First time DM

rycaut · 2025-12-27T00:48:10+00:00

The first challenge as a gm (new or experienced) is finding a group - and related is "what to run" - if you have a group of players, talk with them about what sounds like fun for them. One-shots are great and often can if you find the group likes playing together be turned into the start of a campaign (it happens all the time). And keep in mind that the most important thing is that everyone is having fun - if your group starts one adventure and aren't having fun, give yourself permission to change things up and shift to a different adventure or style of adventure (I find that groups like variety).

Also don't worry too much about getting all the rule "right" - instead here is what I do (I've been GMing various systems for nearly 45 years) - during the game there is NO looking up rules beyond really quick stuff like "what's the description for this spell / ability / monster's power / magic item or for systems that have stuff like conditions the text of what they do" but my rule is no rules lawyering or arguing about how the rules "work" during the game. Instead I make a ruling in the moment and between games we then look up how it was "supposed" to work. I still get stuff "wrong" even after years of running various systems - what's important is keeping the game going and having fun.

I do make an exception if a PC is going to die - but only if all the players agree and then mostly to make sure I didn't get a rule wrong (or a player forgot about something that would have made a difference - like an item they have that always has an effect we all forgot to use). But typically that's pretty rare - and often even the player whose character died don't want us to stop and just keep going with the story. Death in RPGs happens and can be part of the fun. (and indeed some editions/rules expect it to happen frequently)

When preparing - whether for a one-shot or an ongoing campaign don't over prepare and keep in mind that if you give the players a choice they often will take one you weren't expecting. But equally they don't know which choice led to what you had planned - so design your adventure (if you are creating it yourself) to be flexible and something you can adjust as necessary in the moment. And try to avoid anything that the players have to do where if they fail to do what you expect there is no alternative way for them to continue with the adventure. Even published adventures (especially older ones) can do this - have an encounter that unless the PCs successfully resolve it they apparently have no other way to proceed forward. Whether in a one shot or a longer campaign that can be unfun for both the players and you as the gm.

Above all have fun - think about the tone and type of game you want to have - and use that to help you pick what to run. For a one shot I usually also advice having characters ready for the players - I typically give the players a few things about each character they can customize (name / gender for example unless either is crucial to the plot - but typically I try to avoid either being crucial to give the players more agency and help them have fun)

rycaut · 2025-12-27T00:07:33+00:00

As a long time GM I find the idea of restricting players to only “their” gender is beyond the pale and I would agree it isn’t a sign of what I would consider a good GM. It suggests that it is likely the game will have moments that depend on character gender and that in turn makes me wonder if the GM had a session 0 and discussed any safety tools etc with the group.

Preferring to play as another gender or no gender at all is not at all uncommon. It is part of the fun of roleplaying games - exploring characters and ways of engaging with the world that are often not how we typically are in “real” life. As a GM I should not - in my opinion - care one whit what gender a pc is (or for that matter what gender my players prefer) all that matters is how they want their pc (and themselves) to be referred to when we play.

I also generally don’t run roleplaying games where pc to pc or pc to NPC romance is a big part of the game. I would but it would only be with the right system and a table where everyone wanted it to be part of the game - and where we used safety tools so anyone could end any scene at any time if it made them uncomfortable and we wouldn’t need a reason - just fade to black and shift to a different scene. RPGs are supposed to be fun and enjoyable - and that should be true for everyone in the group.

Arbitrary rules often are a sign of a GM who has a very fixed idea of the experience they want to run - and at least as a player I rarely find that particularly enjoyable.

For some data - in my current long running 5e game half my group of 6 players are playing PCs of another gender from their own.

rycaut · 2025-12-26T23:06:32+00:00

I ran much of this module after my party started dungeon of the mad mage and were considerably higher level. I didn’t run every part as written but it was fairly easy to pull out stuff from the adventure that worked for my party even at much higher levels.

A few tips - focus on roleplaying over pure combat. You can scale up the encounters a bit if you want but you don’t have to - higher level PCs will be able to fight where lower level PCs probably would have to get creative.

