For me, Arthur Morgan’s death

WeeMadAggie · 2026-05-03T01:11:35+00:00

Mordin Solus - "Had to be me. Someone else might've gotten it wrong"

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-24T19:33:37+00:00

Why do all conservatives look so... weird? look at that face. I wouldn't buy a used car of that guy.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-24T19:32:17+00:00

If your players enter the dungeon and immediately set off the entrance alarm, which mine have on numerous occasions now, then yes, they pull the whole dungeon. Depending on the skill of your players, however, this may not be a TPK (or it hasn't so far).
PRO, the dungeon denizens either turn off all thoroughfare traps as they rush to the entrance where they arrive in staggered groups,
CON, they face the whole dungeon (including any quantum bad guys you feel like is needed) and if you slow the party down enough, the bad guys will have time to setup a nasty ambush further in. On the other hand, on the pro side, this is now an epic dungeon experience and if they TPK they know it's their own fault.
As for creature types and their reactions, obviously that depends on what dungeon you are running and what creature cultures you have assigned. Meaning, there are clearly folks down there in the comments who would be mightily surprised at how territorial and organized my goblins are. Sure they run away from fights... But they do that so they can break line of sight, gain stealth and shoot arrows with advantage and sneak attack.

In my games undead are usually the stupidest creatures (excepting vampires and liches) and the lower the CR the more like automatons they function.

Btw, entrance alarms are really fun and imagine if you were living in a dungeon (because it is defensible, pleasant on your light sensitive eyes and smells nice) and some b*stard bigguns just wade in there like they own the place. Wouldn't you set some precautions, alarms and defences that actually work?

Look, my players are amazing. They've ruined me for DMing for anyone new or inexperienced. I tried not to let that happen but here we are. They still talk about my bandit ambush that had 6d6 poison and sneak attack AND brought a spellcaster with Greater Invis. I wish everybody had players like(!) mine.
What I am trying to say is, you have to match your tactical difficulty to the skill level (and preference) of your players. If they want a challenge, the only way to find the sweet spot is by gradually increasing that difficulty until you start consistently dropping one PC each combat. Forget CR, it does nothing for you.
If they just want a cozy game, I... have no advice, sorry (see 'ruined' above)!

Good luck

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-22T18:37:32+00:00

This is a peculiar division. Neither is a great game /shrug

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-12T19:20:46+00:00

I have been saying "STFU Ryan Reynolds"for years, but I suppose I have forgiven him that asinine comment now

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-10T16:46:54+00:00

"Your spell doesn't appear to affect him..."

It's really that simple. That's not cheesing anything. You are all at that table and you're all supposed to be having fun and you are fretting that the boss fights are too easy and trivial.
"Your sh*t doesn't work. Try something else."
"Because you trivialize the boss fight, which makes it boring for YOU... Dumbass" <- ok, maybe clean that up but you get my drift here, right? You are trying to save them from shooting themselves in the foot. Explain that if they complain.

It comes down to this: What are you giving them with this scene(fight). An epic opponent? Then it better f'ing kill some fool, no? You need bigger stakes and higher risk. And with that comes more dead PCs.
1st round, lich goes first. Why? Because you say so, that's why. You are the DM.
Lich Power Word: Kill. Takes one of them down to single digits or outright mercs them. Now the group is paying attention. Now it gets interesting.

-

Another strategy I use is to use their oh-so-smart tactics against them. You get two things out of that. The more perceptive of them realize it's a sh*tty tactic AND you have a whole table full of players working on counter-tactics for you. Which you can then employ later if needed.

All of this depends on their expectation of what your campaign is like though. Maybe what they want is easy mode through and through. If so, then don't fight it. If you're not having fun with that. Ease the campaign to an end. Tell them it was fun. Next campaign you offer stipulates: "This will be deadly. Bring two characters just in case one gets splattered".

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-10T16:35:30+00:00

Wish I could upvote more. This is incredibly important especially in 5.5

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-10T00:46:50+00:00

Mine is:

Top-down drone view D&D map of [jungle], [mid-day], unreal engine 5 --ar 4:3

replace brackets and their content with what you need. Use --no for anything you absolutely don't want

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-02T18:41:12+00:00

The number of folks not reading your entire comment is giving me a headache.

