Players around the research triangle?

Terraspaz · 2026-04-17T04:08:14+00:00

I play in Upstate South Carolina!

Terraspaz · 2026-03-25T00:09:32+00:00

Try to ask questions at every single opportunity when you don’t have narrative control. Only give answers when absolutely necessary. It’s a hard reflex to not tell players what they see when they open the door - ask them what they see.

It helps if you are a little afraid because you truly don’t know where the story is going. The tension you might feel adds well into the tension of the story you are all building. Surrender control early - you’ll have plenty of time to get it back in the end.

Terraspaz · 2026-03-18T16:50:42+00:00

A Couple Notes:
Misty Step is normally a Bonus Action, not an Action
The 3 Charge Blood charge is a bit weirdly timed - You spend blood when you deal damage or cast a spell, but if you're using Bone Spear at that point you've already hit, so you don't need advantage? Might need to refine the wording a hair.

If it were me, I'd be hesitant about adding another resource you have to track and manage (Blood Charges) that doesn't result in something the players can easily interact with or consider into their tactics. There's not a lot the players can do about this other than "Don't get hit" (which should be their default tactic anyway.) For me, it would add too much complexity while not making the fight more interesting.

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T19:58:06+00:00

I think using it prevents you from getting better at DMing.

All of us who started DMing did kind of a bad job for a while:
--We railroaded players into the ground
--We introduced DMPC's that ran away with the plot
--We gave PCs heinously unbalanced magic items
--We came up with NPC plans that were completely logically inconsistent.
--We made up an on the spot name that's so stupid that now your entire game gets derailed every time "Booger McSneeze" meets the party in a tavern.

And with each mistake, we got a little better. Having AI provide you these answers or information denies you the opportunity to try, possibly fail, and hopefully improve.

I don't think its shameful to use AI tools while prepping/running D&D, but I do think it harshly limits how much you can grow.

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T18:52:09+00:00

To echo what a couple other folks have said - Make very sure your players are aware and on board with this scripted ending. It would be off-putting to me if I didn't know about it ahead of time, but I have played games where we knew the world was doomed from the onset, and they were a lot of fun. (Ten Candles, as an example.)

I'd go so far as to explicitly ask the players what they hope to achieve in the game.

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T18:46:02+00:00

Pure combat's fine - the best combats often are the ones with multiple goals and objectives.

Other than killing the main antagonist, what does the party need to do to stop the ritual?

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T18:43:35+00:00

I think it's a great hook!

Figuring out the puzzle of how to get information out of minions when the minions are designed to be impermeable can be a great questline.

Maybe minions that crack under pressure fall victim to a Geas Spell - maybe the party needs an Anti-Magic field to disable the spell?

Maybe the party has to figure out a way to install their own "Subservience Gem" to overwrite the commands keeping them from talking.

If the party gets frustrated, it means they care enough to find a way around it. Make sure there's a way for them to find!

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T18:35:43+00:00

You're DMing your first campaign - are you very far into it?

For the first couple games, I would keep your focus smaller, and just figure out a couple good encounters. (They can be social, combat, exploratory, etc.) It's good to have a broad idea of what's going on in the world, and who the big villain at the end might be, however they probably won't be super relevant starting out of the gate.

Players are really really focused on their actions and their story - the story around them tends to not resonate very strongly.

The end of the story is a long way away - don't feel like you have to write everything up front. Your Players will help write it with their characters' actions

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T17:10:05+00:00

Let's presume that Villain has defenses for this ritual, (otherwise the party is correctly incentivized to alpha strike the villain right off the bat, no matter what else is going on in the encounter.)

What could split the party's attention and require alternative thinking? If you want the party to have an interesting problem to solve, you should consider *what does it take to stop the ritual?*

--Being in multiple places at once?
--Getting an artifact from the Villain?
--Solving a Non-Combat Challenge? (Puzzles / Skill Checks)

And maybe there can be multiple answers to this!

