IMO I wouldn't take out the coven that way. It feels too much like it's happening off-screen. I'd do something where the players have more of a decision. Something like "We helped the prince, not knowing (but maybe having suspicions) that he'd release the bio-agent. Now the coven has left, and is pissed off at the party".
Also dead people/groups are less interesting than live but now an enemy.
My son (9) is obsessed with Stranger Things. He wants me to play Dungeons and Dragons. I'm DM'ing a game with him, a friend his age, and that friend's father this Friday. Of two kids and two adults, I'm the only one who's played a TTRPG. The other three only know the scenes from Stranger Things.
I haven't played since 3rd Edition. I bought the D&D Essentials Kit to learn the new edition rules. My son's friend got the Stranger Things intro set. We're going to use that. Based on a video review, the ST set really helps. It has pre-made characters, quick reference cards, and other things that the Essentials Kit lacks.
What tips can you offer? What do you think of these tips that I've found?
Pre-made characters. The Stranger Things set has pre-made characters. Essentials Kit doesn't. Even if we didn't have the ST set, I'd ask the kids to choose from a list of pre-made characters. That saves them from having to learn character creation.
Keep it short. How short? A pair of 4th graders will get bored in a marathon 6 hour session. How short should I go? Keep it under an hour? Run it for 2-3 hours (a typical session)?
Start with a dungeon crawl? New players often have trouble role-playing their characters, but everybody enjoys moving minis around a board. Should I skip the tavern, the mysterious stranger, the bounty, etc., and just skip to "You've arrived at the dungeon. Now open the door."
No magic for PCs? Someone recommended leaving out spellcasters. It let them learn the basic rules without adding spells. Your thoughts?
What else to skip? Are there rules sections that you just ignore for new and/or young players? Do you ignore some mechanics for the first few games?
One other item: If I have the 2019 Essentials Kit, and the 2025 Stranger Things set, is it worth getting the 2024 Heroes Of The Borderlands set?
Or (assuming they like it) should I proceed to the holy trinity (Players Guide/DM's Guide/Monster Manual)?
I'm assuming you are talking about 5e. I learned 5e by playing Adventurers' League at a local gaming store (I had played 1e and 2e back in the day). There are some simplifications for AL but I can't remember what they are and I don't think there were that many. 5e is very easy to learn, though, because the rules are simple and consistent, which was the point. Character creation might be a bit much learning to play because of so many options so the premade characters is probably a good idea. If they like it then they can get into character creation later... if you have the books, they can study the characters and whatnot on their own.
Honestly, 5e is so simple and straightforward I'm not sure which mechanics I'd leave out... spell casting may be a good idea mostly because that just adds a lot of choice to each player's turn but other than that, there aren't that many skills (again, by design) as each skill covers a fairly broad description of actions. There are some variations for the GM, though... for example the Intimidation skill normally uses Charisma as the skill modifier but as GM, you can allow something like Strength (the character is using their massive muscles and breaking a board over their knee saying that's what they are going to do to the NPC's leg to scare them, for example), but that's mostly the GM interpreting what the player is wanting to do and deciding the mechanics to achieve it... not necessarily something the player has to worry with.
I think that you'll pick it up easily enough and be successful.
I did a search on the differences of AL vs. standard play and this is what AI had to say... it's mostly about record keeping, progression (checkpoints vs. keeping up with XP), loot distribution rules, and character generation... which is what I remember, now.
Core Differences:
Character Creation: AL enforces strict rules. Players must use the standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) or point buy—dice rolling for ability scores is not allowed. Backgrounds are flexible, but only one additional resource (like a homebrew feature) is permitted.
Progression System: Instead of tracking experience points (XP), AL uses Advancement Checkpoints (ACP). A 4-hour module grants 4 ACP. Leveling up requires accumulating ACP (4 for Tier 1, 8 for Tiers 2–4), enabling consistent, predictable advancement.
Treasure & Magic Items: Magic items are not awarded immediately. Instead, players earn Treasure Points (1 per hour in Tiers 1–2, 2 per hour in Tiers 3–4). Once enough points are earned, the item can be purchased for the character, preventing imbalance and ensuring fairness.
Gold: Gold is only awarded upon leveling up, representing net income after expenses. Detailed tracking of earnings and spending is not required.
