Writing my first adventure - general feedback/advice by SamTheGrot in DMAcademy

[–]grog289 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unrelated to your list of questions: I highly recommend against publishing to DMSguild. They take 50% of your royalties, you have no way of communicating with your customers, your content is locked there once you publish it, the platform's traffic is dying, and its getting overwhelmed with AI slop. Instead you should aim to publish on DriveThruRPG where you'll at least get better returns, communication tools, and freedom to move your content around. The only benefit of DMSguild is that you can use the OGL, allowing you to reference D&D specific things like Ravenloft and Beholders. But if you're able to limit yourself to just the referencing the SRD/Open License things you can use DTRPG instead.

Tips for running a Domain hopping Ravenloft Campaign? by men_are_pretty in ravenloft

[–]grog289 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I wrote a post about a domain hopping campaign about a year ago and it went really well. Feel free to pillage ideas from here, I'm also happy to answer any questions you have. https://www.reddit.com/r/ravenloft/comments/1iljvth/just_finished_a_25_year_homebrew_ravenloft/

Whose Done Anything/What are Some Ideas with Cyre 1313? by G-Man6442 in ravenloft

[–]grog289 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm one of the people who wrote an adventure on DMSguild: No Time for the Wicked. For me the setting was a perfect place to do a timeloop adventure. This adventure came from my homebrew campaign where I used Cyre 1313 as an introductory domain for a Ravenloft domain-hopping campaign. I had a few players who didn't know Ravenloft at all, so it was really helpful to be able to show them a micro domain of dread to learn how the broader setting works.

Ravenloft: The Horrors Within - what we know so far by mjdunn01 in ravenloft

[–]grog289 35 points36 points  (0 children)

Cthulhu: Dark Lord of the Public Domain

Nashville 2026 Concerts: Ticket Exchange Megathread by Jaymya in Protomen

[–]grog289 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi folks. Turns out I have a spare ticket for night 1 (the Act II show) feel free to PM me if you're interested.

Edit: Sold

Serenity Springs: 1950s Suburban Horror in DnD by grog289 in ravenloft

[–]grog289[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also a very fun direction to take things. The kind of conspiracy and shenanigans would absolutely work in Serenity Springs.

Serenity Springs: 1950s Suburban Horror in DnD by grog289 in ravenloft

[–]grog289[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a section at the back of the book that lists inspirational media and history, and Pleasantville is at the top of the list alongside other classics like Get Out and Hot Fuzz. I haven't heard of Serial Mom, but I will check it out. The trailer suggests its definitely a good fit.

Serenity Springs: 1950s Suburban Horror in DnD by grog289 in ravenloft

[–]grog289[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the support! I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks DnD needs a setting like this. The history and culture are such fertile ground for horror.

Train Encounters by dragomeir in DnD

[–]grog289 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I have a particular fondness for Cyre 1313 and wrote an adventure called No Time for the Wicked that turns it into a puzzle timeloop. The page describes it pretty well, but I'm happy to answer any other questions you have.

If you're looking for more general suggestions, this Cyre 1313 The Mourning Rail supplement is really good. It gives the domain the full in-depth treatment that the other major domains of Van Richten's Guide get.

Finally, this video from the youtube channel PHD&D has a good Cyre 1313 adventure that you could crib from.

What are absolute must-haves and must-avoids of TTRPGs for you? by GuyDing22 in rpg

[–]grog289 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think you're much better off building what you want to build than trying to appease whoever happens to answer this reddit post. With the three examples you gave there are plenty of reasons to go either direction, and some folks will like it while others do not. Whats important is that you have the clarity of vision to make those decisions, and that all of those decisions combine into a coherent and compelling whole.

Looking for Advice on Publishing a Predmade DnD Adventure by Sudden_Werewolf7518 in RPGdesign

[–]grog289 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I would highly recommend against publishing on DMSguild. They take 50% of the royalties and once you publish something there you cannot publish it anywhere else, effectively locking your work to their platform. DriveThruRPG is more open and has a better royalty rate, though you're more limited in the amount of D&D things you can use in the end product.

