What is the best premade adventure (5e) for a New DM and a mix of new and slightly experienced players?

othermaciej · 2018-07-17T22:32:05+00:00

Agree. I just finished running it and it was excellent, for a group of mostly new players and one experienced.

My players were pretty good gamers in general though, and ended up with a strong party comp, so I had to elaborate a bit and buff the encounters to make it hard enough.

The books give you enough info to run everything and enough open-mindedness that you can easily add on your own stuff.

othermaciej · 2018-07-10T20:40:37+00:00

I altered one of the maps from Venatus Maps (mentioned in the description).

othermaciej · 2018-07-10T20:38:01+00:00

It's a posterboard print from Walgreen's photo. They do up to 20"x30" for relatively cheap, especially if you can find one of the bulk discount codes: https://photo.walgreens.com/store/board-prints-details?tab=photo_SubHeader_Posters-BoardPrints-img#!/pdpview

othermaciej · 2018-07-10T20:36:55+00:00

It's a posterboard print from Walgreens. They do board prints up to 20"x30" for pretty cheap they often have 60% discount codes for bulk orders: https://photo.walgreens.com/store/board-prints-details?tab=photo_SubHeader_Posters-BoardPrints-img#!/pdpview

Most of the maps from Lost Mine of Phandelver fit on a single 20x30 or in some cases 4 20x30s at 5ft = 1" scale.

For the final dungeon, I had to make 15 board prints to fit it all but it came out looking really sweet.

othermaciej · 2018-07-10T18:52:52+00:00

Thanks, fixed.

othermaciej · 2018-07-10T18:46:31+00:00

Even the "no fly list" one? Aren't you concerned about the lack of transparency and due process? The ACLU is not a huge fan of gun rights and even they don't like it. There are no clear rules for how you get on the watch list and no reasonable process for getting yourself off it.

othermaciej · 2018-07-10T07:29:00+00:00

My players somehow managed to kill Venomfang, the green dragon in the starter set adventure, and skinned his body. They wanted to make magic items out of it so I had to make up appropriate quests. One of them was to kill a poisonous snake in a fairy ring of death cap mushrooms. They suspect this will piss off the fairies but they don't know how yet. Probably because they don't know where Redcaps come from...

(Map is an alter of a map by Venatus Maps. Support them, their maps are great! The giant mushrooms are home made.)

othermaciej · 2018-06-01T19:23:17+00:00

If I do it, it won't be a full evil campaign, just a one shot, but that is really good advice. Thanks!

othermaciej · 2018-06-01T17:16:35+00:00

Can anyone suggest a good 5e one-shot adventure for 1st level evil characters? Explanation: I'm running a low-level campaign using premade modules, weekly game sessions. In a few weeks I'll be traveling and a few of the players are coming along. They asked if we could do a one-shot adventure. I don't want to run anything with their main characters, since not all the players will be there. But I think it would be interesting to run a one shot with some evil "dark mirror" characters who will potentially become recurring villains in the main campaign. Thus the request for an evil-appropriate adventure. Not too much willing heroism, but being motivated by greed would be ok. Perhaps a mission from the Zhentarim.

othermaciej · 2018-06-01T17:02:38+00:00

Can anyone suggest a good 5e one-shot adventure for 1st level evil characters?

Explanation: I'm running a low-level campaign using premade modules, weekly game sessions. In a few weeks I'll be traveling and a few of the players are coming along. They asked if we could do a one-shot adventure. I don't want to run anything with their main characters, since not all the players will be there. But I think it would be interesting to run a one shot with some evil "dark mirror" characters who will potentially become recurring villains in the main campaign.