DM Authority: AL DMs cannot make rulings or change rules. All decisions must be based strictly on the official rulebooks. Rule 0 (DM's discretion) does not apply—if a rule exists, it must be followed; if not, the action is not allowed.
Game Structure: Sessions are self-contained or part of linked modules. Characters can join or leave mid-adventure, and the game is designed to be consistent across tables—a character should face the same challenges regardless of location or DM.
Tracking: Players use an Adventure Log Sheet to record XP, gold, items, and encounters. This is honor-based, with no centralized tracking.
I've heard good things about Heros of the borderlands, but the physical version isn't worth the cost ($50 vs $15 for digital).
I'd keep things simple, skip the "meet at the tavern" portion. Keep at least some Role Playing, but make it more comedic and outlandish.
I'd also have some spell casters as option. IMO, a lot of the complexity with spell casters is with level progression, and choosing the right spells for the day. Pre-gen removes both of those hurdles. I'd still avoid druids because they are pretty complex.
I've heard good things about Heros of the borderlands, but the physical version isn't worth the cost ($50 vs $15 for digital).
I'd keep things simple, skip the "meet at the tavern" portion. Keep at least some Role Playing, but make it more comedic and outlandish.
I'd also have some spell casters as option. IMO, a lot of the complexity with spell casters is with level progression, and choosing the right spells for the day. Pre-gen removes both of those hurdles. I'd still avoid druids because they are pretty complex.
The physical option is a great board game level contained experience. Lots of maps, special character sheets and ability cards, etc. the analysis I saw was that it’s easily worth the price as an overall product I think?
Somehow all of this escaped my notice. "I'll explain just in case you're not one of the millions of people who saw this back in 2019..." Yeah, that would be me.
We played our second session (first proper, full session) this weekend. I posted a recap on EN World post #336 of the commentary thread. It went pretty well. I’m not fond of the prep it takes, but the combat was really fun. There was a nice dynamism to it. I think you definitely want to have different types of opponents to mix things up. The players also spent a shitton of Fabula Points. Between three players, they spent at least nine. Plus the two Ultima Points spent, they ended up getting enough XP in one session to go up a level.
Good news/bad news for the Traveller campaign. Good news is that the drop dead date is now on June instead of May. Bad news is everyone’s travel schedule has picked up. We didn’t have a session three weeks ago because I was in Georgia, the Captain’s player has been out the last two, and the Marine and Pilot were out last week. Everyone should be back this week in time for the finale of the Shadows of Sindal adventure arc. It’s been interesting to run, as it has probably forced the players to consider planetary politics, rather than regional, more thoroughly than before. But when you are trying to stop a biochemical attack on an unwelcome and unpopular* group on a planet with city states pointing nukes at each other while Imperial and Aslan clan capital ships are in staring daggers at each other and then planets occupants, then another planetary system’s military gets involved to support a coup amidst all this, it’s kind of natural I would think. There is a lot more to it than that, but that’s kind of the situation they fond themselves in currently.
The Aslan colonists in the adventure are assholes from a human point of view. They’re answerable to no one but themselves on whatever planet they land on, and if the locals mess with them, a warship from the colony’s clan will show up to perform a “security action.” Most worlds either have no viable response to this or don’t wish to risk escalation. Some colonies will deign to trade with locals, but most are isolationist and evict anyone off of “their” territory, sometimes lethally. Needless to say, this makes the Aslan incredibly unpopular and why the biochemical attacks aren’t really widely condemned. Those that do usually either do so out of fear of a response from the Heirate or look to the region’s historical use of the weapons and the state of their planets due to that.
Highlights of the past two sessions:
The first pirate raid without the Captain. Zhuekae was back in charge of the Anne while the Captain was giving deposition for the legal case against GeDeCo (the corporation whose local branch were a bunch of doomsday cultists, more or less.) The PC’s , particularly the Engineer and Gunner, advised her but they made it clear they understood the Captain put her in charge of the Anne. Anyhow, they tracked a escorted Aslan convoy, ran by a clan giving the PC aligned outcasts families problems, into the tightly secured (for the region) Pourne system. The idea being to undermine confidence in the system’s security situation and try to open them up to association talks with the nascent Sindal Alliance. Failing that, they could pressure trade traffic into diverting more towards Drinax or Hilfer systems. The Anne, Harrier, Kestrel* and three auxiliary ships posing as civilian tramp freighters bounced the convoy and made off with ~580 tons of cargo and one of the small 500 ton freighters. To drive the point home, the Anne and her two raiders successfully evaded sensor detection of the pursuing system defense ships while disabling them one by one. The boarding action was more exciting than normal, as the ship was carrying 187 tons (about 200 head) of livestock, and understandably reacted poorly to the boarding action. The PC’s managed to take the ship and calm the Space Lizard Cows before they lost too many to an enclosed stampede turned meat grinder.
