#Homebrew System

[thekittydrew]

I am your shield. Not that proud of it, but it was a VERY quick thing that was just supposed to capture a scene.

[mordiocrow]

A doodle-recap of our first few sessions in the campaign we recently began! This time of year often has long stretches between games.

I was watching Ina play FFXVI and liked her doodle recap of the story after her long break and decided to do the same for our campaign for fun!

[fgg5ebrewery]

Djinn, Mana Spirits, and Mags systems for 5e

Drive Link and Mobile Friendly Link

Mood Music

Systems to use Djinn from Golden Sun, Mana Spirits from the Mana series, and Mags from Phantasy Star Online

Each of the systems is not yet finished, and in the case of Mags not started, but Djinn and Mana Spirits are in a playable state.

Djinn are attuned and grant bonuses based on how many of a type you have, acting as a set bonus, or you can attune to different ones and get the different bonuses.

Mana Spirits are attuned to grant bonuses based on your class, with each class gaining a unique bonus, then gaining more as they level based on groupings. Though there are a couple of ways to implement them based on how strong the DM wishes the system to be.

Mags are to be determined currently, and I will post an update and edit this post if/when they finally get work.

[wabbitears]

oh god you guys dont know about- Hey guess who recently started playing dnd for the first time

Heres my guy! Named Frogged Potatoes (it/its, xe/xer) based on my custom pixel cats end guy. thri-keen ranger. very silly. very small. so small xe 2ft tall. I love it so much you have to look at it now.

[gurlu]

The Spell statblock is FINALLY done after WEEKS of work.

Thank you Bootstrap ourgh

And it works on any viewport width, so phone people will not explode !

[wearysauce]

☆ How to play D&D together as a System ☆

Before you read on, here's some stuff to keep in mind:

⁎ This guide focuses on ways for you and your system to play D&D together ("solo"): not with any external players.

⁎ This might not work for you! Every system works differently, which means something like this might work differently for you personally. Feel free to read on for inspiration and ideas!

⁎ This guide assumes the reader understands the basics of D&D.

⁎ Please keep discourse/syscourse away from this post: this guide is for any system or collective to try if they're interested, regardless of origin.

⁎ Not every point in this post might apply to your situation!

⁎ No, we're not going to suggest using AI.

CWs: Touches on dissociation and switching in the context of how that might impact game sessions.

☆ Discussing ☆

Before you start running away with campaigns and character sheets, make sure you get a feel for how others in the system feel about playing D&D together.

Here are some questions that might help:

⁎ Is there an interest in the system to play together? Which members of the system are interested? How many players might there be?

⁎ Does everyone know the rules of the game? Are aspects of the game confusing or intimidating?

⁎ Are there any younger members of the system who might want to play, but find the rules confusing?

⁎ Will the game/campaign potentially deal with any triggering topics?

⁎ What kind of game does the system want to play? Serious? Laidback? Something in the middle?

If you can, try to deal with any concerns and questions early on.

In our experience, we've found that making a private discord server with PluralKit was incredibly useful for discussing the gameplay, character and plot ideas, role-play limits, etc.

You may also need to look into ways of simplifying the game: looking up D&D resources for new or young players may help! (I might make another guide for simplifying D&D/resources for that; let us know if that's something you'd like to see!)

☆ Campaign ☆

Your next step will be to either choose a prewritten campaign or write your own.

Out of the two, prewritten campaigns save the most time.

You can find loads of campaigns; some for free; on websites like this!

☆ Memory ☆

Another thing to keep in consideration is how dissociative amnesia might play into all this.

For example, we forget things often and use that to its advantage (which, as a bonus, helps us deal with the otherwise unpleasant part of dissociative amnesia). We're writing our own campaign and usually forget what we wrote, which makes playing through our campaign surprising! In cases where we do remember what the campaign notes are, we just view that as following a basic script: and we let dice rolls bring in the element of surprise instead, or go off-script and improvise!

If your system forgets things easily, you might also want to keep session notes: jot down which players were present, character actions, discoveries, etc.

For systems who have low amnesia barriers, then I'd highly suggest reading the next section:

☆ Random Events ☆

Rolling for random events, NPCs and loot can spice up an otherwise predictable game.

As an example: if the campaign you're running puts players in a dungeon, you could have the next room they go to feature a random enemy, rather than anything prewritten.

