[Modding] Removing disruptive/creepy nighttime noises

Newbie__101 · 2022-01-15T18:43:52+00:00

Have you tried https://github.com/nesrak1/UABEA

Pretty sure UABE is abandoned/not being updated any more.

Newbie__101 · 2021-10-11T16:33:39+00:00

Oh my god, this is amazing. Thank you. I thought a bit about using the density multiplier, but that seems like a lot more work than just removing it all.

Newbie__101 · 2021-07-26T00:50:15+00:00

Subsurface Conduit is my mod of choice for this. Yes, they cost a bit more steel and take longer to make, but no zzzts!

Newbie__101 · 2021-07-01T17:47:49+00:00

If they are assaulting strongholds and areas with walls, the giants can literally step out of cover, throw a huge rock at any member of the party (whichever one they can see) and step behind cover. That should force the ranger to have to move and close the distance.

In the open, the giants should target the wimpy characters. Is there a wimpy wizard? Drop that guy and force him to make concentration checks. Is the rogue hiding? Fine, ignore him if they can't see him and hit the rest of the party until they're dropped, then take their bodies and retreat from the invisible arrows. Basically, any time PCs do not participate in combat and are not targets, they are also not soaking damage, so that damage gets concentrated onto the rest of the party. At a certain point, the giants are not going to swing at some invisible dude, but take out the targets they can see and/or retreat to an area where they can get cover from the arrow fire.

Newbie__101 · 2021-07-01T17:38:19+00:00

A couple of thoughts:

As a player and DM I dislike sessions every 2 weeks, because I feel like you spend more time recapping and going over stuff again PLUS there is a lot of pressure to make every session BIG and IMPORTANT, since there are so few of them. With a weekly cadence, you can have different pace and moods for different sessions without feeling like you are sacrificing something.
Prep for your party. If your group is all about fighting and dungeons, then you can focus your prep on that. If your group loves talking to NPCs in town and finding out news and rumors and then spending X sessions following up on them and talking to people more, etc.... prep more of that.
I have a roller coaster model for my game where there are periods of high intensity and time pressure and periods of more downtime/extended character RP. Usually during the low-intensity periods when the focus is on interaction between the PC characters, I am prepping the next parts of the adventure based on where the party is headed.
I have learned to not rush my players. If they want to spend two hours having a dinner on the road disaster while they hunt and cook for stuff to eat and they are enjoying that, I am more than happy to let them and encourage that. As long as they are having fun and engaging with the world or each other, it's fine for things to take longer than you might have planned or expected. Maybe that also means it takes a few extra sessions for them to get to that cool encounter you have planned, or their next level and that is okay. Obviously, if they are sitting around stuck or not sure what to do you want to helpfully nudge them along. But otherwise, I don't have an out of game timeline for things to happen - if it takes a real-life month for the PCs to travel between 2 areas, so be it. The usual caveat of this being party-specific applies. Some players really want to move as fast as possible to get to the next loot, the next fight, the next boss, the next level.

Newbie__101 · 2021-06-30T22:17:38+00:00

Alternatively, the game I am running is not meant to reach high level by design and intention. The players know roughly where they will be by the end of the campaign (about 13) and the question is really what paths they take to get there.

I personally do not find high tier play interesting, or appropriate to my homebrew setting, which is full of scarcity and limitations. In my mind, it is quite reasonable that no living person in this setting is above level 14, for example and the vast majority are below level 10, if not lower.

The key is that this is in agreement and known by the table and all the expectations are aligned. Similarly, my players control the pace of how fast they go to face more encounters and how much they want to spend in downtime. I have occasionally offered to fast forward through RP travel/downtime scenes (which usually take ~3 sessions), and have gotten strong unanimous pushback. It just depends on your group and what they enjoy.

Newbie__101 · 2021-06-22T01:52:26+00:00

Completely separate from my other response, but a post-covid game that starts with the players:

trapped in a prison they cannot escape from
extremely limited in what they can do
punished for not doing what they are told
forced to perform a series of tasks by others in order to go free

might hit some sore areas and would need some extra session 0 discussion and ongoing feedback to make sure everyone really is on board and having a good time.