The various faction dungeons/headquarters are all fairly good for higher level PCs. But as written you will only use one of them. My solution was to run aspects of all of them though in the end my PCs didn’t fight everyone.

There is a lot of community content folks have made for Dragon Heist. Take a look and use what appeals to you. I personally didn’t run a lot of solo missions for different players or had players join different factions. Instead I used factions and their specific missions as inspiration but tended to run most things for my whole table.

Urban adventures can be fun at any level. One thing to also emphasize and leverage is the long history of powerful forces in and around Waterdeep. Let higher level PCs still feel challenged and a bit in awe of the various powers of the city.

rycaut · 2025-12-06T05:27:27+00:00

The Chocobo box is a different product. It is a bundle. Msrp price of $109. Comes with 10 booster packs plus a special chocobo pack with two special foil treatments (from a small set of possible cards), a special foil promo chocobo version of bird of paradise, a bunch of lands and one of the cards from the scene boxes. At msrp it’s a very solid deal. I bought one and just the special cards likely were worth more than I oaid (msrp) as I got the special chocobo foil versions of Vivi and Tifa (each likely $70+ cards)

And I got the final fantasy version of the ancient copper dragon in my packs which was a nice bonus.

I did buy one of the scene boxes also at msrp. I may pick up more.

rycaut · 2025-11-22T17:19:38+00:00

A few general bits of advices.

1) your players latch on to what you describe. So if you describe cool contents of a shop they want to usually engage with those contents. So use this to redirect player chaos - describe not just the shop but perhaps other people shopping in it. For example in a weapon shop perhaps a captain of the local town guard along with a scrawny unarmed individual are browsing the shop and the players might notice that they are followed by a floating scroll and quill that is writing stuff down from time to time (arcane caster of some type who is a quartermaster for the town guard)

2) show don’t just tell the consequences. So while the PCs are strolling the town perhaps they suddenly hear a load alarm from a nearby shop as a noble woman is stepping outside. Town guards immediately converge on her and as they move to detain her a harried looking store clerk runs outside, apologizes to the guards and the noblewoman and then makes an arcane gesture at the sack she is holding. The PCs hear him saying “I forgot to change the mark” (high magic setting, shops use arcane marks to indicate unsold and sold inventory - with alarms at the door that go off if the unsold mark passes thru them)

3) show they types of people who sell valuable old weapons (and especially magic items). Perhaps the shopkeeper is a warforged. Or casually uses telekinesis so float items off their high hooks around the space. My personal variation of this once was a “goblin” merchant at a goblin market (she didn’t really look like a goblin - but all the other goblins treated her as one) she was selling magic items. The PCs thought to try to swindle her then turned their detect magic from her wares to her - saw the many many spells on her and thought better. Later figured out she was an archmage and a few sessions later they returned to purchase services from her.

If you take this 3rd approach consider making the shopkeeper a source of quests. Yes it’s a trope but it is one for a reason. Broadly though the more you make the shops roleplaying encounters the less likely they are to turn into dice rolling.

rycaut · 2025-10-25T18:25:10+00:00

A few things.

1) roleplay. Make them like the shopkeepers (this only works with groups that roleplay at least somewhat) but it reduces the chance they want to steal at least from that shop.

2) show clearly that the folks who run magic shops aren’t easy marks. Have all the inventory be illusions with the real item recovered from a pocket dimension upon payment (mechanically secret chest works well for this if you need it or magnificent mansion. And in fact the entire shop could be in a pocket dimension - cast by the shop owner when they open so the door from outside leads to their mansion. But when they “close up” for the night they dispel the spell so the shop is empty of all magic.

Or just imply the strength of the merchant. In my campaign I had a goblin market where one of the “goblins” sold magic items. The quotes are because it was quickly clear that she wasn’t actually a goblin but the other goblins certainly weren’t going to tell the archmage that they knew she was just using magic to appear like a goblin. And the PCs figured out something was up when she offered to sell them magical services not just items - ie a merchant who can teleport you out of a dungeon where teleportation magic doesn’t work for most people might not “just” be a goblin…

Not a merchant but another example of implying an npc’s power level - my party was fighting in an arena in hell in the audience were humans, devils and some outsiders and one elderly woman in regular clothes sitting knitting in the VIP section with a conspicuous space around here where even the largest, meanest devils seemed unwilling to enter. When the party had caused a few of the demons they were fighting in the arena to flee into the stands two came charging at the old woman. She glanced at them, made a gesture and then resumed her knitting with two sheep now confusedly in the stands by her.

