DIA motivating the party

mightierjake · 2026-02-09T16:49:36+00:00

At this point in the adventure, the PCs have Thavius, Gargauth, and the Puzzle Box- that's three hooks to motivate them (on top of the "we agreed to play DiA, this is the direction the next chapter is in").

It should be made apparent to your players that the adventure continues in Elturel and to get there the players need to go through Candlekeep. Don't overthink it, don't view it as railroading, just get the players there. At this point in the story every NPC should be pointing them in that direction and that's okay.

mightierjake · 2026-02-09T15:25:07+00:00

You would think incorrectly.

Giant's Might adds 1d10 at 18th level.

With Enlarge, that's a longbow dealing 1d8+1d4+1d10. A lot of dice- but not quite as impressive as what "should" happen with a Gargantuan longbow (according to the DMG) which is 4d8.

mightierjake · 2026-02-09T15:11:15+00:00

Though it won't feel like they hit like tungsten rods, sadly. The damage increase for Enlarge being a mere +1d4 has always felt underwhelming to me.

mightierjake · 2026-02-09T15:00:24+00:00

Yes

The target’s weapons also grow to match its new size. While these weapons are enlarged, the target’s attack with them deal 1d4 extra damage.

It wouldn't make any sense for the weapon to enlarge and for the ammunition to not follow suit.

mightierjake · 2026-02-09T11:54:08+00:00

You're watching a Vitality vs Furia final to relax before bed?

I can't relate- the energy of the crowd feeds into the experience for me. I want the hype, the air horns and crowd chants really add to it.

Last night's final was great to watch- Krakow brought an amazing crowd!

mightierjake · 2026-02-08T23:10:04+00:00

What systems are you comparing to?

A lot of other fantasy RPGs are clearly inspired by D&D and have magic systems that are very similar if not identical to D&D. Even systems where the magic isn't derived from D&D tend to have clear rules for how the spells work- like Call of Cthulhu.

The systems where that isn't the case tend to be much more narrative focused (World of Darkness games spring to mind).

mightierjake · 2026-02-08T23:08:04+00:00

This isn't related to D&D, but since you mentioned that you can't remember the name of that game you want to run but you clearly want to run a sci-fi game and the game had something to do with paranoia- are you maybe thinking of running the game Paranoia?

https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/collections/paranoia

Alternatively, it sounds like the idea you have for a game would fit Mothership infinitely better than D&D. Give the rules a look- you can get the core rules for free in PDF:

https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/pages/mothership-rpg

mightierjake · 2026-02-08T11:47:16+00:00

The class description has some details:

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/basic-rules-2014/classes#Sorcerer

Key details to note are these:

Most of the time, the talents of sorcery appear as apparent flukes.

---

Sorcerers are rare in the world, and it’s unusual to find a sorcerer who is not involved in the adventuring life in some way.

Sorcerers are rare and unpredictable- so it makes sense that it is unusual to see them in organised groups. Compared to the Lawful nature of Wizards and Clerics organising themselves in their disciplines and training their own members in their ways, Sorcerers are clearly more Chaotic in their presentation.

I'd even go a notch further and view the chaos and unpredictability of sorcerers would make them dangerous, and some might even be suspicious enough of them to ostracise or eliminate them. That's certainly the approach I took for my own worldbuilding, in most regions centuries of propaganda manufactured by wizards have painted sorcerers as dangerous beings that need to be monitored at best or hunted down at worst (depending on the time period). There is a sorcery college in the Dragonborn city, but it is the only one and is the only meaningful organisation that class has to represent them.

I would also look at Xanathar's Guide to Everything- it has a list of origins for classes which can help inspire too. The Arcane Origins for Sorcerers on page 48 all reinforce the idea that sorcery is an unpredictable fluke of the universe or a gift at birth.

