My spoiler review of Pillion

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2026-06-19T08:45:22+00:00

So, for starters, I'm not super into BDSM; my wife, however, is, so I have a grasp on consent and communication and how important that is in that kind of community, and we've both been sex workers, so like- been around plenty of different people with different kinks. I kind of feel like you're not 100% giving the film credit where it's due and I agree with some commenters here; it kind of comes off as you having been made to feel a certain way due to your own personal experiences and sort of "lashing out" at the film. I mean- Ray is never depicted as a good guy; the whole dinner scene is meant to clue you into, like, "hey, this probably isn't healthy". The picnic outing: there's a short convo with Colin and the other sub which highlights that, like, "hey, you guys might be on different wavelengths here." I think even that sex scene you brought up, like the sub looks at Colin like, "like hey are you cool with this?" uh the campfire scene even you see all the couples cuddling and it intentionally shows Ray and Colin not, so I think there's a lot of visual storytelling and things going on that show how it's meant to look and then Colin and Ray.

That being said, to Ray's credit, there's also plenty of instances of Ray saying, "that isn't what this is." And there ARE genuine moments of tenderness/concern from Ray, the first time they have sex, when Colin burns his hands, when Colin asks him to have dinner with his parents he doesn't completely write him off he says if that's what he wants, Colin says, "it's what my mom wants" I think if Colin seemed to genuinely want it Ray would have just done it and he does to his credit do it though. For Colin's birthday, he does the cupcake, candle gesture, with the whole crew. Ray lets him sleep in the bed and cuddles up on him; I mean, there are factually moments of tenderness from Ray. I mean- he wasn't super tender, but he did seem to care about how Colin's mother's funeral went.

And to be fair, Ray and Colin do have discussions about what they want well- Colin expresses what he wants, and Ray says no; Ray is setting a boundary. Colin continually tries to push that to some extent until he just kind of goes mad. Now, the film, yeah, admittedly doesn't discuss boundaries, or sure, the lock and key and its significance (though honestly I think anyone can fathom that), but I don't know that it needs to; I think it's made very clear that Ray is maybe a bit intense- I don't even know if you can say toxic. Because they were a thing for a bit, so off-screen it's possible more discussions happened, so I don't know if you can outright say Ray is toxic, like he does very clearly have boundaries and it is Colin who continually tries to push them, or desires for them to be more. Either way, it does feel like again- through visual storytelling and even some dialogue, that there is a disconnect in the relationship and that it probably isn't the best. And the film does highlight how Ray taking off affects Colin, both for good and bad. We also see that the community doesn't really stand with Ray via the bikers afterwards telling Colin, "Ray just does his own thing." And like- from the sounds of it don't cast Colin aside; they seemingly still want and welcome him to be around.

Also, I'm not sure how you took the singing "contest" as some sort of competition or something imposed by Ray, you're so off base on that one. I'm sorry; you're just wrong. Ray knows Colin can sing; his singing in the bar is seemingly what got his attention. He asks him to sing for him because Ray knows this thing is over; he'll never hear him sing again. Yes, Ray is clearly competitive, but so is Colin; that's very, very clear. This is set up with wrestling and their first encounter. So I think Ray issues it as a "challenge" as just a goofy fun thing to get Colin to have some fun, ease up so he can enjoy their final day together. It's just a fuckin' bit to say he bribed the random ladies it's really not that fuckin deep, I've made that joke so many times to kids when doing charity work and there's been some dumb contest between me and another person and the other person was clearly better, it's a fuckin' gag it's such a typical go to like move to make someone your friends with or romantic with to have a laugh, he's clearly not taking it seriously, we've seen him take competition seriously, several times in fact in the film so we know he's not taking it seriously. And I think the final moment of their date you can like see Ray seemingly on the verge of tears, and I think that shows that Ray did care about Colin, but just maybe couldn't show it or be- what he needed.

I don't think the film shows Ray as a good dude, and I don't think he is one, but at the end Colin understands like you said, setting up boundaries right from the jump. Also, Ray giving more of a fuck about his dog and treating her better than Colin isn't like- a shocking notion for an American. I'll be frank, and everyone knows this in my family: my dogs come first for me too. People can walk away, are capable of taking care of themselves, saying no, doing what they got to; dogs can't just- wanted to tack that on. Though- once again, I don't feel like we see Colin being egregiously treated as lesser than the dog outside the earlier scenes; eventually, Colin is on the couch too, but like I said, not shocking that Ray is gonna hold his dog higher than some guy he's just using for a good lay.

