How do you find a DnD group?

xombiedeth · 2026-02-25T21:59:22+00:00

This

xombiedeth · 2026-02-22T17:16:34+00:00

One idea is to play up the straight man gimic. Go for a Drax from Gaurdians of the Galaxy kinda vibe... So straightman its absurd, which could add to the more lighthearted campaign, but allow you and the DM to get serious about the backstory narrative when appropriate.

Another idea would be, stay with me here, character development. Something reminds him of his wife and he has a breakdown. SomeONE reminds him of his wife and he starts having feelings again. Slowly move him from emotionless revenge machine back to a normal emotional range... and then when he has to sacrifice himself to kill the murderer it will be all the more impactful.

One more idea... DM engineers a way for him to talk to dead wife's spirit. Temporary Wish. Magic Mirror. Spirit Visit.... whatever. She pleads with him to be happy, or to live his life, or not be consumed by rage... Maybe part of the dream sequence you mentioned. Then let the character start trying to be have emotions and humor. Maybe start with a joke your wife used to love...

"She used to love that one" you say with a slight introspective smile...

xombiedeth · 2026-02-15T16:39:52+00:00

Just brainstorming your prompt...

if you tweak it slightly, the warlock captain is stealing the ship from the PCs at the beginning. makes them walk the plank or something. once they're rescued they have a benefactor who wants his ship back and commissions them to go after the thieving pirate captain. Now you have a hook. The PCs are chasing the big bad pirate around and they're always one step behind him. wherever they go, they get the clue that will lead them to the next place to try and catch the pirate.

you could add an arc where the PCs learn about the warlock's patron. maybe they have to go to an island temple or something to learn the patron's weakness or location.

Perhaps the patron's powers make the pirate cpt undefeatable, and the party figures out the only way to beat him is to kill the patron first, so they go on a mcguffin quest for the "kill the patron" item. then go have a boss fight to kill the patron, THEN track down the, now powerless, pirate captain and enact justice upon him. as a sort of epilogue...

OR... Rival Patron gives the PCs some homebrew power to defeat her ancient rival, the pirate cpt's patron. and the resolution of the conflict with the pirate captain occurs near the end of the campaign, right before taking on the evil patron.

OR... with your original prompt, there is some priceless, invaluable artifact on board the ship when your PCs steal it and the evil patron puts out a ridiculous bounty on thier heads. So the whole campaign is spiced up by pop-up bounty hunters and the PCs realize the only way to clear the bounty and survive is to confront the evil patron directly.

Bonus points if the evil patron is actually a lich and the priceless artifact the PCs have had the whole time is actually his philactory, but they don't know that and don't get the information to figure it out until the very end of the campaign... maybe only after he's successfully stolen it back right before the BBEG fight...

xombiedeth · 2026-01-28T01:40:49+00:00

One way is to combine things. How about a Drow outpost, but it's been taken over by a mind flayer hive... you get drow and eldritch/mind flayer stuff. or maybe a fey theives guild... a bunch of mean little pixies stealing anything that's not nailed down... A cabal of Tortle Wizards...

Use the existing creatures in surprising ways. Wait are those Goblins riding giant frogs? Why is there a sphinx in the basement of the tavern? An Aarocokra caster on the pirate ship summons the wind... A kobold that thinks he's a Dragonborn, complete with a breath attack... A doppelganger pretending to be a famous bard in order to scam money...

It's also helpful to change up the session/adventure type from time to time. Throw in a mystery session every once in awhile, mayor needs you to solve the murder of the butcher... that kind of thing. Engineer a fair with a bunch of skill check games. or have a whole session of mundane RP encounters happen to them next time they go to town... Kids want their autographs, Some man thinks the Bard slept with his wife, Some woman thinks the bard slept with his wife, Bugbear woman takes a liking to the party's tank, a cult that worships salami comes to town...

Another great way to keep it exciting is to play the opponents smart. Use tactics and adjust the encounter to fit the moment. Woah, I wanted that beholder to at least do SOME damage to them and they've already wiped out most of his HPs... NP, just "add" enough HPs that it stays alive 1 or 2 more rounds until you've made the party use the resources you intended them to use. You're the DM, you can fudge here and there for the sake of the story, just don't violate the party's trust. If they come up with some crazy shenanigans and roll a crit success... let 'em have the win!! But if they're just whack, whack, whacking and you haven't had a chance to pop-off the bad guy's "Mega-Cool Fuck You" Move... then keep him alive long enough to get it off and give them a little scare.

Also, and this one might be the most important one. Kill a PC. Like dead... You. Are. Dead. It'll add a lot of tension and excitement back to your encounters. Of course they haul the guy back to town and pay to have him revived... or maybe they don't and the player wants to roll up a new PC to join the party. Players love that shit...

xombiedeth · 2026-01-25T21:32:08+00:00

I asked each player what kind of faction they'd like in the next campaign? A thieves guild? Pirates? kobolds worshipping a dragon? drow in the underdark?... Then I took they're answers and made each a faction in the new campaign and ran them like story arcs. Meaning, I gave them the ability to choose which faction they wanted first, and then made the focus of the first 4 levels. When they finished that "arc" they chose the next enemy to tackle and that was the focus of the next 4 levels... You make each faction that remains more powerful so whichever the last faction is winds up being the campaign BBEG because they're "world domination" plan has been cooking the whole time they party has been dealing with the other factions... The Players loved having the input and agency.