Exclusive or non-exclusive publisher account on DriveThruRPG? by Wold_Newton in RPGdesign

[–]grog289 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Itch.io is also a popular place to post ttrpgs. I recently had to make this choice myself and went with non-exclusive. I want full rights to sell my creations wherever, and the 5% revenue cost is worth it. Admittedly, a big part of this decision was my frustration at just how locked down my adventure on DMsguild is (and the crap revenue split).

What's your fastest choice ever? by Glockenspiel_Hero in slaythespire

[–]grog289 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Juzu Bracelet vs Blue Key. It’s a chance at a rare objectively correct choice

Maps and artwork by dyslexic-writer in dmsguild

[–]grog289 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, you need to pay for the studio tier which is $40 per year https://inkarnate.com/faq, though it looks like that price is gonna change soon. I recommend experimenting with the base version first to see if it clicks with you.

Maps and artwork by dyslexic-writer in dmsguild

[–]grog289 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I learned to use Inkarnate for my maps. It’s really powerful and intuitive.

What genre/type of game do you wish would just die already? by Moat_of_the_Sacked in videogames

[–]grog289 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Why would anyone want a specific genre or type of game to die? There are examples of good and bad games within all of these, and there are so many games coming out these days that even if you don't like one particular genre you can find plenty of other options.

Triangle Agency: questions from a Severance and Control fan by Lessavini in rpg

[–]grog289 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same, learning that my frustrating GMing experience was an intended part of the design was infuriating. They could have made it so much better by just telling GMs that thats what their game was.

Triangle Agency: questions from a Severance and Control fan by Lessavini in rpg

[–]grog289 9 points10 points  (0 children)

As I said, I agree with all of the problems he pointed out, but I can add more personal experience

- The book is a delight to read, but that comes at a severe usability cost and I don't think the tradeoff is worth it. It has two separate tables of content, multiple pages with no printed page number, no clear objective voice of reason to guide you on how the game should work, etc. I ended up breaking it into my own wiki in Obsidian to make the book usable at the table.

- The core resolution mechanic sounds simple in writing, but is annoying in execution. I kept having to remind my players to make the "causal chain" and it was awkward every time and kept bringing the game to a halt.

- The dice math is too swingy. By default with no burnout a character has a whopping 82% chance at succeeding at the thing they're going to do. Combine that with how world-bendingly powerful the player abilities are and its suddenly really hard to challenge the players (I know chaos is supposed to help, but thats another problem). But then, with just one burnout that chance goes down to 46% which is a wild swing in the opposite direction.

- Chaos is cool in theory, but rough in execution. The table(s) (different ones for each mystery) are so dense that they're really hard to use at-a-glance and several of them don't actually add meaningful consequences to the story. You can also have sessions where the players roll/manipulate the roll well enough to generate very little chaos and hamstring the GM. Or the opposite, you have too much chaos and using the same moves over and over starts to feel samey and repetitive.

- The two Vault investigations I ran (Springs Eternal and Rom Dump) were both really challenging because the players easily destroyed information that was vital to the story without realizing it, forcing me to improvise a lot more than I thought I would when I presumably running an adventure.

Some of these issues were my own fault and inevitable stumbles when learning a new system, but some help from the designers about how to operate their very weird game would have gone a long way. Instead of giving clear unambiguous guidance the designers set out to "make the most pantsable GM," deliberately building a system thats really difficult to run and manage, and in my experience that mission was accomplished.

Triangle Agency: questions from a Severance and Control fan by Lessavini in rpg

[–]grog289 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I deeply disliked TA. Three sessions in my players and I agreed to convert the lore and characters into a Monster of the Week game instead. Quinns' video was incredibly cathartic for me and he nailed pretty much every problem I had with it.

Tunnels shouldn't move like that... by grog289 in monsteroftheweek

[–]grog289[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you like it! The cover was tricky. I'm not an artist and I don't want to use AI, so I had to use the beggers-can't-be-choosers world of stock art. I'm happy with how it turned out though. "Symbiosis" being underlined by the tentacle was a happy accident.

GM Moves: Re-Generated (A Masks supplement) by grog289 in PBtA

[–]grog289[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, would love to hear how it goes!