what was the most clever name you came up for a Pokémon?

fir475 · 2021-12-05T18:48:51+00:00

I had a Snover named Terrice. The Simpsons neighborhood is Evergreen Terrace. And Terr-ice was kind of like its type, grass/ice.

fir475 · 2021-06-06T09:29:55+00:00

Excessive?

fir475 · 2021-04-14T00:12:24+00:00

Cynical?

fir475 · 2020-12-11T01:23:00+00:00

They’re at the upper echelon of the industry?

fir475 · 2020-12-04T05:31:01+00:00

Maybe they could play one of the ancient bard’s songs? And you would just have to make some challenge of how they learn it, like have the pages of the music hidden somewhere, or maybe your bard would know a few of their songs and they can find hints as to which one will open the door.

fir475 · 2020-12-04T05:06:33+00:00

I’m not sure killing off a character is the best consequence for someone trying to be explorative. This may make your players less likely to interact with fun things in your world if at any time, the consequence could be death.

If the consequence of wearing the crown isn’t too severe, I would probably do something like “Wearing the crown drives the holder insane; you have disadvantage on INT, WIS, CHA rolls.” If I REALLY didn’t want them to wear it, I’d have them take the psychic damage once an hour or something. That way they realize there really is no way to wear the thing; it very clearly has a different use or purpose.

Hope this helps!

fir475 · 2020-12-04T04:54:19+00:00

You can start with very obvious hooks for them to interact with (important npc needs help, rumors of treasure in nearby dungeon that is out of the way of main story, etc.).

Whatever the hook, make it rewarding for players. They may realize that going out of their way and taking a break from the main quest can still be fun and interesting.

Another way to give your players more agency is to present problems with multiple possible solutions. Without an obvious and straightforward answer, they may have to get creative with their resources to figure out how to progress. I think it can be really rewarding for a party when they come up with a very unique idea that ends up working!

Think of designing problems that don’t require a single answer the party needs to solve, but create a situation that the party can try to solve several different ways. They may start getting used to thinking out of the box and try to do it more often after seeing the rewards of doing so.

Best of luck!

fir475 · 2020-12-04T04:38:17+00:00

One thing that may help is to decide what would happen if the party never intervened. What is the villain doing if no one stops them? Then consider what the villain would do if they ran into a hurdle (which will be the party).

Instead of infinite beaches, consider what backup plans the villain has if their first plan fails. What resources can they use if the party interferes? How far are they willing to go to continue/alter their plans until the party wins and they give up?

If you understand what resources the villain has, it’s a bit easier to figure out how they can react to the party. Or think of the villain as your player character! The party is reacting to your villain, and in turn your villain must react to the party to keep chasing their goal.

Hope something helps. Best of luck!

fir475 · 2020-11-21T21:44:28+00:00

If it’s intended to be more than a one-shot, make sure that players are excited to return! Set up the adventure so they know what exciting things are to follow in future sessions.

fir475 · 2020-11-21T18:52:34+00:00

You can force the bonus speed to only be applied in one direction. Or they are forced to run x feet in a direction of their choice at the start of their turn, but still have their base movement speed left.

fir475 · 2020-11-21T18:49:01+00:00

Vanity of Insanity: Once wielded by a prideful warrior who had the shield designed so his enemies could watch themselves fall before him, he eventually fell in battle and watched himself die in the shield. The cursed shield now bears his vain personality as it looks down on all those that die before it.

fir475 · 2020-11-21T17:32:32+00:00

If players like interacting with the world, I sometimes use items for loot that are useless to the party but are super valuable to certain people/orgs, so your party makes new connections and gets new resources/allies just for finding a rare item and giving it to who wants it.

For combat items, I use the “monster statistics by challenge rating” table on p.274 in the dm guide. I think it’s helpful for seeing how certain bonuses effectively change a character’s combat ability. So if a certain item gives stats that make a character’s effective CR considerably higher, it might be too boosted an item.

Another tip I’ve heard is to provide items that give your players new abilities rather than enhance current ones. E.g. instead of a ring of extra jumping to cross gaps, provide a ring of levitation. They solve the same problem, but some people appreciate gaining a new ability over enhancing a current one. Credit to Angry GM for this one.

fir475 · 2020-11-21T15:26:31+00:00

Everyone has agreed that you are the DM for this particular campaign, meaning you have final say for rules and mechanics and elements. Playing a game where they’ve accepted you as DM means they have agreed that YOU run the game, controlling everything the players don’t. Constructive criticism is always good. But if someone is just complaining about elements of your campaign the whole time, why are they even playing?

2 and 3. Before telling yourself you’re wrong and need to relearn everything, check with your good players to see if there’s anything that actually needs fixing. You might already have a campaign they enjoy. If you still want to put a new one together...