One of the two older Sindal Empire Harrier type ships (the Harrier herself being a Drinax built reproduction of the type after the Empire’s collapse) recovered from the lost deep space station. Her sister, Peregrine, is still being refitted and repaired.
Second highlight was the Battle of Ghourmount on Paal, where the PC’s (minus the Captain), 12 of their marines, and 12 untrained Remnants* made a adhoc militia for a last stand against 185 berserk Aslans afflicted by the biochemical weapon. It played out like a Helldivers 2 Eradicate mission, with the Anne’s military gigs acting like Eagle strike aircraft and the Anne the Super Destroyer. After that night of fun and excitement, they swept the Aslan colony that formerly housed around 2,000 and found only one survivor: a wailing aslan infant. Doc ultimately took responsibility for the kid’s upbringing after a… Fiesty back and forth a few weeks later with the Coven over what to do with the kid. They gave him the run down on what happens with clanless orphans, he said no, they said that is what Heirate society deems proper, and he gave them a proper dressing down (I had flashbacks to my active duty air force days.) He had a few barbs as well, pointing out what the Administrator’s lot in life would be as a clanless female were it not for what she was doing now. Very out of character for the usually soft spoken and kind Doctor, but the player point out he was the court physician for the Captain’s family before the campaign kicked off, and isn’t the first time he has to correct someone in a position of power over the care of a child. But pretty memorable, for sure. Now there is an aslan infant being raised on board a pirate ship with mixed crew by a 60 something year old** doctor. Should be entertaining.
descendants of the survivors of the orbital bombardment Drinax subjected the planet to after an uprising two or so centuries back.
To be fair, he is on a anti-aging treatment regimen that makes him appear and feel no older than his late 30’s. Expensive as hell, but he feels it is worth it in his post court physician career. King Oleb, for example, is well over a century old and seems no older than his late 50’s. It’s potent stuff.
Last one is when the five available PC’s (The Marine and Pilot went to go pick up the Captain is our canon explanation) went into the biochemical lab. I will admit to playing Far Cry 1 (research and treehouse), STALKER Shadow of Chornobyl (brain scorcher), and watched Aliens to get some inspiration for this bit. It’s an underground bunker where things went very wrong and the PC’s have to contend with not only 4 berserk Aslan, but one who has not yet fully lost her higher functions. So she can still think ahead and knows to do complex task such as opening doors remotely, while still perceiving the PC’s as a threat to her “territory” and receiving the physical stat boost Aslan afflicted with the weapon get (until their metabolism burns out.) The PC’s brought three marines with them, and by the end of it only one survived. One got it by having a security door close on him and another got got by three of the four berserk Aslan. The Engineer had his second near death encounter when the near berserk one got a hold of him, but a favorable injury roles saw most of the damage put on his augmented prosthetic limbs. The Pirate also took a nasty slash from a dew claw when passing a darkened hallway. They spent 5 hours in game clearing the lab and repairing the power and lights to make absolutely certain nothing else was waiting to ambush them. From there they looted the lab’s database, got the name of the ship executing the attacks as well as all the different variants of the weapon. They also gathered up samples of the previous strain, that required it enter the digestive tract via food or water, and the new strain that just left days before, which was a aerosol and even more virulent. This also gave the Doc all he needed to prevent the Aslan crew onboard (and the kid) from getting contaminated. However, it would take possibly years for him to synthesize a vaccine and there was simply no practical cure as it started degenerating the brain irreversibly within 2-6 hours. What they end up doing with all this information is still up in the air. I did note they didn’t attempt to destroy the lab, rather they made the effort to secure it from being entered by anyone else but them.
