life-of-a-new-dm - Tumblr blog

[life-of-a-new-dm]

[life-of-a-new-dm]

this is mostly just me being a hater but whenever i see people use Official Dungeons and Dragons™ by Wizards of the Coast words to refer to like "cat person" "fish person" "steampunk robot" i wince. please have more respect for your own creations than that.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

[life-of-a-new-dm]

Every time I talk about how Dungeons & Dragons as a culture of play (i.e., as distinct from any particular published iteration of the game called Dungeons & Dragons) tends to put the GM in the position of doing all the actual work of making the game happen, and how the idea that only the GM has any responsibility for understanding and carrying out the rules is a big part of this, I always get jokers going "well ACTUALLY that's not true because I don't use the rules as written when I run games – I just make up the mechanics as I go."

Buddy, the notion that inventing a whole new game on the fly to suit the exact preferences of the group is an entry-level skill that ought to be expected – even demanded! – of any GM, regardless of their experience level, is itself an expression of the idea that responsibility for understanding and carrying out the rules rests solely with the GM.

Like, there's a reason D&D as a culture of play thinks it's normal for GMs to be miserably overworked and treats GM burnout as a funny joke; if it didn't, we'd have to acknowledge that something is askew.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

A few tabletop RPG creators you might recognise from previous posts on this blog – myself included – are participating in this charity bundle benefiting Medical Aid for Palestinians. The beneficiary has been on-boarded with itch.io, and all proceeds go directly to them without passing through the organisers' hands.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

I fully understand that keeping things organised is hard, but please, if you're publishing a tabletop RPG in early access, either stick a date of publication on each revision, or make sure the version numbers consistently go up. I should not have to guess whether "first edition" is an earlier or later revision than "version 3.0".

[life-of-a-new-dm]

i like w,hen ......... theres a Big scaresy fantasies beast ok .... and then the big beast has a litter of babies,,,., and the babeis are veryvery small . ok

[life-of-a-new-dm]

Worldbuilding tip for aspiring fantasy authors! Give that swordsman a bigger ass

[life-of-a-new-dm]

Every time I talk about how Dungeons & Dragons as a culture of play (i.e., as distinct from any particular published iteration of the game called Dungeons & Dragons) tends to put the GM in the position of doing all the actual work of making the game happen, and how the idea that only the GM has any responsibility for understanding and carrying out the rules is a big part of this, I always get jokers going "well ACTUALLY that's not true because I don't use the rules as written when I run games – I just make up the mechanics as I go."

Buddy, the notion that inventing a whole new game on the fly to suit the exact preferences of the group is an entry-level skill that ought to be expected – even demanded! – of any GM, regardless of their experience level, is itself an expression of the idea that responsibility for understanding and carrying out the rules rests solely with the GM.

Like, there's a reason D&D as a culture of play thinks it's normal for GMs to be miserably overworked and treats GM burnout as a funny joke; if it didn't, we'd have to acknowledge that something is askew.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

Fantasy setting where all of the various goblin-adjacent species are actually regular goblins impersonating beasties from local folklore for their own reasons.

Orc? Goblin who works out.

Troll? Goblin on stilts.

Ogre? Three goblins in a bathrobe.

Kobold? This one's not actually a deliberate charade, it's just a goblin who needs to touch grass.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

Hi! Do you know any sort of dice formula (doesent have to be a conventional one) that would leave you with a range of posibilities 1-178? It can start with some higher number so long as the total set of answer are 178 options, but ive been racking my brain for a while trying to figure it out for this game im trying and now I wonder wether its even possible. Are there calculators or arithmetic for this sort of thing?

Unfortunately, that's impossible by conventional means if you need the outcomes to be evenly weighted. 178 is a multiple of 89, and 89 is a prime number. The number of possible evenly weighted outcomes a given set of dice can produce is always going to be a multiple of the factors of the number of sides on the individual dice, so in order to get exactly 178 evenly weighted outcomes you'd need an 89-sided die.

However, you may have alternatives depending on what you're trying to do with it, if you're willing to tolerate a small amount of rerolling. For example, if this is for a lookup table (i.e., so there's no need for the numbers used to fall into a continuous range), it's not hard to find a set of dice which yields 180 distinct, evenly weighted outcomes (180 being the closest number to 178 which is neither prime nor has a large prime factor), then reroll any outcome of 179 or 180.

Consider, for example, a two-stage arrangement where a d20 is used to select one of twenty sub-tables, then each sub-table has nine entries. A nine-entry sub-table can be achieved using a three-by-three grid where the row and column are selected via a pair of d6 rolls, such that each row or column spans two numbers. (e.g., rolling 2 and then 4 would give you first row, second column.) That gives you 180 evenly weighted outcomes; include two "dud" or reroll entries somewhere in your sub-tables and you have exactly 178 possible options.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

A few tabletop RPG creators you might recognise from previous posts on this blog – myself included – are participating in this charity bundle benefiting Medical Aid for Palestinians. The beneficiary has been on-boarded with itch.io, and all proceeds go directly to them without passing through the organisers' hands.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

no one has ever made basic magic staff attacks look as cool as dragon age 2 did in 2011

[life-of-a-new-dm]

For anyone struggling/unwilling to learn DnD, may I suggest Knave? It's 10 pages long, and I think 6 of those are character creation. Similar to DnD, but much easier to learn.

I think an important part of the "D&D is easy to learn" argument is that a lot of those people don't actually know how to play D&D. They know they need to roll a d20 and add some numbers and sometimes they need to roll another type of die for damage. A part of it is the culture of basically fucking around and letting the GM sort it out. Players don't actually feel the need to learn the rules.

Now I don't think the above actually counts as knowing the rules. D&D is a relatively crunchy game that actually rewards system mastery and actually learning how to play D&D well, as in to make mechanically informed tactical decisions and utilizing the mechanics to your advantage, is actually a skill that needs to be learned and cultivated. None of that is to say that you need to be a perfectly tuned CharOp machine to know how to play D&D. But to actually start to make the sorts of decisions D&D as a game rewards you kind of need to know the rules.

And like, a lot of people don't seem to know the rules. They know how to play D&D in the most abstract sense of knowing that they need to say things and sometimes the person scowling at them from behind the screen will ask them to roll a die. But that's hardly engaging with the mechanics of the game, like the actual game part.

And to paraphrase @prokopetz this also contributes to the impression that other games are hard to learn: because a lot of other games don't have the same culture of play of D&D so like instead of letting new players coast by with a shallow understanding of the rules and letting the GM do all the work, they ask players to start making mechanically informed decisions right away. Sure, it can suck for onboarding, but learning from your mistakes can often be a great way to learn.

[life-of-a-new-dm]

Going to the raid vs leaving with ur new alien hybrid bf