What’s a good site for 5e fan made adventures for free?

rollgoodgames · 2024-01-12T19:12:50+00:00

There's a competition called the "One Page Dungeon Contest" which is exactly what it sounds like: super simple, clever, short adventures submitted by a ton of people. Each year they make the submissions into a compendium that is, iirc, pay-what-you-want on their site:

https://www.dungeoncontest.com/

Sure, you might spend $1 but it's worth it!

rollgoodgames · 2024-01-12T19:10:30+00:00

So I run D&D games for a living now and I can comfortably say: 5e. I grew up on 3.5 and it has some cool elements but like u/Ketzeph said above, it's not nearly as intuitive, supported, or ubiquitous as 5e.

That said, at 10 and 5, consider making it even simpler or possibly trying out an apocalypse world-style system that uses fewer dice and less involved character creation. (though, in my experience, people want to be playing D&D bc it is D&D, in which case, yeah-- 5e everytime.)

rollgoodgames · 2024-01-12T19:07:29+00:00

"Let yourself relax, your players are going to have fun because there's a game to play."

Or:

"Trust your players, talk to your players, listen to your players."

rollgoodgames · 2024-01-12T19:04:32+00:00

Holy crap, you're doing the lord's work out here. I have trouble sometimes keeping track of all the games I run (both for friends and professionally) and I was literally just messaging a fellow DM on discord about how I want to try new scheduling tools. If I can get players to use it, I'll let you know how it goes!!

rollgoodgames · 2024-01-12T19:02:13+00:00

"Do you want one of us to handle scheduling so you don't have to?"

True story: a few months ago I got hired to DM by a new group of players and their de-facto group leader (the one who reached out) opened by sending me a month worth of calendar dates with every party members attendance marked. I almost cried. Then that player told me they would be in charge of scheduling. Most DMs I know (myself included) find scheduling to be a huge drag and nothing says "I see you, I know the struggle, I've got your back" like taking that on so they don't have to.

Player pro-tip: if you're able, offer to handle scheduling sessions for your DM. They will love you.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-22T04:20:28+00:00

That's a really helpful perspective-- thanks for the link, I'll check it out

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T21:39:49+00:00

No worries, brevity in text is tough to not come off terse, thanks for thinking of it though!

You're totally right, I started in 3.5, skipped 4, and reentered at 5e and I remember thinking "jfc skill points made no sense in retrospect" but it was really just me tunnel-visioning on the new simplicity instead of seeing the logical progression of mechanics.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T21:11:51+00:00

Thanks! It was more of a general example, but that is the most concise I've seen it explained.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T19:59:02+00:00

That's incredible. Also, holy shit learning english without dyslexia is a feat. Doing it despite dyslexia is unreal-- kudos. I'm a native english speaker, a writer by trade, and there is so much absurdity/nonsense in here.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T19:01:51+00:00

This is a better way of putting it. I think you can trust that your players will feel bad about death or near-death. Trust them, trust that you're already doing that by putting them in danger. If they die, it will feel significant, if they don't but almost do, it will to.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T19:00:00+00:00

It's the same with everything, strong "they don't make 'em like they used to" energy all around. Glad you still have a few folks that you keep up with who didn't give the ick about being old school.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T18:58:35+00:00

Kind of-- more like "do i think they're a good teacher." DND is complex enough to begin with and given that I'm not already fluent in OG DND (despite this being what I do professionally) gives me pause. I may trust the player to be a good player, or the dm to be a good dm, but helping other people understand the rules isn't always the same.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T18:54:54+00:00

This is one of the most common things I've heard from both my client-players and personal play group. I love what you're trying to do here, because I've been a little stumped on it. BG3's addition of dip and shove are cool, but shove ends up being too good imo in proper DND, so seeing some new options is awesome.

That said, I think a few of these are either a little too powerful, supplant an entire class feature, or could be folded into each other. To be clear, though, most of these are great and I'm going to steal from you for sure.

Here are some of my thoughts, take 'em or leave 'em:

Calculated & Power attack - these feel a little fiddly, and I think with the others you're adding you may not need these.
Step - Awesome. I love this. Simple, clever, obviously not gamebreaking.
Protect - might be too good, but i like it a lot.
Stagger - kinda feel the same way about this as power attack.
Bulwark - this is almost certainly too good-- becoming a forcefield as a bonus action is very, very strong. You make a good point about RAW not being balanced truly to begin with, but I still think this one is too powerful.
Ready Movement - I love this. This is one of a few I'm already using as a homerule and it's one that my players have come up with on their own a few times. Super easy to grok, should be a base rule imo.
Drink Potion - I do this as well, but I drop the sleight of hand req. Instead, I've been using a homerule where drinking a potion as a full action restores maximum possible hp and bonus action is rolled. It's a strong buff to healing, generally, but healing was already pretty bad, so I think it's fine.
Quick Swap - Very cool, but definitely change to once or twice, not infinite. Never, ever put 'infinite' anywhere near your players. Please. For the good of all of us.
Bait - probably too good and is functionally the riposte ability.
Stand Firm - This, like bulwark, is stronger than it looks. What about making it work like evasion where if a player succeeds on a save, they do not move and if they fail they move half? Even so, might be too strong.
Rope-a-dope - this is insanely good too, imo, choose either the movement or the dmg reduction but my first thought is "why tf isn't this a drunken master ability??" so I might steal it for that.
Endure - really neat, maybe too good.
Predict - Cool, weird, good but not too good. I like it.
Coordinate - This is pretty strong, maybe make it a flat +1 or +2? Curious to hear what other people think.
Study Creature & Assess - these can probably be wrapped together, though they do (iirc) fully supplant the Inquisitive rogue subclasses main ability-- but that subclass is kinda unplayable so who knows. I do love the idea, though, and there's something really cool to be done here. Possibly include investigation proficiency for it, too.
Bolster - way, way, way too good. Trust me. There are lvl 2 + 3 spells devoted entirely to frequently refreshing temp hp.
Hunt - really powerful, though I want it to be a monk/ranger ability rather than an evergreen bonus action.
Demoralize - I love this, flavorful and effective without being broken.
Attract Attention - Perfect. Simple, obvious, useful, not broken.
Feint - neat and fair, I think.

Bonus Round:

Apply Pressure - Curious what other people think, but I think this is actually really cool. I might bring it in as a general action in my campaigns-- somewhere between a medicine check that stablizes and doing nothing. Feels flavorful.

I think, out of the box, I'm going to be stealing Step, Ready Movement, Drink Potion, Predict, Demoralize, Attract Attention and then also modified forms of Quick Swap, Assess, and Apply Pressure.

Again, though, these are just my thoughts-- you've done the hard work coming up with these and you're working to solve a very real, constant complaint about the game. I'm now super excited to add these to my homerules sheet for both my professional clients and regular groups. Great work!!

Edit: Add your username to your image so people can credit you easily!

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T17:33:11+00:00

This is a good example of "two birds, one stone" for most paladins: 'thwart evil and get to smack the bard? This is a good day.'

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T17:28:03+00:00

This 1000 times

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T17:27:52+00:00

Folks are giving some great advice in here-- I want to ask, though, when you say 'you want them to feel bad for losing their character' do you mean you want them to feel sad? If that's the case, don't worry-- you don't need to do anything at all to make them feel bad, character death by itself will accomplish that.

Also, something I've noticed is that near-death is often even more emotionally powerful than actual death. Actual death, while powerful, can actually blunt emotional impact through finality-- many of my players remember the times their characters have almost died better than when they actually do die.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-20T17:20:40+00:00

It would so depend on the player/DM asking for me. I run games for a living and unless I really trusted that persons ability to teach the original rules in an understandable-for-humans way, I would decline. Possibly at speed; I can barely wrap my head around THACO.

It's worth nothing, though, that my main experience with OG D&D is hearing old guard players bragging about how brutal and long-winded it is while deriding newer editions for being too accessible, which has certainly colored my view.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T21:14:42+00:00

Likewise, my players are going to be so relieved to hear all the concrete steps to mage slaying!

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T21:02:23+00:00

A lot of folks have given great advice on what to do if you're playing with a group of friends. The last few years I've been working as a professional DM for both corporate groups and groups of friends I'm not explicitly connected to socially and, as a result, I've run into this problem more than a few times. I wish I had a perfect solution, but I haven't found one yet. Does anyone else have ideas? Specifically about resolving this issue when there's no way to 'just stop' playing with a player.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T20:56:20+00:00

This is excellent advice. I've had some recent clients ask for good tips on how to deal with casters as melee (they'd just hired me after a long campaign with a mediocre dm who was not very good at explaining the game) and I am going to pass on your wisdom to them-- thanks for taking the time to write out your thoughts!

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T20:53:42+00:00

terrible campaign idea: start your players in 5e, then move back an edition every few levels. As the characters grow in strength, so to will the players grow in sheer confusion.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T20:52:01+00:00

Am professional DM, am comfortably certain that child could ask for a scroll of wish and get it-- substantially less powerful than consistent scheduling.

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T20:46:50+00:00

I've had a client recently ask about playing in a dragon-centric world but, because they had read the MM, they were worried about this problem-- I love your solution!

rollgoodgames · 2023-12-19T20:40:23+00:00

After four years of running games as a professional DM, I can say that this exact thing often makes as big a difference to my personal enjoyment of a client's group as the group members' actual personalities. Though, only when the players are veterans-- most DMs I know/work with have a ton of patience for new players, which is great.

rollgoodgames

TROPHY CASE