Good news/bad news for the Traveller campaign. Good news is that the drop dead date is now on June instead of May. Bad news is everyone’s travel schedule has picked up.
The 5e game is going reasonably well. The rules are maybe a little too basic for the team. I'd like to bolt on the 3.5 skills system, but we have one player who is dependent on D&D Beyond.
The biggest issue is reminding one of the players that no, you don't get a bonus action unless your character specifically gets one. Also, you can also only cast one leveled spell per round (unless you are doing weird stuff, like metamagic).
I'm playing an evocation wizard. I'm tempted to dip into Artificer for three levels, mainly to get the armorer subclass. The character is something of a warforged fanboy, and making armor so he can "be one" sounds interesting from a story POV. Mechanically, I don't think it makes sense. Luckily, I don't plan to multiclass until I get to wizard level 6, so I have a while to choose.
The 5e game is going reasonably well. The rules are maybe a little too basic for the team. I'd like to bolt on the 3.5 skills system, but we have one player who is dependent on D&D Beyond.
Many years ago, I tried grafting a 3e-style skill system on 5e. Players spent their points in the same way the default proficiency progression would have given them. It was a waste of time.
I wasn’t sure whether I posted it here. I mentioned it in post #13976, but I posted it on my (now deleted) blog instead of here. I have archival copies of my posts, so I dug it up and stripped it down to just the changes. The only editing I’ve done is formatting for the forum (and I corrected “7th” to “17th”, which was probably a typo).
The Design
When you choose a class and background at 1st level, or when you take certain feats or other options, you normally gain a number of skill proficiencies. Sometimes, you pick your proficiencies from a larger list of skills. All of those skills (both the proficiencies and the lists from which you choose proficiencies) are now known as primary skills. A primary skill is a skill that you can train more easily than other, secondary skills. Note that if you gain the same primary skill from multiple sources, you do not get to choose a replacement primary skill due to the duplication.
You now also gain skill points that you can spend to increase your proficiency in any skill. Spending skill points to increase your proficiency in a skill is known as investing in that skill. You may invest in a skill as long as doing so would neither increase its proficiency bonus to one more than your class’s proficiency bonus for your level nor increase it to more than +6. The first time you invest in a primary skill, it gains a proficiency bonus of +2. For every time after that, the bonus increases by 1. When you invest in a secondary skill, the proficiency bonus increases by ½ from a starting proficiency bonus of +0. You are considered proficient in a skill when its proficiency bonus is +1 or greater. You may not save your skill points to spend them later. Any fractional proficiency bonuses round down as usual.
You start with a number of skill points equal to the number of skill proficiencies you would normally choose or gain at 1st level. Every time you gain a level, you gain additional skill points as indicated below. Should you later take an option that would grain additional skill proficiencies (such as from multiclassing or by taking the Skilled feat), you retroactively gain skill points as if you always had those proficiencies, which must be spent before you complete the process of advancing your character.
4 skill proficiencies → gain one skill point at every level
5 skill proficiencies → gain one skill point at every level and gain an additional skill point at 5th level and every four levels after that
6 skill proficiencies → gain one skill point at every level and gain an additional skill point at 3rd level and every two levels after that
7 skill proficiencies → gain two skill points at every level except for 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels where only one skill point is gained
8+ skill proficiencies → gain one skill point at every level in addition to the skill points you would receive for having four fewer proficiencies (e.g., a character that normally has 8 skill proficiencies would instead gain two skill points at every level)
For example, Shilo creates a barbarian sage named Nathan. Barbarians normally can choose two skill proficiencies from Animal Handling, Athletics, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival. Sages normally gain two skill proficiencies in Arcana and History. Nathan thus has the following primary skills: Animal Handling, Arcana, Athletics, History, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Survival.
Since Nathan would normally start with four skill proficiencies, he instead starts with four skill points. Nathan gains one skill point every time he gains a new level. Shilo decides that Nathan knows a bit about surgery, so she wants to put some of Nathan’s skill points into Medicine. She can do this, but she’ll have to invest at least two points for Nathan to be proficient. She decides to do this and puts the remainder of Nathan’s skill points into Intimidation and Survival. This gives Nathan +2 Intimidation, +1 Medicine, and +2 Survival.