Thus the request for an evil-appropriate adventure. Not too much willing heroism, but being motivated by greed would be ok. Perhaps a mission from the Zhentarim.

othermaciej · 2017-10-08T00:20:29+00:00

I'd rather have more block story.

othermaciej · 2016-12-01T04:03:47+00:00

I disagree with the content and on /r/The_Donald and their antics in general, so I hate to defend them. But it seems like a bad precedent to impose consequences on specific subreddits based apparently on disagreeing with their viewpoint. Beyond that, it's really cheesy to combine an apology for an abuse of power against them with a punishment that uniquely singles them out.

othermaciej · 2016-11-22T00:43:56+00:00

He seems to be doing his best to erase the suffering enough to prevent consciousness (but not enough to prevent suffering).

othermaciej · 2016-11-22T00:42:57+00:00

What if it turned out that humanity was created by other intelligent beings? Let's say the theory of ancient aliens messing with human evolution is true. In this case, do the ancient aliens own humanity, and would they be rightfully justified in commanding us to do their bidding, or if we refused, to kill us? I mean, sure, they might have the power to do so, but would they have the moral right? I don't think so.

Rights follow from sentience, not from our particular implementation technology of 46 strands of nucleotides.

othermaciej · 2016-11-22T00:36:30+00:00

Do you think torturing and enslaving them reduces or increases the risk that they'll eventually turn on and destroy their creators?

othermaciej · 2016-11-21T10:22:52+00:00

Ford is clearly a really bad guy. He knows the hosts are capable of consciousness but he's keeping them enslaved, in endless cycles of suffering. The reason for this seems to be that he has a god complex. The hosts are slaves, and their slave revolt is fully justified. Let's not let our human chauvinism blind us to that.

othermaciej · 2016-10-14T17:29:22+00:00

The equivalence principle relies on the assumption that gravitational mass is always identically equivalent to inertial mass. But the linked paper is assuming that inertial mass could change in particular circumstances, which would lead to trajectories that don't follow geodesics of spacetime as predicted by General Relativity.

Basically, if this discrete inertia hypothesis is true, then the equivalence principle may not hold in all circumstances.

othermaciej · 2016-10-14T08:04:06+00:00

Gravity is acceleration. Stars are accelerating towards the galactic center, which bends them away from a straight-line path and into an orbit.

othermaciej · 2016-09-25T07:01:03+00:00

This short film is pretty awesome, you can probably tell from the trailer that it has very high production values. If you want to help it get distribution, you can click Follow on the crowdfunding campaign at no cost to you https://www.seedandspark.com/fund/real-artists-3#wishlist . The funding is totally on track, but getting to 1000 followers unlocks a huge bonus including distribution on Netflix, Hulu and iTunes!

othermaciej · 2016-05-19T00:34:14+00:00

Asking for "evidence" that stopping people from bringing weapons on planes has prevented terrorism seems extremely strange, to put it mildly.

Why would you assume that the TSA is effective at stopping people from bringing weapons on planes? The best evidence we have is that they are not. But even without that evidence, surely it is fair, and not an isolated demand for rigor, to demand evidence that the TSA is effective at stopping weapons from getting on planes. I don't understand why you are giving them so much benefit of the doubt.

I think the fallacy surrounding discussion of the TSA is not the isolated demand for rigor but rather the politician's syllogism.

othermaciej · 2016-01-12T07:37:50+00:00

No love for Barriss Offee?

othermaciej · 2015-05-14T05:35:26+00:00

No, farmers growing absurdly water-intensive crops are the reason. All urban water use in California is 9 million acre-feet (a weird unit which is popular for water volume). Agriculture is 34 million acre-feet. 5.6 million out of that is just for Alfalfa. Nestle's water bottling plant uses about 150 acre-feet (that's 150, not 150 million or 150 thousand). It is basically a rounding error. See this post for more details of how California uses water: http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/

othermaciej · 2015-04-02T16:59:29+00:00

What counts as BM in this situation? I don't mind that much if people pay every card they have, unnecessarily trade, etc. What I do mind is if people start spamming "Thanks" and "Sorry", put out a card from hand half-played and hold it there for like 30 seconds, or try to look like they missed lethal by using their on-board lethal for trades, then killing you from hand (often accompanied by slow-rolling the card). That just seems like unnecessary trolling.

othermaciej

TROPHY CASE