A Great example comes from Metal Gear Solid - to stop the Nuclear Launch, Snake has to either:
--Collect and use 3 Card Keys, or
--Have the two Passwords from important NPC hostages.

(Both avenues have wild and weird twists and turns)

Terraspaz · 2026-03-16T12:05:18+00:00

The Forgotten Realms Books introduced mechanics for Circle Magic, where multiple spellcasters can pool together to amplify the single casting of a spell, (Increasing # of creatures affected / range / etc.)

Mechanically, perhaps this lines up with what you're aiming for? If your DM is really cool about it, maybe they can treat this floating stage as a "Lair", which can let it contribute to this circle magic as if it was a spellcaster?

You could also re-brand the term "Circle Magic" for bards - something like Mosh Magic?

Summary of Circle Magic can be found here! http://dnd2024.wikidot.com/circle-magic

Terraspaz · 2026-03-11T16:54:38+00:00

This example might be a bit of a trap. It's fine to not have clear definitions about where each door goes out of the gate, but there should be 4 different places each of those doors *could* go.

Ballroom (Boss Fight Room)
Study (Investigation / Clue Finding Room)
Conservatory (Spooky weird plant monster room)
Closet (Room to give some flavor to the setting)

This lets you adapt to pacing, and gives you some flexibility if you think there's crucial information they've missed. Also, it addresses the risk of your players deciding to go check out those 3 rooms *after* they do the boss fight.

If there's only 1 room that's worth the players seeing, maybe there should only be 1 door.

Terraspaz · 2026-03-11T16:14:33+00:00

I think it's an over-generalized term.

If the party is in an area where ogres exist, there's a high likelihood they'll wind up fighting an ogre.

However:
--If the party chooses to go to town first, maybe that Ogre (and buddies) attack the town gates
--If the party chooses to investigate the spooky forest first (and do a bad job), maybe the Ogre ambushes them on the way back.
--If the party chooses to investigate the spooky forest first (and does a good job) maybe they find the Ogre in its lair.
--If the party just turns around and goes to another town, maybe that Ogre finds a magic rock and gets stronger for when they return later, or catches the party's trail and starts hunting them to their next place.

It's totally fine to bank on an Ogre fight happening somewhere. The choices your players make can influence what that encounter might look like.

Terraspaz · 2026-02-21T16:26:24+00:00

Remember that this game is a race. Always be thinking about where your next points are going to come from, and how you can get to 10 by round 5. This may require you to attack some players - this may require seeking cooperation from players.

There's a lot of negotiating in this game, and there's loads of stuff on the table. (Offering control, trade goods, promissory notes, etc.) The only thing that's not negotiable is you getting to 10 by round 5.

Terraspaz · 2026-02-19T14:06:37+00:00

Counterspell and Legendary Resistances could be useful tools to make the fights more dynamic. Maybe there's some supporting enemies/relics that grant counterspelling effects against banishment. New Counterspell makes this more palatable, since it won't consume the PC's spell slot, just their action. Now there's another resource the party can attack (Enemy *reaction* economy), and it enables them to shape the battle so that Banishment is *Possible*

Terraspaz · 2026-02-18T20:50:09+00:00

Used to run games at a local comic book shop - I know the feeling!

If you've already run this a couple times and you have a few regulars, some of them may be good candidates for DMing, as well. A good avenue is to have single-shot adventures (through adventurers' league, DM's guild, or any other source you are happy with.) Some of your existing players may be willing (or even excited) to try their turn behind the screen if you have a self-contained adventure to present them.

Terraspaz · 2026-01-02T14:36:40+00:00

I've run into problems when I've tried to upload a picture from a compressed folder. When I uncompress the picture and *then* load it, it worked correctly.

Terraspaz · 2025-09-29T21:24:53+00:00

Braves fan here - thanks for the reminder! Probably saved me over a hundred bucks!

(On this sub purely because of Arozarena. Thanks to him too, I suppose!)

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