As Nathan gains levels, Shilo can choose to continue investing into these skills, but she can also choose to spread Nathan’s skill points around. As he does, she decides that Nathan likes to sing as he does his work, so she invests two points into Performance, giving him +1 Performance at 3rd level. By the time Nathan hits 6th level, Shilo has also invested two points into Stealth and one more into Survival. This gives Nathan the following skill proficiencies: +2 Intimidation, +1 Medicine, +1 Performance, +1 Stealth, +3 Survival.
The 5e game is going reasonably well. The rules are maybe a little too basic for the team. I'd like to bolt on the 3.5 skills system, but we have one player who is dependent on D&D Beyond.
The biggest issue is reminding one of the players that no, you don't get a bonus action unless your character specifically gets one. Also, you can also only cast one leveled spell per round (unless you are doing weird stuff, like metamagic).
I'm playing an evocation wizard. I'm tempted to dip into Artificer for three levels, mainly to get the armorer subclass. The character is something of a warforged fanboy, and making armor so he can "be one" sounds interesting from a story POV. Mechanically, I don't think it makes sense. Luckily, I don't plan to multiclass until I get to wizard level 6, so I have a while to choose.
~have you considered pathfinder~ lol. Are you playing with 5.14? I though 5.24 added a lot more Bonus Action stuff for most classes.
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We finally got back together for an in person Daggerheart game last night (the big ice/snow storm a few weeks back killed parking, and then I was traveling last scheduled date!). Players wrapped up the "dungeon" I'd prepared with a bunch of interesting choices along the way and now have even more threads they've half sussed out and half decided are of interest to follow up on. When we were doing end of session praises/wishes, one of the players who had been a little sus about things turning into a bit of a "dungeon" actually specifically praised how interesting and meaningful that exploration was, so that made me feel pretty good.
(also they were all like "sorry about ruining what you'd clearly intended to be a big boss fight there at the end but it was so cool how we did that as a series of Tag Team rolls working as a group in a narrative fashion!" and I didn't have the heart to tell them the entire room was a handful of bullet points in my notes with a "lets find out what they do?")
I've been relying heavily on Jeremy Strandberg's guides to building "sites" for Stonetop as I structure stuff out for games like this, since I dont have to worry about mechanics much. In short:
"Regardless of how much you’re prepping vs. improvising, you want your site to tell a story, to be an exciting place to explore, and to present the players with plenty of meaningful decisions."
So I had the story of this being an ancient powerful Magelord's tower, inverted and beneath the earth; and the more recent story of it being a site of cultists of the God of Pain trying to use that ancient magic to tear open a Path between there and elsewhere. Ancient magic ruins are always cool places to explore, and then I mixed in prosaic "present day" stuff like stinking bedrolls, crude wooden stools around ancient perfect stone tables seemingly formed from the floor itself, the reek of chamber pots next to a bathing room with a pool sustained by a bound water elemental...
And just enough alternate routes with different challenges and hints of puzzle type things to make decisions feel meaningful.
Sunday night’s Traveller game had a bit of a mild annoyance. The bot crawlers have gotten so bad that the Traveller wiki was temporarily shut down until a solution could be found. It’s been going down off and on for a few months now, but one of the site’s administrators did make an announcement on Mongoose’s forums that they are working with the company on a fix. Nothing terribly vital, but the wiki is a excellent one-stop shop for planetary information and Traveller Map pulls its information from the wiki as well. Checking just now, it’s still down. Booooo! I meed my quick and easy info so I don’t spend so much time book diving!
The session itself went well. The Captain, Marine, and Pilot’s players marked their return by bunging up an interception of a ship on it’s way to spread the new aerosol variant of the biochemical on the planet of Sagan. They only partially succeeded because the PC’s managed to execute a risky atmospheric boarding via shuttles on the ship’s initial dispersal run. The PC’s are in the process of getting the person responsible for the whole thing, an assassination of an Aslan diplomatic team, and a failed coup on the planet Acis that nearly set off a war with at least one Aslan clan and possibly the Third Imperium. The independent planetary system of Tyr has given “Prince” Ritcher refuge and the players have decided to leverage their fleet to settle the matter. Currently they’re only allow traffic to refuel at the outer most gas giant, but are blockading the rest of the system. Tyr sortied out their fleet, which is an impressive one for the region, but the PC’s fleet proved to be more capable despite a slight numbers disadvantage. So the session ended with the blockade holding and the PC’s planning what to do next. Next session isn’t going to pick up from there, it’s going to be a “flashback episode” as to how and why the three absent PC’s returned in a old 50,000 ton armored cruiser.
