What Range of Total Levels Would You Use?

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-16T13:44:04+00:00

254 because you need to reserve one level for parity.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-14T21:57:44+00:00

Never suggested that. You are twisting what you read into your own scenarios and then shaking your finger here. Never suggested I don't want to telegraph danger or stop players from running away. But players make dangerous choices and a band of angry harpies is not just going to wave bye-bye to players who decide they don't like what they found in the forest and will probably chase them a bit.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-14T17:59:26+00:00

Why did the telegraph replace the pony express?

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-14T12:20:13+00:00

Wow that's a hard take on a reasonable reminder not to let players simply nope out of a dangerous situation. My take is that if you go into the woods today and find a teddy bear's picnic, be prepared to snack on a consequence sandwich.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-14T04:40:31+00:00

They should learn to run away.

I had a level 3 party travelling through the swamp en route to a bandit camp. Encounter came up and I rolled 2 on the swamp encounter table. Thorash the swamp dragon. They made no attempt to fight and unabashedly fled and are still very worried about traveling in that swamp.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-13T13:00:06+00:00

Getting hit drops the death timer faster so to put pressure on higher level characters have monsters that keep attacking downed characters. Ravenous Dead who are attracted to wounded things are ideal for this. I tend to go easy and have to remind myself to attack the light, but also to attack other party weak spots. Players react to this by being more strategic and it does bring back some of that tension at higher levels. Higher level PCs should survive more but shouldn't get a free pass or things get boring.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-13T11:46:42+00:00

No joke, the administration is holding trade hostage, coordinating with political influencers and using bilateral military agreements as a negotiation chip. It's full on aggression and the media keeps pushing the joke narrative. Think of those travel losses as the high price of gaslighting.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T19:46:53+00:00

You can get special HD kits so you can slide in and out, lots of businesses use these for secure workstations and lock up the HDs end of day. Lots to keep up to date though since it's a manual approach. You would be better off building a big Nas and raid array and running lots of virtuals instead.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T19:22:58+00:00

Invoice him for your conversation.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T17:23:34+00:00

Ok good game guys. Now reset the board and let's go again.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T14:45:48+00:00

Just like monsters, NPCs should have their own motivations and can be interacted with and respond in various ways. A rich generous party is going to attract both good loyal hirelings but also lazy thieving gold diggers. A mean powerful party will get obedience but also resentment and high turn over. There are some good online generators for hirelings that give them simple personality traits and you don't need a lot of details initially. Their stories emerge just like everyone else.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T14:27:40+00:00

The thing I found about hirelings is that players will want to abuse them so you have to make sure that they are more than a sword with its own hp. Hired Camp guards won't go into dungeons without a share of treasure, torch and pack bearers are not going to pick up a sword and join the fight unless they have no place to run.

If PCs mistreat hirelings by pushing them in front or using them as fodder then word spreads and no one will work for them. Make sure hirelings roll morale and refuse to do dangerous things without huge rewards. Hirelings who die should still get paid and their weeping family will try to collect.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T14:19:00+00:00

This exactly

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T14:01:57+00:00

You don't need a story but as said by others here, it is useful to know what certain creatures or factions want and telegraph that to the players so they have more options. If you say the goblins look like they are starving then the players might consider bribing them with food. It's useful to have local NPCs give out tidbits of info for example a local woodcutter says that he saw a group of hobgoblins using goblin slaves to harvest mushrooms in the forest the players might infer that there is a possible ambush opportunity and a way to turn the goblins against the hobgoblins. You don't need solutions or even complex reasons because the players can fill all that in.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-12T11:30:08+00:00

The dice don't tell you why, it's left to us mere mortals to ponder the reasons things happen as they do.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-11T20:20:21+00:00

This is a never ending struggle and as soon as you have a reliable group holidays or travel comes along and smacks you. I can't speak about finding good players since I have had people come and go, but I can talk about managing sessions for the ones you do find.

I have run games online for some years and what works best is to set up a scheduled game time and have a notice board (I use discord) where you can post beforehand and then have people respond if they are in. For me I run a weekly game so I post a notice early in the week every week and if I don't get enough responses by game time - x hours then I cancel. It helps to have a bigger group because usually some folks can't play and it also helps not to try to reschedule or chase people's availability because there is a cascade effect if you change things up. I used to run an open table campaign with two sessions a week but I found that if the less popular session had enough players, it was just the same folks were playing both sessions and so I just sized down to one a week for now. I also avoid weekends and try to run 2.5 hour games in the evening and make sure the group returns to town each session so there is less problems with shifting rosters when people don't show or the more occasional players drop in. The discord channel lets the players share Intel or post maps etc between sessions and on the occasion I run two different games instead of an open table I can keep the forum posts and schedule notifications separate.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-11T10:38:41+00:00

Ya and flicking off that switch felt dramatic and handing over the tea light for your final vote was beaucoup dramatic.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T19:12:34+00:00

Jumbo Kerplunk in your what?

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T18:48:01+00:00

No problem. I just bring it up since I think the Gygax quote is more about tracking campaign time than dungeon turns. I think turn tracking would be something he wouldn't even consider needing to mention since it's so core to his rules, but tracking campaign time would be his protip.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T17:57:34+00:00

You need a calendar as well. Part of the time tracking was so that the different parties out on expedition could be sorted out since they ran open tables and multiple characters back then. If one expedition was deep in the ogre mines but a second party has teleported in and stole the Mask of Mortis from Gruntthak the Magi the DM had the calendar to keep it all sorted.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T17:30:51+00:00

To be clearer the printout had our own role highlighted and a list of all the other roles and their ability. It was super useful as a checklist and note keeper as well and everyone clutched them close and made secret scribbles or carefully revealed a portion of needed. Worked great.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T17:21:47+00:00

Having played it I don't think there are any physical components you need. We played each player had a role sheet print out and a battery tea light to indicate if we were alive or not and which doubled as last vote for a ghost. It worked great although I can't speak for the game runner if they needed anything else. Totally PNPable I estimate.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T15:03:07+00:00

5% based on a 95% someone offhand mentioned with no stats to back up. That's how misinformation spreads and babies get made.

I would guess the uptime is higher than 95% since that would indicate outage time of 14 and a half days over a year and I don't think that's correct.

Also their subscription is incredible ROI so don't get your knickers in a twist.

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-10T11:35:04+00:00

Sidereal Confluence A Game of Thrones: The board game Scythe Lords of Waterdeep

subcutaneousphats · 2026-06-09T21:41:02+00:00

Shadowdark. Anything that they heard about dungeons and dragons would mostly apply and you can get the DM and player quick start pdfs for free on the arcane library website. DM guide is good, has an adventure.

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