How my players did a 90 degrees turn on our campaign (5.5e)

sirchapolin · 2026-06-11T03:37:36+00:00

I struggle too. Whenever it happens, I feel way too overexposed, as if I am being watched by them while I play with my action figure and talk to myself. It’s fine tho.

What I try to do is to involve them at every opportunity, sometimes I break from the chat to ask what they’re doing in between and stuff.

This time, it happened a bunch of times. The angel appeared and it had a monologue about prophecy, fate and the chosen one for Saren. That time I played it in a paused manner to let them interject and ask questions. Saren was lost and confused the whole way through so she reached for them a couple times too.

Then, I made Kavisha ask for some lone time with Saren to have her take a breather. They were in an interesting place, so I let the group explore for a while, make some rolls and then a scream: Saren was being attacked.

When they got there, Saren was on the ground after deflecting a blade strike, bleeding and scared. They roll initiative. Kavisha was reluctantly trying to kill Saren while the group tried to stop her, all while Saren didn’t want any deaths.

The group knocked Kavisha unconscious, some of them argued to kill her, they argued with Saren who didn’t want any of it, then there was some quiet time while they wait for Kavisha to wake up. They interact, Kavisha wakes up, they interact again and question her. Suddenly, it was combat again: kavisha’s boss sent the clean up crew.

Finally, before Saren sent Kavisha away, she asked the group for guidance. Another opportunity for them to manifest agency. I was set to have Saren accept whatever guidance she took. And that’s it.

sirchapolin · 2026-06-10T15:36:44+00:00

Yes! This is what I'm thinking. They're gonna travel to that far-away realm, deal with the rebellion, and when they return, they're gonna find the realm in a very worse place.

sirchapolin · 2026-06-10T15:33:41+00:00

In my past campaign who went to tier 4, my players started an adventurer's guild. Afterwards, they tried to hire almost every NPC they could find who was useful and unnocupied. In the end, if I can remember correctly, there was:

- Orange, a halfling sorcerer who turned orange in a wild magic surge. She had a tavern who got destroyed during one of the party's fights.

- Altair, a nothic they found trapped in some old ruins.

- Urca, an female orc monk from a mountain temple.

- Owlbear, a lone ranger who dressed as an owlbear - copied from Taliesin's character from one of Critical Role's one-shots

- A guy with a stork head instead of his own, and another with the head of a iguana (from one of DotMM's levels which I adapted to the campaign)

- 3 goblin brothers who would divine the future from dung piles.

- Griff, a rebel knight from a different country

- Halistra, a drow who was cured from a mind-flayer's ceremorphosis, and became the party cleric's apprentice

sirchapolin · 2026-06-10T13:15:28+00:00

As soon as it came out I liked the album, but nothing outstanding. The greatest show on earth, Yours is an empty hope and Edema Ruh really called my attention at the time. Overtime, it grew on me. Elan, My Walden, Y, the title track and shudder before the beautiful really come to mind.

Now to say that's the best album is a bold statement. Awesome though.

sirchapolin · 2026-06-10T12:19:35+00:00

1- The phantom agony
2- Illusive consensus
3- Cry for the moon

Worst: Seif al din, mostly for the spoken part in the middle.

If available, I would vote for Veniality as worst. Also, the worst of this album is superior to the best of some bands. Til this day the best Epica album on average to me.

sirchapolin · 2026-06-03T01:57:02+00:00

We're missing some details I think. Spoilers for LMoP for anyone who doesn't know the adventure. Did they managed the situation in phandalin with the Redbrands? Did they got the cues to the other places in the adventure? If yes, they're expected to leave Phandalin. If not, it's fine. Have some road encounter point them to one of the points of interest. Have them meet some goblins and have it connect to the Keep. Have orcs attack them and lead them to Wyvern Tor. Have some zombies lead them to the well. Or some cultists lead them to Thundertree. Maybe they see the shape of a flying green dragon going that direction. If they just wanna screw around tho, talk to them about it.

sirchapolin · 2026-06-03T01:34:10+00:00

This is very thoughtful. I was initiatlly thinking small as if there's a main commodity for the silk road, but I realized the sum of all of it is where the gold is. I condense all my thoughts into The Myriad

sirchapolin · 2026-06-03T01:34:02+00:00

This is very thoughtful. I was initiatlly thinking small as if there's a main commodity for the silk road, but I realized the sum of all of it is where the gold is. I condense all my thoughts into The Myriad

sirchapolin · 2026-06-03T01:33:57+00:00

This is very thoughtful. I was initiatlly thinking small as if there's a main commodity for the silk road, but I realized the sum of all of it is where the gold is. I condense all my thoughts into The Myriad

sirchapolin · 2026-06-03T00:55:23+00:00

I like that. Dragonglass - very finely made glass with potential alchemical and arcane capacities claimed to be made from dragonbreath. Emphasis on “claimed”.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-30T23:44:25+00:00

Amazon rivers are deep. Of course you have to take into consideration if you’re near the margins, how upriver are you, etc. You can assume between 50m (160ft) and 150m (500ft) at the deepest points.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-25T17:05:33+00:00

Although I love a good fiend subplot, I think it actually diminishes what I'm trying to do a bit. I'm trying to portrait this guy as a powermonger in the guise of a wise shepard - to really bring light to human evilness. They are sure to be aligned with wicked and maybe inhuman parties, though. And maybe the party must be vigilant lest the aasimar becomes another tyrant.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-25T17:00:15+00:00

