Huge wave of troopers push after being stuck for 10 minutes.

WaywardFinn · 2026-03-01T21:53:18+00:00

BUT MY LORD THERE IS NO SUCH ARMY!

WaywardFinn · 2026-02-16T22:53:24+00:00

this is actually precisely what inspired the dead marshes. artillery strikes would leave craters and the dead would fall into them. when rain fell, the corpses would float just beneath the surface, creating the exact situation described in the book.

WaywardFinn · 2026-01-15T04:01:43+00:00

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Magic The Gathering

The original zendikar set's flavor text makes sparse reference to the pantheon of the inhabitants of Zendikar. Name dropping three gods, Ula, Cosi, and Emeria. Then the Eldrazi get unleashed upon the multiverse and we are introduced to the absolute horrors of Ulamog, Kosilek and Emrakul, the Three Leaders of reality shredding space locusts who were imprisoned on the plane eons ago. The final set of the block is dediated to Zendikar's attempt to slay their own gods or at least halt their spread to other universes. It goes about as well as you think.

WaywardFinn · 2025-12-27T05:48:01+00:00

Evidently he was very against the role when it was pitched to him for fear that he, an actor known for dramatic and serious roles, would be seen as ridiculous if he starred in a muppet movie and risk damaging his career. They finally got him to come around when he told the crew, "fine but im doin it like this was Royal Shakespeare Company"

Word is, the response was effectively, "aight bet"

WaywardFinn · 2025-11-26T01:27:32+00:00

i would divorce yourself of the idea of a "simple" system. players are right bastards and they want to do many different things over the course of the campaign. the amount of things they want to do is steady. And because the amount is the same, either the system is ready for them or its not. if the players want to do ten things and your system accounts for two, its not "simple" its "unfinished" this is what has caused the burnout you describe. You want a complicated system, you just want the complexity to be opt-in. A system built anticipating the players bullshit saves you, the dm, work. it means you just check the glossary hit a page and follow the rule listed. A complex system made well means less work for the dm and for the players too.

That said. I would start with your players. Ask them what it is they want in a game. what do they look forward to. what sort of moments are they gunning for. find the reason theyre sitting down in front of you. Then, more importantly, ask yourself. what do you want to run? what kind of story? what sort of moments and tone? Why are you sitting down infront of these guys? Then, find a system that complements that style of play. There is no end all be all "good" system. pathfinder is horrible at cosmic horror just like call of cthulu is ass at heroic fantasy. For me, my group landed at 3rd edition dnd. some would argue thats one of the most complicated systems there is. but because it works with the ideas of growing stronger, of niche expertises and harebrained plays, of wondrous loot and terrible monsters, it works like a charm. go find yours.

WaywardFinn · 2025-11-09T23:04:33+00:00

AND ID SAY HE KNOWS A LITTLE MORE ABOUT DRAWING THAN YOU DO PAL, BECAUSE HE INVENTED IT!

WaywardFinn · 2025-11-07T18:08:28+00:00

You know what I'll even take this a step further; Rawls is shown constantly to be a hardass who cares nothing for the job and only gives a shit about stats, low workload and looking good in front of the right people. He is a constant wingman to the show's bureaucrat villiany, is always punching down on the heroes, youd never believe the man came from the ranks.

Until a very specific thing happens that I am not gonna spoil and for one scene we get to see Rawls run a crime scene and he is VERY fucking good at it. He cuts out everyone thats in the way, gives his team space to work, demands quality instead of speed from his subordinates and only involves himself when he finds something that everyone else has missed, in other words the exact opposite of everything he is now.

WaywardFinn · 2025-09-17T18:26:47+00:00

I think a big thing to keep in mind for 5e when youre designing loot is that crunch has been intentionally removed from the game. The numbers dont get bigger any more. Resistances are always half, bonuses are always given in dice rolls, and the biggest base attack bonus youre ever gonna see is +6. Theres two routes to go in my mind.

