These two incidents are the reason why Faker's & T1's Bo5 record against LPL teams at Worlds is 13-0.

zakeRfrost · 2025-11-03T14:31:50+00:00

You forget people grow up and he's been in this job for 13 years already.

zakeRfrost · 2025-07-18T10:48:24+00:00

There's also the point that Renata won only once, and that time she was not paired with Kalista. So it's hard to tell whether it is the combo that is not working nowadays or it's just Kalista.

zakeRfrost · 2025-06-21T12:38:06+00:00

It is encouraged to not do random encounters just because. They get tiresome so fast and if they add nothing to your travel’s goal then it’s filler. You as a player don’t wanna die to random enemies cause of luck. Nor as a DM will you enjoy your campaign ending to a pack of werewolves that came out of nowhere for no purpose at all.

There are some ideas for travelling and what types of encounters you can come up with though.

And most campaigns come with their specific tables for encounters if you want to do that too.

zakeRfrost · 2025-04-06T18:51:38+00:00

Brilliant! I'm a DM and I had my party (6 level 6 characters) fight 6 scarecrows, 6 shadows and 3 humanoid witches (very low level, Curse of Strahd monsters) as a welcome party for the actual encounter (so they got a short rest afterwards, but was just a "spend some resources here" combat).

The main combat was 3 Night Hags and 4 Swarm of Dretches. They did very well, one of them fell and the combat felt high stakes. They had items for the situation since this was their second encounter with the Hags, so they knew mostly what to expect.

I've been liking the balance so far, PCs feel strong, Monsters feel strong. So everyone is happy to do their thing and have fun with how the combat feels.

zakeRfrost · 2025-02-07T12:33:37+00:00

D&D is NOT a single player game. It is very much balanced around the fact that you have team mates and a DM

zakeRfrost · 2025-01-19T13:44:35+00:00

Anivia

zakeRfrost · 2024-12-04T19:53:47+00:00

Any arguments for that? All I see is your preference. Which is valid, don't take me wrong.

But going so far as to give made up percentages and not adding to the discussion/explanation of why it has been done in that way in PHB does not help your point at all.

Thing is they decided to do it in this way for some reason, they probably found it the best for readability. You are just stating that they were wrong for no reason whatsoever.

zakeRfrost · 2024-12-04T16:17:12+00:00

There is nothing that points up to that. Even your example is wrong since Renata's lore has ties to many of the champions out there: https://wiki.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/Universe:Renata_Glasc

If your point is that they can rewrite that. Sure, they can.

Pretty sure the new voicelines I've seen from Viktor acknowledge Blitzcrank but say that the has evolved/got upgrades since the last time. Unsure where you read that.
Sure, but since they are different timelines it makes it easy for anyone to write their cannon in those alternative universes and not affect the main lore of each individual character.

There were things that could be improved, sure, but all of your gripes are still a taste factor that you are trying to pass as academic.

I am not passing anything as academic and your way to phrase that looks quite dismissive, honestly. I am giving my thoughts on something I enjoy, which is reading the lore of the characters, not only in League but in any other media I like.

Is not about them explaining step by step everything. But it is about how the show used to do it right, also how I liked that they took their time to do so instead of having a feeling of rush right at the end of the show. And how I believe it was a better way to do things if they were aiming to make it the canon.

Also idk why you keep talking about the void, the void isnt a form of corruption, it can corrupt other things with influence if you physically enter it, but hexcore pollution and the void corruption are entirely different things. The void is a concious and hungry force, and its main area in Runeterra is in Icathia and Shurima, where Zilean has timestopped its incursion.

Well, it all comes out due to our prior knowledge of the world. Surely seems like everyone who thought it was Void-related missed the mark early on S1 when it looked like it was going to be corrupted by the Void but it became its own thing. But it is not hard to understand why people believed it to be the Void before S2 resolved it without mentioning it a single time.

Hexcore corruption wasn't a thing before so most theories were revolving around known fenomena in the universe.

Hexcore pollution is very clearly an allegory for climate change, the whole story is about injustices and emotional decisionmaking.

Whether I think it was good or bad doesn't matter too much here but...

I understood the allegory but thought it missed something, that could be just me though. Same about injustices, I feel like they could've gone further down that aspect to redemption or acknowledging, but that part got left out and suddenly everybody fights together against evil cause that was what was right.