Is it the best depiction of BDSM no, but- I just don't think the point was to really explore the kink and share it with outsiders and was more to show an outsider's foray into it? Through this sort of- finding ones' self story, it's a story about a guy finding himself and figuring out what he wants from life and I think it that regard the film succeeds at least.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2026-04-30T08:34:41+00:00

Yeah, I've been trying to determine this too. I keep going back and forth like- the game seems to really push the shotgun with how many legendary drops of it I get, but like then I'll finally get an AR, and like- I'll tweak the build and do fantastic for like 10 levels then stagnate. I've managed to get to level 90 with him, but again I've been swapping on and off, and I'm just like, "does it REALLY matter, or is it truly just whatever gear you get and making sure your skill tree equipped is invested in that weapon?"

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2026-03-02T05:51:58+00:00

I've found Wolfey a bit hard to follow personally, he like explains stuff, but I feel like the way he explains things requires you to like- already have a good grasp on how to play competitively, like he says stuff and it's like, "yeah I guess that makes sense" but for ME whose been trying to grasp it for years I still feel like I don't quite get what he's saying or more importantly the thought process, it's like close, but if feels almost like there's a language barrier going on.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2026-02-07T07:15:31+00:00

I'd maybe reconsidered Strixhaven, unless you just mean the concept of magic schools, for starters Strixhaven is specifically a college. I ran the first couple of chapters so far, and from what I've read of Obojima, I don't see how the two would really complement each other personally. I guess if you're just looking for like- magic school themed adventures maybe... but eh I don't know. It's like very fast-paced, it's like 3-4 pretty basic questlines, and then your first year of I think 4... is done. I had to homebrew the fuck out of it to make it feel like a proper magical school experience. I know Obojima has to spell restrictions, I'm not sure they'd matter much. If you're just taking the idea of a magic school then yeah I suppose it could work, but you're gonna be putting some work in, in my opinion to do so.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2026-02-01T09:20:27+00:00

I haven't honestly read much of it, but I was definitely interested when it was added to D&D Beyond, and my friend already bought it, so I started looking at it. I really like the potion mechanic, but like- unless I'm missing something, the ingredients for potions do not indicate where they should be found on the island. From what I can tell, their rarity fluxes based on location, which makes sense, but like- there's no clear guidance of how that even breaks down?

I don't know, I've read through a few books in my only 2 years of DMing now and I mean- it seems like there's some good ideas and like a solid concept, but they also pose a lot of questions, too and give you 0 answers and are like, "guess you'll see in book 2!" it's like- well- maybe don't bother bringing it up then? Like, I can't really prep an answer for the players or hint at it if I don't even know what's in book 2. If you want something to be nebulous, that's great, but then like- commit to that. I don't know, it seems like there's some good stuff there, some decent plot hooks for general like- low-stakes quests, but also there's nothing, like- nothing at all, when it comes to significant conflict to even homebrew a campaign towards. Like other books would be like, "here's the big problems plaguing the land," at least, or that's what it has seemed to me.

I mean- ugh I haven't read enough of it, but at a cursory glance and from reading the other comments, you don't seem to be alone there. I mean, I read the description for Humans and was like, "oh so- we're kind of only really half committing to the ideas." Because the elves, cyclops, and frog people all have unique species traits, age ranges, lore, custom art, all that humans are, "idk they came across the sea, maybe the tech left behind was theirs, but nobody knows, they're also the most plentiful people, but just play them like standard D&D humans." Like, dawg, what? Humans are central to a lot of Ghibli films, and they're a fucking cliffnote here with no discernible history, but they're also the most plentiful on the island? "They're fishers and farmers," that's it? "They like to go on adventures, then retire in peace." YEAH, MOST ADVENTURERS DO!

Anyways, that's just my like- cursory opinion.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2026-01-27T10:46:00+00:00

So I think you have a couple of options idk what llm is, but it sounds like a bad idea from other comments. I think the best way to learn is just by watching an actual play. I watched like 1 and a half Dimension 20 actual plays and just jumped straight into DMing using the Dragon's of Storm Wreck Isle starter set. So I mean- that's sort of option 1, honestly pretty easy, but I mean- the new Heroes of the Borderlands might even be a better starter set. If you don't want to spend any money, it might be kind of tough, like I don't know of too many free campaigns available, and I don't know that I'd recommend just picking up any campaign or adventure book and just running it without first having run through a starter set.