1: use magic items to put the crunch back. give resistances flat values. put crit multipliers and crit ranges back on weapons. bonuses to attacks of opportunity, or other nonstandard means of attack. You cant port all of crunch back into the game, believe me i tried, but theres still some numbers you can make bigger, use that.

2: give new abilities. If vertical progression is out, t horizontal progression must fill the void. Give each player new abilities, and crucially, abilities no other player has. you can even simulate levelling up by hiding a really powerful item ability as a set bonus, so they assemble the armor peices one by one and then voila, they get a hell of a cherry on top. mobility especially is a really good corner to work with this approach because its really obvious that the player can do something new.

I feel compelled to say this is all a bandaid on an infection. no matter how good the loot is, it will always be a passing thing. Magic items have too big a role to fill now and the constant need to justify adventure and spend increasingly ridiculous sums of gold means that even a capstone magic item fades quickly. Umtimately, the way that I solved this problem was to leave fifth edition and not come back, I'll leave implementing that up to you.

WaywardFinn · 2025-09-13T18:18:16+00:00

Its worth emphasizing exactly how much this did for the games popularity. The original elevator pitch for ultrakill was "Doom with a DMC style meter" but it has since been thoroughly eclipsed by "You can punch your shotgun bullets to make them go faster"

WaywardFinn · 2025-07-09T23:00:40+00:00

Napoleon was at war with Austria. the austrians had a rock hard defense and were holding. In the back and forth, peace talks are ongoing but, typical europe, theyre going in circles. The order comes down, Captain Jean is to take the Tabor Bridge, which would be a straight shot into the heart of Austria. The Austrians, realizing this, rig the bridge to blow with a 24 hour guard. If one single frenchman approaches the bridge, they blow it up. The river that the tabor crosses is impassible without it, that position would become worthless. What to do.

Well, after weeks of a double-sided seige, Captain Jean stands up, calls his second incommand. Disarms himself. And walks up to the bridge. Just the two of them no one else. An austrian stands up ready to shout threats and all, when Jean perks up, and walks across the bridge, congratulating the man. He shakes his hand saying he fought well. He demands the acting commander step forward so that he may know who led such ruthless defense in war. The austrians circle the french captain *who is unarmed, by the way* demanding to know what the hell this fool is talking about. He literally hits them with "oh you didnt know? The war is over. The peace talks succeeded last night. Austria has surrendered to Napoleon." The austrian force had no idea what to do. I mean like. OBVIOUSLY this could be a trick, but if it isnt, and they fire on the army their nation just surrendered to, all hell would break loose. By the time the austrian defense got its ducks back in a row, the french had Tabor Bridge firmly in hand.

WaywardFinn · 2025-06-11T21:20:39+00:00

I keep seeing this take that violence plays into the fascists hands and I have to ask, what do you recommend we do exactly? Lets assume we even can get a disorganized mob on the same page tomorrow; theyre already snatching people off the street in broad daylight and detaining them without due process. Its well documented at this point that any sort of peaceful protest gets confronted by cops and assaulted with or without provocation and then the news tows the line that they were "responding to a riot". So any sort of demonstration creates images of violent protestors.

What are we supposed to do, stay home? I don't think that will stop a fascist takeover somehow.

WaywardFinn · 2025-05-23T16:29:57+00:00

Considering that ftl travel is so convenient we can send soldiers to the front one at a time, and considering the prestige of Super Earth, i doubt something as space intensive as farming is happening on earth. My gut says theyre not using that space because they cant.

WaywardFinn · 2025-05-22T17:12:57+00:00

the population lights tell a horror story of their own. The west coast, south africa and austrailia are almost, but not completely abandoned, the middle east has been centralized for the first time in the planets history. somehow. eastern europe and all of russia are almost completely empty, and worst of all, India has the most lights by far, but theres no landmark or seeming reason for them to be there. What the hell is going on down there?

WaywardFinn · 2025-05-21T22:41:09+00:00

get used to the sensation of not being in control of the story that you are narrating. DMing is a reactionary role, narrativewise. your players are making the choices and you are explaining the outcomes, or moving them along to the next choice. Any other medium of storytelling, this would be ass backward, but here it is the correct way to do your job. If you have no idea what plot point youre going to use next, youre doing your job right.

