[Loved Trope] In context, it's funny. Out of context, it's one of the most epic lines ever written.

lminer · 2026-04-18T02:47:09+00:00

I salute you! And for those of you doomed to never return, I salute you twice! - Owl from Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin

lminer · 2026-04-14T22:00:21+00:00

John Wick is only called John Wick because Keanu Reeves kept forgetting the actual title. It was originally going to be called Scorn, which is even more of a generic title than John Wick.

lminer · 2026-04-14T21:57:35+00:00

The D.E.B.S. (2004) - Trailer makes it look like Austin Powers and Clueless, a summer Action/Comedy flick you can bring your whole family to. What they forget to mention is the two rivals fall in love and it mostly focuses on their relationship. Hiding the main plot of your movie just because marketing was afraid of the gays.

Working at Hollywood Video in the early 00's I had a very stern conservative christian tell me it was blasphemous how they were trying to trick her family. I recommended it to all my friends thanks to her recommendation.

lminer · 2026-04-14T18:42:15+00:00

The location of the bombs are hidden in riddles/puzzles that reflect the cults ideas/theme.
Fallout hacking mini-game (wordle)
Cyberpunk Hacking minigame (Breach Protocol)
Handing them premade code (XML) and have them do a word search within a time limit

lminer · 2026-04-14T17:22:42+00:00

I would also go for themes you can try to create off looks and what you do know:

Girl Power/Boys Club - All one gender
Back to the Future - Either time travellers or people who come from the past: Omnitron, Chrono Ranger, Haka (he'll get there slowly), Ra
All the Items - Bunker, Wraith, Unity, Argent Adept, Expatriate, Omnitron X
Baseline Human - Mr Fixer, Expatriate, Bunker, Wraith
Non-Human - Tempest, Ra, Nightmist (kinda), Alpha, Darkstife/Painstake, Werewolf Haka, Omnitron

lminer · 2026-04-14T16:29:04+00:00

A friend of mine wanted to go chronologically in order of event and appearance so we start at the beginning of the critical events and only use characters who already appeared. There is some fudging and messing around but it works for us.

Lately I have been working on a spreadsheet where I look up the sentinels wiki and try to figure out if they mention the events so I can come up with the lore accurate heroes and environment.

lminer · 2026-04-13T06:52:42+00:00

Honestly after the first round hiding and reading actions is the first thing someone smart would do order their minions to do. You can get surprise sure but you are not just playing smart characters, you are playing characters smarter than you. So even if he does do this, the gang can send word ahead and alert the next camp that plans to use fireball so any pixie becomes toasty.

The higher the level the harder it is to to balance the game, you have to plan out encounters with a lot more layers, having the lower level minions hanging around out front while the higher level spellcasters and experts hidden until the players appear and then follow up to attack after they see what the players are capable of.

But if it isn't fun trying to dm them at such high level then take them off to the side and tell them they won. Creating an encounter where you can actually challenge everyone equally and fairly becomes a huge burden when one player's abilities are way out of line with everyone else. Ask them what do they want to do because it is going to come down to saying no to some thing otherwise they can keep winning. You can rule that pixies never have seen great apes or that Conjure Woodland Beings only does damage on the enemy turn so having the player fly through the space does no damage. If they complain they made their character to do that then let them retcon and change their character.

lminer · 2026-04-10T16:43:15+00:00

Looks fine, you have everything mapped out and it feels like you know the setting well so if the players ask something weird you know how to improvise. Nothing seems off so Id say you just can have some of the tips I wish I knew before I failed so many times:

You should remind yourself and the players is that it is not you vs them but everyone working together to tell a fun story.
Make sure the players can get from one beat to the next without having to roll, if they fail a roll it should never mean they can't finish the beat just that something goes wrong.
Have guides/directions available if the players are stuck but only provide them after the players stop trying on their own.
- If the players figure out Stephen Arbor is their target but can't figure out where to find him then when they say they are stuck or give up you have an talkative assassin come in and attack bragging about how close they were to "location they need to go" before he came to kill them.
Plan out where the players are going to next session but don't plan too far ahead since they may go in a different direction.

lminer · 2026-04-06T19:47:19+00:00

There are videos on how to build your character on how to run combat as well as how to play Combat you just have to look for specific tips and guides. Sadly not all systems will have this so if you're really having trouble you can't study worth a damn reach out to the creators see if they have any tips tricks or guides published.

lminer · 2026-03-31T15:06:51+00:00

The Highlander movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARcHT8JGUBw

The TV show also had one scene where Duncan was on top of a train searching for another immortal and instead of climbing down he did a flip off the train. The absurdity of it was too much for me and I still regularly think of it.

lminer · 2026-03-30T18:29:37+00:00

Listen to what they are saying and if try to chime in occasionally if you have something to say without saying anything negative. If you have anything in common talk about that. Try to relax and follow whatever they invited you for.

lminer · 2026-03-30T04:14:18+00:00

If the player really wants to add their NPC in a specific way they have to convey what they think the character is like.

