D&D and Tabletops RPGs V7: Yes you can talk about tabletops other than D&D - Games

Sure why not. It can't hurt to try.

Still no PMs, bleah. I'll link it here for 30 minutes then pull it. EB&MI

Question, do y’all prefer campaigns that are short and sweet and more focused on quick encounter style gameplay or more sloggy character/story driven ones? I run the latter and a friend does the former and I’m trying to get a feel for strengths and weaknesses.

You'd need to ask your players for a concrete answer But personally, I couldn't give a shit about combat and much prefer exploring the world someone else has taken the time to create, I want to see new sights and experiences rather than slaughter new people

Completely agree. Learning about character's stories and actively participating in whatever backstory tragedy is catching up to them is great. We cut out random encounters in our D&D game because they slog the game down and don't really add anything to the experience besides...experience. Even then, we're doing milestone leveling.

For me combat only only feels good when its earned or when we've screwed up and run out of options and we have to think fast, in my campaign I've been having about 1 combat section per long rest and I can't imagine it being too fun once we've run out of our weird abilities/spells to make it hectic (That being said my reservationist brain still has me keep some thing back for the 'but what if I need it' compulsion)

anyone watch non critical role dnd videos? for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5vWBPCrl0

Someone mentioned CR now I need to get this off my chest. here comes the Rant: I nor anyone in our group can't even watch CR (Critical Role) videos anymore because one of my players completely ruined it for our us. He WANTS our group to BE CR and he wants ME to be Matt Mercer and he used to never shut up about it. Every day we all gathered for our DND he'd come right in with the latest news from CR, "Misha did something wrong" "grog was so funny" "Matt Mercer did this, you should do it too!" It pissed us off to no end, because he was disappointed we couldn't be that group. we where all new to DND, CR had years of experience Only a couple of us where comfortable roleplaying our characters, CR are LITERALLY voice actors who do that for a living. And guess what, it was our moaner who was the "THAT GUY" Who refused to roleplay and create characters with depth. Our very same Dragonborn monk. Rant over.

Get rid of this person or tell them to stop having unreasonable demands. It's supposed to be a unique experience in each game, if that fool can't recognize that, DnD ain't the right game for him.

I kinda hate how CR has become this sort of standard for what DnD games should be like for some people. CR is more like a theatrical performance of DnD made for the audience, rather than the players. Real DnD should whatever works best for the group you're playing with. And truth be told, I can't bear to watch or listen to CR because to me it's just so long and boring when you're not someone actively participating in a tabletop RPG.

https://www.reddit.com/r/DMAcademy/comments/a999sd/how_do_i_beat_the_matt_mercer_effect/eclht66 Matt Mercer himself actually posted some advice on this topic a few months back

At the end of the day, you need to tell your players that they get back what they give. Matt Mercer's games are so good because the players invest so much effort into their characters backstories and personalities. If most GM's had the players that critical role had, they would be at least half as good a GM as Mercer. If, when making your characters, the PCs give the GM just a half-page of backstory, the game would be way more fun for everyone.

My recommendation is always to directly send those kinds of people the post that Matt Mercer himself made (that Liem posted above).

I'm not crazy about natural weapons being the best of both worlds right? If I have a tabaxi monk ranger, I can use the claws to do not only slashing damage as a monk weapon under unarmed strike but also buff with zephyr strike because it's a weapon attack?

Unarmed attacks are not weapon attacks, but if your GM lets you do it, why not?

Unarmed Strikes are Melee Weapon Attacks, but not Melee Weapons, so yes they work with zephyr strike, since it applies to "weapon attack rolls". That spell (and others like it) only apply to One weapon attack, so it's not particularly better on unarmed strikes than on any other type of attack. Unarmed strikes have lower damage (even with tabaxi) than real weapons, but Monks make more attacks with them than normal through Martial Arts, which is where their damage comes from.

Today on Dnd, when i was attacking some enemy from a 150 Feets /45 meters cliff: I'v done 4 damage (1d8) with my crossbow. He threw a rock, critical hit, got knocked and fell down the cliff for 47 damage (15d6). https://giant.gfycat.com/ReadyTallEquestrian.webm

Could hear our DM's heart break when we unanimously said that we didn't want to continue Rise of Tiamat. We've spent 7 months playing it and we're making painfully slow progress. It's come to the point where unless he railroads us we have no way of continuing. Instead our game now has turned into us attempting to own a tavern and do one shots and small adventures from there.