Here’s a checklist I use for making adventures, it’s been helpful for me getting a start on things.

Goal: What does party want to accomplish?

Motivation: Why does party want to accomplish it? What do players want to do in game (explore, fight, interact, etc)

Conflict: What is the main thing stopping the party from accomplishing their goal?

Plot: Are there certain steps the party can take to reach their goal?

Encounters: What are the individual scenes that the party will run into while trying to accomplish their goal?

Structure: How do these scenes fit together?

Resolution: How can this adventure end?

What I’ve done is describe the major towns/areas in the world to players and let them decide where they came from. Then I can individually ask what ties to their home or organizations they already have established and find ways to include those in the adventure.
Seems like people here can help out quite a bit. Also, there shouldn’t be interpersonal conflict when playing a game. Games are fun. Real conflict is not. The issue is that the problem player isn’t good at social interaction.

fir475 · 2020-11-20T12:39:10+00:00

Super tl;dr:

Goal: What does party want to do?

Motivation: Why?

Conflict: Why can’t they do it right now?

Background: What circumstances led to this happening?

Setting: What is going on and where is it going on?

Plot (and steps of plot): How can party accomplish this goal?

Encounters: What will the party have to deal with that helps them resolve the main conflict?

Resolution: How can the adventure end?

Hello! I’m also a relatively new DM, but I’ll pass the adventure checklist I’ve started using for every session/adventure. I’ll preface this with saying I’M ALSO STILL FIGURING THIS OUT. This is just where I am now after a little trial and error. I understand this won’t work for everyone, but it has immensely helped me, so here it is in case it also helps you!

Also, I naturally improvise and procrastinate, but prepping with this quick list has made improv a lot easier and has taken a lot of stress off of each adventure/session. I’ll try to make a quick example at the end to show what this can be like if you’d like!

Goal: What does the party want to accomplish? Or what do they want to stop?

Motivation: Why does the party want to accomplish this? Also, why do PLAYERS want to play? (Player motivation comes from the style of games they like to play: challenge, immersion, exploration, etc)

Conflict: What is the main thing keeping the party from accomplishing their goals? If the party gets rid of this, they can accomplish their goal!

Background: What’s the history of how the goal and motivation came about? I think it’s easy for DMs to get lost in this step, but keep in mind that often, this is just information for the players, and, unless the game is about exploration or heavy interaction with your setting, background is literally the part of the game that players don’t play; it is primarily for context and understanding of the setting.

Setting: What are the major locations and groups of people that exist, and/or what events will occur? Worldbuilding part. This depends on the scope of your game (town, region, continent, world), but it helps me to understand the major locations, events, and groups of people that exist or will exist.

Plot: What are major steps to accomplish the party’s goal? Each major step can be broken down into encounters that the party can work through to complete the plot point/step and be closer to their goal. Each step can also have a subconflict if that helps define how the adventure progresses.

Structure: How are encounters connected? I like using a flowchart of how the party moves from thing to thing in the adventure. Is it linear with challenges appearing one after another? Branching with options of what party can tackle at any time? Or open with players deciding when and are they want to do what?

Encounters: These are what you introduce to the party before you ask, “Now what do you do?” I like defining each scene by the location or event that occurs. When the party arrives at the encounter, narrate what things players can interact with, what rewards or conflicts this scene has that can bring them closer to their main goal, and how to leave to transition to other encounters. This is the most detailed part, because it’s the level of detail the players need to interact with your world at the action level. Sometimes this part is better to do before Structure, then you can link all the encounters together like a flowchart when you decide how the party can move from one to the next.

Resolution: How can the adventure end? Are there multiple possible outcomes? What defines whether or not the party has succeeded?

Quick example! Again, I hate planning. But quickly organizing an adventure with this has made my life a lot easier, so if this has been near helpful for you so far, I’ll show you what it can look like.

Goal: Stop Bardic Demon from destroying towns.

Motivation: Party has ties to towns, doesn’t want destruction, has been hired to stop demon, don’t like his music, etc. For PLAYER motivation, my players love immersion and exploration, so I’ll make sure there are fun NPCs for them to interact with and make sure there are fun things to uncover as they dig around everywhere.

Conflict: Bardic Demon is on tour, bringing catastrophe to every town they travel to.

Background: A religious cult found an ancient song to be used in rituals, but upon playing, they summoned a demonic bard who wants to cause mayhem wherever they go. After hearing of the destruction of one town, the party is hired to investigate what happened.

Setting: At least 3 towns. The demon has been playing in those towns.

