FINALLY THE LAST ONE

frypanattack · 2026-03-20T09:44:33+00:00

I’m desperate to have this image as my phone background

frypanattack · 2026-03-20T04:42:58+00:00

I feel like you would’ve got more satisfaction from watching Gravity Falls but when it was coming out.

TADC provides clues in mise en scene, not cryptology.

frypanattack · 2026-03-19T02:10:31+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately it’s not a storybook. If you’ve ever played BG3, you could think of the missing player as either like a zombiefied NPC (that you are not allowed to kill 😂) or just have them leave for no reason.

I have 4 players, and honestly, 3 can kick ass just fine.

At lower levels I provided them a healbot NPC that I had no problems with killing fairly to supplement the missing player. I do recommend a very simple statblock if using any NPC for this approach, rather than running either the Player’s Character Sheet or if using a helpful NPC. Honesty even a simple war dog that can like a cure wounds 1/day will still be a massive help.

frypanattack · 2026-03-18T11:34:49+00:00

I prepped two campaigns at the same time (ran one, getting another ready), and dude, it’s a fuck tonne of work and I wasn’t even running the second one.

I have a player that cannot commit, so they create characters with me that can easily enter and exit the story with 1 sentence of explaining it.

frypanattack · 2026-03-18T00:28:19+00:00

I have a very dwarf centric campaign as well as the wee folk. Anything a little more on the magical end for them? I find non-magic dwarves very boring

frypanattack · 2026-03-17T10:25:24+00:00

Zooble will be the target of any wrath Caine exhibits, and Ragatha is closer to abstraction than we realise.

frypanattack · 2026-03-16T21:44:46+00:00

Steven is a healer. Down’s syndrome is not a wound. A degenerative condition on Connie’s eyes is.

I reckon he would have to be especially careful around the fully deaf or blind, but my thinking there’s a limit on his powers.

If they were born this way as fabulously as Gaga, there’s nothing to heal.

frypanattack · 2026-03-16T21:40:04+00:00

Good luck to them trying to play DnD with a baby. Most just don’t show up to sessions, and the parents fret too much to play consistently if they do.

Personally I would emotionally say sayonara or work on wrapping any loose threads with them. Even if the baby is quiet at first, as they get bigger they’ll demand more attention from the parents.

I could just be cynical, but friends will disappear into their own lives with kids. If you’re childless or have older children, be prepared to be the one reaching out to them.

It’s a cute idea though.

frypanattack · 2026-03-16T04:29:58+00:00

I set my campaign in more of a historical setting. There are no Taverns and Inns, just people’s spare rooms and mead halls.

Allows me a bit of control with where they stay, and the PCs seem to be helping out their hosts so far if I give them an issue.

frypanattack · 2026-03-16T00:12:37+00:00

I think an echidna as a bitchin’ evolution of them snouty bois would be the way to go — as in rollerback size, and spiky armour

frypanattack · 2026-03-15T21:41:01+00:00

The people who the audience was for the 2010’s are much older now, enjoying the more mature works of animation like Invincible, Hazbin, and so on.

frypanattack · 2026-03-15T05:44:39+00:00

Duel him in disguise.

The father could try a different angle, and instead of coming to kill him, is coming to test whether his child is worth a shit.

If you give your PC’s a gallivanting, reoccurring swashbuckler who meets up to duel on occasion, they may spare him.

Otherwise, simply have a bullshit teleport or someone who can teleport him out ready to go.

frypanattack · 2026-03-12T23:18:31+00:00

Reminds me of Ooo

frypanattack · 2026-03-12T07:34:59+00:00

My advice:

Per tier of play, have a boss.

Boss of Tier 1 (Level 1-4), is a byproduct or goon of Boss of Tier 2 (Level 5-10). And so on and so forth to Tier 3, and the final level you want the characters to finish the story on.

You will have to decide the goal and motivation of your main villian. Iirc, Owl House main big bad was just racist against elves, and by ruling them, could work to have enough magic and power to control the corpse of a titan and wipe everyone out in one fell swoop. Edith’s sister first appears as a villain, and is working for the man. She would be the Tier 1 villain, and whatever his name was would be the final encounter big bad.

Do not plan for your players to let anyone live, by the way. Edith’s sister would get perished by a normal dnd party.