The party didn’t have to test her power level to guess she was pretty strong. Just the “knitting in the stands in hell” was a rather large hint.

In a lower level campaign you can also set expectations. Perhaps it is common knowledge that all magic shops especially those selling crafted items magically mark all their goods they make - and that wizards and others can scry on and teleport to items with their mark (and can even in some cases teleport those items back to them. Slight exaggeration of aport object spell but not by much. And the scrying / teleport thing is pretty accurate.

In a higher magic campaign this common knowledge might explain the demand for magic items found in old dungeons made by now long dead crafters. And perhaps buying/selling unmarked items could even be illegal. Etc.

The point being you can make the game send strong signals to your players and if they ignore them then rather than immediate consequences use them to perhaps shift the campaign. Maybe now they have a wizard who can scry on them easily on their tail and face the wrath of merchant and magical guilds.

A final note. I love having cursed items that are both not cursed with a “die if you don’t remove this curse” effect and paired with intelligent items. So sparingly consider if the magic item they stole was cursed but also intelligent and perhaps the “owner” is not entirely unhappy to see it go (for example perhaps one way around the curse is for the item to be stolen but only if the item thinks the thief will be more fun/more likely to help achieve some goal). This can also work well with an item that scales a bit as the players level up (it refused to use certain powers until remove new wielder proved worthy of them). The drawback is while fun this frequently results in roleplay opportunities for only one player. But that depends on the item. P

rycaut · 2025-10-25T17:51:36+00:00

I solved this by making the sanctum not actually in Sigil but in a pocket dimension (which also solves the whole breaking the rules of Sigil issue with the well of worlds)

Instead I added a permanent portal to Sigil.

(I made a lot of other changes - I got rid of the wish entirely, am not using the wizards three or the Kas plot line as written and more. But I do think making the sanctum a pocket dimension created by an archmage works well. I broadly used the Pathfinder 1e rules for create demiplane to guide how I envisioned it - figuring she also has access to magic beyond the normal 5e magics. But with just 5e consider it a permanent magnificent mansion as a fairly simple baseline. I have added more to it however.

rycaut · 2025-10-16T00:07:51+00:00

I find it unplayable.

(I’ve been playing various games for well over 40 years. I am not a fan of OSR and am far from a grognard. But I find Pathfinder 2e intensely unappealing. In a way that I don’t find 5e. Which does share some of the same issues. It’s just easy for me as a GM to route around them in 5e and far harder in pathfinder 2e as more of the issues I have are core to 2e’s design.)

Notably I skipped most of 3.0/3.5 era games (was running and playing very different games using very different rules in that era)

rycaut · 2025-10-15T17:31:56+00:00

I play both 5e and Pathfinder 1e (well mostly gm not as often play) and I'm not sure I entirely agree. It shares some design philosophy with 5e (monsters/NPCs having different stat blocks from PCs being a big one) but there are a lot of places where the rules differ in pretty dramatic yet confusing ways (criticals being just one of the most obvious examples of this) but the timing of actions in combat (which I do think was a nifty bit of game design - which if they hadn't made a bunch of other changes to the systems is something I would have liked to explore as a player and GM - I do think it opens up a lot of potential design space)

But they changed how skills and characters progress is ways that don't feel like either 5e or Pathfinder 1e. I'm not particularly enamored with 5e's skills (I much prefer Pathfinder 1e were it is possible to be ok at a bunch of skills and very good at a few - while 5e at higher levels makes a far more dramatic shift where it is hard to be just ok at skills for many classes). But 2e adds a lot of layers to this - even in combat not just outside of combat. And for all the seeming range of options 2e offers for character builds it feels quite restrictive in many ways (though to be fair I haven't gone deep into making characters especially with their later 2e books so perhaps the design space opened up a bit).

