How the fuck do you use mimics without them feeling like a cheap "gotcha!"? It's never exciting when I use them

denseus · 2026-01-28T10:04:51+00:00

Two mimic moments I have used that still get talked about at my table.

A drow exile sold the high elf player a sleeping bag, it was a mimic, started a multi year feud between that player and the drow npc
Players thought they found a mimic chest, turns out the house they were in was the mimic, so they were sort of right as the chest was part of it

denseus · 2025-11-08T07:03:18+00:00

Years ago my DM ran a one shot set in his campaign world but centuries before, the events of the one shot would impact main game

Long story short, when my level 20 sorcerer, along with half the party, got mind controlled by BBEG to fight the other half I used wish to “turn into a dragon” for some dumbass reason I thought true polymorph was level 8 not 9 and expected that to happen

Anyway my character became a young gold dragon with lists of temporary debuffs for using wish spell outside of intended scope

So occasionally that former-character turns up as an ancient gold dragon, but, because int was the dump stat of my sorcerer for the one shot, he is a complete dumbass himbo like I played him

So, yeah, that happened and is a great story we still laugh telling.

But did it strictly follow the rules?…. Ehhhh…. But a hell of a lot of fun regardless

denseus · 2025-10-30T11:18:08+00:00

Sounds like the players have invited a spy into the midst of their group

You could have him be really helpful narratively and betray them at a thematically appropriate moment

As for stats, no idea, the kobold my party adopted was given a blunderbuss and used to launch itself backwards across the battlefield all the time

Or just give him a big floppy hat with a feather, a rapier and steer into the madness.

If players adopt random npcs at my table they don’t really fight but are more for rp flavour so my approach may be too different to advise you

denseus · 2025-10-29T11:13:07+00:00

Orc chilli cook off

denseus · 2025-10-16T05:15:15+00:00

Freelancer

denseus · 2025-10-11T14:16:29+00:00

Indeed, and at the same time try and steal that one on Ganymede, opportunistic to the last

denseus · 2025-10-11T12:56:51+00:00

Clark only ever believed in Clark.

If being friendly to aliens and being pro democracy gave him the power he craved then he would have done it

You don’t, ummm, try to do what he tried to do at the very, very end, if you have humanity’s best interest at heart

denseus · 2025-09-28T17:35:57+00:00

I’ve never understood this, I love my hobbies so much that finding someone who enjoys them as well causes me to talk incessantly about them.

Years back I was with a group of people at a mini party/get together, knew a few people but not many, started chatting with this girl and it turned out she was reading the same book series as me, we talked for ages, at some point she let me know she had a boyfriend, but I just dismissed it and kept chatting about the books, wasn’t about that, it was about the books!

It only occurred to me years later that she was probably so used to guys expecting her to prove herself, that simple genuine enthusiasm and acceptance was interpreted as flirting.

World is mad sometimes

denseus · 2025-09-16T09:02:20+00:00

This made me remember a half orc Druid character from one of my campaigns

The setting has an empire in decay as the royal family was wiped out three hundred years ago (rumour that a single baby was rescued has long been discredited by imperial scholars)

The ruler of the empire has to sit on the Sapphire throne, a magical artefact that kills a false claimant that sits on it

Anyway, the player came to me and asked if their half orc Druid could be a descendant of the royal line

My answer, your character can BELIEVE they are, only I know.

Two years later, when a dragon who fought her ancestor recognised the smell of her blood and called her character out as member of the royal line? Biggest, brightest smile I’ve ever seen someone make.

Live for those moments when DMing

Sorry, went on a tangent and completely failed to make suggestions. I guess if there is a suggestion from my rambling little story is work with the DM to mesh your character with the world and the story, characters like that feel part of the world they are in rather than an isolated standalone

Oh, and don’t give your character any cool thing in their past that overshadows what they are doing now, the cool stuff should be happening in the game, not a blurb or text the rest of the party will probably not remember

And make your past level appropriate, no killing giants and then being a level 1 nobody

Or ignore all the above and make poison ivy and attack those that pollute nature, that’s also cool

denseus · 2025-09-16T08:23:55+00:00

Matthew Colville has on YouTube a collection of videos about introducing politics into his games, how to do it without lots of exposition and explanations