Edit: I feel the need to say the published adventure Shadow of Sindal ended with the players exposing Ritcher as the person behind the biochemical weapon attacks and the coup. He gets away as soon as the PC’s start broadcasting from the ship he used to commit the false flag and biochemical attacks from. The players decided they weren’t going to let this one go and we’re back into freeform territory. Thankfully, I had contact with the the absent players while they were away and we have a plan on what the next session is going to be like.
They can be, but Pirates of Drinax is probably the most likely to end up this way. It’s designed as a sandbox campaign with objectives to keep in mind and a few waypoint premade adventures to do as the PC’s and in game time progress. From what I gather, my players have gone much bigger than most groups, or even than the premade adventures really seem to account for. But the goal of the campaign, as written, is to get planets friendly to the PCs and Drinax and to get a fleet large enough to enforce a blockade to get the Heirate and Imperium to recognize the Kingdom of Drinax, and it’s constituent systems, as a independent sovereign territory. From there, the PC’s will be awarded based on how many systems they brought into the fold and the Letter of Marque they recorded at the beginning will be legitimized. So any acts of piracy they committed will be seen as “legal”, though not any atrocities.
edit: Thinking on it, most premade campaigns do get very large in scope. Secret of the Ancients sees the PC’s becoming demigods and the Deepnight Revelations is a multi year journey into the unknown where you encounter, and have to stop, what is effectively the Flood from HALO. The adventures themselves tend to be much smaller in scope and I have seen a lot of GM’s say they limit their own campaigns generally to a single sector at most and keep their Travellers “hungry” (aka: either poor or in copious amounts of debt or both)
Running urban fantasy in genre-appropriate ways: a session that was half a live mic night at a bar/cafe with a whole bunch of flirting intermixed with side hints at badness going down. Oh, and a bunch of sad post-break up smoking (comments of "damn this is getting too real" were said during that scene). So much fun.
It’s always fun watching what players do when they’re playing a temporary character.
“Do you think I could make it a full round (in space) without a suit? Pretty sure that’s how long it would take to get to the other airlock if I use a fire extinguisher for thrust.”
So, to speed things along, we’ve been doing “micro sessions” during the week. It’s just little odds and end jobs that the PC’s send minions to do to help support the main campaign. So we’ll have like a 30 minute scenario me and whoever is available run things through and see what the minions get. Thursday the Pilot, Hobo, Pirate, Gunner and Doctor players take control of five minions to lay the groundwork to normalize relations with the desert planet Hilfer. Hilfer has a serious lack-of-water problem after several moisture collectors and deep space ice miner were taken out by raiders not associated with the PC’s, so the idea was to send in repair teams on a mercy mission and show that the PC’s faction wasn’t all bad. That failed when the Minion team ID’d themselves and planetary ground forces opened up with anti-orbital missiles as Hilfer was largely hostile to the PC’s. The Minions try to negotiate, and the planetary government (such as it is) tells them to F off.
Undeterred, the Minion crew decided that to show their good intentions, they would orbital drop water near the settlements to help alleviate the worsen hydration situation. They determined the most efficient way to do this was to collect comets for ice mining already gathered in the system and put them into a shallow de-orbit into Hilfer. The theory was as the comet skimmed across the atmosphere, the water would evaporate off and allow the smaller, less efficient moisture collectors to gather more water. Once it skipped out of the atmosphere, the PC’s would catch it at it’s apogee, course correct it, and send it down for another flensing run. This also kept the Minions happily out of effective missile range. They picked a 4.4 million ton comet for their first attempt and with some careful calculations and good rolls, used their 400 ton merchant ship to send the comet merrily on its way towards Hilfer. On day 2 of it’s journey, and about 16 hours out from entering atmosphere, Hilfer’s defense force detects the incoming comet. As they don’t have a orbital track of it yet, they naturally begin to panic. The Minion group try to reassure them via radio that it isn’t going to impact, just skim the atmosphere and lose some water (and other material), but they were not believed.
