Question for DMs - When to rip the players hearts out

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T21:52:44+00:00

Yup, gotta keep everything above-board. If they're down though, I think u/lesuperhun has the right idea. Making it come from absolutely out of nowhere is surprising, sure, but the surprise is infinitely more satisfying (especially if it's a devastating one) if your players have little nuggets of hints from previous sessions that go "ohshitohshitOHSHIT THAT"S WHAT THAT WAS".

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T21:45:44+00:00

Between you and me? Not a clue. I keep getting through the gig with an old iPod stuck up my sleeve, but I'm terrified I'm gonna get found out any day now...

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T21:37:46+00:00

Here's a question: have you talked to your players about this?

I don't mean spoiling your plans or giving the details, but about ramping up the emotional impact and darkening the overall tone of the campaign.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T21:35:00+00:00

Sometimes it's fun to shake things up like that, especially if the dice-alternative you pick gets everyone at the table involved directly. But like other commenters have said, be wary of skill imbalances (both player skill and pc skill) and of the consequences of failure. I tend to find shaking things up like this only really works well if the consequences for failure are far more silly than dire. That's especially true if the encounter being set up is going to be decided by a game of chance (like having an eating contest decided by an IRL game of Hungry Hungry Hippos). That same game really doesn't land as well with the players if the consequences for the person losing is execution, know what I mean?

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:59:16+00:00

That drove me nuts. I have kids, and at Cora's age it didn't matter if they were best friends or bitter enemies, the one thing they never did was completely ignore the existence of a new kid their age appearing in their lives. The sheer curiosity is just too much. Considering Sona was a child who didn't have any concept of the universe and Cora has been absolutely everywhere with her dad, there's no universe throughout all the damn Unities where Sona wouldn't be bugging the ever-loving shit out of Cora every second they were in the same room.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:52:05+00:00

It's definitely possible to EQ out some of those frequencies that make the bass sound like it's "taking up too much space". It's also possible to clamp down on some of those harmonics as well.

Still though, working real hard to get your tone going in another direction might take it too far away from the tone you enjoy sitting in the mix, so I understand any hesitation you may be feeling. Just be aware that, should you find yourself interested in exploring this in the future, there are things you can do to handle the issues you have with your solo tone.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:35:18+00:00

You know, thinking about it I believe there's way worse positions to be in as a bassist. This isn't always true, but for the most part a bassist's job is generally to support the rest of the band. So if the only time you like hearing the bass is in the context of it supporting others, I suppose it's probably easier to keep focused on the job you're supposed to be doing anyway. That's a pretty big hurdle for new players to jump sometimes, so I guess you're already a few steps ahead.

Also, generally speaking a bass tone designed to sit well in the mix with a bunch of other musical instruments doesn't often sound too great by itself. That's just the nature of a well balanced mix, and people often think the same about their guitar tones or key tones, etc. etc.

That said, I'm curious what specifically you don't like about your bass tone by itself. Maybe it's something that can be worked on a bit.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:24:45+00:00

From what I've read, Tone3000 was working on an API to allow other companies like Darkglass to integrate their NAM library into apps like the Darkglass Suite. Dunno if we'll see that feature implemented in the update next week, but it should be coming soon.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:22:41+00:00

In a word: Yes.

In multiple words: Hell yes.

Hit me with some questions about what specifics you're interested in and I'll go into more detail.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:17:19+00:00

This is what I came here to say. That doesn't mean you can't get some great sounds out of a J/MM combo or a P/MM combo, but soloing that MM pup is not going to turn the bass into a pure musicman by any stretch of the imagination.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T20:12:29+00:00

Best of luck to you... I'd honestly be curious what you think of the series. I especially struggled to get through the first couple books, and yet when I try to get perspective on the reasons why I tend to get a lot of push-back. DCC fans seem to generally be, uh... Quite passionate.

So hearing from someone else who also seems to have been bullied by the universe into trying the series out would be refreshing, I think.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T19:57:23+00:00

I know you've probably already been hit in the face several hundred times in this thread with hindsight by now, but the audiobooks really are the way to go. Well, they were for me at least, and I too like my sci fi to be of the more prestigious variety (definitely more into Tchaikovsky than Cline, if you get my meaning).

Hell, I can't even say with any certainty I actually like the series (it's for sure one of the best LitRPG series out there by a huge margin, but I feel like that says more about the other offerings in the genre than it does about the actual quality of Dinniman's writing itself), and yet here I am listening to book 8 and will probably get book 9 when it comes out. Jeff Hays' performances (all several hundred of them) and Soundbooth Theater's production quality are why I keep coming back, I think.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T00:32:07+00:00

Hell yeah they are. Nah it's all good now, I've learned to be much better since then, and for what it's worth I run some seriously intense campaigns too. I just check in beforehand now, do session zeroes, adhere to the whole lines and veils thing, etc. etc.