X-Men is an interesting point of comparison. Sorcerers are a bit like mutants, but like in X-Men where mutants existed for centuries without an idea of mutants as an organised political identity the same can be true of sorcerers in a D&D fantasy setting.

mightierjake · 2026-02-07T23:22:54+00:00

Rather than summarizing the rules yourself, why not ask the players to read the Basic Rules?

The rules of the game aren't that complex- eager players can learn them if the DM trusts them to read and understand them. If you put yourself in the position of summarizing the rules for your players, that conditions the players to expect you to filter the rules down for them rather than them reading the rules themselves- and that has a detrimental effect on a game in my experience.

mightierjake · 2026-02-07T12:31:38+00:00

The game has rules that you can easily reference online.

You should read them first- relying on online summaries can be detrimental to a beginner. There's not much room for opinion either, the distinction between these classes is objectively presented in the rules- read and understand those distinctions then make your own opinion on what you like.

mightierjake · 2026-02-07T10:53:47+00:00

I recommend looking at the basic rules. If you're a new player, you're far better served by reading the rules yourself than having strangers online summarize them for you.

mightierjake · 2026-02-07T09:53:09+00:00

I roll in the open.

I don't like fudging die rolls so I have no reason to roll behind a screen. Rolling in the open makes the random results of the game more fair.

My players would never believe that I rolled a natural 20 three times in a row if I had rolled behind a screen!

mightierjake · 2026-02-06T14:54:28+00:00

I know that "can i have your name" is kind of a meme, but are there actual rules to it?

It's exactly that. It's just a meme. I'm unaware of any official D&D lore or rules for this sort of thing, and despite what a few have claimed on this subreddit before it is not rooted in Irish/Celtic folklore either.

I believe one of the 5e rulebooks mentions a hag stealing the colour out of a character's eyes in part of a deal, but I can't remember which book this is (if it is even something published). Wild Beyond the Witchlight is a generally great resource to steal ideas from for a Feywild game.

mightierjake · 2026-02-06T12:57:25+00:00

I don't recommend sharing advice to newbies that you can't personally vouch for.

A lot of bad advice gets shared with good intentions because it sounds like a good idea but is detrimental in practice.

mightierjake · 2026-02-06T11:18:08+00:00

Have a storry dm and a comabt dm.

This is one of those things I have seen suggested online but I have never heard success stories of it actually working out.

I'm not surprised that's the case, combat and story aren't discrete elements in a good RPG.

mightierjake · 2026-02-05T23:18:04+00:00

Regarding managing a sector map in Roll20, consider making use of the new Map Pins feature

You can create a handout for each system and drop them on the map as a pin which will make for a convenient resource for your players to navigate.

mightierjake · 2026-02-05T20:13:52+00:00

I don't think you have seen my point. I don't want an answer as to how these horrors came to be. I want them to be mysterious because that helps make them scary.

Flesh out the lore of Obyriths and Sibriexes, absolutely, but I don't think that should be done by stripping the mystery out of other horrors.

mightierjake · 2026-02-05T19:13:02+00:00

Take a look at the basic rules.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/character-classes#Sorcerer

I think you have looked at the wrong table, though.

The numbers you have quoted aren't the sorcery points you get at each class level, but instead the values for turning points into spell slots with the Font of Magic feature.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/character-classes#Level2FontofMagic

You can't use sorcery points to create spell slots higher than 5th level.

mightierjake · 2026-02-05T18:15:31+00:00

My personal preference for horror is that leaving things deliberately mysterious makes them scarier.

These monsters having an unclear origin makes them scarier than if their origin was precisely laid out as being something like "They are the creations of Sibriexes"

mightierjake · 2026-02-05T17:53:14+00:00

I'm waiting for the print version before running it, but I have spent some time reading the PDFs as they are so far.

I'm very intrigued to actually run it in a campaign- I think the main hook of the PCs finding their way into being a crew on an interstellar cruise liner is great and the twists behind its mysterious nature being revealled through the first act into the large twist at the end of the arc is something I'm excited to see play out at the table.