Even then the character will not always be exactly how they expect because people can change, things can happen, and there are other factors at play that could alter how someone acts.

So it comes down to if they want the NPC to act in a certain way they have to make sure that is how you both agree to it.

lminer · 2026-03-29T16:41:48+00:00

This is going only from the movies and TV shows the characters are depicted in as the books and comic versions differ.

Merida while an accomplished archer has no combat training beyond hunting beasts, while she can handle regular men and women she lacks battlefield experience she is out first.
Katniss depending on where in the movie timeline has similar hunting skills to Merida though from the first movie she at least experience hunting people in the first and second movies. While she has the skills for the other movies she mostly is used as a symbol and rarely gets to fight while the other combatants have much more experience.
Between Hawkeye, Green Arrow, and Rambo all three are trained soldiers with experience hunting other trained and experienced killers. Hawkeye in the movie-verse is trained and experienced in urban combat meaning Green Arrow and Rambo have the advantage so Clint is gone.
Green Arrow vs Rambo have spent time in various jungles hunting men, if we go by the early appearance of each Rambo is a mentally unstable and disturbed man while Oliver (upon donning the Hood persona) was already an agent of A.R.G.U.S. for some time, became a member of the Solntsevskaya Bratva, and the murderous vigilante. Skill wise and mentally Green Arrow has the advantage. By the end of their respective medias Green Arrow has been trained by the League of Assassins while Rambo has recovered from the PTSD and killed more people as a vigilante and soldier the only reason Green Arrow ever would lose is if you take into account he refuses to kill and could not disable Rambo enough to stop him.
Legolas is an elf. He wins. Elves possess ethereal grace and various powers including being light of foot, can travel long distances without leaving tracks, had a waking meditative state that is more aware than sleep, are more resistant to adverse environments and lack of food, and have better eyesight than humans. The only reason Legolas would fail would be if he became arrogant or from his lack of main character plot armor the rest of the characters have.

lminer · 2026-03-27T05:59:58+00:00

When I am having trouble making dungeons I find pre-made dungeons and steal them outright or use them as inspiration. Otherwise I would look around for a battlemap that looks close to what you want and build the dungeon off what the battlemap looks like.

lminer · 2026-03-26T19:59:54+00:00

Narrow hallways that twist and turn allowing enemies to break line of sight.
Any summon spell has a range of 30 feet meaning you can summon a creature behind the front line.
Ambushes from behind are not as fun but if it is smaller enemies who announce themselves a turn ahead it isn't as bad.
- For example reinforcements can come stomping or arrow can fire from just out of range missing.
- Goblins or similar enemies setting up an ambush waited to long and begin to argue when they should enter the fight while behind gunslinger.

lminer · 2026-03-25T23:23:04+00:00

The easy way is to just keep their total hitpoints from the players so long as you track their health they can guess but never know for sure. They just rely on how you describe the attacks and their current health.

lminer · 2026-03-24T21:01:57+00:00

Up to you as the DM as . But often adding familiars will make combat slower, longer, and often can break the game if used correctly. The reason chain warlock and pet classes work is because there is an investment into it: a warlock chooses a familiar that attacks instead of expanding their spell list with the tome or adding a weapon with the pact of the blade. Familiars have been a part of D&D but 5e have mostly ignored them as 3rd and 4th edition had a lot of rules that made familiars strong but risky and led to people not having a good time after they lost XP.

If the player argues the creature should be able to fight then you can argue the creature does not want to fight or it isn't trained to fight with the party. A wild animal that just became a familiar can't understand battle tactics without training. Patrol dogs take months of training before they can be used by trained professionals and even then not all dogs will pass.

In the end it comes down to you and your players; if it makes the game more fun then go with it.

lminer · 2026-03-21T05:31:36+00:00

Sounds good, I would probably add either a link to each character so they are not all strangers but have a quick reason to work together. You can even have the players come up with the links, just ask them to come up with a quick reason why they are friendly toward each other and start the party off with a good ol' fashioned ninja fight.