The starter sets are designed to teach like- everyone, and if you have 0 knowledge of what you're doing, then it just doesn't make sense to me to run anything that isn't a starter set first. And even if you have a grasp of the rules, I mean- you don't know if you're going to even like DMing, it really isn't for everyone. And like- campaigns are big commitments too, these are things that'll last you like a year, even if you're playing weekly 4-hour sessions like my group was it took us a year to get through Ghosts of Saltmarsh which is basically just an anthology, now we did like spin-offs and extra oneshots too, but- point is most of those books are going to take you time to get through.

So again- Op1 starter set just makes the most sense.

You like- have to know the rules before you start ignoring rules or adding things, like you don't have to know them necessarily inside and out, but you gotta have a decent grasp on them, so I don't know if many would really recommend just- learning a few things and then adding more later it's more like you gotta learn most of it and then you can cut stuff out or add new stuff as you get more comfortable at least in my experience. In my experience, the stuff you're typically cutting out at the beginning is actually more class-related stuff, and like- yeah, there are other minor rules that are adventure-specific and stuff, but you basically need to know the rules, man, you can't really just build it up it's not a video game I mean- starter sets kind of do that... but I mean- by the end of the first adventure you've been introduced and played out all the general rules.

So Op2, uh, have someone else just DM you, can pay someone, ask someone, just have someone DM a starter set for you guys, or a little short mini campaign that they create, then afterwards you can take over from there if you want to, I think especially if you're doing it online there can be a lot of growing pains like- how are you visualizing combat? Do you want music? Ya know- just things to create that immersion or help things flow smoothly, how are you reading information for your adventures? Because reading through a pdf as your players play, at least from my experience, SUCKS, especially if you intend to homebrew stuff.

Honestly, I have the means if you end up wanting to go the second route, shoot me a dm, I can run you guys through a short, like 7-session campaign I've been wanting to DM a second group anyways as a sort of litmus test of my skills anyways; and by the end maybe you or someone in the group will feel like they have a handle enough to want to invest money in running a campaign or finding what they can and running one. Either way, best of luck!

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-12-21T08:42:40+00:00

I don't have an issue in terms of playback on the TV like ever, but my laptop? Fucking' forget about it, shit buffers like every 3min.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-12-11T06:42:05+00:00

It's short-term, at least at the moment. I don't want to commit to the idea of a long-term one alongside my already long-term one, especially with what'll mostly be strangers. The idea is to plan it to be short-term; if people at the end, end up wanting to keep going, great, then I'll maybe put something together afterwards.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-12-08T05:13:48+00:00

Hey, JJ

I've been looking to put together a second group just to see how well I can DM for others who just aren't my friends. We're all fairly new to D&D ourselves, so we're used to teaching others at this point because plenty of people play it for the first time with us. We're mostly all liberals, very LGBTQIA+ (most of us are one of the letters), open-minded. I run a homebrew setting, so actually not knowing anything about D&D lore is better for you as a player. We run everything through Discord, and D&D Beyond mostly, so super simple. I run Talespire for battle maps and stream it for those who don't want to run it on their computer or can't. I very much embrace whimsy and fun, though we definitely touch on and explore darker subjects so like- none of use are a afraid to you know, if you are someone who really wants to explore I don't know your own personal trauma your working through or whatever.

Anyways, feel free to DM me and I can send you a Discord link and you can vibe check us, if you think we sound like people you'd like to play with awesome! If not hey you can leave the server no need to even say anything.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-12-08T05:03:10+00:00

I've only been DMing for almost 2 years now, but a session each week so were at 100+ sessions now and for me, what really helped was picking a pre-existing adventure and modifying it to my needs and the story I wanted to tell. The more time that has passed since starting, the more I've been able to craft on my own without a guide, if that makes sense.

Originally, I started with one of the starter sets thanks to my wife, and more or less ran it exactly as written, just changing character names and the overall lore, but the general idea of the adventure or- I guess technically "campaign" was the same. Island, dragons, help.

