I assume you know he was a politician as well?

Hi! Sorry if this came across as a specific complaint about you. It’s a trend I’ve seen on YouTube that I don’t understand, is all. By all means, express yourself however you want! But of course, don’t be surprised if old fogies like me don’t engage with that style of content.

And thanks for the blog post! I’m a DM trying to find the best way to distribute fun magic items to my party. I have one character who wants to craft a stronger shield but lacks the necessary skills. This could be a good approach to get him the effect he wants without losing the shield he’s been spending time and effort on.

You really don’t have to watch the video

I didn’t. I’m curious about the content, though.

And I’m genuinely confused about this style of video being so common, but since it is common, I have to assume that it works for some people. I’m glad it works for you.

I don’t understand this video style where I have to watch a video with words appearing on the screen and a cartoon character talking. Why is this not a blog post so I can just read it?

Typically I’d agree here, but I wonder if that would work when the rest of the party is also paying the consequences? An eight year old might be absolutely thrilled about this outcome…

If the problem is more the time-wasting and less about him doing anything unfair, perhaps the best way to handle this is the way some DMs handle shopping: do it offline.

First, explain to him that this is a collaborative/group game, and unfortunately we can’t spend all of our game time on one character’s individual adventure. If necessary, explain to him that he is not the main character, and that is not fair to everyone else who is trying to play if their game gets constantly stalled when they have things they want to do, too.

Next, tell him to keep notes of all the things he is hoping to gather and craft as the adventure goes on. He can then bring these to you at the end of the session, and you two can work it out retroactively. Or alternatively, you can set aside designated time in-game for him to negotiate this with you (maybe once an hour instead of every 3 minutes).

I’m impressed with how patient and understanding you’ve been about this. You recognize that he is embracing the free-form nature of the game, and you don’t want to smother that. It’s a hard thing to balance with the rest of the table, especially when his parents aren’t present. Good luck!

I didn’t want to invest in figurines, as there’s always some new monster I want to use and would be frustrated not to have a figurine for. So, what I picked tools that lean on everyone’s imagination:

• Acrylic character tokens from https://www.c4labs.com/product/set-of-three-gigantic-monster-character-tokens-for-rpg-and-tabletop-games-color-options/ . These are fairly cheap, and you can write on them with wet/dry markers to differentiate characters.
• A blank gaming mat from https://meleemats.com/ and a bunch of markers. I draw fast/simple environments to battle on instead of worrying about printing something with amazing detail, or buying a bunch of models.

Hope this helps!

Ooo, some nice monster options here! Things like the Kobold Chieftan remind me of things I’ve been hearing about in MCDM’s upcoming Flee Mortals! I checked out the preview at https://mcdm.gg/FleeMortalsPreview and it looks like a lot of fun.

This makes sense to me, you are readying a single action with a single condition.

As a DM, are you tracking PC spell slots? That seems like a lot of extra work! Or maybe you just mean NPCs…

I believe !dnd on Lemmy.world existed prior to ttrpg.network. Sometimes you just make stuff where the people already are.

This is such a great idea! I guess your party already knew about portable holes from previous campaigns and were just assuming that’s what it was? A tricky instance of characters acting according to player experience! Sounds like it worked out really well though.

Be careful how evil you let the players get.

How do you manage this? Isn’t pirating kind of inherently evil? Do you need to set up an evil empire with the party playing Robin Hood on the high seas?

Interesting article, as a new DM I admit I mostly ignore components. It feels like I have enough to manage. I mostly leave it up to players if they want to make a thing of it.