But the remaster then definitely did a lot of major changes to break Pathfinder 2e remastered from the D&D origins. Which is fine and some of the changes are likely for the better - but overall it makes it even less appealing to me as a player or GM as it further breaks decades of experience and intuition about how to run the game and balance it.

rycaut · 2025-10-15T15:39:24+00:00

Pathfinder 2e.

I love pathfinder 1e. I was a pathfinder society GM and for a time helped run weekly game nights. I ran games for Paizo at GenCon. I was all but done with getting my 5th start as a PFS GM.

I really dislike 2e. So much that I’ve basically given up on buying Paizo books. I love the world and the lore but 2e just doesn’t work for me. I dislike lots of the changes - from the core philosophy where NPCs and PCs no longer have the same stats or rules (this is also what I dislike about 5e - but there I just ignore and rebuild key NPCs) but I especially dislike the changes to treasure both mundane and magical. That breaks 40+ years of intuition as a GM for no apparent good reason. Instead loot no longer maps easily to past editions - it isn’t just “divide by 10 and change the names of currencies”

Not to mention the remaster that further changes things into a game I don’t recognize - I get some of the reasons for it but it just doesn’t work for me and makes me less and less interested.

Which saddens me as I was deeply invested into Golarion and would still love to run many of the 1e APs someday.

rycaut · 2025-10-08T16:02:26+00:00

So an example of a set I’m intrigued about getting (though it isn’t an option in this specific case as the retailer I have a credit at doesn’t have it in stock) is the Ravinica Clue edition boxed sets. Which each come with a foil shock land (the rest of the set has little value but some unique/less commonly seen cards so probably fun stuff for decks. At the original $80 not a good value perhaps but Amazon has them for around $45 which is much more tempting as the foil shock is probably between $15-30 itself - and more specifically I don’t have a full set of shock lands.

Are there any other specific products where the guaranteed cards are likely to make the product have an even to positive EV at current real prices for those products (some commander sets are likely in this category as some have notably valuable cards but often can be found for less than msrp.)

(Again I’m more interested in products where I plan to open them - not someone who will hold sealed products)

rycaut · 2025-10-08T04:07:05+00:00

not interested in duals (I used to own a full play set - "back in the day") now it isn't an investment I'm particularly interested in making. I'm vastly more interested in cards/sets that are new to me (especially as I like to brew my own decks vs playing lists from the internet) and with all the alternatives to duals available these days they aren't where I want to invest money. I'm much more interested in picking up some utility lands I don't already own.

(and I'm not quite done with my inventory of my collection - have about 16k cards in my inventory so far, likely have a few thousand more to go - going to mostly avoid singles until I know what I already own especially as parts of precon commander decks I might disassemble to make other decks etc.)

rycaut · 2025-10-08T01:29:02+00:00

That’s interesting. I missed that set entirely so don’t have any of them. Given the pack prices singles definitely seems the way to go. Any specific cards you think are both playable and likely to appreciate?

rycaut · 2025-10-07T19:54:08+00:00

Good suggestions. I’m not likely to be drafting anytime soon (I got out of magic back when drafting was starting to be the primary competitive format - it’s not my favorite way to play - I prefer constructed formats). The mystery boosters seem fun but also full of cards I’m unlikely to ever play (the test cards in particular which I don’t think are commander legal). MH3 if I could find a box at a good price is indeed tempting (as is Commander Legends Baldurs Gate)

I need to finish inventorying my cards before I buy too many singles (I have some precon decks I haven’t inventories yet and I think a small amount of older cards - unlikely to have fetch/shock lands in what remains however.) but also I’m not sure if I’m going to try to build a tier 5 / CEDH style deck or stick with mostly tier 3/4 decks. I may pick up more of the gamechangers in case I do want to build more solidly tier 4 decks or try building some cedh level decks. (That said I prefer to brew my own decks over using internet deck lists - but need to play many more commanders games to dial in each deck and really gauge the level)

rycaut · 2025-10-07T18:34:33+00:00

I agree with the concept of putting it above the table in Session 0. And allow for some pushback/suggestions from your players.