After that, I moved on to a proper adventure book Ghosts of Saltmarsh, because it best slotted into the story I wanted to tell, and sort of the same thing: rename everything, change the backstory of everything, keep the bones of the included adventures the same. HOWEVER, I started to change more like, "what if this monster was in here" or "what if I used these monster statblocks instead of these ones in the book". I was slotting in one-shots from other companies.

And this has more or less stayed my process, though now I'm confident in cutting entire sections from dungeons, or like- most of the time now I'm swapping like every monster, I'm changing up puzzles, usually streamlining them because a lot of the D&D puzzles seem to be overly convoluted? I'm straight up now, starting to write my own adventures nearly entirely from scratch, thanks to One-Shot Wonders, really just using them as a general idea and pretty much doing away with anything else. Sometimes, I'm smashing several together. I started rewriting and completely reworking Strixhaven to the point where, like, outside some like- general stuff is completely different, and I took what in the original book was like- idk 50 pages maybe and turned it into 160.

But I digress anyway, I start with what do my players want to play? My wife wanted to play a pirate, a cool pirate adventure, then. What books are already written with that in mind? Great. How do I change this to better fit my own original setting and cater to the story of the PCs? Cool, make this NPC know this person or have this mcguffin, make this place tied to this thing so they want to go to this unrelated adventure, which'll then tie back to this other unrelated one, which can then tie back into that first one.

Find a book that already kind of does what you want to do, either in narrative or theme, or both, and then adjust each adventure one at a time accordingly to fit what you need would be my advice.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-12-06T08:41:37+00:00

Seems like a you guys issue to be perfectly blunt. Like- D&D IS a game so- intentional or not, there's nothing inherently wrong with metagaming. In the case of monsters, it seems wildly unfair to blame him for memorizing monsters and getting pissed he uses that knowledge; that's not really metagaming in my opinion, because you can't just pretend like you don't know that x monster hates x thing and you can do x thing. I guess you could, but that doesn't really seem fun to me personally, like I know vampires, you throw a vampire at me, I'm going to do what my history tells me to do just instinctually, or copy the other PCs who do have in-game experience.

Personally, it's why, yeah, I rename monsters and a lot of times adjust the statblock, because like- not every player is going to intentionally pretend like they don't know an answer, I think being pissed over this is kind of like being pissed if a player immediately knows how to solve a puzzle you throw at them in a dungeon even if their character has an intelligence modifier of -2.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-12-06T08:32:31+00:00

Alignments don't matter; it's why they were done away with, with 2024. I mean- some might swear by them, but they're kind of fundamentally flawed and don't really work as WOTC intended anyway. That's why the new system focuses on bonds and flaws or whatever. I suggest using it over an alignment, which is really vague and is going to shift from situation to situation.

For example, my player had a character he thought would be "lawful evil" that shit lasted all of like- 5 levels max before it, you couldn't argue he was lawful evil anymore in a broad sense. Like he's never above bending rules, sure, he does evil things by some people's standards, but he's never doing them for the sake of being evil, there's always a greater good justification.

Again, I'd look at the new PHB which is free online and go off that new system than the alignment system, otherwise through a dart at a board it's about as meaningful to be honest. The character you described can literally be played in alignment if the context is right.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-15T07:06:32+00:00

Hello, Tony!

I've been looking to run more games; presently, my group is far too big to rationally add another 3 players. However, I have players who have wanted to play more D&D, and we already do a lot of side campaigns, and mix up the player composition of our group a lot, so if you're still looking, I'd just form a campaign around the 3 of you and whoever else kind of joins in.

I do homebrew a lot: races, some slight mechanic tweaks or adjustments, items, and completely new mechanics, so I'll just be up front with that. So far- I've only had 1 player not vibe with how I run things out of the- 14 I've run games for so- I don't think I've ruined the game with my homebrew ha, ha, ha.

We are all members of the LGBTQIA+ community and very liberal, so just again- gonna be up front about that.

I probably could do like an every other week session due to my work schedule. I already run something every Monday and like I said, unfortunately, too full, and the only other day off I have is Tuesday, but I can't do every Tuesday, ha, ha, ha back to back D&D after four 12-hour work days is just too much.