I forgot zephyr only allows for one attack per turn. Okay lets say someone is kind and wants to touch my claws with holy weapon, the claws are a natural weapon and the spell requires the weapon to be blessed. Can I do this to the extent of buffing flurry of blows? I haven't finished my session with that adventure, but so far there's old lore which exists to spice up the adventure hooks. I tried looking up without spoiling the story and Tome of the Dragons is the bible for the cult, yet no stats exist so convert that from 2nd to 5e. Then there's draconomicon from 2nd which is also a book around the same time which can be made into a side B story with the cult or character. Then there's from the giant patron Hiata which always rubs it in her bother's face about the comment of not doing anything during the 1000 year war. And not sure if he's in there for how hell is involved but the general in the first layer of hell might make a deal could change the nature of the game. I don't know if the masks matter in getting to prevent tiamat's rise. Maybe have a change of events where get one of the essential pieces and run away with it buy playing the ghost of the saltmarsh when it comes out? It sucks that you're in that position.

I dunno about the rest of the rise of tiamat but hoard of the dragon queen was a giant turd for my party. It was terribly written and balanced.

No. Your "natural weapons" are not Weapons per the mechanics, and holy weapon only works on weapons proper. You make melee weapon attacks with them, but they're not weapons. Things like hunter's mark work, because it activates on weapon attacks, but things like magic weapon don't, because its cast on a weapon.

My group also quit Rise of the Tiamat. I think we got finished with the first book when I went "I don't wanna do this no more," and all the other players agreed. Everything was so railroad-y and senseless. The in-game reasons for doing things just didn't make any sense and we only followed along with the plot for a long time because we knew he couldn't improv his way out of a paper sack.

Okay question, I want you to put yourselves in a player's mindset for this. Main quest involves making a pilgrimage to "X" number of temples to do a thing, then not-earth is saved. First temple (and closest) the players have to go to is sealed off by royal decree. The king had 7 sons They're all shit princes and mooch off their father (King) King decreed that the line of succession is null and void, and for the sake of the kingdom, only the most worthy of the prince's will take the throne. To make sure of this, the throne room was sealed by blood magic. Only those of royal blood can open that throne room (and the temple) The King said "fuck off no one goes in until I have a decent heir to the throne." He then rudely died, leaving the kingdom ruler less. The players, to get to the first temple, have to find a Prince they think would be a good king And once he's selected to rule by the party, he unseals the throne room, temple is now open to them. The seven prince's are based on the 7 sins (a fact I'm not hiding from the players) So there's a gluttonous Prince, a wrathful Prince, a lustful Prince etc etc But they also have a number of redeemable qualities too. The wrathful Prince is generous, the gluttonous Prince is honest.. As a player, how would you feel about this?

Be prepared for the players to go to the lustful prince immediately just for the laughs

I think the more salient thing is how honest the player would be in steering their character to a specific affinity or sympathy, especially if strongly aligned.

Yes, I have accepted and accounted for that prince.

Hey so for the past month i have just started getting into being a dm, and having a good time with it! Been running a altered datk hearesy based ruleset for a “Hotline Miami” Theme’d campagin. So far it’s been a journey of me writing like 15 pages of notes and story beats for each session, and then maybe a quarter of them being hit due to the players doing things i didn’t think about but I adapt to. It’s super fun to see how they twist the story in unexpected ways. Anyways, i came here to ask, hows some ways to make fun combat twists for a moderen-ish setting (1987). Cause thats they only issue i feel so far.. I do let them get creative where if a player near like a pool table asks if he can grab a cue ball and chuck it i’ll just say “roll for it” :V

That's an great start, I've always been told when DM'ing that you should try to always take "Well you can't do that, but you can do this" style of ruling so opting to ask for a roll instead of just outright saying "No" automatically puts you into better than average DM'ing skill. Keep it up I say.

Knowing the princes personally is going to make a huge difference. If they only meet one through whatever circumstances lead up to their meeting, they'll most likely go with that one unless he's completely unlikeable.

What's the longest, most convoluted games you guys have been a part of? I was looking through my folders of stuff for campaigns and realized that my tabletop group has been playing several campaigns for 6+ years. Almost all of them have been rebooted or retconned one or more times. I think it's a sign that we like our characters too much to just let them go.