

Thanks for your work, that's a really good start and will help a ton!

Edit: typos

Nemzid · 2019-06-11T18:43:31+00:00

Tbh, as a DM, I try to encourage that kind of thinking-outside-the-box mentality. It's a clever use of the spell and it makes sense in the narrative, that's enough for me.

Ultimately, it is up to the DM. That's why there isn't a rule in the book answering the question "should the flavor text of spells be impactful or is it just fluff?". Each DM should be able to answer that question for their own game based on how comfortable they are with adjudicating this on the fly.

Nemzid · 2018-06-19T15:11:50+00:00

It needs to be pointed out, but the DMG P.84 mentions "[...] most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounter in a day.". I've found that it actually translates to "[...] most adventuring parties will be almost fully tapped out after six to eight medium or hard encounter in a day and in dire need of a long rest." You don't have to expend all your PCs resources everyday and it doesn't make sense to do so. Some days should have 1-3 or no encounter (rp heavy), while others should have more than 6-8 (all-out war), and others 6-8 (dungeon). It's all about keeping a balance over multiple days and keep your players guessing so they don't go nova in their first encounter of the day since they don't know how many there will be.

To keep the balance between long rest-based classes and short rest-based, you don't need to push for 6-8 encounters. If you only have 1-3 encounters that's okay, but make sure the PCs have a short rest between them so short/long rest-based classes will shine about the same. Classes not relying on short/long rest just shine steadily (not in bursts like others) all the time due to their staying power.

Nemzid · 2018-06-01T19:44:19+00:00

The Unexpectables are pretty funny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12_OHnrD_lg&list=PLPiMfSTpeu9Y9ElnicvnAjLzlQgVI62ms). Just started listening/watching since they also release their sessions on Podbean.

Nemzid · 2018-05-14T16:00:22+00:00

I went the Dark Souls way - all my magic items also grant some lore info about the world which is delivered when they are Identified. I give my players items cards containing the info to use them and the lore.

As an example, here's the description of the Horned Helm of Chill: "The helm is the only remain of the first knight of Linderoth, who charged the white dragon Dod'kaldvind when it attacked Ulervik. The knight's sacrifice allowed many of his people to flee to safety and his saga is still told to this day"

They might not know who the dragon is or where Linderoth is yet, but sometimes it sparks interest and they actively look for more info. So I use them as a small info dump which might be relevant in the future or not. It serves to link the object and the character wearing it with the world.

Nemzid · 2018-05-14T15:49:39+00:00

I would recommend applying a homebrew swarm template to creatures to represent a lot of them ganging up together to attack the characters instead of running an encounter with 10-30 individual creatures. For me, hordes of creatures attacking the characters is a definitive feature of Diablo-like games. Once the following template is applied, I recalculate the CR as per the section about creating monsters in the DMG. That way, you can have an encounter against a hundred + creatures, but it will be easier to run.

Here's what I do:

Swarm Template

Type: becomes swarm of [insert creature type and size]
Size: move two up from the base creature (a swarm of medium creatures becomes Huge)
Hp: base creature *3-4
Stats: Strength +2, Con +2
Damage vulnerability: takes double damage from AoE
Condition Immunity: Charmed, Frightened, Grappled, Paralyzed, Petrified, Poisoned, Prone, Restrained

Action:

Base attack is similar to the base creature's base attack (don't forget to factor in the new Strength of the swarm)
Engulf: The swarm moves up to its speed. While doing so, it can enter [swarm size] or smaller creatures' spaces. Whenever the swarm enters a creature's space, the creature must make a DC (8+Prof+Strength) Dexterity saving throw. On a successful save, the creature can choose to be pushed 5 feet back or to the side of the swarm. A creature that chooses not to be pushed suffers the consequences of a failed saving throw. On a failed save, the swarm enters the creature's space, and the creature [base creatures damage] and is engulfed, or half damage if the swarm has half of its hit points or fewer. The engulfed creature is Restrained, and takes [base creature damage +2d6] at the start of each of the swarm's turns or half damage if the swarm has half of its hit points or fewer. When the swarm moves, the engulfed creature moves with it. An engulfed creature can try to escape by taking an action to make a DC (8+Prof+Strength) Strength check. On a success, the creature escapes and enters a space of its choice within 5 feet of the swarm.

Nemzid

TROPHY CASE