stevengarstone.bsky.social
Love me some Super Heroes, Movies and anything pop-culture. Somehow stumbled into being a professional Dungeon Master for Dungeons & Dragons.
129 posts
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22 following
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I must stress (because its the internet) I'm not opposed to players coming up with clever ways of bypassing or solving an encounter. I actually fully support this, but having no solution & just winging it is a guaranteed way to end up with plot holes & contradictions in your adventure.
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Hate em. There is absolutely no thought whatsoever given to Verisimilitude here at all! Who put the puzzle/trap/door here & why? How would they get through if they needed to? If the DM doesn't know the answer to this then how can they possibly make the players buy into this reality? Reasons matter.
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Emperor's light guide you.
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YouTube link?
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A friendly reminder to stop referring to #TTRPG when you very specifically mean only D&D/Pathfinder. There are thousands of games out there & the extremely overwhelming majority of them do not use a D20.
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Mind Flayers attempt to find the body of Chronos, the God of Time to bring Nautiloids from the pre-fall Illithid Empire to modern day & the heroes win over gods as allies to stop it.
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Meh
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My Conditional Formatting page does not look like that. But very awesome. Thank you. I'll have a play around.
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I've been using spreadsheets my whole life & did not know that you could do that purple/green fading colour thing you've done. What is that called & how do you do it?
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or at least that's what he told me
wait fuck
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"For a time I considered sparing your wretched little planet, Cybertron. But now, you shall witness... it's dismemberment!" So good!
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I now realise what your spreadsheet comment earlier this week was about. :D
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I guess I will just need to re-watch your Baldur's Gate 3 playthrough.
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Very fun. My favourite character I made was a mix between the T-1000 & Iceman. Regenerating from a puddle of water into an ice form and then sliding around on my force-walls :D
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I've never seen a 1st Edition print in real life. That's so cool. Any favourite memories from playing?
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With tremendous amounts of foreshadowing. A magic item at level 3 when activated shows a mysterious illusory library, "I'm sure its just the DM flavouring a magic item". They find a magic book later in the adventure that they remember seeing in that library. When banished, they appear there, etc.
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Definitely feels like "RPG" should be replaced with "D&D/Pathfinder". I've played a whole bunch of #TTRPG options over the years but this phenomenon is pretty uniquely linked to games very specifically using a level up system, which is the extreme minority. Otherwise, spot on. lol.
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That someone? Dennis Nedry.
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I'm not sure I understand the question, honestly. I put them in the situation & then let them make the choice on how to resolve it. I especially like to put players who have not yet rounded out their characters into these situations so we learn in real time what their character is. They love it.
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If you want to make it into a #Champions #TTRPG character using the Hero System, just hit me up. I love this stuff.
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I would love to hear about it anyway.
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I'd add to this; as its incredibly important to maintain consistency & verisimilitude. If details haven't been previously established then having a general idea of what's coming & fleshing it out later is great. Once its fleshed out however, note that stuff down. It'll come up again!
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Curious as to whom you've observed doing this that encouraged such a post :D
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I'm legit going to do this.
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Missed your posts <3 Always here for ya
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For games like Champions, Cyberpunk 2020, Deadlands, etc most of this is baked right into the mechanics. Disadvantages, Life Path, Fear Levels, etc. Although it's still a helpful thing to consider.
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This is something similar to what I tell my #DnD5e players before we even have our session zero. I make sure they can answer:
"What reason does your character want to team up with a bunch of random weirdos?"
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"Why does your character want to kill monsters for treasure?"
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You're so tired due to a lack of sleep that you drag your knuckles as you go to check on the baby again.
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updates
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A game of #TotalAnnihilation I played many years ago I got wiped out because I dedicated a small fortune to destroying my opponents submarines, only to find my defenses torn asunder by the REAL source of those radar blips... amphibious tanks.
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I like to have everything tangentially related to the main plot. Not necessarily "the agents of the dark lord did X" stuff but moreso whatever is affecting the world at large is connected to it. Using every opportunity to keep the players engaged & to see the consequences of failure.
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I have a similar box currently used to nurse my player character minis in my backpack :D
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You can't just leave a Star Wars CCG box on the shelf & not expect to summon me! OMG I love that game so much. Still my favourite game decades later.
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Very strange. It's only been discounted once in Australia. We're missing out on deals! Haha
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I meant in terms of the modern cycle of games, not in terms of it being an old game. Haha. I definitely should have checked that message a few more times before hitting send. "Over a year old" didn't roll off the tongue as easy.
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I would probably recommend making your own character to start off with, just because if you're playing as an Origin character you miss out a lot on their dialogue because they don't voice act lines that you choose.