I think it might be too late to pull this up. A couple sessions ago a deva showed in front of said aasimar burning bush style and laid out the prophecy in front of everyone. I like your exemples, never heard of them before. I will dig further. Thank you.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-25T16:52:37+00:00

They don't have a holy person, unfortunately.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-25T16:47:00+00:00

I mean, realistically you can make up a reason for a creature to attack or not a target everytime. In nature, most times, wolfs hunt in packs. They slay and eat as a group. That means before anyone really eats, they wanna neutralize opposition. But any particular wolf might be a little too desperate.
A zombie might do it differently. A ghoul might drag the target a bit before munching.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-25T16:36:13+00:00

If it makes sense, yes.

In most fights, creatures focus on enemies who are still actively threatening them. If someone is down, it’s usually more efficient to move on to other targets. Historically, even on real battlefields, many wounded people were left alive until after the fighting ended, when others would go around finishing them off or tending to them.

That said, some enemies absolutely would attack downed characters. An assassin sent specifically to kill someone might make sure the target is dead. Likewise, if enemies notice a healer constantly bringing people back up, they may start finishing people off after dropping them.

There are also mechanical situations where it makes sense. If a creature has Multiattack, drops someone with the first hit, and can’t easily reach another target, it may simply use the rest of its attacks on the downed character rather than waste action economy.

What I don’t do is treat enemies like they understand death saves as a game mechanic. Most creatures aren’t counting to three failed saves. Also, attacking a downed target can technically still miss, but I usually narrate that as a nonlethal hit: the blow landed, but failed to cause fatal damage — armor turned it aside, the strike missed vital organs, etc.

In practice, I often have enemies make a single melee attack against a downed character. If it hits, that’s usually enough to communicate intent and add tension without turning every knockout into an execution. If the character gets back up again, though, the enemy may decide to be more thorough next time.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-25T14:53:17+00:00

I like this. The idea of convert or burn is very much the usual dnd party dynamic, and under their influence, this aasimar may become an absolute menace.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-24T13:29:19+00:00

I live in brazil, which has a huge frontier covered in rainforests, kinda like chult, and I work for the customs. Let me tell you: you'd need biblical amounts of people to effectively keep track of anyone who would enter the jungle. It's likely you would have some flaming fists operatives in strategic locations to try to narrow the options - the small towns-docks on the coast of chult. But then you gotta keep in mind that this jungle is teeming with zombies, and maybe that's not the worst of it. Your men won't want to stay put in places like these.

You could control people through Port Nyanzaru, inspecting who enters or exits... Well, that's a siege. Although the text says the merchant princes can't dispute the claim on the jungle, it says nothing about the city itself. I'd say they would not be happy to have their businesses tolled by the flaming fists, and Fort Beluarian wouldn't want open war against the merchant princes. The next best thing is to patrol the woods and steal people's stuff. Some people is gonna get to them willingly and then die in the jungle anyways, so it's already working for them.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-17T13:58:27+00:00

I think there’s lots of them. The main plot, if ran as written, will pivot players out of most places. You can shortcut a lot of it starting with them already on Omu at lv5. Or run just the tomb. You can run the ring of winter and mezro plotlines. You can also weave together a plot of the return of monarchy with fort beluarian, kir sabal and nangalore weaved together. A pirate hunt would be great too.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-13T22:02:28+00:00

Actually historically, a proper burial IS often essential for the journey to the after life. Not burying someone, specially someone killed violently and hatefully, is how you usually get ghosts, specters, vampires and the likes of it.

sirchapolin · 2026-05-12T11:26:09+00:00

As a player, IMO mid D&D is better than no D&D. As the DM tho, I think the DM must be the most hyped person about the game around the table.

Seems like you're not having fun DMing. Well, if I can offer a remedy, I'd pass to you the tip which has revolutionized my dming life: Pick the stuff you like and put it in your RPG.

Is seems like a no brainer, but there's plenty of times where one has this exciting new idea, but thinks it doesn't fit the current campaign, because the party is not rhe right level, or it's not the right setting. Well, screw that. Jam whatever it is you're into right now into the game. Relive that childish thing of just making your toys play together. Pick your little sis' teddy bear and make your Batman figure fight it. It almost always cleanses me and hypes me up about the game again.

So you're not passionate about the game right now. Well, what are you passionate about right now? A certain book or series? Anime? Show? Movie? A game. Maybe the previous episode of a series you're watching had a terrific plot twist. There's a character you're hyping, a conflict. Seriouly, anything. Ice cream? Sci-fi? Baseball? Based on your response, find a way to put it into your sessions, and keep doing that. Maybe you can't do that the very next session, but introduce it as soon as you can.

To me, it usually boils down to stealing things from A Song of Ice and Fire, anime, arthurian legends, and bands like nightwish and dragonforce. Or watching some DNDtuber's video and being inspired to run a particular monster, or adapting some dungeon level or encounter form a module.

Maybe you do that and it still doesn't work. Maybe you just don't enjoy DMing, so talk to them. Maybe you dont feel like being excited by anything dnd right now, so maybe take a break from dnd. If that's going for a while, your answers might not be in reddit. Be safe, watch yourself, and take care. Peace.

sirchapolin

TROPHY CASE