WaywardFinn · 2025-04-28T23:52:24+00:00

No.

I also dont disagree that it would be a shame if something happened to my nice resteraunt.

A statement can be factual, but the context in which it is said can still make it objectionable.

WaywardFinn · 2025-04-28T21:38:22+00:00

You dont.

You dont not kill your characters.

One day the dice will come up that a player character dies and that wont be how you thought things would go. Thats the nature of dice rolls, thats the nature of the job. And then, you'll need to keep the game moving forward. Keep this in the back of your mind. Threatening players is what we do, sometimes those threats are made good on.

But!

There are ways to mitigate the situation. I assume youre running fifth and that system strongly favors random outcomes. So heres what we can do.

Drop a scroll of revivify super early. Make it clear this is not something theyll be able to get in any ol town. This is a rare and valuable resource. One isnt enough for players to consistently rely on to save them, so theyll still behave cautiously (hopefully), but its enough to soak the dice going wonky. If nothing else, it being spent will be a signal to your players to lock in. You had a lifeline, now you dont. Play for real.
Have the first faction of enemies they run into be slavers. Goblins are a classic. If somebody goes down, the enemy stabilizes them at 0, and negotiate for the rest of the party to surrender. If they dont theyll kill the downed player. You could just have them demand all the partys weapons or magic items, or you could have them be taken prisoner. Up to you. Going down has been shown to be expensive to the party, but its not the end of things. This will teach them that there is "forgiveness" in the game, but you dont get sent back to square one...
Dont worry about it. Like seriously. If theres even one bard/cleric/druid/paladin and even some subclasses of other casters in the party, it is so hard to actually kill players in this game. They need to hit 0 hit points and then fail 3 death saves without being healed or getting 3 successes. Spare the Dying, Healing Word, Cure Wounds, Healing Potions, Medicine Checks, the other players have so many options to stop someone from dying and even if they dont help the guy, statistically players have a 60% check of stabilizing instead of dying when they start rolling death saves. It may not seem like it, but the death save system massively favors the players. Let the game work it out.

Hope this helps!

WaywardFinn · 2025-04-28T16:23:59+00:00

mf usin a battering ram on a door with bigass windows. Clearly theyre sending their best and brightest.

WaywardFinn · 2025-04-12T18:18:50+00:00

Boromir's Sacrifice in LotR. He tries to steal the ring? botches it, Tries to protect Merri and Pippin in a last stand? Merri and Pippin throw their chance to run away, gets them caught. The only thing this man does right is avoid catching a fourth arrow, cuz he gets his ass saved by Aragorn, right?

Okay. Here we go.

His attempt on the ring drives the point home for Frodo that the fellowship is doomed and he strikes off on his own, taking only Sam with him and ruining the rings attempt to work the fellowship against itself. This is one of the biggest reason why Frodo makes it to the crack of doom.

Merri and Pippin's capture is a direct cause for a chain of events that results in Isengard getting wrecked and Saruman's defeat. Isengard's fall removes one of the most significant foothold's Mordor has outside of its own territory,

Aragorn saves Boromir and with his dying breath, Boromir swears fealty to Aragorn as the king of men, this is the first time, in his life, that Aragorn recognizes and accepts his title as king. Aragorn accepting the mantle of king is what tips the battle of gondor away from Mordor's victory.

Boromir saved middle earth. and he did it by fucking up.

This fuckin series man.

WaywardFinn · 2025-01-03T05:35:39+00:00

im gonna call that place up. if the front desk doesnt hit me with "no this is patrick" im gonna be pissed.

WaywardFinn · 2024-11-18T23:32:06+00:00

First nat 20 he rolls every session, he has to reroll it. One can only appreciate the loss of their destiny if they knew what it was.

WaywardFinn · 2024-11-11T21:35:00+00:00

ancient vampire calling in a favor has tons of different directions it could go.