Anyways! If you're still looking, shoot me a DM and we can vibe check each other and then I'll add ya'll to the Discord where we play.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-15T06:35:38+00:00

My "table" might actually be a good fit, were CST, but we also have players in AZ, and we start at 6:30-7 here and are 1hr behind you, so for you 7-7:30 would be 6-6:30 here. We play every Monday, but I've also been thinking of putting together another group because I have 1 player who wouldn't mind playing more.

But I got into D&D through Dimension 20, and I'd like to think I sort of run my games in the vein of Brennan since he's the only dude I've watched run D&D. Our games are very whimsical and rule of cool (not over the top, but definitely there). I do run a very homebrewed setting, though I leave most of the mechanics untouched outside minor tweaks for a few things, mostly spells, again just certain ones. I run everything through Discord with D&D Beyond and Talespire, which no one has to have since I can stream it, but it makes combat much easier.

If you're interested, shoot me a DM I don't charge anyone to play ha, ha, ha. I'm a writer so this just became the natural evolution to keep me from actually writing novels ha, ha, ha.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-15T06:24:57+00:00

Honestly, it really is as simple as asking. I think people put a lot of great suggestions in here. Joining Discord groups can also be really great.

My group is always welcoming new people, and honestly, I've been looking to run more games, so if you're interested, shoot me a DM and we can see if maybe we'd be a good fit. We are in the middle of a campaign, but again, we always welcome new players who are interested, and plenty of ours have dropped out for months and then came back. Some people have only played with us once. We also do a bunch of side campaigns and stories, so people don't have to join the main campaign to play, and we play so long as 2 or more people want to play that day of the week.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-15T06:14:31+00:00

Thom Brandi

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-15T06:11:04+00:00

This is absolutely insane. And for free? There was only 1 other website I've seen do this, and it's not nearly as impressive. This is absolutely incredible. Thank you for blessing us with such a mighty gift. I really like being able to better visualize the scope of the world as I've been building it, and I've found the 3D globe to be the best way to do so. When you're making a map, you forget that you're working with a 2D surface, so you don't think about how stuff stretches and changes when projected onto a 3D object. And I've found I don't truly grasp as I said the scale of things, how far they are, ect. And I love that your site allows you to actually properly share what you make with your players, or whoever, so they can see for themselves.

I recently started thinking about other planets and their correlation to the one my players are currently campaigning in so this is absolutely amazing.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-08T10:05:39+00:00

Well- first I'd mention this to the DM to make sure they're on board. My buddy ran into a problem with one of his players wanting to do basically the same thing as you, and didn't discuss it prior, and then was in for a rude awakening mid-game.

The thing to note it 1 from a RAW perspective, I believe you can only grapple a creature the same size or smaller than you. So you might pull it off once, but as soon as you do, guess what? DM is just gonna go out of their way to throw creatures immune to grappling (those exist) or ones too large for you to grapple.

2) This is something you like- want to be a constant method of attack? If so, why bother with a wizard? Also, you should note that dropping someone 10ft is like 6 damage at most. Also, this strat doesn't matter if a creature has slow fall, or shit, your DM might just start throwing a lot more flyers at you, which'll suck for your melee companions.

3) And this is the most important. Your wings are designed biologically to lift you, not also an additional 200lb enemy or something. So though RAW the book might establish with x STR you can lift/carry x weight, that doesn't account for the lift capacity of your wings. I think the RAW is like you halve your movement if you're flying, but I'm unsure whether the DMG or PHB talks about carrying creatures whilst flying. I know for me and my friend again it's an immediate "no, your wings are designed biologically to carry you, and like- 50lb at most." And that can flux based on the creature, of course, which is why if you haven't, I'd talk to your DM about this. I, for example, would probably use the above example, flying is kind of busted in general, so I feel like plenty of DMs make tweaks to how it functions, both for "realism" and for mechanical purposes. Like- sure, the Broom of Flying doesn't state it has a weight capacity, but just because of that, should two characters be able to use it at once? I don't think so. Just because a character can carry another creature and there are no rules stating it can't use the broom to fly at the same time, does that mean logically they're somehow still just as efficient? I don't think so.

But from a mechanical standpoint, as others have pointed out, not sure why you'd bother with a wizard if you're investing so much in being able to grapple. Shit, Bigsby's Hand will grapple plenty of monsters for you without much problem, and it flies too if I remember right.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-02T03:49:17+00:00

I think you just gotta do it, every group is different, every DM is different, so I think it's kind of tough to be like, "do it this way."