The defense force uncorks the big warheads and proceeds to salvo them at the incoming comet. After the damage and crit rolls were resolved, they managed to reduce it to about 72% of its previous mass and caused the comet to break apart. They also lowered the velocity of the now spreading comet debris cloud, so they effectively had celestial buckshot heading towards the planet. The follow on salvos of decreasing yields did little to lessen the incoming impactors and soon Hilfer was being bombarded by comet fragments moving at interstellar speeds. Good news was that the planet had a total of only about 10,000,000 people on it and most of them had access to orbital bombardment shelters. Bad news is, it still counts as an atrocity even if “only” a few thousand died. The mixed news was that the planetary defense force was still in no shape to shoot at them again when they returned a few weeks later with a emergency aid convoy, but it also left them open to raiders that the Minions had to help fend off.
Thus far, that has been our longest and most exciting “micro” session we’ve had yet.
Edit: oh, and due to the added ice water and cooling from the dust, Hilfer’s water content went up .002%. Small victories.
That...seems like that could have been avoided with a little communication.
"Yeah, guys, we're totally going to sling a comet at your planet, but it's gonna just graze the atmosphere and break off chunks. No, you didn't ask us for this, why are you shooting at it?"
Oh, oops, that's right, they were on the planet''s shit list. But that's even funnier.
Apparently, in the 5e version of Planescape, "exemplars" of their planes get extra resistances, to hearken back to the 2e outsiders stack of resistances and immunities. Note that there's no change to CR, or compensating vulnerabilities or anything like that.
When, in 2e, those outsiders had all those resistances and immunities in the Monster Manual, whether or not they were in the Planescape setting. So far as I can tell, the author felt they had scraped off too many of the old 2e resistances/immunities. This annoys me to no end, even more than 5e normally does.
It’s always fun watching what players do when they’re playing a temporary character.
“Do you think I could make it a full round (in space) without a suit? Pretty sure that’s how long it would take to get to the other airlock if I use a fire extinguisher for thrust.”
We've been doing this in Stonetop for a while now - two PCs are in one location, the other two are elsewhere, so instead of trying to juggle the spotlight we've been filling in with NPCs for the otherwise out-of-scene players. It's been great.
We take a bit of the burden off of the GM, and in exchange we get to either sharpen an existing NPC, or completely reshape what we're given to suit our needs. It's been tons of fun, and a great lens through which to see how each player approaches roleplaying.
One player got to take over her retired character, because they were needed in a plot arc. They've been recklessly pushing limits, to the point of drawing a knife on another player tonight (which I got in the middle of, because I can't very well let my mother stab my aunt while my dead cousin is busy taking my job as the hero). And then there was the inevitable blood magic...
Another, who would normally be playing our paladin equivalent, took the related priest/administrator NPC we established in session 1. Is he dragging a 40something with no real combat abilities into a fight? No. Is he RPing the hell out of her orderly and bossy-by-necessity nature in ways that shape and advance the story? Yes. Did he provoke the above mentioned conflict? Also yes.
Our dour ranger got to play a warrior princess (well, a trained fighter and de facto leader of a powerful family in town. Same thing). The character details said cautious, and boy was he ever. Very thoughtful, but also very effective, and it all felt right.
I got to play a swamp guide, hired to dispose of bodies, burn down houses, and other such dirty work. He led a crew, much like my old marshal character, so that was fun to revisit. Did I read the prepared character details? No. Did I lean into every scene with a terrible accent and block the hell out of the actual PCs based on made up union health and safety rules? Absolutely. Chew that scenery.
Highly recommended way to liven up a narrative campaign - as a bonus, it helped ratchet up the tempo too. Guest star improv at your own table! Aggravate your friends for fun and drama! 10/10, would do again.
How hard could players push as an NPC? Could they drive play in an unexpected direction (even at the PCs’ expense), or was the expectation that they were there more to keep everyone playing with the constraint that the PCs are still the drivers (and the NPCs should, presumably, be entertaining)?