(Keep challenge ratings and player levels in mind; otherwise you might be sending some poor Level 1 adventurers to fight a CR 13 Beholder.)

I highly recommend donjon for all your random generation needs. You can also look into random tables for DMs, here's a huge masterlist of all sorts.

This can make the game feel a little disjointed and incoherent at times, but that's when you can: make up lore explanations, dismiss any completely unworkable rolls, retcon, or anything else you can think of.

☆ Playing the Game ☆

We play D&D exclusively on our PC, but you could feasibly do all this on mobile or with paper.

First, you'll need character sheets: if you're playing 5e on PC/Mobile, you can find a form-fillable PDF sheet here.

You'll also need dice, maps, and all your other standard D&D equipment (we use online dice, random gens, and move tokens around maps on paint.net).

We also use our private discord server and Tupperbox to role-play as our characters and document our campaign:

(Our campaign is very serious, as you can see 💀)

We take turns playing the GM/DM: sometimes they're also acting as a player, other times they're solely being the GM/DM.

The GM/DM usually also records if rolls have been a success or fail; we used to record what the dice roll result was (we have a separate channel for rolling with the dice maiden bot) but we've stopped doing that as much because our sessions take long enough as it is.

If you decide to play how we do, my biggest advice is: save, save everything, and save often.

Our method also creates many tabs and windows, but luckily, we micromanage all that fine: if you struggle, try grouping tabs if you use Firefox, as well as closing tabs once you no longer need them.

If using discord isn't your style, then experiment with different ways of playing: in a document, in your notes app, with paper, etc.

☆ Scheduling ☆

Unless your system allows for voluntary switches/your D&D party are often co-con, you'll probably find some players will not be available to play when others are.

The way we handle this is by essentially splitting the party up, as well as playing for certain players when they're absent (with their permission).

So far, we haven't even left the starting zone (we're on Session 3), so we've yet to see how much trouble splitting the party might cause. Hopefully, we'll get back to you on that one.

In some cases, where there is only one of us fronting, we just get our character to explore an area alone whilst the rest of the party rests in-game.

Another way to play solo could be to play through a character backstory, or in a one-shot campaign.

☆ Warning + Our Experiences ☆

In our experience, we've found playing D&D together has been really fun, but the one downside is that it has caused a few crowded headspaces. We've got nine players total (not the system total, just nine of us are D&D nerds), and on one occasion six of us decided we wanted to play D&D. We had to step back because that made us incredibly dissociated and switchy.

If you're prone to that, then definitely consider that might happen.

Another problem might come from suddenly switching midway through playing solo, or you might switch out during a session: in that case, you can cut the session short/other players can either take your character with you, or your character can just go back to camp for the rest of the session.

(Or, like we do because we all find it funny: just leave the character where they were before the player switched out.)

For us, that is part of the appeal: we've played with others outside our headspace and have switched midway through playing, where we've then had to figure out what we're doing, what our character was just doing, and who we're in call with. That used to stress us out, whilst this way we can literally just step away/stop playing.

A less serious note is that, like any D&D session, they tend to drag for hours: keep that in mind and don't stay up too late like us! And always hydrate, eat, and take breaks every so often!

☆ Bonus Resources!! ☆

Simple D&D 5e Guide, including tips for DMing: https://easydnd.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/easy-dd-v0.0.pdf

The best generator and D&D websites ever: https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/ and https://rollforfantasy.com/

5e Wiki: https://dnd5e.wikidot.com/

Homebrew: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/5e_Homebrew

[psychhound]

the more i dm vs play other ttrpgs the more frustrated i get with how npcs work in 5e. my game centers around a small town with a recurring cast of npcs, as well as newly introduced npcs each arc that my players frequently adopt, and every time i open my Documents (tone: weary) filled with npcs i just wish 5e npcs were Built Different(tm) to pcs. obviously theres statblocks and stuff you can use but if youre working under the assumption these npcs are Full People who are going to take up space in the pcs lives youre going to be building them like you would a pc and frankly it sucks for a couple reasons

one, if i want to introduce a new batch of npcs of a level that will prove imposing for my pcs to fight, it shouldnt take me 10 hours to make them. two, once the fight is happening it would be great if they didnt have so many abilities and spells that im just hoping and praying i can make them function even a little smartly without grinding the whole fight to a halt every time its a spellcasters turn