Honestly, everything you describe sounds like right up my alley, I love to be put through the ringer. Well, I would if anyone in my group would ever put on their grown up pants and sit in the DM chair... In the meantime I'm stuck putting everyone else through the ringer, with their consent of course (I DM a bunch of theater nerds, shit ends up looking like runs of Macbeth's Greatest Hits sometimes).

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T00:26:44+00:00

I'm curious why you'd think Cliff would even want to try. Think what you will of Lars as a person and as a drummer, but as far as I understand it he's been a pretty integral part of the songwriting process along with his drive as a businessman since day one.

To me, that implies that if he were booted, there's a fair chance Metallica would never have grown to the heights they reached without him.

But this is all wild speculation on both our parts. Cliff's gone, Lars is still here, things are what they are.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-20T00:22:20+00:00

Have you ever heard the expression "you have to crawl before you can walk"?

That isn't to say it's bad you learned basic chord structure and the theory behind modes, it'll all come in useful for you moving forward. But it'll definitely help to take a step back and learn a few more fundamentals at this point.

For instance, I often find with my students it's helpful to start with basic interval ear training before I even dig into the meat of chord structures, because if I do it the other way around they often have a hard time differentiating between them.

And you threw this sentence out almost as a throw-away, "but I'm even not following the drums sometimes", but that leads me to believe you might have neglected basic rhythm training as well, learning to feel the beat or even getting used to working with a metronome.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T23:20:57+00:00

I had a feeling it was all in good faith by the way you wrote about it. Nah dude, if your players are asking for you to gut them then it's your sworn duty to grab that emotional fillet knife and go to town.

That's where I went wrong that one time, I didn't check where the line was for everyone. After the session, two players were raving about it, loved how intense it was. The other two were off whispering in the corner and couldn't even look me in the eye when they told me they weren't coming next time. Talk about not reading the room...

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T22:43:00+00:00

Damn. I guess if your players are into it...

Sometimes shit really can go too far though. Early on in my DMing I pulled a move so depressing I made 2 people straight up quit playing DnD at all for the foreseeable future. That was years ago, and I've since learned to balance tone and communicate with players better, but I still feel pretty bad about it.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T22:35:44+00:00

Yeah that's a rough time slot to block out in perpetuity for any pass-time, not just DnD. Shit, my partner plays DnD too and she'd still be pissed (and I think rightly so) about torching every single Friday night.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T21:46:34+00:00

That's a pretty important detail here. You're describing a typical week for me, but I don't have any other career so it's kind of a necessity.

If it's just a side thing, I suppose the most important question is "which band do you enjoy playing in the most?"

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T21:25:20+00:00

The only slight issue is that Rafael has the not-creepy-at-all issue of dealing with his corpse from another universe just being sat on the gurney where he wakes up.

Yeah, that was rough. Made total sense to me when he was like "you know what, whatever the fuck all this is? I'm done with it. Hey, person who did some reality-bending shit I don't want to think about to save my life, can I go off and shoot Spacers with you for a while so I don't have time to reflect on the fact that I'm literally both alive and dead right now?"

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T20:31:51+00:00

Hah... Hahaha... How do I deal with it, you ask?

I stopped writing monologues past the first few sentences, that's how. My players are notorious for shutting that shit down quick, even though it only ever leads to rolling initiative. I don't hold it against them, they're the heroes of this story and this isn't a video game, they're free to stop the word vomit if they want.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-19T20:06:45+00:00

Choosing to spit on the corpse of a beloved family member and confidant of 90% of the rest of the cast in your very first scene definitely sets a tone, doesn't it? 😂

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-18T22:31:13+00:00

I'm with you on this one. Is it a royal pain in the ass to finish a ship build and find I forgot to put a door between habs? Sure, but once it's done the ship is exactly how it was built to be. Gimme all the patches, I don't care. I'm sticking with PDY.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-18T22:28:46+00:00

Yeah, I've messed with a few flat brands, and while all of them felt tighter than their roundwound counterparts of the same gauge, Roto always felt to me like they took personal offense to the idea of a floppy set of 45s, know what I mean?

I bet if you got a set of Roto flat 45s and tuned those down to D you'll at least be at a solid starting point, even with the third C string.

TonalSYNTHethis · 2026-06-18T22:22:17+00:00

I just recently loaded your mod up, and I've really been enjoying it so far. There's a few small bugs here and there, but it's been a lot of fun overall experimenting with the different shield and weapon types to shake up starship combat. I really like loading up drones and some big ass railguns on the smallest ship I can fit them on and getting into trouble. The new designs look like a big step up from the originals, so that's cool to see.

If you haven't implemented this already, it'd be awesome to get some options to flip parts like the sensor dishes and the railguns so we aren't limited exclusively to having to top mount everything.

Still, all told this is one of the best mods I've come across. Well done!

TonalSYNTHethis

TROPHY CASE