In our case, I'd say that players driving NPCs are given as much agency as they choose to exercise - we're first and foremost a player driven storytelling group, and almost any NPC is a potential PC down the line if we take a liking to them. I think we've generally focused on doing things that feel intuitively in character, feel fun (we play a lot of things for laughs anyway), and push the players driving actual PCs into situations that grow the character. As a group, we're pretty deliberate about separating what we want from what our PCs want, and we frequently choose to see our characters stymied in lieu of 'optimal play' that would yield better mechanical outcomes. This means that we can escalate conflict as high and as fast as feels appropriate, and we aren't likely to hurt feelings. We'd stop if there were actual player conflict, nobody wants that.
Expanding on the situations mentioned in my previous post: a few weeks ago when playing the swamp dude tasked with burning a room full of bodies (some rather powerful and not inclined to stay dead), I shut down our ~rogue's attempts to steal a tissue sample that she believed she needed to open a vault. Did I actually want to stop her? No, all loot is good loot, but I was having a lot of fun RPing the scene, and it was a chance for her to delve into how her character would actually approach that roadblock. I also got to squeeze some rather valuable and useful loot out of our ~paladin as payment for services rendered - not because it was required (my NPC and his surviving team were not leaving the mansion we'd just burned down empty handed), but because it gave him space to act in character and see if he'd push back.
Fast forward to this past session, and the roles were shuffled. Now the ~paladin player was using his temporary Judge NPC to make a scene with the ~rogue player (in control of her old character, approximately a druid). The first demanded that the second stop dicking around with books and come help with our main task; she refused. A book was kicked, a knife was drawn, and neither was backing down, so my character - who regards the judge NPC as his aunt, and the ~druid as his mother - had an opportunity to de-escalate by escalating. Physically grabbing one's mother and attempting to disarm her before she hurts herself, yourself, or someone else is very narratively interesting!
In the event, I failed to stop her from cutting herself, resulting in her attempting to bind me with blood magic, the interference of a more powerful NPC, and the summoning of a mosaic tile elemental. We were actively using combat mechanics in PvP, which is not something any of us ever thought was a plausible scenario. The GM helpfully reminded us that damage can be dealt without lethality, but the other player would absolutely choose to get her old PC killed before having her back down. Even without that outcome, my answer to the end-of-session "has your relationship with a PC or NPC changed" question was pretty clear.
Other tables will have different points of balance for the tension, depending on the rules they're playing under, the style of roleplaying, how much or how little control the GM wants of the NPCs and the narrative, and what the group considers fun. Maybe it's a chance for the campaign to take a sudden left turn, maybe it's a chance for the players to scuffle, maybe it's a chance to take turns spotlighting each other. Lots of ways to have fun with it.
How hard could players push as an NPC? Could they drive play in an unexpected direction (even at the PCs’ expense), or was the expectation that they were there more to keep everyone playing with the constraint that the PCs are still the drivers (and the NPCs should, presumably, be entertaining)?
To ride off what Pauli said (which is to answer your question: yes absolutely to the former), all the NPCs were ones which had been established to be important in the upcoming situation / goals. Eg: the Judge and Fox had gone through quite a bit of effort to convince the old family of Marshedge that they should work together to overthrow the recent usurper there (who took power due to some circumstances that may or may not have been facilitated by Pauli's previous character). So these were NPCs that I would've written up with their own instincts / moves / goals regardless, but offloading them to a player let me disclaim decision making and really amp up their feeling as independent agents within the moment who may be allied but that doesn't mean they don't have their own priorities.
When I spotlighted them, it was with the expectation that they'd play to those instincts and where the player would take them to shine in their own right. Even if at the end of the day it was the PCs who were most instrumental throughout, that's in part because they have the ability set of protagonists!
But like Pauli's character made a bunch of complications (and resolved some); and Nik playing the eldest daughter made split second judgements and decisive action to escalate/resolve conflicts.
I'm thinking it's time to dip into 3rd party rules for 5e, or checkout some homebrew changes. The rules are feeling too simple for our group. For example, undead aren't immune to psionic damage. It feels weird to use viscous mockery on a zombie.
Or the zombie is tries to understand what that has to do with brains, but it hurts because it’s bad at that.
The reality is D&D barely incorporates damage types into gameplay outside of thematic and faux-sim reasons. This is one of the things I like about Fabula Ultima. That’s not to say D&D couldn’t do that, but it would require changes to the combat dybamic and play culture that may not be welcome.