and third, which i think deserves its own paragraph(s), i wish npcs didnt have the same set of skills that pcs get

i like trying to give my guys, pcs or npcs alike, pretty high mods on things, bc, you know, good for the game and also big numbers fun. but some skills are either inherently useless for an npc to have, or imply a loss of player agency if i was rolling them

like, charisma skills. deception is really useful for an npc to have, because then pcs have to roll insight against it to learn information. persuasion, however, is not something an npc should really ever roll. if theyre rolling persuasion on a pc, that player is experiencing a loss of agency over how their pc reacts to a request. if theyre rolling it on another npc, youre now just playing dollies with yourself while the pcs watch. if im ever choosing between persuasion and deception for an npc, im always going to give them proficiency in deception even if that makes less sense for their character. same problem for intimidation. either youre telling the pcs how to feel or playing dollies with yourself

stealth and sleight of hand are overall way more helpful for npcs than for pcs who arent rogues. and perception is far more useful for an npc to have than like ... survival. when are your npcs going to be rolling survival? if you have a ranger or ranger-like character whos helping your pcs navigate wilderness then why does it make more sense for them to be rolling survival and potentially mess up something they are meant to be good at, causing potentially unfun complications for your party, than just ... knowing that character can help them navigate, so they do? especially if thats the reason that npc is there?

idk like my players respond very well to the npcs being Full People and i do think theres a level of enjoyment to like. comparing pc and npc stats or players learning what feats an npc took or lore around subclasses but also. also im so miserly and decrepit and my google doc of my four bad guys this arc and their spells is 59 pages long im Tired Save Me

[figofswords]

suggestions for how to dm dnd game for nine middle schoolers who say they want story but all just stare at you when you try to get them to roleplay and you’ve been having a rough week so you’re REALLY not at your best creatively or in terms of patience. go

[honourablejester]

An idle comment, but the Daggerheart domains system makes it incredibly easy to start imagining homebrew classes over here. The fact that every class is themed around their particular combination of two domains, which decide the bulk of abilities you get access to, means a bit of my brain is already poking at interestingly themed domain combos.

Like. If you want something Monk-like, I feel like Bone and Arcana would work very well, both magic and martial prowess centered in the body.

Blade and Codex, on the other hand, feel like something closer to a spellknight. Or possibly something like a monster hunter/exorcist?

Splendor and Midnight together, light and healing alongside shadows and secrecy, would make a spectacular lunar sort of class, the shifting faces of the moon between light and darkness.

Sage and Midnight for the dark, secret spaces of the earth, earth and rot and decay, the realms beneath.

Grace and Splendor for something blisteringly holy, raw charisma and terrifying beauty.

Valor and Grace are more of a charismatic champion, something chivalric, both brutal and dangerously subtle.

It makes your fingers a bit itchy, is all I’m saying. There’s some juicy combinations in there.

[thekittydrew]

Amaryllis.

[techav]

On Major Milestones

I left off previously with init immediately crashing when trying to run NetBSD on Wrap030, my 68030 homebrew computer. I was completely lost and didn't know where to start looking. The error code it gave, 11, didn't tell me much.

Until now, most error codes I've gotten have been defined in kernel errno.h, which has 11 defined as:

EDEADLK 11 /* Resource deadlock avoided */

That … also isn't helpful. I'm still not entirely sure what that means, but since this is process 1 we're dealing with, I didn't think it was relevant.

Finally, I was able to find someone who had encountered the same error six years ago. Helpful soul [Martin] explained the exact cause of the error, how to fix it, and why the kernel errno didn't line up:

I'm running a NetBSD live disk on a laptop as a test host, so I mounted my disk on it and spent some time with mknod adding the essential device nodes, referencing the "majors" file for my arch. Sure enough, on next boot it skipped right past the point it had been panicking. It worked for a bit then finally printed on the console:

Enter pathname o

Enter pathname of what? The machine appeared frozen. Nothing further printed, and it responded to no input.

I was afraid this would happen. That string is 16 characters. The 16C55x UART chips I'm using have a 16-byte buffer. The system is hung up waiting for the UART to interrupt to indicate it has finished transmitting everything in its buffer.