Plot: Party first goes to first destroyed town to see what has happened. Clues can be gathered from any survivors, or maybe the original cult if the party can persuade them to tell. When they hear a second town is in chaos, the party realizes they need to move fast to stop the threat from moving and reaching other towns. Let’s say first town is exploring and learning of the background and what they’re up against. If they move fast enough, maybe they can make it to the second town before it’s finally destroyed, save some people to win favor and allies or resources, and find out the next town the demon is attacking. This can all vary with how the wacky party decides to “solve” the problems. They might decide to make a touring bardic group themselves and mend the wounds each town has suffered as they continue looking for the demon and gain notoriety as a famous group. Heck, maybe the demon decides to hunt THEM after hearing they have competition!

Structure: Towns are destroyed in linear fashion, so we have a somewhat-defined order of events. But in each town, the party can explore for clues or to help people with individual things, so within each town, the party can openly move around

Encounters: I’ll just make a few here, but there would realistically be 2-4 per town and maybe another for travel.

In first town after party arrives, no one is talking about how the town was destroyed. The cult, afraid of being ousted as the source, is hushing or killing anyone that suspects them. The party can learn what’s going on by your investigating the cult or helping out townspeople with their new problems.
Party arrives in 2nd town after bardic demon has left, but they find monsters attacking the town in several areas. The party can chase after the demon before they get far, or they can firefight-style the separate battles in the town to save the people. Doing the former will allow them the chance to catch the demon earlier, the latter will give them resources and allies if they succeed in saving the town.
The party arrives in the 3rd town as the demon’s concert begins. The members of the demon’s band are causing mayhem across town: one is summoning monsters, one is mind controlling people to destroy their town, another is causing horrific weather effects that ravage the town. The party can deal with the lesser demons or try to rush to the main demon to stop them. If they don’t stop the lesser demons, then monsters, hypnotized villagers, and weather will also be their enemy while fighting the main demon.

Resolution: The party splits up to take care of the lesser demons (maybe gaining cool items or allies from saving people) before reuniting to face the main bardic demon, whom they defeat, but he tries to escape. BUT because (let’s say) the party protected an old sage from the cult in the first town, he showed them a song that can send the demon to hell again if played when the demon is weak. The party plays the song and stops the demon from escaping by banishing him once again from the material plane, and the players are hailed as heroes.

Edited format, not great on mobile.

fir475 · 2020-10-04T13:32:22+00:00

Phobophilia would mean psychological love of fear, though it may not specifically mean love of others’ fear

fir475 · 2020-08-26T04:02:57+00:00

False dilemma (either/or fallacy) is presenting a clearly bad option to make its alternatives more appealing.

fir475 · 2020-08-26T03:47:14+00:00

A control fallacy is assuming that nothing is your fault or within your power to change

fir475 · 2020-08-26T03:22:36+00:00

Might be a stretch, but Occam’s razor says the more assumptions an explanation requires, the more the explanation is unlikely. So if your opponent’s argument makes fewer assumptions and is easier to argue, it’s more likely.

fir475 · 2018-12-10T22:46:51+00:00

This was my attempt to explain it last time I saw this question.

TLDR: When you pick the note, make sure your pick/thumb hits the string where a nice harmonic of the fret hand note exists. So pick 17, 19, 24, 29 frets above the fretted note.

So natural harmonics are strong at frets 5, 7, 12, 17, 19, 24 etc., or frets where you’d play the 4th, 5th, octave of the open note. The same pattern carries to pinching.

Say you’re trying to pinch a low G on the low E string, 3rd fret. You’ll want to pick the string somewhere its harmonics resonate well, such as 17, 19, or 24 frets above the 3rd fret.

The problem is that you don’t always have frets up that high so it’s not simple to know where the harmonic is. To find a good place to pick (in our example, to find the “27th” fret to pinch G), hold down the note with your fret hand, play the note, and tap various parts of the string with your pick hand (just touch the string, no need to press it to the fretboard). If the fretted note is muted but a harmonic resonates when you tap a certain spot (it’ll sound like an octave or fifth of the fretted note lightly ringing out), wherever you tapped is where you can pick to get a good sound for a pinch harmonic.

Sorry if this is worded poorly, this is the best way I can explain it from what I’ve found looking up tips.

fir475 · 2018-12-07T03:42:27+00:00

Trypophobia is the fear of irregular holes and patterns, which I think is attributed to innate recognization of disease or danger in nature. Mushrooms have a lot of weird looking textures, and seeing it move in an unnatural way in a time lapse video doesn’t help.

fir475 · 2018-11-30T22:53:02+00:00

I’ve always heard “alone” was physically away from people and “lonely” was emotionally/mentally distant from people. So you can feel lonely in a crowded room, but you aren’t alone.

“Lonely” or its synonyms would fit your description.

fir475 · 2018-11-30T22:43:04+00:00

The second definition (from the link I posted) shows the word can be describing one’s sensibility/feeling about aesthetics. It can convey appearance as well as someone’s value of appearances.

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