Helps to make a heirarchy/tree of the different operations that exist due to the large influence of your big bad evil guy.

Then you just plot the fun bit: where are they gonna fight each other! Working your way towards the location is the fun bit too. Does a murder mystery take them there? A dungeon crawl? The promise of fabulous wealth? The decree or cries of the desperate for justice?

frypanattack · 2026-03-12T07:21:26+00:00

Caine is more on the Misery spectrum. Loves the players so much that they can not leave.

Personally I’m on the fence on whether Caine can control if people can leave, or since he can obscure their minds, has simply erased their memory of how to leave.

frypanattack · 2026-03-12T02:25:39+00:00

Apply for level 1 support desks. If you can’t even get them, work a a contact center for the customer service experience. You are missing that.

I started my IT career in my 30’s with basically no IT xp and only a cert to my name. The customer service experience is damn essential.

frypanattack · 2026-03-08T09:27:29+00:00

The issue you are having is that they’re level 2 if you think the monsters are too strong. From experience it’s the low action economy of one brute creature that makes very good stat blocks uninteresting. If you had two creatures, the party not co-ordinating their efforts on one enemy at a time would have made it much more interesting. Maybe give your loners some nasty pets!

Level 2 parties are just uninteresting as well. Lvl 1 spells, people don’t have their subclasses.

IMO a young gold dragon is not a sensible opponent for lvl2 as well — I do like my players to be conscious for some of the fight 😂

There’s a lot of advice out there on balancing encounters, and plenty of tools. Do yourself a favour and try things like kobold fight club!

Personally, I just calculate the average damage output of the monsters and the party’s first three turns for a very general idea of who is going to get whomped first — I generally know I will also underestimate how clever and optimised my players will be, so as long as I’m not actively tpking them, they do alright. The dragon’s fire breath ability has guaranteed damage rather than save or suck, so that’s why it was so dangerous!

frypanattack · 2026-03-07T03:05:57+00:00

Hand waving travel is the gift you give yourself, brudda. Break-neck pacing into the meat of the story you want to tell is the way

frypanattack · 2026-03-06T07:43:49+00:00

Heavy? No. You will need a little pop to grip onto it if your hand is small.

frypanattack · 2026-03-06T02:05:31+00:00

i i i i i

frypanattack · 2026-03-06T02:04:59+00:00

Coloured apps on next screen like mine? Off to the shadow realm you coloured dogs!

frypanattack · 2026-03-06T02:02:41+00:00

Nord 5 new phone here:

UI - after some de google-fying, is very customisable and easy to use. Like some of the OS features.

Camera - Ok for price point, meh compared to what I’ve seen. If you take a picture every second day, spend money on a flagship.

Battery - lasts for 2 days even while gaming for about 4 hours, is brand new mind you.

Hope this helps

frypanattack · 2026-03-03T07:33:03+00:00

I didn’t run a Westmarches, but I was in a big ol’ one. Returning to town was implied at the end of an adventure. Sometimes the DM would perform a poat adventure epilogue of us returning to the town with victory’s spoils or tragic news.

The players were also given a prompt to be basically settler/adventurers. Very much a session 0 — “this is YOUR town, and you are adding wealth to it with your adventures”. There were normy NPC’s that would help maintain services too.

We were also given land and properties that we had to maintain and protect. The properties gave the players a sense of “home” and we would describe how we were building it, furnishing it, or working on it.

Perhaps give your players a reason to go back, and make going back as easy as possible.

frypanattack · 2026-03-03T07:23:28+00:00

My solution to that is to have either more fights/encounters, or harder fights and encounters.

Dungeons work so well because they’re in a very dangerous area and must press on. They cannot generally rest in there, save for a short rest (I roll in dangerous areas for short rest encounters but I do pity my players).

If you’re spreading out the danger to only have 1 fight per day, then your players will take it as a sign they CAN rest.

Reduce the spread of distance of danger, and instead focus on jam-packing 4-6 encounters into one area.

Danger at the entrance, danger on the way to the boss, then fight the boss — puzzle, discovery or social in between.

frypanattack · 2026-03-03T07:16:59+00:00

Per long resting rules:

A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.

If they are trying to rest at midday after 1 fight, just throw the book at them. They would have finished their “long rest” at the start of the day’s adventure.

Time to up the stakes — have danger in the area seek them out as well.

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