[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 3 points 4 days ago

I’ve always just treated it as a natural 3D extension of the 2D grid rules

I believe that's how it's handled in D&D too, or at least how my table has always done it. I meant more as a practical matter, you're very unlikely to have a vertical wall grid and some kind of stand of the correct height for your minis, so you can't just count squares like you would for horizontal movement. That's when the Pythagorean Theorem comes up in my experience.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 2 points 4 days ago

That's fair. Perhaps another style of DMing and/or a different system are more your speed.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 6 points 5 days ago

If you actually have to use that much math more than once in a blue moon, you're doing it wrong.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 9 points 5 days ago

There's no grid in the sky, though

45

Perhaps obvious to everyone else, but I've hit upon a little trick for better coordinating game time. Instead of announcing "Game will be at 1 o'clock" I've been doing something like "Doors open at Noon, Game starts at 1." This way, the people that want to hang out, level their characters, decide what they like on their pizza, etc all show up at noon, and the people that are running late or decide to come at 1 arrive with the expectation that they're going to walk in the door and immediately start playing. It also provides a natural transition point from the arriving/hanging out mode to game time, which otherwise makes me feel kind of uncomfortably teacher-y, calling the whole class together and whatnot. Try it out, maybe it will help you too.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 102 points 5 months ago

You absolutely do not have to RP this. You can say "No." You can say "Ok, you go off and do that, what's everyone else doing?"

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 27 points 8 months ago

What's his deal?

57
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by sirblastalot@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

I recently started a new campaign. Two players (one who has played in my games before and their SO, who has been begging me for a spot for years) unexpectedly dropped out, moments before our first session. Their reason was somewhat baffling; they said they didn't want to spend "all day" on this, despite the game only going from noon to 3PM. They seemed to think this was a totally unreasonable expectation on my part, despite them previously having stated they were available during that time. This puzzled me.

I've been musing on this, and the strange paradox of people that say they want to play D&D but don't actually want to play D&D, and I've had an epiphany.

A lot of people blame Critical Role or other popular D&D shows for giving prospective players misplaced perceptions, often related to things like your DM's voice acting ability or prop budget, but I don't think that's what's going on here. My realization is that, encoded in the medium of podcasts and play videos, is another expectation: New players unconsciously expect to receive D&D the way they receive D&D shows: on-demand, at their house, able to be paused and restarted at their whim, and possibly on a second-screen while they focus on something else!

I don't know as this suggests anything we as DMs could do differently to set expectations, but it did go a long ways to helping me understand my friends, and I thought it might help someone here to share.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 40 points 11 months ago

Starbucks is a real coffee chain that exists in the real world. Moondeer and sunfawn follow the same naming scheme, but the players didn't realize that was what the DM was building to until the big reveal. It's...pun-adjacent.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 30 points 1 year ago

Queercoding villains to make them seem dangerous and deviant to the people of the time (and those that are still stuck in that time). Admittedly, the people making that decision probably weren't conscious of that being why they thought eyeliner made him look villainous.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 42 points 1 year ago

Peckromancer

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 44 points 1 year ago

You select the level of abstraction for different things based on what is and isn't the most fun to delve into. If your group enjoys poking every surface with a 10 foot pole, it's not wrong to play with that level of granularity. It's just that all the interesting things you can do with a 10 foot pole are pretty mined-out after 50 years so we tend to direct our attention elsewhere.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 32 points 1 year ago

In 3.5 at least, if you're in a space that isn't big enough for you to change size, RAW you just...don't.

[-] sirblastalot@ttrpg.network 57 points 1 year ago

I just feel bad for the loincloth mimic.

6

I've got an unholy-water fountain, a human chessboard, and an evil hedge maze. I need 1 more thing to put in the last corner of the square courtyard/garden thing. Any suggestions?

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sirblastalot

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