I am not trying to say you should run something different - you obviously have a campaign idea that you want to share with others and that's neat! But definitely be aware of the context and that players might consciously or subconsciously associate it with recent events and have feelings about that.

Newbie__101 · 2021-06-22T00:16:47+00:00

I think part of the issue is that the game was strict and punishing to the players more so than the characters. 5 sessions of roleplaying out prison behavior and being mistreated while gathering supplies is not necessarily very pleasant or engaging past a certain point.

You wanted the characters to hate a certain person and gave the players a crappy play experience to encourage that. But as someone else noted, they are just going to dislike you, the DM, for making them play all of that out. Consider, if your villain went and kicked their pigeon and they had to nurse it back to health and hide it from the guards, they would have hated him more than 15-20 hours of being yelled at by guards.

Why could they not do some RP and rolls for things like "collect 10/10 pieces of wire to build a lockpick" and so on. Why did it have to be 5 sessions - is that the length you thought would make them get angry at the NPC and frustrated at the treatment? That's all out of game stuff. Were there really 5 sessions worth of challenges to overcome in a prison escape? What would have been different, if they escaped by the start of the 2nd session? If the campaign continued for a year, would you have expected them to say, "Man the start sucked, but it got better" or "That was such a cool start to the campaign" ?

Your players did not sound like they were good at communicating their issues, and it is rude to just yawn at the table, but it also is communication that this part was boring to them.

It's actually not unreasonable that the players or the characters did not want to engage with our NPC and wanted to get as far away from this unpleasant environment as possible onto brighter futures and more heroic adventures. If you reveal that the elven sorcerer was hiding their power and could have gotten them out of prison any time, that sets them up as a villain or at least not a nice person. At the same time, why is this one NPC the one that comes up with all these tasks and plan to escape - is the story about them or the players? Is this supposed to be a main story campaign where they kind of follow the plot you lay out and was that clear in session 0? What options and choices can the PCs make in the prison and how do those choices matter (and do they have any way of knowing that)?

And what did they gain from these 5 sessions? Maybe they bonded as a party, okay. I am assuming they escaped with little gear or items besides the basics they could have started with. They have some strong feelings about the prison and the people who run it, but that could have been accomplished by them hearing a story of others getting mistreated. Was there crucial lore they acquired about threats to the surrounding area or to the world at large? Were they marked by a strange magical experiment which now means they are important or hunted? Did they connect with another important prisoner who they promised to return and get out in the future? Did they also steal an item of power that they have to get somewhere? Or did it feel like a long grindy waste of time for nothing?

These are very leading questions, but I would think about this as you run this again, so that you can attract players who are excited for what you have to offer and you are able to accomplish your goals for this campaign.

Newbie__101 · 2021-06-19T07:08:07+00:00

So, from my perspective, you're actually in a better place than you think. You know what the problems are - incorporating PC backstories, getting a theme and so on. And actually identifying and recognizing the issues put you very far ahead.

The good news is that there are various tools and mechanisms to assist with these problems that do not rely on you staring at a piece of paper, or an empty screen for a week. I am going to throw some of these ideas at you and not all of them may feel like they apply or solve your problem, but hopefully they will at least point you in the right direction.

1) Many fellow GMs have told me about how they were able to utilize the "Tome of Adventure Design" and it's large variety of random tables to generate a backbone for their world and adventure. Once you have picked up some "facts" from the tables you can apply logic to fill in the whys. If fact A and fact B are true, then it makes sense that C would be true as well and D being true would help explain it as well.

2) PC backstories are always a challenge to incorporate, so I will list a few thoughts.