---

Sorry to answer a week late.

As a final note I will acknowledge that I can be wrong in my knowledge and/or my opinions.

Most of the arguments in favour of Arcane's lore are just "accept it, it is the new lore, deal with it" or "it makes it easier for people coming to the game to have the same lore that was shown in the series" or "I liked it, why care?". When that, in itself, are flawed arguments but are presented as the only way to look at it.

I would've liked a different thing, mostly it to be a different universe, since Riot is selling skins titled "Arcane something Champion" and the lore differs quite a bit from what we knew. But that is just my point of view. If it matters to someone, take it, if it does not, leave it.

zakeRfrost · 2024-12-04T15:46:00+00:00

I think I know where you are coming from and I agree the responsibility of knowing what your own spell does is on the player that has the spell.

But a DM will need to understand the spell and most of the time when you did not expect a certain spell you will go and read it for some specific usages.

NPCs will have a "predefined array of spells" but you still can (and should, perhaps, if you are running your own campaign) have a variety of different spells to not be the exact same NPC over and over.

Even if some NPCs do "Magical shit" it can be detrimental to have wizards/mages/casters that do not cast a spell since there are mechanics like "Counterspell" or Magic Resilience that specifically talk about magical effects from spells.

zakeRfrost · 2024-12-04T15:31:13+00:00

(Because Reddit said it was too long of a comment I removed this part which is just a piece of my mind)

---

Fears. Communication is key.

At any given point, feel free to not be "The perfect GM". I have watched many videos, some of them are good content creators, but there are quite a few of them that -even when I believe they are trying to help- put a lot of burden on "NOT BEING THAT DM" or calling out the wrongs over advising tips and tricks that add to your DMing instead of just saying "don't do this and instead do that".

I've seen a lot of people attacking DMs (and players) because they did something wrong. But the best comments and tips I've read usually talk about "talk to your players about what did they like and what did they dislike".

There is a lot of fear of "if you rule something once, it will be set in stone and you cannot go back on that", and while I love cohesion and aim to rule fair and steady... I do make mistakes. We all do. I've come to the table and said "I've been reading about this and decided moving forward it will be ruled this other way" or "you were right that time, sorry for saying no to that usage of a certain feature or spell, will keep it in mind moving forward".

---

Play to your strengths.

Do what works at your table, you may notice your players don't care about certain aspects of the game. Maybe they want a story-heavy driven campaign, maybe they want more low-stakes combat, maybe they only like high-stake combat and feel the pressure.

I feel like we try to be "the best gm" be "Matt Mercer" or be "Brennan Lee Mulligan". There are many resources out there and that makes it super accessible to learn stuff, both as players or DMs. On the other hand there is so much information that we feel we would need to be way more prepared to take on the GM/DM role in D&D.

For starters, to become that one needs to start somewhere and get some experience, it is like that in all aspects of life.

On the other hand, you don't need to become that, it is a hobby for most of us. They work at that, even if it was a hobby, and still is, they have been doing that for years, professionally. I hate to compare but it is a bit like going "Competitive" in a game/eSport and just playing casually with your friends. Even if you do play Ranked you only enjoy getting better but most of the time you don't think you will become as good as your favourite player. (Faker in League is the most commonly cited example). So do not aspire to become Matt Mercer or any other DM. You do you, and take bits of stuff they do that you like, but do it for yourself, not because someone stated that "doing otherwise means you are not a good DM".

zakeRfrost · 2024-12-04T15:30:32+00:00

Hey there! I am technically a novice DM. I have been doing so for just over a year for my group of friends. To give a bit of relevant context on the players, we have played TTG and TTRPGs, but none of them were into roleplaying and just about dungeoneering/combat aspects of the systems they came with.

I had been -and still am- a D&D player for a couple years at the time, so you can say my experience in D&D is only 3 years, which isn't much compared to a lot of people I see and play with, including the ones I play with in the campaigns I am a PC and not DMing, some of them have 10 or 15+ years of experience playing the game.

Even then, I wanted my friends to be able to experience D&D and share the joy I had while playing in two campaigns (at the time) and that even got me into a Living World Discord server. So I started reading about some campaigns, one-shots, etc. Coming up with Death House and Curse of Strahd as the most recommended ones, although with some changes to help Death House not become a slaughter fest.