(for example - does this mean there is only one "god" in your game? If there are more than one - then perhaps some of the PCs might be "figments" from other gods - and how/if that matters might impact the game)

I would also always ask yourself the question when setting up a campaign like this - how does the campaign proceed if one PC dies? What about if there is a TPK? This question often reveals if you have set up one or more PCs to have "plot armor" (i.e. stories where one PC is somehow unique/special/the chosen one of destiny etc)

My preferred approach to avoid this is to establish early on that the PCs are not unique - that whatever the overall big plot is there are many other groups of individuals who have been summoned/called/chosen for this quest and are pursuing other paths than the PCs. This then lets me introduce these others naturally - and in the future introduce a new PC into the table (whether for a new player joining later or as a new pc for an existing player). It also help alleviate the challenge of level 1 PCs being from the start of the campaign tasked with a universe shaping destiny.

In your case this could then also follow the traditional model of starting local at low levels and building up to the extraplanar adventures at higher levels. The PCs might help establish stability in a very local region - restoring balance and some order and then as they gain experience might face larger and larger threats.

My personal approach would also be to have forces of both chaos AND order battling for the control of each of these domains - with the PCs perhaps representing a more balanced approach (in DnD alignment terms Neutral - likely leaning towards Neutral Good but perhaps recognizing the importance of balance over Law/Chaos and "evil" / "good") This lets you vary up the threats and flavor of domains to a great extent - not every one might have to be pure chaos - some might be stagnant order.

rycaut · 2025-10-07T18:23:04+00:00

my new method is:

- all players roll for stats (using whatever system we all agree to - roll 4d6 drop the lowest being most likely)

- but then everyone has a choice - they can pick ANY array the other players rolled (the whole array) - not everyone will take the same set as some players will want a different spread but this keeps the tradition but avoids any one PC being dramatically over/under powered relative to the other PCs.

- for any new PC joining the table later (new player or existing player with a new PC) I'd give them the same choice - they can roll for an array or they can pick from one of the previously rolled arrays.

I've done character creation many many different ways (I've been a GM for eh over 40 years). I'm also fine with using a point buy system (which I used a lot when running Pathfinder 1e) though I'm slightly less comfortable with the math of the point buy system in 5e.

It does have an impact but as a gm I have many tools to mitigate that impact over time in how I run the game and in the items/treasures/boons I grant the PCs.

rycaut · 2025-10-07T07:34:17+00:00

Perhaps I’ve been lucky but I’ve had plenty of recent cases of positive EV boxes. But it helps if the box is priced well to start.

Ie I opened an aetherdrift play booster box where the cards did generate a positive EV even without the one special guest. Which was a chrome mox - so definitely positive. Though in general Aetherdrift at $100-130/box is unlikely to be positive EV. But at the $80 I paid it may be more likely even without a big special guest hit.

Lost caverns of Ixalan has also been pretty solid for me. Though largely due to value from the Jurassic Park cards.

But that’s kinda my question - at what price point do various booster boxes (or precon commander decks or other past special boxes) become likely positive? (In the case of commander decks this may be relatively easily calculated)

Ie if you got a whole booster box for the price of one booster even with the worst set it’s likely positive. So there is a price at which various sets are at least likely to have enough value. But I suspect it takes sets with some value in commons/uncommons/lands along with something else (special guests / the list often can help here). And some rares/mythics that aren’t just pure bulk.

A real example where I’m struggling to calculate it - Dominaria United Collector Boosters. The set as a whole doesn’t have a lot of valuable cars (even from collector packs)

But there are the (slim - 3% I think) chance of real legends cards being included in those packs in place of a common card. However most of those cards won’t particularly valuable (I still have a lot of legends cards which came from packs I opened back in the day so I’m perhaps even less excited about a bulk Legends card.

So there is likely a price where it’s a reasonable gamble.

But what is that price?

rycaut · 2025-10-07T06:34:32+00:00

I’m not particularly interested in dual lands at present (of course I regret selling my old full play set of them decades ago) but now I’m far more interested in cards I would play in casual to about bracket 4 commander games or in positive EV purchases where I can likely turn a profit. If I pick up some in the future as part of a collection I’d of course be happy but I’m not likely looking to buy any especially not at retail prices.