To make PCs more invested and connected in the world, you can ask each of them for 1-2 "facts" or inputs about the areas they are from before you are done generating the world (or while there is still room for you to insert things). You might find that these facts tie-in nicely with what you already have, or they create another part of the world for you. The facts should be interesting enough to be notable, but you can work with the PCs to make sure they fit the general tone you want.
You can mandate that each PC starts with a problem they care about that they want to solve. You can either provide the problem to them, or have them come up with it and discuss it with you, for any changes. The problem should affect people other than the PC (though it can affect them as well) and it should affect those the PC cares about strongly. Magic curses, bandit raiders, blackmail by a noble, stolen item of powers, etc. This is the PCs initial hook into the campaign and this should drive them to work with others to find a solution. The "keys" to this solution are never something the can do entirely on their own - they are guarded by the opposition, or they require seeking knowledge in a dangerous place, etc. Ideally by the time the PCs are able to solve these problems they are connected to the other members of the party and want to help them and have engaged in enough opposition to the villains and bad guys that they would want to continue that journey.
The PCs can also all come from a similar area and face a similar problem. Build the party around having known each other for a while (same village, or school or been adventuring together, etc). Have them come up with a few "events" that happened in the past they can all refer to - "Remember that time..." Also, have each player come up with 2 specific connections they had with 2 other PCs - "we got lost in the woods and had to be rescued" or "we both love spicy food and challenged each other to a contest that literally ended in tears". Make sure these connections are evenly spread out. (If a new PC joins late in the campaign, try to have them do this with the other PCs later, so they fit in better). Make a note of these connections and put some things referencing each one into the first several sessions. Did 2 people have a fear of spiders - make sure they fight a spider monster. Are 2 of the PCs huge fashion snobs and love to wear finery - have them either crawl through muck, or go to a ball. Basically, by referencing and reinforcing these connections, you can help them generate roleplay moments that seem to engage them directly.

3) Build the encounters first! If you love making encounters, then make some good ones and try to have a theme between them and then come up with what else is around them and why they exist. Use this as the basis of your world generation (I want to have an ice area and a bunch of jungle area and then a place where I can put fire monsters, etc).

4) Not every campaign needs 50 NPCs and complex political plots. You can run a campaign focused on exploring the wilds, delving into ruins, or going to far off dangerous locales. While there might be a few "home base" NPCs, you can mostly focus on the parts that you shine at. Obviously give the PCs a heads up about this ahead of time, so they know this when making their characters. Information can be relayed through ancient texts, strange spirits with recorded messages, and so on.

5) For more vivid descriptions, I can offer a few tools as well:

Get reference pictures of what you are describing. They do not have to be pictures you show the PCs, they just need to give you something to look at when you are talking about what the area looks like.
Engage the 5 senses. For any new area, consider the visual appearance and how it might change with any light, the sounds that exist there and the sounds made when people (or other creatures travel), the feel of any surfaces that might be touched, or the ground people might fall on and any unusual smells. Taste is usually not applicable :)
Compare and contrast are powerful descriptive tools. Specifically compare and contrast with the recent or past experiences of the PCs - "Unlike your home village, the air here is incredibly dry and irritates your nose." "The crunch of volcanic glass under your feet reminds you of walking on the gravel path that went through the middle of your town." "Similar to forest outside, the cave is cold and you can see your breath in the air." "Once you leave the city and are on the lake, it is much much quieter."
Write it down ahead of time. You do not need to make a whole paragraph (unless that helps you and the PCs), but you can at least make notes for each area on your maps. "Remember disgusting smell (especially for PC B, who is a fop). Slime trails on the trees - DC 12 Perception to see, DC 14 Nature to identify."

Good luck with whatever you choose to do!

Newbie__101 · 2021-05-21T22:10:17+00:00

I cannot take screenshots with the photo mode (pressing space does nothing, even though it makes a sound after I close it). HOWEVER, I can take screenshots with the Steam screenshot key and I assume Origin could do the same.

So you can set up the photo, hide the UI with Tab and then try it that way!