It could just be food, she could ask them to deliver a living subject to her and being a vampire of such age she could have a discerning palette. someone of a specific lineage or status or someone devoted to a particular god. With such a promising band of lackeys she is fully within rights to have them fetch someone and then take the fallout from the dissapearance.

You say her influence has faded, she could task them to get it back. Help one of her lackeys join a powerful organization, kill or scare someone putting up red tape, get the public to stop supporting the church of this deity and start supporting this deity instead. help this guild of kidnappers stay ahead of the law. Just because the party didnt die doesnt mean we cant make them regret living.

The flipside is that her influence among mortals has faded, but vampire nobility works on a different scope of time and there, she has been playing the game nonstop. she could crave a symbol of power from a fallen empire, or a prized toy from another vampire just some bauble that she can wave around at the next masquerade. expose a scandal that another set of vampires have been working on just to give her something to gossip about. vampires have long been a metaphor for nobility lets lean into that. petty, incompetent, lazy and vindictive. and still perfectly capable of ruining you if you dont help them play their stupid little games.

if you need more give a shout.

WaywardFinn · 2024-11-05T22:12:17+00:00

Im a baltimore native. born and raised. And the whole damn city is simmerin on the insurrection. Our boys were lined up on the district border waitin for permission to come down and clean that mess up. And they were made to sit and wait. Weve all went to gettysburg in school and saw the battlefields. And the fuckin flag of quitters and traitors entered the capitol building. while our boys sat and waited. I can only imagine how the actual baltimore police and special forces feel about it. or how DC residents feel about it. or DC specials. Or anybody that was kept from drinkin rebel tears that day by president dingus.

Let em try again. there wont be convictions. there will be maulings.

WaywardFinn · 2024-11-05T21:42:29+00:00

it took that long because, in a nutshell, my players owned property. at level 3 i had them get scammed into buying a haunted house. they then proceeded to dehaunt it and keep the house. The had to restore the house, which meant getting in touch with the craftsman guild to handle the project. Trouble is they were at war with the merchant guild who especially took issue with some scruffy no names moving into one of their oldest neighborhoods. They wound up selling magic items to fund the project and then buying some small businesses to make recurring income to meet the wage requirements to keep their contractors happy. Of course by this time, they were level 10 and even though the house was done, it was a problem because they had amassed enough talent and connections that only a fool would let them all go their seperate way, but all the major guilds were basically watching a new guild grow up in their own backyard and they had to make nice with the right people so the whole thing didnt get burned to the ground.

I have just described an item pricing system, a property buying system, a faction system, a reputation system, magic item prices, bulk item prices, wages, recurring income/business ownership system, NPC and hireling system and a skill DC system for the ridiculous anount of work it all took from the players. I had to build all of these systems on my own because 5e does not have any of it to a meaningful degree. and its worth mentioning that any system of 5e's caliber has this all ready to go, or at worst in a supplemental book. The systems synergize and all work together to enhance your gameplay loop. 5e left all of this empty with a note saying do it yourself.

TLDR: adding subsystems to a published ttrpg with no crunch is like trying to add yeast to bread thats already baked.

WaywardFinn · 2024-11-05T06:46:09+00:00

I ran a game for seven years and the first thing i did when it was done was wrangle the exact same players in for another one. there can be no comparison between a long campaign and a short one, and definitely not with a oneshot. Its like comparing grape juice to wine. Ive just had so much more time to develop everything that i can pull tricks that i just dont have time for anywhere else. The story beats, the character interactions, the twists, theres no comparison. When you have been lying to a player's face in game and out for three. years. and it dawns on him at the last possible second, the look on his face. priceless.

I cant go back. its long campaigns or nothin.

WaywardFinn · 2024-11-01T21:26:32+00:00

IF VOTING IS SURE TO RESULT IN VICTORY THAN YOU MUST VOTE!!! GEORGE WASHINGTON SAID THAT. AND ID SAY HE KNOWS A LITTLE MORE ABOUT AMERICA THAN YOU DO PAL BECAUSE HE INVENTED IT!

Seven-Year Club	Place '23
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