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bits from ep. 9 but make it Calvin and Hobbes

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AND WHEN IM BACK IN NYC I FEEL ITTTT

Heroes of the Unsleeping City.

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right, but most people are playing/starting above level 1 in most 5e campaigns. I didn’t address this in the post, but this is mainly for homebrew campaigns. but also, session 0’s are a common community standard, or at least should be, for this reason in and outside modules. Rangers can and have been good in module games. GM’s just often find parts of the game dragging on, so do I, and exclude these cool highlights that could be done in a single scene instead of constantly dealing with it.

Highlighting players does not have to be frequent, either. there are so many spotlight things you could do with natural explorer in a 20 minute scene in the woods alone. Including but not limited to: letting your ranger be aware that they’re lost in the forest bc of magic bc they know they can’t be otherwise, allowing them to spot the surprise attack coming in, letting them not worry about camp supplies, etc.

All I’m saying is that if a player is having a hard time at the table, GM’s should consider their role in the situation more than they do. In my opinion, it’s our job to be their #1 fan. That doesn’t mean make things easy for them, but remembering that they’re the main characters of the story. Giving them the character moment that they were inspired by when they first read the mechanics of the class is quite simply the least we could do.

P.s. as someone who played in Lost Mine of Phandelver, natural explorer would’ve prevented like so many PC deaths

hot take ab dnd no one asked for:

stop saying classes are bad bc they don’t fit in your games bc you don’t run 5e the way it was originally intended to be run. I don’t run 5e in a trad way, either, but saying “warlocks are bad” bc you don’t take short rests or “ranger are bad” because you don’t use travel mechanics. you’re missing like, 50% of the base game the way it was originally intended to be played.

which is valid, but it truly doesn’t take much for you to spotlight characters at the table, which at least for me is the entirety of what I do.

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hot take ab dnd no one asked for:

stop saying classes are bad bc they don’t fit in your games bc you don’t run 5e the way it was originally intended to be run. I don’t run 5e in a trad way, either, but saying “warlocks are bad” bc you don’t take short rests or “ranger are bad” because you don’t use travel mechanics. you’re missing like, 50% of the base game the way it was originally intended to be played.

which is valid, but it truly doesn’t take much for you to spotlight characters at the table, which at least for me is the entirety of what I do.

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anyways my TTRPG hot take is that everyone should dm once at least to see how much prep/work even one session takes let alone an entire campaign. be nice to ur dm’s!

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the best piece of dming advice I ever got, which is not mentioned almost at all in most advice videos. this one piece of advise has made me leave tables because dm’s didn’t do this. It is to ALWAYS be your players #1 fan. this doesn’t mean that you make their lives easier, because normally our favorite characters / hero’s go through hell, but it centers your relationship to your players/their characters in a very healthy way that keeps moral and storytelling up at the table. celebrate their successes , revel in those nat 20’s even though it took you three hours to plan for this boss fight and it’s done in 20 minutes, find them and the stories they come with interesting. the most overwhelming part of dming is thinking that you’re the one telling the story, and this takes a lot of the pressure off of you and can also make the story you’re telling 10x better.

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okay something that has upped my writing for dnd by far has been the Monster Culture (Seven Theses) by Jefferey Jerome Cohen. If you’re a dungeon master, game runner, or a creative fiction writer I highly highly recommend reading the whole thing but I’ll summarize the big points here~ (p.s. this is religious studies theory but it is so important in implementing for your own writing)

The monsters body is a cultural body

the monster is a reflection of the society itself. It is all fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy. It is both “that’s which reveals and that which warns”.

The monster always escapes

This doesn’t mean that once you kill it it’s not gone in the form it took. Maybe it evolves. “For who is the yeti if not the medieval wild man? Who is the wild man if not the biblical and classical giant?”

The monster dwells at the gates of difference

Represents an object / creature that is outside of normal ways of thinking about the world as duality (monster is ambiguous). Because the monster is neither animal / creature human or land animal. Things that are called monsters are projections of societies indifference or disgust

The other thesis are phenomenal, they’re not intended to craft writing but rather as a reflection for how monsters have been used societally. But highly recommend the read.

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hey do you wanna.. trade the same 8 dollars back and fourth for the rest of our lives? (flirting)

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californian fall

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there is no moral. the wolf eats you one day, and until it does, the forest is beautiful.

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reputation tv was actually written about this specific time of my life if you even care.

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when one of ur players writes a pc that’s a little too close to home so you end up hurting yourself

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FLEABAG | 2.06

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she's always here.

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guys am I in love with her or am I just ovulating.

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bishop takes queen