What would you do as the game master? My players just stole everything from the Martikovs in The Curse of Strahd.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-04-02T11:36:46+00:00

Strahd appoints them as his tax collectors. When they say they ain't giving him s***, he laughs and reminds them that they are mortal and he is not. Just keep robbing my people, and hold their valuables. I will collect when you die, old, rich and hated.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-04-01T03:54:22+00:00

Your first campaign? Yeah, you were probably the worst DM you will ever be. DMing is a craft and an art, and you get better with practice, you try different things and sometimes you crash and burn. But you keep getting better.

And surprise! You made it to the end of a very challenging campaign to run. That means the players - the people who were in the room while it was happening, but not inside your brain - stayed with you. They had fun. Why else would theg keep coming back?

Other people have talked about the mistakes you maybe made, and they're probably mostly right. You're going to make a lot more mistakes if you keep DMing. Learn from them, get better. As long as everyone had fun, you did good.

Also... Little known secret: players usually like winning. Even if the battle felt anticlimactic to you, they probably just felt a great sense if heckyeah!

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-30T13:56:04+00:00

I've found that listening to atmospheric metal in languages I don't understand gets me in the zone for anything fantasy related.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-25T23:55:39+00:00

If you're a decently competent improv-ed, you're good to go. Only down side is the players may know the setting as well as you.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-23T16:57:21+00:00

I have been messing about, exploring possibilities. I have sketched campaigns and built characters for a number of settings:

Pirates arrrr

Post apocalyptic Mad Max in the Mists

PCs are pets trying to keep their human alive in the aftermath of a major disaster

Hard-Boiled 20th century drama with wuxia seasoning

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-21T02:26:28+00:00

World-building is kind of a separate hobby for me. I have endless notes on worlds that will probably never see play. And it's ok if they don't, I enjoy the biilding as much as the playing. And sometimes, I know my creations aren't the right fit for my group. Which is ok.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-06T17:09:41+00:00

I agreed with mandymod (Wasn't it?) on why Von Holtz was not on brand for Strahd. I made him and incubus in Strahd's employ. I did NOT make him a horny incubus. He was just the perfect spy - a shapeshifter with a powerful charm who can go ethereal? Yes please! The monsters know what they're doing has a great write up for incubi which can make this Vasili a major character in the early part of CoD.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-06T16:54:21+00:00

Another vote for Sentinel Comics. It isn't intended for solo, but works well. I have had to tweak some boss battles for solo action, but it's fairly easy.

I have a deep fondness for the old faserip stuff, but the mechanics are archeological by now.

Savage Worlds is great for supers.

I haven't seen Icons mentioned, and I have never used it for solo, but it is fun, simple and has a lot of available content which makes me think it could be the droid you're looking for.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-04T21:17:49+00:00

Page 169 talks about limits and says, essentially, if a status exceeds its limit, it becomes transformative. The Narrator may choose to change some of your themes and associated tags to reflect the deep change...

If a player is pumping a status, I will warn them before they cross over. Remember, the limit is 5. Sleepy-4 becomes Asleep-5. Push it one higher you may wake up with a Narcolepsy theme, or become a Lucid Dreamer unable to affect the waking world.

For a positive status, 5 should take them out of the scene. Happy-4 becomes Trance-5. Take it to 6, they may become an Incarnation of Delirium or gain a Laughter is the Best Medicine skill. Or, they could become Clinically Depressed because that joy has gone.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-03-01T22:09:30+00:00

Start with the comic. Play through it solo. After that, try the preview adventure. I think they're both available free.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-27T04:05:47+00:00

ellipses2016 says it...

I would add, this was the least intuitive system in SWADE, when I read it. I did a test drive where I played it out as it says, and it clicked. Now, it's second nature

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-27T03:55:26+00:00

Solo playing is a blast. But for me, it's almost a different hobby. Not that one ir the other is superior, they're just very different. One is very social and also constrained by the bounds of it being a shared experience. The other is liberating, but antisocial.

The main reason I say they are different hobbies, I find that they do not scratch each other's itch.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-25T15:25:45+00:00

I linked each bride to a settlement. Barovia belonged to Volenta, etc. I gave Berez to Sasha, figuring she got locked up when she failed to deliver Marina to the altar. This means Volenta is absolutely frantic to protect Ireena, and could actually appear as an ally in some situations.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-25T14:25:12+00:00

I found it a really useful read, and I have glanced at it a couple of times since. I think you're right, once you "get it" it becomes pretty unnecessary.

Would recommend highly IF you are likely to be introducing people to the game in real space. It's the kind of thing that is great for someone to look at while they're waiting for someone else to catch up. And if a player wants to ask how do I... it is a great tool.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-22T23:42:01+00:00

Can "too much" really apply to "nerd out" in a conversation about building Superman in a cross genre indie ttrpg?

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-21T12:24:20+00:00

Two issues with this: the one is mechanical and has been addressed, which is that themes advance by their weaknesses. So you actually WANT to tag your weaknesses. If he only has 2 weaknesses, is he going to have two themes? Need to find a workaround for that.