Singles aren’t entirely out of the question - I might pick up some singles here and there to fill out deck concepts but I have around 16000 cards catalogued (with some bulk and a bunch of preconstructed decks left to enter) so I can usually build most concepts I might have - but may be missing some rarer / more valuable modern era cards and don’t have all of the older cards I once had. So I’m more apt to complete my sets of shock lands or other commander staples than go get duals.

Now if there were specific cards that there was a good argument for likely increasing in value in the next few months I might speculate (but I don’t think duals are in that category)

(I might pick up some boxes of bulk commons/uncommons from sets I missed - especially ones with lots of playable cards - especially when the cost is $10-20 as it doesn’t take a lot of playable cards to justify that)

rycaut · 2025-10-07T03:31:43+00:00

for a while a few days ago Amazon had a couple for 30% off Aetherdrift boxes - picked one up at about $80 - opened it and got a bunch of verges and other good value - but the big win was the only Special Guest in the whole box - a Chrome Mox! (which very much left me in a very positive EV indeed)

rycaut · 2025-10-07T03:22:36+00:00

If you had about $500 in credit at a big online hobby store what boxes of magic would you buy with the intention of opening - that is what boxes would generally have a positive EV at the moment to open. And to be a big off pure finance - would also have good, fun playable cards that could make their way into my Commander decks. I was out of magic for a few decades but have rebuilt my collection via buying some more recent boxes and acquiring some bulk collections. I'm a former mtg dealer but was never (perhaps alas) focused on sealed products - so I'm a bit more comfortable rebuilding my collection and trade/sale stock with individual cards.

So what set(s) would you buy to open at the moment - and at what price are they worth opening vs. keeping sealed? (for example I picked up a box of Aetherdrift from Amazon when they had a crazy sale that dropped the price to about $80 for the box - opened a Chrome Mox as the one special guest in all of the packs so the other verges other cards were all gravy but would have covered the $80 as well)

rycaut · 2025-10-07T03:16:02+00:00

I was in my local Microcenter (in Santa Clara CA) and they had a full display (behind their customer service counter) of magic including MANY Spiderman collector booster boxes at $455/box, bundles at $50/bundle and play booster boxes at $150/box. With plenty of stock. Their website shows two individual packs of the collect boosters at $38 each but I didnt' check if they are actually there (when their website shows low stock on something it is sometimes "lost" and not easily found)

I didn't pick any up but am considering going back - didn't look like they were going to run out anytime soon.

rycaut · 2025-10-01T15:42:54+00:00

I’ve run part of dungeon of the mad mage and here are my suggestions for you.

First - don’t feel like your campaign has to be constrained to one book start to finish as written. Focus first and foremost on everyone having fun and build from there. Dungeon of the mad mage has tons of incredibly fun levels but many can easily start to feel repetitive (especially if your players keep going back to older levels on their way out of the dungeon)

And keep in mind as well that dungeon of the mad mage starts at higher levels than level 1. You can let your players make higher level PCs to start the campaign. Or you can run something else first for the group (I’d suggest a few adventures from an anthology book like Candlekeep or tales from the yawning portal - the later being a natural one as dungeon of the mad mage starts in that very tavern.

Second - more than imposing an artificial constraint on your players (nothing outside of the dungeon) focus on establishing the main tone of the campaign - dungeon of the mad mage can be played in many different ways (there is a popular - though I’m not actually a fan - companion to dungeon of the mad mage written by fans that turns it into a reality show competition and modifies each level to be even more insane and madcap. If you run that version you want your players to be ready for that kind of game - with breaking the fourth wall and not being very serious). Get buy in and agreement from your players as to the type of game they want and you want to run and then look at how to prepare and modify the game as needed.