There's just one problem — I don't have any serial interrupts wired.

I have a confession to make. Until a few weeks ago when I got my timer working, I hadn't really worked with hardware interrupts before. So between a limited understanding of how to use them effectively and limited board space, I had omitted the interrupt signals from my 8-port serial card. This was now a Problem, and I was going to have to find a solution.

I had a few options:

Force the com driver to 8250 mode so it doesn't try to use the buffers

Use my timer interrupt to check status bits on the UARTs and fake the interrupts

Deadbug an interrupt handler onto my serial card

Respin the serial card

Option 4 would've been expensive and risked passing my deadline. I wasn't sure option 1 would even help. And option 3 would have been difficult and error-prone. I decided option 2 would be the way to go so I set about researching how to accomplish it

I spent a few hours digging through the com driver. In the process I found softintr(9), a native NetBSD software interrupt process that looked like just the thing I needed. Digging in a little deeper, I realized that the com driver was already using softintr. And then I realized all it needed to do polled mode serial ports instead of interrupt-driven was to set a single variable, sc_poll_ticks, before initializing the driver. It's such a simple thing, but it's not really documented anywhere I could find, so the only way to know it was even an option was to spend hours studying the code.

With that in place, I recompiled my kernel and tried again.

It was asking for a shell. This is promising. I accepted the default shell, /bin/sh, and waited a moment. It printed a single #.

I had a shell prompt.

I typed in the first thing that came to mind, echo "hellorld" (thanks, [Usagi]). It responded:

hellorld

and printed another # prompt.

I had a working shell.

This is a major milestone. I have a modern operating system kernel loaded and running on my homebrew computer, and I have a functional root shell. I can navigate disk directories and run commands and programs.

But only as root, and only on this one console. I have seven other serial ports I want terminals on, and I certainly don't want them all running as root.

What it's running here is single-user mode. It is just the kernel and a few core services, somewhat analogous to Safe Mode in Windows. It's a fall-back for setting up or repairing a system. It's not quite the full operating system just yet.

Getting the rest of the operating system up and running is going to be a significant task, on par with getting just the kernel running. Setting up a working Unix system from scratch is not easy. It requires a lot of detailed knowledge of the various programs and libraries and config files scattered across the disk. For a sense of scale, the AT&T Unix System V manual was over 1100 pages, plus an 800 page programmer's guide and a handful of other manuals … and that was 40 years ago. That's a lot of specialized knowledge that I don't really have.

But still, this is something I've wanted to do for years and after countless hours of work, I finally have a glimpse of what it can look like. I have a lot to learn and a lot of work to do yet, but I'm certain I can figure it out.

I'm still hoping I can get this running multi-user on all those terminals in time for VCF Southwest in June. The show is just a few weeks away and I have a lot of work to do.

[aviancali]

my first art of 2024 🌱🍃🐯🌿🍀

[eldritchamy]

I'll tell you what I want what I really really want

I wanna- (my adhd interrupts me with a new idea) I wanna- (my adhd interrupts me with a new idea) I wanna- (my adhd interrupts me with a new idea) I wanna- (my adhd interrupts me with a new idea)

[lost-in-yahargul]

Playing bloodborne ttrpg at an event this weekend and I'm struggling so much to make a character, why is my brain so empty right when I'd need it </3

[b33tlejules]

felt nostalgic for my dnd character from 2020 so. here she is. the epitome of 'pure of heart dumb of ass'.

[sprintingowl]

Bite-Sized Dungeon Remastered

Bite-Sized Dungeon has been re-released together with all of its scenarios. That means you've got one core system and five complete hexcrawls, including one in which you are hunted by santa.

The core of the Bite-Sized Dungeon engine is that instead of rolling dice, you hold fingers behind your back. It uses only small numbers in order to make the game portable and playable in small chunks.

The five hexcrawls, of course, push in the opposite direction. They're full-featured adventures with random encounters, unique items, and regional monsters. You can play them with Bite-Sized Dungeon, or you can use your favorite dungeon-crawler game to run them instead (they're written system-neutrally and easy to convert.)

The whole shebang is 100+ pages, with bigger fonts, fixed-er typos, and better layout than the previous edition.

Bite-Sized Dungeon Remastered is available for money if you want to spend money for some reason, but it's also free under the Community Copies button.