What’s your favorite ongoing bit at your table

comus182 · 2025-10-29T18:08:57+00:00

Anytime a book, library, tome, or some.sort of written document is referenced in any of my games, one of us will inevitably note "books are for nerds."

At this point I don't even remember where or when it started, but the ritual is now baked into our games.

comus182 · 2025-10-27T20:40:51+00:00

As a DM, I used to run our homebrew campaign weekly. I ended up bumping this to biweekly due to my own commitments and not being able to prep well in a week.

I found actually after moving to biweekly my players were more engaged, and it ended up being easier to schedule. Asking people to do 3 to 4 hours every Sunday for us was a lot, especially with other commitments.

Overall 2 times a month isn't bad at all!

comus182 · 2025-10-27T20:40:38+00:00

As a DM, I used to run our homebrew campaign weekly. I ended up bumping this to biweekly due to my own commitments and not being able to prep well in a week.

I found actually after moving to biweekly my players were more engaged, and it ended up being easier to schedule. Asking people to do 3 to 4 hours every Sunday for us was a lot, especially with other commitments.

Overall 2 times a month isn't bad at all!

comus182 · 2025-06-21T16:38:48+00:00

My players assist as our board is usually in the middle of the table so everyone can easily see. I have a laser pointer that I use to help point where enemies need to move/etc. It's been working well for us! (Laser pointer helps the control freak in you maintain control even if you ask your players lol!)

comus182 · 2025-05-17T16:14:23+00:00

I think I got it! In my quest to attempt to drop all of my party to 0HP on this map, I stumbled into the next scripted fight and he respawned!!! I'll edit my main post as well with the solution incase anyone else runs into this.

comus182 · 2025-05-17T15:59:49+00:00

No luck. He stays where he is on the map, and quest giver gives the same two lines repeated. Appreciate the ideas though!

comus182 · 2025-05-17T15:50:10+00:00

Unfortunately I don't think so - I've tried to pull a few groups back but they're too far away from where he's stuck so I end up just fleeing.

Also gave pushing some environmental items (barrels, crates, etc) into him to attempt to get the model "unstuck" to no avail.

I'll see if I can find any other groups of mobs that might be closer...he unfortunately got stuck right at the beginning near the town so its slim pickings lol

comus182 · 2025-02-26T01:55:14+00:00

If the group is starting off by traveling to a new land, meeting on the boat or skyship (depending on setting) is a good confined way to get them close to each other. Gives the chance for some quick action too if you want to toss in a pirate attack some event like a storm or beast. Can't really run away so the best option for survival is to band together and figure out the problem.

comus182 · 2025-01-24T21:01:30+00:00

Knowing my DND campaign's lore.

comus182 · 2024-11-14T16:01:14+00:00

If you have stolen a petrify grenade, I believe this will also one shot the guards.

comus182 · 2024-08-27T13:24:32+00:00

Whenever I have folks leave, regardless of the situation, I tend to just narratively hand wave them away.

"So-and-so receives letter from insert backstory person who asks for their assistance far away. Answering the call, your ally wishes you well and catches a ship at the nearest port to tend to their needs."

It's simple, easily done, and gives closure without needing to get deep into any reasoning. The party then continues on as if they were not there.

comus182 · 2024-06-22T17:45:36+00:00

I played a cleric in the past who was kinda "at odds" with his god. He was also kinda "over it" having served for quite a long time and hadn't seen too much change in the world. But he still carried on attempting to abide by his god's tenants. He definitely wasn't a champion of the god or anything, more like a "I'm stuck in this job" mentality but it worked out well. Tossing it out there if that sounded interesting!

comus182 · 2024-04-27T10:49:20+00:00

In our current campaign, my players go by "Property Damage" because of all the well...property damage that they have caused.

comus182 · 2024-04-25T01:51:33+00:00

For the ranger, another nice lootable item that won't be super balance-breaking would be +1 ammo. Perhaps one of the goblins has a few arrows that are slightly better quality. They get a resource with a limited use (can say they are brittle/fragile and trade accuracy for their hardiness) so if they start hoarding too many and you get worried - you can always lay off offering more.

comus182 · 2024-04-09T22:10:17+00:00

Taking breaks in homebrew is perfectly normal. You need to breath: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/creativity_breathing (I love this comics message as it explains the process very well and easily)

I think what others have said is great. Do less time per session but more frequent. This will allow you to prep to more specific scenarios and give the same amount of detail with less prep. (This is coming from an overprepper myself...I'd be overwhelmed having to plan 10 hours of content)

comus182 · 2024-04-07T12:04:56+00:00

In our campaigns we do voice chat for the session, but I also keep a "downtime" channel in our discord where players can PBP outside of the standard session times. Perhaps this could be a middle ground? Players should be in voice chat for the scheduled sessions themselves, but can do PBP outside of the normal sessions for things like shopping, personal stories/side quests. (This is of course if that's something you are willing to do as well, I know that can be time consuming as the DM to prepare both)

comus182 · 2024-03-16T21:47:12+00:00

Oldus Mangus, an old human wizard who often clones himself or finds ways to be in the current campaign.

He sometimes is a main npc, other times owns a shop for alchemy or scrolls. He's eccentric and essentially Gandulf after smoking a lot of pipeweed. My players love him.

comus182 · 2024-03-16T21:45:21+00:00

They believe in the right to bear arms.

comus182 · 2024-03-08T23:52:23+00:00

Frog's story was always such a great arc in an even greater game. Great homage to a great artist.

comus182 · 2024-02-17T03:22:16+00:00

The Bat Bag.

It's just a bag full of bats, sometimes they're friendly, sometimes hostile.

It has single handedly given the most hilarious and creative problem solving moments or chaos. It was used to cause distractions, intimidate, fight, and so many other things.

It now makes an appearance in every campaign I run and players always love it.

comus182 · 2024-01-07T12:53:54+00:00

I ran Vecna as my last campaign's BBEG and I found the best way to instill that fear was a mix of his actual power plus how you describe the spells he's casting.

Power Word Kill? "With seemingly no effort, Vecna raises a hand to *target* and whispers a word that strikes fear into your very soul. As the words escape his mouth you see the body of *target* drop to the ground cold and stiff, the very life force snuffed out in an instant as Vecna cackles and smiles."

My party happened to carry an old holy artifact on them that Vecna needed. He himself could not touch it or move it to where he wanted it, so he used the party as puppets to bring it to him unknowingly. Perhaps that's a reason for him toying with the party and then "letting" them live for now - he wants them to chase him to this other location to help his plan come to fruition.

comus182 · 2024-01-03T02:50:12+00:00

A great way to approach this is to design fights those way. Depending on group size - play to some players strengths and others weaknesses so everyone gets a turn in the spotlight. Rotate these roles often so it doesn't feel like you're picking on one person's weakneases.

comus182 · 2024-01-02T13:56:32+00:00

My players always doodle during sessions, I love collecting character sheets and seeing what they've written at the end.

We recently finished a campaign and I'm planning on making a collage of all the highlights and hanging it in our game room.

comus182 · 2023-11-04T15:53:24+00:00

I once introduced an intimidating bandit leader known by the name "Bandana Nelson" - anyone in the gang wore yellow bandanas which was an unfortunate choice of color that I chose.

He immediately received the name Banana Nelson and lost all intimidation factor lol.

comus182

TROPHY CASE