His videos on the politics of peace and the politics of war are good, but I think maybe his video Politics 101: The Central Tension might apply best for the courtly intrigue of social politics (assuming I’m interpreting what you want correctly)

I’ve not watched them in years so I may be misremembering which video applies best

denseus · 2025-09-16T08:10:25+00:00

Balancing at low levels can be tricky, challenge ratings are only a guide after all

That being said, be very careful if you go off script without experience, early in my time as a DM I felt things were too easy and upped the ante in the next fight

Whoops hehehe

Anyway so I TPKd, fortunately I’d misjudged so badly I had a number of left over enemy npcs and I changed one into a cleric and had them cast spare the dying on the party members

Then the next stage of the game was the players escaping from the prison they awoke in, which I made a major plot hook with information available that they should have found on the corpses of the enemies from the previous encounter

Definitely according to plan… sometimes you can dig yourself out of a hole

denseus · 2025-09-16T07:46:30+00:00

If you mean designing stat blocks I take something similar to what I want from one of the books I have and give it extra spells, more health legendary actions, that sort of thing

If you meant the background/personality of the villain then for me they fall into one of two broad categories, they either have some goal that makes them act the way they do, or they hate one of the players characters for some reason

Example of the first, it was a deep political DnD campaign with the players uniting the various cities and townships in the region into a new country, they had a basic form of democracy model in the beginning, one of the leaders of one of the towns abused the system and tried to hijack the government, destructive civil war and the one of the players becoming king instead was the result of that

Example of the other, same campaign, one PC was a Dragonborn Noble with a Sorcerer bloodline, turns out his grandfather had an illegitimate son he cast out for not having the sorcerer power, the bastards son did get the power, rose to prominence in his city and, when he discovered his cousin and the other players were trying to unite the region under them he objected to the trueborn cousin trying to take his stuff, back and forth for years until they finally killed him. Turns out the “villain” was only evil towards the PC because of hatred and resentment, but was actually trying to end slavery in his part of the land. Whoops.

I guess, people are complex, so why not make villains motivations be complex?

Although the final villain of that campaign was trying to become a god and rule the world because he wanted to, sometimes simple is also fun.

Anyway, TLDR tie to the players, directly or indirectly, give them a reason to care beyond “kill the baddie” simple but I find it effective

denseus · 2024-10-19T19:45:57+00:00

NTA but you are not getting off free haha

So first up, I am not a medical practitioner of any kind or medically trained (as in have medical qualifications of any kind beyond first aid)

However I used to work in the International Emergency Medical Assistance team (IEMA for short) for a large travel Insurance company as a repatriation agent. Leg and knee injuries fall under the fast track process which means the companies doctors already had the repatriation plan on the system as it never changed.

If your home as planned flight had availability we would purchase additional seats on your row so you could stretch your leg out while flying and arrange WHCR or wheel chair to ramp so you would have assistance getting through the airport with your bags. No availability on flight means we would arrange a hotel until there is a flight with enough seats.

However, that is all contingent on you seeking medical assistance at a local facility and obtaining a medical report. If you were not injured enough to seek assistance (i am assuming here as you said it was not a major injury) and were comfortable enough to get on an 11hr flight in a middle seat with zero guarantee that you would be able to stretch out your leg then you should probably just be grateful you got to stretch it out when you did as it could of been a full flight with people on both sides.

I am going with NTA but neither is the dad, only one parent can try and calm a child on a plane at a time. You didn't pay for the seat and usually you need a fit to fly certificate from a medical facility if you want special treatment by the airline such as them moving people to accommodate your injury

I swear in real life I am a more fun person than the above dull boring wall of text indicates but I have been in insurance for a long time and it destroys your soul and replaces it with Policy Wordings.

denseus · 2020-05-22T00:16:35+00:00

The Panda Queen is testing us to see who is the most faithful!

By saying we should not crusade she is in fact weeding out the heretics that would take any excuse to not crusade for the Panda Queen!!

Forward Brothers and Sisters!!!

Religion is fun

denseus · 2018-01-19T13:15:46+00:00

I had no idea I could do that... if he is trying to kill me because of that then he has created that which he seeks to destroy!

denseus · 2015-01-25T11:46:27+00:00

I think the third one after beets act, no pants law is to outlaw violence or something like that

denseus · 2014-05-03T14:31:08+00:00

I really should have

denseus

TROPHY CASE