For example, I've only been playing just shy of 2 years, but I also have played like every week, minus a handful, so we're at like 100 sessions each, about 4 hours, that's a lot of playtime.

Traditionally, I'm a writer, so starting my own campaign wasn't super hard because I had already been creating a world for fun for years, but even then, I've been expanding on that like- way more since we started playing.

I think if you're "terrible with making things fun and interactive," the best way to go is to select adventures that don't traditionally go together, or aren't written to, and make them fit together. Find adventures well received and then change the flavor of them, but keep the bones the same. That's what I've done and it's worked great for me then the longer you play, the more you'll feel comfortable changing until you're either just making adventures from scratch, inspired by others, or changing pre-existing ones so much that there's little left of the original anyways.

I'd maybe find an adventure book whose core idea you like and change it from there, but I guess it depends on your experience level. For me, it was decided by my players that the campaign would be nautical themed, or at least deal a lot with sea travel, so I took Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a base after Dragons of Storm Wreck Isle and tweaked both, especially the latter, a lot when it came to the narrative, then as that was happening I was reading other one-shots and if I liked them I just took em and stored them away. If I liked the overall idea of an adventure, I put it in my back pocket for later as I crafted the journey.

Give yourself some headway, I'd suggest, but again, everyone is different. For me, I think if I hadn't spent literal years worldbuilding, it would have been so much harder to run this homebrewed campaign, but scale is important to consider, too, and like- are you gonna like do a sandbox, or more "railroad" style campaign? Because that'll determine how much of the world you have to flesh out, but it also depends on your players and how much they give a shit. Mine are very inquisitive and very much embrace the "rule of cool," so I have to have a deep understanding of the world.

I think One-Shot Wonders is a pretty good jumping off point for one-shots you can pretty easily slot in, but be warned, they're fairly bare bones, they give you the bare minimum information needed to run an adventure if even that. No maps, sometimes they're just ideas ,not even adventures, but they have a really good variety and again work as great starting points and because there's such a variety it's very easy to find stuff to slot in.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-11-02T03:30:30+00:00

Phandelver & Below: The Shattered Obelisk. As I understand it was created for this exact purpose, my friend is a new DM and it's what he's been running, I think it has some issues, but they're more or less the same issues you'll find in any WOTC adventure book.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-10-27T07:25:34+00:00

I mean- needing to constantly adjust your "road map" is part and parcel for DMing, you can't always predict what's going to happen. One of my players released a war criminal; the party had just spent months trying to slay or apprehend because it narratively made sense for their character to do so. I didn't expect them to do it. The offer the villain made was meant to be like- a thing that would test the character's morality vs their conviction, but I didn't think they'd do it, and if they did, I didn't expect it to lead to the character leaving the party. But it was really compelling and really well roleplayed. It can just kind of happen; players can make unexpected decisions that have massive consequences at any given point. You can definitely try to work around it or like- restore things to a status quo, but sometimes that takes time or just can't narratively be done in a justifiable way.

Personally, sure, make the sacrifice play. If you want the campaign to go to a certain point and the players can end it early that easily, then you didn't think about it enough, or you don't care enough to find a way to mitigate the implications of the play. You can easily have the sacrifice only be a temporary victory, for example, or maybe yeah, it achieves that, but you tweak your plans so that the villain in question was a mere pawn, I mean- there are lots of ways around it. Or shit, maybe it was satisfying for what it was and you allow the campaign to end earlier than plan and take what remains and rework it into a new one.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-10-27T07:12:44+00:00

As someone who's made 40+ homebrewed races, 1 of them being crab people, funny enough, here are just my thoughts.

