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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.

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?

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?

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

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.

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!

Hey folks,

Some of you might have seen my regular Friday's encounter posts that I share on this sub.

Today I want to announce that the tool I use for creating these and my own homebrew monsters is now freely accessible. Some features (creating stuff so there's a reference to an owner) require a login which is realized over Patreon, but almost nothing requires an active subscription or even following me on Patreon.

Find it on foeforge.win or Patreon

Full feature list:

• D&D and Daggerheart support

No Account required:

• Search filters for CR, Type, Size, etc,...
• Print summary Flash cards with condition trackers, initiative, hp, notes,...
• Compare up to five monsters next to each other
• encounter builder with automatic CR budgets, random generation, suggestions of fitting allies
• difficulty assessment (beta feature) that goes into more detail than just xp budgets (party dpr vs monster health and vice versa for example)
• encounter objectives and events for mixing up stuff
• Featured content (encounters, monsters) that's being posted regularly here and on my Patreon, accessible up to six weeks for free users

Free account required:

• Copy or create monsters for your private use or for sharing with everyone
• Auto scaling features (upscale or downscale CR for basic properties like HP, AC, ability mods)
• Tactical role (skirmishes, soldier, etc) and power modifiers (solo, minion, standard) to distinguish monsters
• Automatic CR calculation and basic attack hit and damage suggestions
• Add attacks or features from other monsters in the library
• Link monsters to each other for fitting suggestions in the encounter builder
• Environments, taken from daggerheart, that describe a difficulty, challenges, fitting monsters (still in an early form)
• Import monsters from foundry or other json formats

• Generate daggerheart adversaries from D&D monsters (baseline stats, some suggestions)

• Export data to Foundry is the only thing I have left as a subscriber bonus feature, everything else is available for free

Probably some stuff that nobody besides me needs and that I've just forgotten about.

I'd love if some of you would take the time and check it out. It's in active development and has become a valuable tool for me personally, so here's hoping it can help some of you as well with prep. If you find a bug or have suggestions, feel free to leave them here.

Monks. I love monks

So I've been trying to finally gather my friends to play for 2 years at this point, and today it finally happened!

I was both really excited and worried to DM, especially considering it was everyone's first time and also the fact that I procrastinated doing some of the prep, but I think it turned out... fine?

I had one player who was super excited to play, and she convinced basically all the rest of the group to join, so I was worried they won't be invested. And I'm not exactly sure if it turned out this way or not, like, it did seem during the game like some people were just trying to get it over with, but then at the end I asked the group about their opinions, and everybody said it was fire and they'd happily play for several hours more if not for the other plans, so I'm not sure about that.

And also I've got a question for more experienced DMs out there - how much direct speech do you use in your games? I feel that I should've done it way more than I did, but at the same time I'm still not very confident about roleplaying NPCs, partially because I'm not doing any voices at all, and have no previous experience with adding expression to my speech. So again, how do you deal with direct speech at your table, and what general advices could you offer to a newbie like me?

P.S. Sorry for any possible mistakes, English isn't my first language :p

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?

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. 🫶🏻