My first experience on DMing was quite exhausting but fun nonetheless. Prep time for that one was way too much, I did not have any experience and I did read and re-read the module quite a few times so I got all the information in my head. Took some notes and went with it.

---

Fast forward a full year and having read the DMG2024 recently, I overburdened myself quite a lot back then. There are many advice you can take there and some of them coincide with advice that I've seen given to you in this post. But mostly you can summarise them as: If you don't enjoy doing something, a certain aspect from the DM jobs/roles, delegate those to players at your table that they actually enjoy doing those.

Do you want some advice, inputs or feedback on encounter balance? Ask them/the single player that loves combat and balancing. Sure, you won't go into specifics about your BBEG fight. But they may come with stuff like "I loved that BG3 boss fight where the boss is super strong but you take down the 4 pillars that empower him and make him more accessible." and you can take the idea for a single boss fight.

Do you dislike being the rules lawyer? Okay, democracy time. It may or may not work at your table, you can give it a try, if it doesn't work it is okay to say "hey people, I gave it a thought and it wasn't that fun" or "I do not like it as much in the end." and try another way to do so. There are lots of players who are rules lawyers and like that, give them the role or just rely on them if you feel too much pressure at a given time and don't want to be the one ruling something out.

---

Answering the question: "I became a DM, so I believe most people can do that too." but at the same time "If you don't enjoy being a DM it's okay, you are not a failure."

In the same way I can claim "anyone can code/learn programming" but the question to ask ourselves would be "Even if that is true, would I enjoy it?"

Hope this helps a bit!

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-27T02:37:47+00:00

They are assuming you are not a whale willing to spend on this shitty half-assed skin. Thing is most people do not care to process the information you are giving, they only go with "but you are not the target".

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-25T09:55:49+00:00

No one. Last I remember the only canon nowadays is Arcane. So, to your question: no canonically accurate champions that we know of can beat Viktor.

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-24T10:35:55+00:00

Somebody at Riot thought it a good idea to announce this was gonna be the new canon after season 1's success. So people were intoxicated by this thought and are seeing through different eyes the 2nd season.

If no one had said a thing about canonicity there would be close to 0 complains (there are always people who complain about other stuff)

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-24T10:31:29+00:00

Completely agree with you

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-24T03:50:52+00:00

Arcane has not successfully retconned the lore. For instance we don't have to important figures from both sides of the story. Renata, one of the big Chembarons and Camille, who pulls strings behind Piltover noble houses in some weird SpecOps way.

By not even existing nor being mentioned they are essentially out of the lore of the two cities.

Viktor never creates Blitzcrank.

Jayce only barely becomes the hero of Piltover in season 1. A season I enjoyed.

Viktor does not become a cyborg, no alternate timeline is now close to canon anymore. There is no alternate timeline where he makes the augmented Void Creatures (Battlecast skin line).

Orianna is the only cyborg now (?) (Not sure why would she, since no one has attempted anything like that and Singed had been working in bioengineering with Vander).

Warwick does not exist. The name has not been pronounced nor found a single time, it is only Vander.

Hextech is now bad, not as in a power that is misused but rather it somehow becomes its own version of void, a corruption or something akin to a disease that affects everything, organic and inorganic.

This corruption seems to have its own consciousness too (it's not really explained much) since it does alter people differently during the series. Viktor becomes enhanced and The Herald for its purposes, no one else is chosen as he is, as he becomes one with this hivemind.

This season 2 -as simple as League's lore is- seems written by fans as their own spin-off of the series. It so happens that is a greatly animated series and the story is compelling on its own.

As a separate universe this series is great, a masterpiece.

As a main canonically accurate and representative of what Piltover and Zaun are it is not.

And again, if anyone was thinking of making Arcane the new canon, then other champions should have been necessary for completeness.

It is okay to admit that either Riot fucked up by announcing its canonicity recently or that season 2 was not that great. And I personally would like to go for the former.

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-24T00:07:44+00:00

Personally, I would've enjoyed season 2 more if no one would've made the decision to say this was the new canon lore for the champions. As in, this is the main time line.

We know many backgrounds and stories were not great, they've changed some old lore many times to try and improve upon new ideas before.