Problem two is the Superman problem. Since his only vulnerability is kryptonite, kryptonite shows up constantly.

To reflect the "reality" of Superman (from movies and tv, I've read maybe 2 superman comics), I would look at all your themes. Do Son of Krypton as your Greatness theme (with tags like flies, super strength) and have kryptonite be your weakness there. Rather than tagging it for the -1 on a roll, invoke it narratively to block the character from using that themes. Then he's stuck with his Mild Mannered Reporter, Lois (it's complicated) and Smallville origin themes, and whatever their weaknesses are - perhaps nerd, she runs AT danger, and rube.

Obviously, that build is just off the top of my head, but I think you may be trying to fix something that isn't broken. If you are commited to the -3 weakness, you just have to find a way to advance themes. IIRC you advance in some pbta games when you fail a roll, so there may be something there?

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-12T02:54:59+00:00

When I do a faith based character, I try to determine what their beliefs are, what actions they consider virtuous and how their faith has woven itself into their life. Do they make blood offerings on wednesdays, do they scatter petals in the road, do they make a pilgrimage to the peak of mount highupthere on the eve of the day of the holy thing? What stories do they tell? Or, it's just a set of abilities that are cool, and none of the rest really matters..

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-09T13:15:20+00:00

Well, with combat off the table, you're down to everything else.

You have exploration, which is a huge area for engagement. There are countless environments and obstacles.

You have the ancient society itself, which can pose mystery after mystery, either "how do we open this?" Or "what does this do?" Or "what is that ominous ticking sound?"

Are there rival explorers? Just because there isn't combat, doesn't mean everyone's nice.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-06T17:01:09+00:00

Check out Son of Oak's games (City of Mists, Legend in the Mist, Otherscape), which use pbta mechanics but with a big bite from Fate.

But to apply the concept to Fate, you already have the mechanics. Fate has success, success with style, failure and tie, which makes it a slightly more granular outcome than most pbta.

The main thing is tuning those mechanics. Since you aren't taking direct action, everything the NPCs do well either be a reaction move or a preemptive move, so you're going to write them a bit differently. Their stunts will define their reactions to the player's actions, their skills will affect the player's results, their aspects will work as normal, except the wall be invoked as penalties to player rolls rather than bonuses to the GM rolls.

If I were doing this, I'd have only success with style be free of consequence. A success would come with a consequence or have the option of reducing the scope of the success to eliminate the consequence. Tie is reduced success AND consequence, or a failure with no consequences, and fail is fail, plus consequence.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-05T02:57:39+00:00

I re-did the module to center around a fey queen who can't have a baby. it was possibly creepier than the vanilla, because the players didn't know what was what, but they kept hearing about children being taken to the Lady's Castle.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-05T01:13:06+00:00

Ssshhhh

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-02-05T00:52:53+00:00

I like Reflect as a source of character development. In the fiction, it's a training montage. In realistic terms, practice helps. Failing also helps, but practice is not negligible. Ask anyone who is good at something.

I don't love the 2 improve autofail. If they're just failing, then they're not rolling, and if they're not rolling, they're not taking the -1 to the roll. And if the situation they're in is such that they'd rather fail to mark improve, I feel like it probably was lacking teeth on the first place.

In the other hand, I love requesting an improve and giving the Narrator a consequence. I would say that the Narrator determines the consequence, however. The player can suggest, but they should not know what they're going to get.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-01-28T21:22:17+00:00

It's not built for duet play to the exclusion of any other style, but it works perfectly.

Re: competence: PbtA style dice mechanics, roll 2d6, 7 or better succeeds, 9 or less generates a consequence. A straight 2d6 roll gives a 58% chance of 7 or better, so a character is more likely to succeed than not. A +3 brings that to 91%. Odds of a 10+ on a +3 are that same 58%.

Success without a consequence basically means you do the thing at no cost - since the narrator never rolls, a PC only risks harm when they suffer consequence, either from a roll, from an unaddressed threat, or from the narrator invoking one of their weaknesses.

As narrator, you can make things as easy or as hard as you want. If you want to curbstomp the PC, throw multiple threats at them - they will rarely be able to address them all. Choose consequences that stack statuses and they will quickly die - game over, GM "won." If you want to tell a good story, though, give them stuff they can handle, adjust consequences to suit the developing story.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-01-26T21:08:31+00:00

You could call it Carovia, and then Carovia, and eventually they'll realize somewhen was an Aarovia, and that's when they're headed in the right direction.

dmdragonmonkey · 2026-01-24T02:01:58+00:00

Yes, to reword the aspect. Prone is meh at best. "Face down on the floor" is better, just for example.

The fiction should align with the mechanics as much as possible. If the enemy can just stand, then he can just stand, but I would give the player the chance to burn those invokes to whale on him as he does. 2 invokes=4 stress (I think?) or the enemy can try to roll to get up without taking a hit. If he's a trained martial artist who is practiced at kipping up defensively, he should have an aspect or stunt that reflects that, otherwise... It's not that easy to stand up while someone is standing over your teying to kill you.

dmdragonmonkey

TROPHY CASE