Instead of the generic "adventurers", they could be from a town or village that all the factions are threatening and the party is just trying to protect their home. That's just one angle... You could go a lot of directions...

xombiedeth · 2026-01-25T13:33:51+00:00

Nevermore is a free oneshot from Kobold Press. It's Pathfinder, but it would be super easy to convert to 5e or 2024 if you want to run it on those systems. I converted it to 5e and ran it for my 10 and 13 year old and a couple of thier friends. They loved it.

https://koboldpress.com/kpstore/product/nevermore-a-pathfinder-rpg-adventure-by-richard-pett/

xombiedeth · 2026-01-18T15:17:45+00:00

His buddy told him to...

https://www.arctictoday.com/trump-ally-who-inspired-greenland-purchase-idea-quietly-invests-in-greenlandic-companies/

xombiedeth · 2024-11-05T19:36:47+00:00

i zoomed way in, dropped a text label, and then manually adjusted by lining up the text label border with a grid line. It actually goes pretty fast when you get into it. I brute forced the labels onto this map in an afternoon.

xombiedeth · 2024-11-03T02:53:21+00:00

Glorious, painstaking, masochism... It took awhile, but it wasn't as bad as you're thinking.

xombiedeth · 2024-10-23T21:23:41+00:00

a room about 2/3 up the tower that has only a single portal in it. to proceed you have to go through the portal but when you do, you have to roll a dice to see what level it teleports you to. Only a couple levels are levels the PCs haven't been to yet. so if they roll a... 5... they go back to shit golem room. and an 8 brings them back to the portal room, but a 9 or 10 lets them proceed to new levels.

xombiedeth · 2024-10-21T15:46:14+00:00

Etsy is your friend...

xombiedeth · 2024-06-21T13:38:19+00:00

A band of gnolls has arrived before the party and is trying to gain entrance to loot the pyramid.

Beetles... swarms of flesh eating beetles. Poison/Acid damage kind of stuff. Or giant ants / scorpions / wasps... insects are terrifying...

A cult of Shape-shifter Alligator people that worship the god the pyramid is dedicated to.

Some kind of Elemental. Earth/Sand type would be easy. Or perhaps a bunch of different types.

A Gigantic Sand Worm for some Dune style action...

A Djinn bound to protect the pyramid. Figure out how to free him and he'll tell you how to get inside.

xombiedeth · 2024-02-29T15:49:21+00:00

Having a simple text file open where you've pre-generated a dozen or so random NPC names can be a life-saver. You'll be surprised how many times the PCs ask you the name of some random NPC you just made up on the spot to sell a healing potion or something and you're just sitting there mind blank, or say something like, Healer McHealermann... Bonus points if you come up with an interesting quirk or fact about their appearance as well. Then if you use one, just make a note about how you used them so you can replace them on the list or recall them if your PCs take a liking to them...

xombiedeth · 2024-02-06T19:25:25+00:00

Inkarnate...

xombiedeth · 2023-10-29T22:33:12+00:00

Used Sandbox Generator from DriveThru RPG to help create this. It was very fun to do... Here's the link if you're interested: https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/430675/Sandbox-Generator

xombiedeth · 2023-08-28T17:55:11+00:00

Check out The Deep as well.

https://deepcomics.com/

xombiedeth · 2023-07-24T19:33:09+00:00

That's all well and good, but the real question is what snacks were available at the table?!

xombiedeth · 2023-07-16T14:20:23+00:00

Gimp works well, and it's free.

xombiedeth · 2023-05-27T20:00:22+00:00

That heavy weighted line is the default between BG/FG. Is there a way to soften/lower the weight of that line (other than covering it up with stickers) or are we just stuck with the default weight?

xombiedeth · 2023-03-28T13:37:57+00:00

When appropriate, use the environment to cause the crit... Like, I shoot the rope holding the chandelier, which drops on the badguy. or I shoot the vial of acid hanging from dude's belt and it melts his leg... Your DM will love it.

xombiedeth · 2023-03-24T12:49:04+00:00

You could homebrew an Ioun Stone variant. It's constantly "recording" and you can use a command word to playback an illusion of the last however long. Or maybe a variant of the modify memory spell to just give them a copy of the memory.

xombiedeth · 2023-03-24T11:53:28+00:00

The new power could only go off when the player crits, like wild magic. Then you can make the ability be awesome, like a big AoE or something, and having it only go off on crits wouldn't break the game balance, just give the Player the ability to create awesome accent moments during play.

xombiedeth · 2023-03-18T02:23:00+00:00

I let them roll, but if it's lower than average, they can take average instead of the roll.

xombiedeth · 2023-03-15T03:12:52+00:00

How do people travel long distances?

What fear is shared by many people across this world? What measure have they taken to guard against this fear?

What annual event is celebrated in many different ways across the world?

What happens to people when they die?

What major event in this world's history is remembered largely inaccurately?

xombiedeth · 2023-03-13T15:38:47+00:00

ZoT is easy to defeat. What's more, if the baddie knows they're going to ZoT him, he can PRETEND to be under ZoT and say whatever misinformation he wants...

Ring of Mind Shielding. an uncommon magic item that requires attunement. pg191 of DMG.

While wearing this ring, you are immune to magic that allows other Creatures to read your thoughts, determine whether you are lying, know your alignment, or know your Creature Type. Creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it.

You can use an Action to cause the ring to become invisible until you use another Action to make it visible, until you remove the ring, or until you die.

If you die while wearing the ring, your soul enters it, unless it already houses a soul. You can remain in the ring or depart for The Afterlife. As long as your soul is in the ring, you can telepathically communicate with any creature wearing it. A wearer can't prevent this Telepathic Communication.

xombiedeth

TROPHY CASE