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Ah, travelers! We don't get many such as you in these parts, not since the Marquis' men took control of the pass. I suppose you're wondering why you can't post images or links on this Fifthday?

Thursdays are Text-post Only Days on /r/DnD. We're disabling picture and link posts for 24 hours to encourage discussion posts.

We originally began this trial about six months ago and the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've personally enjoyed a lot of the conversations that have sprung up on these days (and a smarter mod would have bookmarked some of them to use as examples* in this post).

As of now we're planning on keeping the experiment running indefinitely. We're always looking for feedback, so please let us know of your experience. Have you been enamored with a discussion post that arose one Thursday? Have you mourned having to wait one more day to see your comic update? We welcome all takes.

The switch is still happening manually, so it will happen around about midnight Eastern US time. If anyone is aware of a way to automate the process, please message the mods.

Perhaps you could discuss this...we've heard tale of a path through the eastern ridge. If such a trail exists we could circumvent the Marquis' blockade and supply this rebellion. Won't you help us, strangers!?

* The first Thursday after making this post, someone posts the most classic question imaginable. This is what it's all about.

GinnyDi posted a video about player x DM contracts that she inspired herself to do after seeing Aabria doing it. Explaining it as quick as possible:

When the moment ask for it, when your roll will either cause the biggest impact narrativaly or when you already failed, Aabria will ask you "What would you give me for you roll to be a sucess?" or "How many NPCs are you willing to sacrifice for X thing?". I watched this today and I was like "cool, I need to test it sometime.

I didn't expected the sometime to be so early. I'm running CoS to my players and the today's encounter was VERY clearly supposed to make them run. Last session they had a hard time killing 2 werewolves. Today there were FOUR.

Even then they decided to stand their ground. Round 1, one player was already unconscious and another one was at half HP. It was going to be a TPK. And the funniest part is that the CoS:R itself tells you during Session 0 to warn your players that "Some fights are impossible to win. That's by design. Sometimes running isn't an option. It's the option." (which I did)

Well... my players didn't get the memo and after 2 rounds they were full on desperation mode. One of them decided to try persuading the werewolves to let them leave using the fact that he was infected with lycanthropy. Instead of asking for a Persuasion check, I just put my best scary DM voice and said:

"Kayron... what do you offer me for your persuasion to succeed?"

He thought for a few seconds and answered:

"I offer that I won't cure it through easy means like magic or clerics. I'll only get rid of it through a narratively satisfying way."

I just said "Deal." Not gonna lie... for a brief moment I felt like Aabria.
They were saved by this, but now I'm gonna start thinking of ways to do a good "Werewolf Cure Arc" lol

My group has been playing dnd for almost 3 years now. And these people are my friends. But we only play dnd when the whole group is together. And sometimes that can mean we don’t play for over two months at a time. I’ve tried to convince them that it’s ok if one of us isn’t there, that many group keep going and catch the missing person up next game day.

I get that people have lives and that’s fine. But if one person misses the day we just don’t play. Sometimes we don’t even meet up.

And I being unreasonable in think that it’s ok to have a player missing the game or no?

Commission work : Mr. Boatswain-Athreon

Mr. Boatswain is a beholder twisted into the vessel of the dead dragon god Athreon. His spider-like body sprouts scaled necks with twin draconic heads. The central eye burns with divine corruption, while eyestalks writhe like serpents. It is a formidable opponent that surprised many adventurers in the great throne hall of Athreon itself. If you intend to face it, be well prepared!

Spent all week making what I thought was a sick dungeon with puzzles, bosses, lore... and my group somehow decided the shady guy selling fish in the market was the real villain.

Now I'm over here improvising an entire fish mafia because I can't say no

What's the weirdest NPC your group accidentally turned into the main character?

I’ve discovered, after nearly two years, that my players always choose to go left or pick the left option if they have to make a decision involving direction.

“The First One” is the other default response when they are faced with a choice

I’m not sure whether to train them out of it by making that be the worst choice each time or use it to make each session run for just the right amount of time.

Hello all 👋🏻

I (33M) always wanted to play DnD but felt I never had the time. About 6 months ago I got with some very close friends I have known since elementary school and we started to dabble in DnD. The core group of us are 4 dudes, all almost the exact same age. We grew up together.

It all started with a couple of us joining a party via invitation from my neighbor. My neighbor was DMing and he knew we wanted to get our feet wet. 2 of our core group joined, however the neighbor’s life quickly became very busy and the party disbanded.

At this point I was already fully invested. I had purchased several books and was daydreaming up characters and adventures. I feel that I was the most upset when the neighbor called it quits.

I reached out to my core friends and asked if they wanted to start something. They seemed very excited, so I organized a playroom for us at my house. This room is also the room that my wife works from home in, and our toddler plays in while my wife works. I felt I needed the bring that up, because the room can get really chaotic… so I have to extensively organize and clean the room every single time we want to play DnD.

Whenever we gather I have to move our big table, clean up, bring speakers in for ambient music, operate color changing lights, unpack all of our maps/minis and books. I even usually provide quality snacks and interesting beverages like expensive meads/wines. None of them wanted the responsibility of being the Dungeon Master, so I decided I would learn. I have purchased a ton of books. I am very passionate about what we do, so I don’t mind doing it…

However I feel alone most of the time.

I brainstorm adventures, characters, villains… and when I ask for feedback from any of my close friends, it’s like they don’t care. They are thankful for the finished product, I’m sure they enjoy playing and drinking my expensive mead, but I don’t feel appreciated at all. I will hint that someone else should bring drinks sometime, and it happened one time. I will text my players information about a game topic to get feedback, and 3 out of 3 of them will ignore my text. We schedule for a 4 hour session, and 9/10 times they want to leave early because they have other plans.