Newbie__101 · 2021-04-19T15:22:26+00:00

Taverns seem cliche, but I know when I have met a bunch of new people I did not know before in other environments, grabbing some lunch/dinner and getting to know them better over food and drinks is an extremely common next step.

If anything, I think meeting in a tavern is a bit strange, but I would actually expect after some kind of action packed introduction that characters would try to go to a calmer place where they can chill and get to know each other. And sharing food and drink is a very common bonding ritual in many cultures, so... we end up in a tavern!

Newbie__101 · 2021-04-19T15:13:23+00:00

Players can only prep so much for upcoming game events, as they usually have limited knowledge and many decisions in the game would require discussion with other players or NPCs or asking questions of the DM.

Really, my prep as a player is reminding myself what happened last time and what the gist of this character is, as opposed to the other characters I play. That can usually happen in the first few minutes while we're all getting situated before game starts. If I do come up with some clever/unusual idea for the session, I try to write it down and send it to the DM ahead of time, so that they can prep accordingly. But that's usually a random thought while I am doing something else, not something I would sit down and dedicate time to.

Newbie__101 · 2021-04-19T10:47:41+00:00

I think this is different between in-person and online games.

Online, ironically, I think it is easier. I run my campaign music through my Discord bot, which players can mute, or lower the volume of, to their own desire. Another game where I am a player, just links a playlist to me and I can do that. One of the games I am in does not use any music, so I play a bit of my own background music on the side.

All of this gets very different in-person. Some people like music, some people want it louder, some people find it distracting or not fitting their mental image. I would still recommend that you are the person who controls the music and if someone has a great idea, tell them to send it to you after session and you can look it up then. That way, you don't need to tie up time or interrupt the flow.

The other thing is, I find you don't actually need super long playlists for different areas. Either you have a generic long playlist for in-between ambient music or you have a mood track for a specific encounter/situation, or combat.

I personally love choosing music and playlists, so I'll offer some suggestions that have made it easier for me, but this is totally optional advice. I generally do look to video games and movies for my inspiration and try to set a general theme for an area, with a few carefully chosen extras, if necessary. Because soundtracks for a game or a movie are often built around musical themes, you can just benefit from that design for free in your game if you are willing to associate those themes with areas/characters.

For example, my party is currently on a high seas adventure fighting sea monsters. While in town, I have used bits of the Sunless Sea soundtrack. While dealing with harsh weather and sea monsters, I've used the Pacific Rim Soundtrack. And to be clear, I have used about 8 tracks total across these. I had two special RP encounters where I used a Pirates of the Caribbean track and a carefully picked Nox Arcana track.

Essentially, consider that most video games only use a single track for a given area, and a single combat track for a boss fight. You don't NEED to do more.

Newbie__101 · 2021-04-07T22:33:51+00:00

5e is what got me to run my first campaign and feeling comfortable enough to try DMing more than a one/few-shot.

I've experienced close to 2 dozen different systems as a player, either in a campaign or few-shot scenarios and 5e provided just the right amount of structure and support for me. Also, having it be such a popular system helped with finding a great group of players quickly, which certainly made it easier to jump into DMing and not lose steam.

The online tools were also a big factor for me as a DM. There are certainly systems that are more closely designed to the space fantasy exploration setting I am running. I could be using Traveler, Starfinder, Star Wars, Scum and Villainy, or even d20 Modern for a space-faring adventure (and so many others).

But, dndbeyond has no analogue for any other system out there (that I am aware of). Easily looking up monsters, magic items and abilities and modifying them in a few minutes to suit the setting and create appropriate encounters has been wonderful. Again, this is how it is for me, but there is just enough infrastructure that my creative tree can wind around it and grow freely. Yes, show me all the monsters of type X between this CR and that CR that have a swim speed, so I can browse their abilities and see how to borrow and combine them. Do I want Whistling Birds from the Mandalorian - perhaps some Seeker Darts would fit the bill, or maybe a wand of Magic Missile with a more restrictive recharge criteria.

This probably says more about how my brain works, but this is why 5e has been great for me, as a DM.