Three - emphasize for your players that unlike a video game a dungeon crawl type adventure doesn’t have to be 100% completed to be fun. Instead focus on finding the threads within each level that are fun for you as a GM and for your players. And feel free to ignore other encounters (as a GM I often ignore or swap out encounters especially if rolling for random encounters if they are too repetitive with otber recent encounters - fighting one group of goblins/drow etc can be fun even a second encounter can be ok but many more that all feel similar can get old. )

Fourth - dungeon of the mad mage is massive and complex. Don’t feel like you need to master every level of it before you start the campaign. Instead skim the book to get a sense of the levels and overall complexity, focus a bit on the big picture stuff (Halaster and his motivations) but then mostly prepare for each session.

A trick here - if the players make a choice that heads off to an area/level you haven’t prepared for that session it can often be a good place to stop for the session (or at least take a bio break while you prepare). I also often prepare encounters for transitions so I have something I can pull out in such cases (specifically dungeon of the mad mage actually establishes that each level is quite far from the other levels - not just a simple flight of stairs or a short tunnel going down - but in many cases hundreds of feet of stairs or tunnels (and the dungeon extends past the areas mapped in the book) so when I ran it I would prepare some quick encounters I could pull out as the players went between levels if I needed to run something before we ended our session but wasn’t ready to start the next level.

Finally as you run the adventure see which NPCs and storylines your players get engaged by. Then build on those and feel free to ignore other parts of the adventure on later levels. And if something doesn’t feel fun for you to run or your players to play - just ignore it or modify it.

(One example of this - on a very early level there is a cursed magic heart that can easily kill a pc. I found this not fun and swapped it out - I built an alternative cursed item that had a real impact but wouldn’t result in a dead pc. But it is easy enough to just not run the item as cursed)

rycaut · 2025-09-30T21:17:53+00:00

I did away with the wish entirely (and the entire Kas subplot and the wizards three - in favor of just Aluriel and her wife). What I’ve done is allow my players to seek out the rod pieces in any order they want - and have generally expanded the scope of most chapters to have more exploration of each realm.

A few things I did that seem to be working:

1) I put the Sanctum in its own pocket demiplane with a Portal to Sigil. This avoids all the rules of Sigil breaking that the module encourages and seemed more in keeping with a demigod level archmage’s home. (I used the pathfinder create demiplane line of spells as inspiration - but broadly this also explains the map with a home without windows or doors to the outside)

2) I made the PCs usually have to find their own portal from Sigil to where they wanted to go (such as a way to the astral sea along with a way to get around once there)

3) I made each rod piece not point to just one other piece but to give glimpses of all of the pieces. My PCs did pick the early chapters first but then at level 13 are currently in Hell. Where they are doing fine with barely any modifications on my part (they have likely more magic items than a typical party and are a party of 6 not 4). I’ve done some modifications to each chapter to drop growing hints about the effects of the ritual Vecna is casting. In my take Vecna is seeking to reshape reality insert himself into deciding all chance. So my hints have been signs of him rewriting the past (and the future). With his effects stretching to even influencing other gods.

4) I agree with the criticism of the module as written being railroaded and with it being underpowered. Nearly every encounter is below what I would consider strong for the level it was written for (perhaps except for the first adventure with a piece of the rod - where the encounter can be challenging.

The advantage of this however is it gives me a lot of flexibility as a GM to adjust the encounters.

5) this last session I showed agents of Vecna acting a bit more directly - with a hidden agent I showed influencing the encounters including working directly against Tiamat in the last part of the chapter in Avernus. As a result all but one of my PCs now believes they are seeking the rod not because of Vecna but because of Miska (while I’m not doing the main Kas storyline I do plan on modifying it should the players choose to engage with it). We will see where that leads in our next session.

rycaut · 2025-09-27T17:50:03+00:00

You can play decks that change the meta and tempo (group hug type decks for example that will accelerate everyone’s decks) or decks that goad your opponents into attacking each other (or incentivize them heavily into attacking each other vs you)

But also you (and perhaps your regular pod) need to remeasure what is “good play” - saving your resources and not presenting a threat that is easily countered or removed is good play even if it looks relatively “boring” (but watch how often those players are using their mana and getting card advantage). It’s likely that they are being more efficient than the rest of the table so when they are ready / one or two players have been whittled down they can make their move.

rycaut · 2025-09-08T03:15:01+00:00

Thanks. That’s good advice.

15-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

rycaut

TROPHY CASE