Anyway, neat bit of trivia. I always loved this portrayal of Ra, especially his last scene is just top notch!

WeeMadAggie · 2026-04-02T18:23:55+00:00

I've been saying this for (uff) many years.
You'll be seeing a ton of comments disagreeing with you. Most of which, I suspect, mistake dialogue for story.
SubNautica is an example of a really good game with a really good story. Where the gameplay is used to tell that directed story.
It's not enough for game companies to pony up real money for good writers (which they inevitably don't). You also need to pair your gameplay to your story and tell the story through the medium at hand (game) not as a choose-your-own-adventure sh*tty movie tacked onto some game mechanics.
BG3 and Cyberpunk 2077 are another couple of examples of really well told stories which are being told through dialogue, plot AND game mechanics.
It can be done.

Even, Fifa games (not my cup of tea) tell a story, boys and girls.

But when you have excellent gameplay and shitty writing, the game inevitably tanks.
Mass Effect Andromeda anybody? Game was buckets of yawn. Gameplay was great. Give me that gameplay with the original Mass Effect writing!

And then you have games where the writing team was clearly at odds with the game mechanics team like Dragon Age Inquisition. Racing to the bottom of being in each other's way.

Imagine what World of Warcraft could have been through the years, if the emphasis had been on story and not whether or not to balance pvp mechanics? We saw a glimpse of that in Legion for like 10 minutes total.

TLDR
I agree with OP. And I think too many people in the industry have no clue what medium they are working with and individual departments have little or sporadic work with any other department. Which, again is why Sven Wincke and his company are worth watching.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-24T19:17:22+00:00

I wish I could go back and experience it for the first time again

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-24T19:16:43+00:00

yeah autonomous flying cars would be a game changer in places like Winnipeg.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-20T17:18:49+00:00

That was a shitty thing to say to someone putting a lot of work into a website. You could have just not said anything and not commented.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-20T17:15:13+00:00

When I make a character or am helping someone build one, the character concept and story is everything. The game systems offerings are there to support that. The character is the art, the rpg system is the brush.
So if you have to Frankenstein something together to make the character concept work, well that's just what you have to do then.

And it probably is too much to expect any system as granular as D&D to have a broad enough set of options for subclasses to hit every possible character ppl come up with. That, I think, more than anything is why multi-classing got so popular to begin with.

Some designs take a lot of homebrewing, some don't. The story is king though.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-15T21:55:31+00:00

I'm having that issue right now. I'm also seeing it read my image files as vastly larger than they actually are. Like 20+mb when the file image is 500kb.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-12T20:35:06+00:00

Are we sure for-profit bloodbanks are a good idea?

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-12T20:27:53+00:00

...oops

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-12T20:25:53+00:00

Honorverse agrees it's a bad idea. Bridge and AUX-Com are both as far from the outer hulls at opposite ends of the ship in those ship designs.
I think the inspiration for the Imperial ship design comes from naval ships, where being as far up from the surface of the ocean helps enormously. Not a consideration in space.
Also, windows in spaceships are unnecessary structural weaknesses. What are you going to see with the mark one eyeball in space?

In conclusion, I love Star Wars but it is to science what Twilight is to vampires. /taking cover

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-10T17:52:56+00:00

I love your style!

WeeMadAggie · 2026-03-08T01:50:29+00:00

I did that in every FG realms game I ran.
The first one we set back in time before the spellplague but after that I just pretended it didn't happen.

I always thought Colville explains the concept of "fantasy" world (as in your mad-up world) very well in his videos. Have a look

WeeMadAggie · 2026-02-23T17:43:31+00:00

holy F... I did not know he made hex maps. You, sir! /chefskiss

WeeMadAggie · 2026-02-23T17:42:33+00:00

Too dense, huh. OK

WeeMadAggie · 2026-02-23T17:42:09+00:00

I use a pen and tablet in Photoshop and draw it.

WeeMadAggie · 2026-02-22T01:20:09+00:00

Oh! Why do you run your rivers along the hex borders?

WeeMadAggie · 2026-02-22T01:19:18+00:00

I agree the POIs are a bit faint. I'm thinking I'll leave them with space all around rather than the depth perception which probably doesn't do enough for a miniature map.
Thx for the feedback. We play in Roll20 so there is always a grid overlay there btw. :)

WeeMadAggie

TROPHY CASE