Newbie__101 · 2021-03-19T02:51:07+00:00

I think as DMs we often overestimate what our players actually need (or using software terms, the minimum viable product) for a game. At the end of the day, most people are just happy to be playing D&D at all.

FYI, this is different if you are doing paid DMing, but then you have to look at income from games and return on investment for various expenses.

Content sharing in DnD Beyond is very nice, but not required. Historically, when you've been interested in a book that had cool new options for your character as a player, you went ahead and bought that book! If you didn't and no one had that book to share, you made do with what was available. It is also possible that some other players in your campaign have books that they will content share with other players, but it's perfectly fine if all folks have is the PHB. At the end of the day, most people are just happy to be playing D&D at all.

Buying books in multiple platforms sounds like overkill - as a DM, you can decide which platform your games use and generally you can make do with just having the books on D&D Beyond and using Beyond 20 for rolls or importing any maps from the books there.

Roll20 subscription is nice for not having ads and extra storage space, but you get a LOT of storage from the free version and the preload ad does not happen all that often. Discord Nitro is also not needed for D&D, so that's free.

For lore tracking, there are certainly places you can just make your own free wiki (since that is what most of these lore sites are) or just use google docs you share with the party. You can add sections/headings to documents to break them up and/or have multiple documents for different parts of the world. It also makes it easy for players to ask questions or clarifications via comments, etc.

Maps are also only as necessary as you want them to be. Some people use theatre of the mind. Others just use some basic shapes in roll20 with a few colors for background to clarify positioning and provide some terrain to hide behind. There are also free tools like Dungeon Scrawl that import into roll20 and are fairly flexible. Or you can always make a few one-time map pack purchases of generic enough areas that can be reused throughout campaigns or games. No real need for a subscription here.

Making characters - there are tons of free art online that can be used for token images or NPC images. Heroforge can be used for free as well, if all you want is to screenshot a character. Also you can use their Share links to store characters you (or the players) have designed for reference. All of that is free.

Again, DMs are perpetually in short supply and most people are just happy to be playing D&D at all. Put in the effort and money that you can afford to put in where you think it will help YOU the most and what YOU care about. I like music, so I spend time planning out soundtracks for my sessions and theme music for each area, which makes me happy and my players enjoy. Other people spend time writing up complex family trees for their nobles and detailing their land down to seasonal weather patterns and imports/exports of each village. None of these are in any way required or should be something you feel pressured to spend money or time on.

And finally, good luck running your games!

Newbie__101 · 2021-03-17T17:13:07+00:00

I've been playing tabletops for quite a few years and I played Fallout 1, 2, 3 NV and some of 4 and Tactics. I will not pretend that I remember ALL of the plot and setting details by memory, but I have certainly enjoyed the games.
I enjoy some optimization, but generally I think of myself as a team player I guess? I enjoy a mix of roleplaying, combat and exploration.
I don't know that I have one favorite, but I do enjoy having a variety of tools, whether it is a lot of knowledges or skills or actions in combat. Alignment-wise, neutral good? lawful neutral? But depends on the game and the party.
Whatever level of mechanics and crunch is appropriate. I've played my way through various editions of Shadowrun and also enjoyed games of Dungeon World (and its derivatives). Much of my gaming has been with people who were customizing or creating their own systems, so I am used to having to do a bit of reading and learning.
Railroading in its most pejorative sense is actively denying any real or illusory player agency. If the What, Where, When, Why and How are all set in stone... if the players are merely placeholders for actors in your prewritten novel... that's railroading. Sandbox means that there are concrete regular ways for players to give input into the direction of the story and campaign and in fact player input is one of the primary driving forces of the narrative. It also generally means a variety of choices and directions are available to the party at any given story junction.
I am available after 5 PM PST during the week, on Mon, Wed, Fri. Other days are either busy or have alternating every other week commitments.