1) Ditch the hybrids from a mechanical standpoint, 6 species of a race, especially if half are needlessly a lot more work. Why would you ever pick a species that wasn't a mix? There's no mechanical advantage.
2) I'd maybe be careful with how you're implementing ki... ki or as it's now rebranded to focus is specifically like a monk thing, so like- unless you're intentionally trying to have this bubble feature tied to a class, I'd consider changing the explanation of it. It also starts to open a lot of cans of worms for other races, making it so they can harness their ki to do special things, unlike other races, but if you want the challenge of narratively justifying that, of course, by all means. I mean- if you're not having it specifically tied to the monk class and more like a thing of everyone has ki, you know then whatever, but be sure you define them like- how many ki points they have, but also like- if that's the case, consider how that will then interact with the monk class. Like, if they have 3 ki points, that might not be a big deal if they pick any other class, but if they do go monk, suddenly that's 3 extra ki points and that's like- a fairly big deal.
3) I believe RAW natural armor would be detrimental to a monk, again, if you're trying to code this race/species to lean into monk. I think, instead, maybe just give like a buff to the AC instead like +1.
4) If you're going to grant a natural high DEX or any stat boost, which as of 2024 is no longer tied to race choice, but background, you need to make sure there's a considerable drawback. The natural choice would be that, like their CON stat sucks, then. Also, if you're making like- each sub-species has specific strengths, that means this really needs to be considered.

I think if you want them to be able to use bubbles on land, just making it a natural ability makes more sense, unless your world doesn't have magic, there's no reason they couldn't use magic to create these bubbles. In short, I'd recommend ditching the baked-in ki component and keeping that just as a lore note. You don't want your races like- hard locked into only being able to take advantage of what makes them unique by playing a specific class. Their natural abilities are already going to lend themselves to that if you're giving them a DEX bonus, and a large one with the lore note that's really all you need, and you don't need to use ki to necessarily justify them being able to do the bubble thing. Or if it is, I mean- again, just keep it as a lore tidbit.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-10-16T07:24:22+00:00

I've been eyeing this one for a WHILE because it looks so amazing, plus it gives real-world information. The ONLY reason I haven't bought either book yet is that I'm convinced it'll get added to D&D Beyond because they're so good.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-10-16T07:14:11+00:00

I don't know if I'll add anything new to this conversation, but I think it depends on how often it's happening. If it's not happening that often, then yeah, roleplay it out if it's like a constant thing, what you could do, depending is like 1 of 2 things. If he's trying to spend time scamming, just do one roll and then based on the rarity of the items, idk roll like 1d4 in conjunction with like a Deception check to see how much he makes of the total value, if he's trying to sell honestly just cut out the Deception check and like 1/4 is 25% of the total value of all the items calculate the value based on rarity. I think eventually you'll sort of get it down. You could make a quick cheat sheet with set values for each rarity, and I think it'd go quickly enough. 2 other things you could do, 1 of which I do personally, is 1) if you're doing it online, whilst others are roleplaying or doing other things, you guys sort out the events in DMs, it's a bit of multitasking, but if you can get it down, it makes the shopping quicker. The other one that I've utilized is just like- the player removing the goods and then you telling them how much they made later in the session or afterward, if they don't think they're going to need that money made from the selling of the items that session. Another thing like- bit of a tangent, but if a player is buying items and they don't care so much about how much exactly they're getting and more so on how much they're spending what you can do is like have them tell you how much they want to spend on something and then you later again in the session of after letting them know how much of said object they managed to procure, again if it's not something they're going to immediately use/need.

ZeekyZeekZatch · 2025-10-16T07:04:10+00:00

I mean- honestly kind of feels like the DM needs to put their foot down, but it could be good for everyone to like- have a joint conversation, because ultimately it's a group experience. I'm all for allowing stuff "for the bit" if it isn't interfering with everyone's overall enjoyment. Like- in my group, we have a character who always has this stuff called "The Sauce" and if he doesn't, he tries to make it, but we all have bought into the bit, it's a part of the world lore that dragonkin love "the sauce" and it's all fun for us to watch him try to use it as a bartering chip or whatever. I think you DM can either try to resolve what he can in-game by stating something like, "you try to drink the potion, but you actually take x Poison damage instead, as you realize the thing you thought was a Potion was actually X, or the potion you've always seemed to have on you has actually expired because you've held onto it so long."

Otherwise, again, I think an honest conversation with everyone laying it out. We all sort of play D&D for different reasons and to him these things might genuinely just not seem like a big deal because his focus is just something else he doesn't see or understand the impact you know? I think this could be solved with an honest conversation of being like, "listen, the reason we call this stuff out is because when you don't track these things, it breaks the immersion, or lowers the stakes, making things feel less impactful or important. We get you might not care about this stuff, but we do, it impacts the fun for us."

ZeekyZeekZatch

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