#D&D Shenanigans

[tofu-bento-box]

alright who wants to hear the story behind why i have been getting called “nunfucker” for almost two years

[bajablasterrr]

The Ghostie Bros™️ as Quotes from My D&D Campaign

Danny: I can deal with treason, but drugs are where I draw the line.

Jason: I mean, if it’s between treason or drugs, I think we're gonna have to go with treason.

Tim: *sigh* Look, I'm just the accountant.

[contextfreedungeon]

Possibly controversial take: Inter-party conflict and even occasional pvp can make for an amazing rp experience if you:

1.) Know when you draw the line (e.g., you never kill a PC during in pvp)

2.) You're on the same page about this being character conflict, rather than player conflict

Some of my favourite role-playing moments have been player characters at odds with each other

[fangirltothefullest]

Desperately want to play in a DnD campaign as Sprinkles the Clown, a cheerful, 3 foot tall goblin warlock who made a deal with Chippy (the terrible), who is an evil eldritch abomination trapped inside the body of a balloon poodle. God forbid Chippy do anything!

I would also like my sister to play her amazing idea, a character which is also a warlock but it's a construct piloted by its patron (Jim) who does not speak and appears to be more lifeless than the actual construct sometime. It becomes clear very quickly that the construct is only able to use one arm at a time, cannot handle a dual-handed weapon, and is made of a weak material. You must not speak of Jim or the end of all things will occur.

[izzi-illustrates]

Sometimes the dice rolls tell the story for you.

[dnd-on-a-budget]

I'm a working class girl. I'd put all the nobles' heads on spikes.

NPC bartender

[paintedwarpony]

P A T E

[loweya-blog]

Remember dnd fans, you don’t have to settle for Strahd. Instead, take his money. Take his home. Take his power. Take his lovers. YOU’RE the sexy powerful ruler now. 

[thesummoningdark]

That post about redemption arcs really made me want to talk about my favourite adjacent character arc I've ever played out

So in a long running D&D campaign, I played the Token Evil Aligned Character in the party. No, don't look at me like that, I don't mean in an edgelord murderhobo kind of way. I mean that I was playing a drow who'd had to flee to the surface for reasons of Plot, and he had still entirely internalised the morality and social conventions of the culture he came from, but he was smart enough to figure out that he'd draw less attention and find less trouble if he at least gave the impression of giving a shit about the humans' weird moral hangups. Like oh so casual murder is frowned upon up here? Wild, but sure, I don't want arrested so whatever.

I joined the game at 8th level. The in-canon justification for my presence was that the party were travelling to a new region and one of their allies (the head of the thieves guild, who my character had retroactively been working for) ordered me to go with them to be their guide. Once my character figured out that they were on a quest of world-saving importance, he was fairly invested in helping, due to being one of the idiots who lived there. However this led to some fun and interesting in-character tension, as he was quite happy to employ methods in pursuit of this goal that the rest of the party were uncomfortable with.

(Both he and the chaotic neutral warlock were kept in line mostly by the looming disapproval of our 8ft tall lawful good goliath, and the associated threat of having their spines snapped if they took it too far)

The culmination of this initial mini-arc, of my character being in agreement with the party's goals but not necessarily trusting them to do what needed to be done if it really came to it, happened three years later. In the aftermath of a major battle (which our side lost) the party had to defeat a lieutenant of the main antagonist in order to get to safety. In the course of this fight my character was badly injured (mechanically: was knocked to 0hp in melee with this mini-boss, and only survived by the repeated application of healing cantrips to reset his death saves) and when the party got the upper hand, the lieutenant took him hostage and threatened to kill him if they didn't let her go. I want to stress at this point that when I'd built my character, the DM and I had discussed a contingency subplot that would come into play if he died. Death was an extremely realistic possibility at this point, from both a mechanical and a DM-steering-the-story perspective.

And the lawful good goliath, the one who this entire time had been insisting that the ends didn't justify the means, that they couldn't sacrifice individuals in pursuit of their goals, looked her in the eye and told her to go fuck herself.

It's one of my favourite pieces of RP I've ever seen done. And it was such a huge turning point in my character's relationship with the goliath in particular, who he now had a genuine respect for; and with the party as a whole, now that he was able to believe he really could trust them to make the hard choices if they had to.

I know everyone gets overinvested in their own game, but I genuinely think we all did a great job with that whole arc. I love that it wasn't just the characters from the deep end of the alignment pool being 'tamed', but also a reciprocal process of the good-aligned characters coming to trust that their more extreme methods would be used judiciously and not without good cause. That there was room for different approaches to working towards their cause and different reasons for supporting it.

[whotookmysenbon]

Can we get the mod’s opinion of like a D&D character sheet for Genma?

Hm. For typical Genma or a high fantasy Genma? And that begs the question what class would he be? Because my first thought is ranger or artificer or rogue but the more I think about it, the more I lean towards Druid!Genma. Like: adept in poisons, some healing skill, works primarily with plants and mushrooms, some skill in elemental manipulation with water and fire (at least in my headcanon, although I think fire and earth is also popular), and so on. Maybe a druid with a soldier background? - Em

[shungieshrieks]

So being the D&D party's note taker has been a blast

[drakebigshep]

Awful NPCs that my party loved

First, they're currently venturing the Earth Plane and I managed to squeeze both in a single session and my players loved them. Never be afraid to take inspiration from your favorite TV shows.

TL;DR a cabbage merchant riff that was a warlock to Juiblex and a boss of a smaller story arc and a brass dragon who has nobody to talk to so he's clinging to the party like velco.

First The Vegetable Merchant. A human man who, while originally a humble merchant, grew tired of his goods constantly rotting from lack of sales, or being destroyed. He saught power from Juiblex, embracing a pact. Serve under him and spy on acertain group (the players) and he'll give him the skills and charm to sell his produce like they were fancy carpets. It was mostly mind control stuff. He ended up being the boss encounter of a high-stakes fight and most of his spells were stuff like fireball/delayed blast fireball, tidal wave, wall of water, etc. all reskinned to the green and black ooze of juiblex. Our barb picked up one of his own cabbages and used it as an improvised weapon to finish him off. Before he exploded into ooze. As one does.

Second A brass dragon the party found in the plane (IDK if brass dragons actually live there but it made sense in my head at the time on a random encounter and my party liked it so fuck it, rolling with it) of Earth that flew overhead in the night. In the morning he was basically just there staring at the party with a smile. He's been incredibly lonely with nobody to talk to- he's ancient but has spent over 200 years in near isolation with only a single person who would entertain a conversation with him. He is now following hte party around like a lost puppy, asking for tales of their travels and basically being gigantic friend. He knows a bunch of Earth and Illusion spells as he would use them to make fake friends to talk to to ease his isolation. I plan to have him as a reoccurring character to show up and badger the party with questions and maybe occasionally offer trade. He's basically Goo from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and they want to take him home back to the material plane.

[luckthebard]

“Candy is staring at the bear on the trebuchet, concerned as all hell.”

I love the sentences D&D creates.

The bear in question:

[contextfreedungeon]

Rogue: Sorry, sometimes there's a paladin in my head that confuses me

Reoccurring NPC: Oh my father used to hallucinate a paladin sometimes

Rogue: Interesting

[itswrenlyart]

they aren’t wrong tho

[crypticcaravan]

Cleric that sends their God too many unimportant prayers in short bursts like an annoying but good hearted texting partner