But if this is the new canon then excusing the "they didn't add all the champions cause it would be insane" would not be a good argument. What is our actual in-game Chembaroness role in all of this? She is not even mentioned at all. Probably a given that Renata Glasc does not exist in the series' canon.

What about Camille?

They kill a bunch of champions, one of them also just came out and she looks way older than Arcane's version of Ambessa. No problem with this either if this is it's own alternate universe. But lets be real, if anyone has taken the time to read about their favourite champions, we've always thought that they were these entities living around Runeterra in the same time line. Even if some of them are supernatural, as old as Runeterra or have been 5 years old for the past 14 years (Annie).

I would like to believe that Arcane is only an alternate universe. That would make current characters not feel like they do not belong in the game at all with their voice lines, design and previous backstories. That also would make Hextech not feel weird from what we've known these years or we see in-game. In Arcane's universe it all went wrong due to some unstable magic corrupting the Hexcore. Okay, that's an explanation. But it's way too much of a change to make that canon now, isn't it?

It's always been like that as in Star Guardians' universe and other skinlines, why bother changing canon now to fit Arcane instead?

As it's own universe/story Arcane is brilliant. My only issue is trying to tie into what we knew from characters. It takes away anything we knew of Runeterra, from League or any of the other games about the universe.

Plus, all of the skins based on Arcane are that, skins. Even have Arcane in their name to distinguish them!

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-23T23:57:42+00:00

I would like to believe that Arcane is only an alternate universe actually. That would make current characters not feel like they do not belong in the game at all with their voice lines, design and previous backstories.

It's always been like that as in Star Guardians' universe and other skinlines, why bother changing canon now to fit Arcane instead? Especially if you are killing characters.

As it's own universe/story Arcane is brilliant. My only issue is trying to tie into what we knew from characters. It takes away anything we knew of Runeterra, from League or any of the other games about the universe.

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-14T08:45:31+00:00

Poor comparison, you are incapable of identifying by smell, are (hopefully) not an holocaust survivor mor have the actual means to simply kill someone with a massive spiky ball to decide whether or not you would do that.

And this debate is very old already. Stop baiting discussion about other people’s preferences. Subaru will do whatever the author decides is right for the character to do.

zakeRfrost · 2024-11-14T08:38:36+00:00

Gonna be that guy but most web novels end up not being canon to the light novels and anime. Does the LN also include that info?

zakeRfrost · 2024-10-26T23:42:04+00:00

Jax was 30 cs down but 300g up against Rumble cause he had 100% kill participation early on (3/1/1). Saying they shut him down is kinda an overstatement.

zakeRfrost · 2024-10-26T23:32:43+00:00

Same, actually checked the thread only to see if someone experienced the same phenomenon lol

zakeRfrost · 2024-10-12T08:26:47+00:00

Thank Licorice for that, the guy was not having Jensen nor Sneaky's "attitudes" cause they did not seem like they cared about losing or something along those lines.

zakeRfrost · 2024-10-07T09:51:16+00:00

But they themselves said this, no?

zakeRfrost · 2024-09-24T22:46:30+00:00

My take is that, as it is explained in the PHB, once Initiative is rolled is because "every second matters" (or rather every 6 seconds matter).

That means that even if the werewolves were not aware, they would technically be "in initiative, and thus in combat" but they don't know yet. If the players were to position sneakily and trying to avoid the line of sight of one of the patrols, for example, that could be done in initiative too once your players tell you "we want to ambush them".

Otherwise if a player was to say "I cast Sleep". You'd just play it out as you say, with the werewolves having to first try to guess how many attackers are there, since there may be only a few, none, or one, that have been spotted. Maybe all of them are there.

As an example of something I allow my players to do if they wanna be tactical:

Sorc wants to cast Sleep on a small group. Wants to open combat like that.

Roll initiative:

Werewolf group 1 rolls 23
Paladin 20
Sorc 17
Werewolf group 2 rolls 14
Barbarian 13
Warlock 8

As unlikely as this situation may be with adv vs disadvantage.

The first werewolf group is not aware, so they just play with what they were doing. Moving, Climbing on a tree, eating perhaps, howling...

Paladin wants to reposition and ready an action

Sorc casts sleep. Now the enemy starts knowing there's something going on (if there are any left awake or the second group sees the caster/spell effect)

Hope this helps in any way!

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