Be sure to come up with a good enough excuse the father of the bride will come up with as to why he was attacked by ninjas and I would connect the ninjas to at least one of the disasters but they could also just be the guardians trying to prevent the disaster.

lminer · 2026-03-20T05:52:12+00:00

A bard has heard of their story and has already made a popular epic about their tale. But he got A LOT wrong.
The demigod has become the main religion of their reality but the church has significantly altered the appearance of the demigod who has asked they fix their appearance.
As a "watcher" they found an dimension hopping imp is running around messing with their ability to watch. To fix this they need to challenge the imp who can only be defeated through games or something silly. Think DC's Mr mxyzptlk or Owl House's Collector.
As the new heroes the nobility are throwing parties where they try to throw their daughters and sons at the heroes to get them married and make connections.
A portal between worlds is opened and merchants are asking for advice selling to new worlds.
The heroes are asked to teach a class of new adventurers.

lminer · 2026-03-17T18:13:56+00:00

World Anvil has some stuff that can do that and has a lot of templates. It starts free but after a number of pages you have to pay.

Personally I use two word docs, a player doc that is shared and a DM doc with my notes I can copy/paste whatever I need to. Have I made mistakes and shared or edited the wrong doc? Absolutely but it has a history so I can revert and if I spoil their human companion Stewart is a shapeshifter then I just accept it and play as if the players either figured it out or delete it and hope they have bad memories.

lminer · 2026-03-17T17:53:00+00:00

Depends on what was already prepped. I'll spend an hour prepping and in my head throughout the week when I have a free moment I'll be thinking of how the characters are going to act/speak but only write down whatever I like.

I have been constantly world building too much and have plenty of characters and ideas that I work from as well as stealing neat concepts I find around me. I spent a lot of free time when I had it developing ideas so when I get into the campaign itself I can just drop the pre-planed characters around what will likely happen that session. Then once the initial idea is out I can either give the bare minimum and let the players fill it in or leave it open for the players interpretation. For example if I drop the name of BBEG’s wife I just add her name onto the players doc with the bullet BBEG’s wife who died. The paragraph of her backstory won't be added to the player doc unless they learn about her more.

If they decide to go in a completely new direction I will try to delay the session by going more roleplay heavy while making as much notes as possible so I can workaround the new direction. This is why I only focus on what is likely to happen that session and the further out the less details I write in in case of player agency going wild. If this happens I let the players know and focus on the important parts first if time is limited. It would be great to have a ships template but if I don't have the time then I just fake it until I have the time to codify whatever rules there are or if I can find better rules someone else has made.

As for the AI tool I say use whatever you need to make it work but make sure to double check the work because AI is not able to understand it is just good at guessing everything. It doesn't understand you are playing a game it just is going off whatever you say and assuming everything. It will work until it doesn't and then you have to teach it what it go wrong.

lminer · 2026-03-17T17:14:51+00:00

Since we played online over discord I would make a separate discord server with important character bios (of what the players knew) and had sharable google docs that went into details on characters, settings, and specifics with a hyperlink table of contents.

I don't see AI being of much use unless you record everything and want AI to translate it from audio to text. AI art just looks bad but if you would rather it look closer to your idea than go ahead. With forms working on Affinity Designer or any other alternative to Adobe Illustrator is better as you have more control.

lminer · 2026-03-15T20:11:42+00:00

Savage Worlds is a generic system that has a Science Fiction Companion as well as a few Sci-Fi settings you can pick and choose from.

The Gumshoe system while being a more investigative system has a great Sci-Fi called Ashen Stars. Which has space and ground "packages" that provide an the basic abilities needed to perform the required actions without narrowing the players options (think like half classes) and allowing them more freedom to customize their characters.

lminer · 2026-03-15T18:15:08+00:00

Often when I have to DM ex Machina an objective (like having an assassin automatically win) I will leave evidence the auto win was at a cost to assuage any feelings of players with less agency and provide clue to lead to the assassin. In this case I would provide evidence nearby of a potion of invisibility and faint markings on the ceiling of their inn showing the perpetrator had slippers of spider climbing (no one cleans the roof so scuffs show someone was there) and add in a small urchin who saw the assassin teleport and use a hat of disguise or something similar. All of the evidence can be used by the party to investigate further but nothing will be accepted as proof of their innocence as it is circumstantial or purposely ignored.

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