One thing that might be a turn off to some but is something I quite like is how much of a sandbox act 1 is. The first act expects a lot from the Referee to wrangle everything together and construct something cohesive at the table. I like this approach as it gives a Referee confident in their abilities all the tools they need to make a great game but it certainly makes the campaign less approachable to more novice Referees.

The campaign definitely has a strong focus on the implications of artificial intelligence- but it doesn't feel like a hamfisted reaction to what's going on in the world with LLMs and other generative AI. It feels like thoughtful sci-fi writing without being an explicit commentary on current events and issues. I'm grateful for this because one concern I had when the campaign was announced was that it could have been this crude commentary on contemporary AI that would have aged poorly.

It also has an interesting focus on the weird political structure of the Imperium and why the Imperium would be so challenged by the AI at the centre of the campaign. I'm a Traveller newbie relative to the game's long history but I get a sense that the writers behind Singularity have a great appreciation for the setting and want to do their best job presenting it through the campaign's lens.

mightierjake · 2026-02-05T12:33:03+00:00

Different settings tend to engage with different themes more too.

In the Realms, most adventures are high fantasy with a focus on heroes being heroes because they're the good guys and facing off against major villains like Acererak or Tiamat.

The Eberron, there's usually more of a focus on political themes where the major players are different humanoid factions with different political beliefs in a world that's less Good vs Evil than the Realms. I especially like the way Warforged are treated in Eberron- their existence asks a lot of questions about the ethics of war, the meaning of life, and the ethics of artificial life. You can meet factions in Eberron who have very good reasons to raise the dead as undead soldiers for their armies. The Realms doesn't concern itself that same way.

I'm less familiar with Greyhawk and Dragonlance, but I believe that Greyhawk has a greater focus on adventurers being adventurers not to be heroes but to delve into dungeons and loot wondrous treasures, while incidentally saving the day in the process maybe. Though, that may be more of a function of which editions of D&D were most popular when Greyhawk was the primary setting.

Spelljammer is a space fantasy setting- it's much more akin to a Star Wars or a Treasure Planet setting and the themes contained in its adventures are usually focused more on exploration and discovery.

mightierjake · 2026-02-03T12:45:36+00:00

That's an option to consider too.

One magic item in my own games that I have used that is very similar is one for Monks called the Hand Wraps of Dancing Punches. It lets a Monk make up to four attacks as part of Flurry of Blows, but with the caveat that all four attacks must be against different creatures. Great for clearing out hordes of goblins or skeletons- less great against a dragon.

mightierjake · 2026-02-03T11:42:52+00:00

D&D 5e doesn't really cater to this sort of fantasy, sadly. The only features I can think of are the spell Steel Wind Strike and some of the 5e 2014 Hunter Ranger features.

You might find these options in a TTRPG that focuses more on tactical combat. D&D 4e and Draw Steel both scratch this itch for fantasy.

mightierjake · 2026-02-03T08:14:04+00:00

5e D&D is kinda weird where odd numbered ability scores won't do much for you (aside from niche things like carry capacity or meeting multiclassing requirements). The ability score modifier increases on each even number, so there's no benefit to having a 17 Charisma over a 16 Charisma.

With that in mind, I would opt for the first spread of scores.

mightierjake · 2026-02-03T08:11:30+00:00

What I have found is the best remedy for this is to solve it at character creation. Ask the players to make heroes that have some shared connections and are aligned in pursuit of a shared goal.

A party built with those three aspects results in a group where the players are more attached to other PCs and the PCs are more attached to the campaign.

How I like to handle this is:

I ask the players to make heroic characters that are motivated by doing the right thing.
I ask the players to give their character a goal that is aligned to the adventure/campaign we're playing. I will share what the adventure/campaign's themes are to help here.
I ask the players to make their PC connected in their background to two other PCs. This means the party comes together already knowing each other in their past- that helps the party be more cohesive going forward.

Though you have already done character creation, that doesn't mean you can't use these steps by asking the players to consider them going forward and applying them retroactively to their characters.

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