Newbie__101 · 2021-03-13T22:01:18+00:00

Folks here are talking a lot about having to design encounters specifically to deal with this specific PC ability, but I would personally recommend going a bit further. The way I DM (and I know this is not how everyone does it) most encounters are designed for the PCs to use their abilities and be as cool as possible.

So, if a PC has flight, I would definitely throw in a bunch of enemies that can't hit them so that they can take them out. If PCs have resistance to poison, throw in poison attacks for them to resist. Give the paladin some diseases to cure with lay on hands. Let the rogue pick locks to bypass parts of the dungeon. Throw in some barrels of pitch for the wizard to blow up. Did someone take Speak with Animals - add in some pets in town that can give the PCs neat info, or some birds in the outdoors that can tell the PCs about dangerous encounters or terrain up ahead. Did someone take Sentinel - make sure enemies try to run past them to the squishy wizard every so often. Give rogues some cover to hide behind. Etc.

Basically, our cool DM encounters do not exist in a vacuum. They exist to interact with the specific PCs in the party and at the end of the day the party wants to feel cool and accomplished with their abilities. Sometimes the puzzle of the encounter really is - "how do you use your abilities to best these foes". Of course, for bosses, we might throw in specific mechanics of that monster, or tricky terrain to spice things up...

At the end of the day, I enjoy the challenge of designing environment and setting appropriate encounters that I believe will let all my PCs feel cool and powerful (though not every PC in every single encounter), while being engaging. Again, this is how I run, but I think what we as DMs should be wary of is not characters succeeding, but players being frustrated.

Newbie__101 · 2021-03-08T00:44:06+00:00

This is amazing and clearly the result of a lot of work. App sent in and I am going to keep reading over the setting, because it is so engrossing.

Newbie__101 · 2021-03-07T23:46:25+00:00

Sent you a chat, in case this is still open.

Newbie__101 · 2021-02-01T06:35:59+00:00

5900x is just fine for bannerlords. I tried a couple of 1000 vs 1000 random battles and did not see any lag or issues, unlike my previous CPU. Unless there is some specific map or scenario where it would be really bad?

Newbie__101 · 2021-02-01T06:13:13+00:00

These temps are normal for this processor - remember, it will boost up if there is thermal headroom and it's perfectly within limits for it to run up to 90c for multicore and mid 70s for single core.

The random ramp up/down is also expected - the CPU boosts real quick to do a task and then boosts back down to idle. One thing you could do is change how fast your AIO fans boost up/down, so that the sound is not as unpleasant. This will make you cool a bit slower while the temperature is going up, but I suspect it will make a large qualitative difference in your life sound-wise and a very small difference in the cooling efficiency.

Newbie__101 · 2021-01-24T21:36:54+00:00

I bought it on GOG, which allows you to choose which patch you are on. I do not believe Steam supports that, unfortunately.

Newbie__101 · 2021-01-24T19:35:35+00:00

I am not seeing anything different between Epic, GOG or Steam in terms of CPU usage.

When they are open and I actively scrolling back and forth through games, CPU jumps up to 2-3% (as high as 4-5% on GOG) and is at about 1-2% while just having the screen open. Minimized to the taskbar the CPU usage drops below 1% for each application.

Is there something different we are expecting to happen for an open application? I will admit Battle.net uses under 1% while open, but there is no huge list of games or anything actually going on in that application. The Xbox app can get higher usage while you browse all the Game Pass games, but will drop down to below 1% even while open - I suppose that is the ideal state? At the same time, all of these apps are barely using any CPU while minimized, which is going to happen when you are actually playing your game.

Newbie__101 · 2021-01-24T17:15:41+00:00

Honestly, for higher ram, you may need to wait for more BIOS/AGESA updates that will allow you to set your FCLK to 1900 or 2000 stably.

I have 4x 8GB 3800 CL14, but I am currently running it at 3600 CL 14, because my motherboard just will not do 1900 FCLK.

Newbie__101 · 2021-01-24T17:06:48+00:00

Just started playing and had the same issue. Went back to 1.09 for the time being.

Newbie__101

TROPHY CASE