I just don’t really know if I can handle this situation much longer. I have spoken to them in person about how I feel, and they responded well. They are all kind and fun to be around… but it’s like once we are not in the room together, they are too busy to respond (which is funny because I’m the only one with a child).

Does anyone have any advice for me? I’m honestly pretty upset about this situation. I feel like I’m really excited about something that they are just casually passing through. 😔

Maybe I just need to be told that it’s hopeless and I should just quit.
Do my players need inspiration, maybe a kick in the ass? Or am I the problem?

Edit: my friends do like DnD. They have played it more than I have in the past.

🫶🏻 I greatly appreciate everyone’s feedback! I am reading every comment and just want to say thank you. I need to accept that my players may not match my energy level and that’s okay. I am happy they are having fun and that should be enough. I might find another group in the future if I desire deeper engagement. For now I am thankful to spend time with my friends, and I might just tone down my enthusiasm and not get my expectations so high. 🫶🏻

Sprig is part of a Curse of Strahd campaign. She's a massive bookworm who is particularly interested in the history and arcana of Barovia, especially after being isekai'd there via the mists. She's generally well-intentioned, but she's not above thievery when it comes to growing her library of books. This thievery has gotten her in some hot water as of late, as she tried to steal from a certain swamp hag in Berez. Her fighting style of choice is a combination of the magic she's learned and a more goblin-y, scrappy dual scimitar style.

I wanted her to be cute, but in a sort of ugly way, and still decidedly goblin-y (no shade at all the great art of hot goblins).

Made in Blender and Substance 3D Painter.

(Also I rolled an 18 in INT and 16 in DEX yippee!)

Ever thought there are many cool spells in DnD that you cant use as a DM, because its just pain as a player? Im talking about all the save-or-suck spells, like Hold Person, Hideous Laughter and so on.

I wanna take a look at a special one, "Banishment". As a player, getting banished means you have to hope your party breaks the bad guys concentration quickly or you will spend multiple rounds doing nothing. Which could mean watching the others play for 30-60 minutes.

When the concentration breaks you pop back up and that was that. But what happens in those rounds where you are out? You are banished to a demiplane and incapacitated. But that doesnt mean you cant move or talk. And thats the part i want to look at. To use Banishment as a tool to still give that player that wasnt allowed to be part of the combat to have something special. So here is how i would do it. When the banishment finallly breaks, we take a look at what happened to the banished player before he comes back. Ive come up with a few options of planes, these are mainly designed as a narrative tool to enhance the story and potentialy forshadow stuff that might happen. I would have the player roll a dice and see where he goes.

1. The Yard of Mourning

"Surrounded by fog you land on a moist field. Standing up you cant see far, but you realise you are surrounded by gravestones."

The player can look around and find gravestones with names they know, NPCs and friends they lost and potentially of people he doesnt know is dead.

1. The Banishing Cabinet

"You find yourself inside of a room, the interior looks like a tavern. You dont see a door on any wall, but behind the counter is a kobold washing a glas. Over a stool at the bar floats a beholderkin, while an undead fairy dragon sits on the counter, all looking at you"

An Inn where anyone anywhere getting banished might end up for a moment. You could do anything with it, have a chat with the barkeeper or any other creature there, maybe share a legend or myth.

1. The Painted World

"You land on a white floor. The space in all directions seems endless. As you stand up, you see colours around you coming to live like animated paints. They form and paint pictures of places and people, changing fluently."

If a player looks at a picture, he will see the history of what he is looking at, like a timelapse. It could be the town where the players have spend their past time, starting as it was build centuries ago, forming the way it looks now, maybe even a scene of a party the players where a part of. Then the scene turn, the town is burning and the shadow of a dragon flies above it. A litte forshadow for future events.

1. Sphere in another Plane

Concept idea is that the player flies inside a capsule like demiplane through another bigger plane, like the plane of fire, a hell or divine plane, whatever. He will see interesting things and might get forshadows for something upcoming. Of course, there should be a connection to the campaign, maybe you plan to go to the plane and the player now gets an overlook over the enemies lair or something like that.

You could probably expand upon these and find more. The idea is to paint an interesting scene for the player thats out and drop some hints or forshadows for the story, or explore things and secrets the players didnt yet know. Logically the scene will be longer, depending on the time the banishment was held up. And you might say, that disrupts the on going combat, and that is true, but it also makes sense, if you get ready for a fight and are suddenly taken out of your reality and shoved into a totally different one, you wont come back and be like "now that i can finallly do something, i attack". But thats just my thoughts.

What do you guys think? And if you like the idea, id be happy to hear your ideas for banishing places.

Hey folks, my commissions for pixel character cards are open, DM if interested!

Here's a little backstory for this character:

Flame is a human fighter and the daughter of a blacksmith, raised in the heat of the forge and the rhythm of the hammer. Before his death, her father poured a fragment of his soul to the blade as the metal erupted in cold blue fire a final promise that she would never face the world alone. After his death, she took the sword and left their quiet village behind, not merely to see the world, but to give her father's lingering spirit purpose, seeking out battles where the helpless needed a blade and letting the blue flame guide her toward a destiny forged in love and loss.

I wrote this character as part of the campaign I'm running, my players came across her as they teamed up to help a village from a cursed plague.

I am playing a Shadow Monk in D&D 2024. At level 6, I get the Shadow Step feature. It lets me teleport from dim light or darkness into another place with dim light or darkness.

My question is: Does a person's shadow count as dim light? Can I teleport into an enemy's shadow during a sunny day?