#controlled-source

[johniac]

SciTech Chronicles. . . . . . . . .April 22nd, 2025

[inbabylontheywept]

Babylon's 6 D&D Tips

I DM’d D&D for ten years. I started in middle school, and I kept it up until my sophomore year of college. This is my mini-guide for what the game is, what it isn’t, and how to play it well. So. From the top.

Tip 1: Don't make your main storyline time dependent. 

D&D is an amazing open-world experience. You can pick at any detail. Nothing is a non-interactable part of the scenery. If there’s a sewer manhole, you can lift it up and climb down. If there’s a house, you can look inside and rob it. If there’s an NPC that you meet at the market, you can follow them home and see their whole life. Their parents, or their partner, their trade - all of it. It will be made up on the fly by some sort of reasonably skilled improv speaker, but it will also exist after that. That’s how the world is built. That’s the secret sauce that makes D&D beautiful.

If your plotline is too urgent, it kills those opportunities. The worst example of this that I have isn’t even from D&D, but FO4. The game is clearly built around exploration and adventure. The plot is built around rescuing your kidnapped baby. There’s a lot of tension between those goals. The plot does not work with the game mechanics, and it's really, really, jarring.

Be wary of doing that. It's surprisingly easy.

Tip 2: Don't set up giant, epic, fantasy battles between multiple armies. 

D&D is not a very good epic-battle simulator. There are games that have streamlined combat mechanics to allow for whole armies to fight, but D&D is very detail oriented, and trying to control too many people at once makes combat slow to a crawl. That very creative DM who can tell you every detail of an NPC’s life is also just not very good at multitasking. 

If you really, really want to - fine. But you should be ignoring standard mechanics when you do so. Move to a “cinematic mode” and just go by vibes. And generally, take a moment to “get” the game before modifying it. If the kind of plot you really want is urgent, and involves epic scale armies, maybe look into different RPG systems. D&D specializes in exploration and small, focused parties. Using it for things outside of that is kind of like hitting nails with a wrench. 

Tip 3: Don't prepare your plot like it's a book. Kill your lore codex. 

D&D is a collaborative storytelling adventure. That's the secret sauce. Writing out codexes and trying to crystallize the world before you start playing ruins the collaborative element. It’s genuinely better if you build as you go. It lets your players give input. And it saves you a lot of time. Why bother trying to write up who the Mayor of Snoresville is if there’s a good chance your party never even talks to him?  

(I would also apply this to writing in general. If you want to write all of your world's lore before starting your book, you'll never start your book. And you'll go crazy. Fear the lore codex.)

Tip 4: Prepare your combats and your NPCS rigorously, but generically. 

This ties in to Tip 3. If you spend a lot of time preparing the lore of the Bandit Leader of Redgrove, things like his family history, or his trauma, or his deep-down character motivations, and then the party never goes to Redgrove, it all goes to waste. D&D evolves rapidly and chaotically, so building things in a modular, reusable way really pays off. 

So. I tend to have two big pools for my NPC work. One is a character sheet pool. I keep it small and focused. I can generalize most melee classes ahead of time, so I can have an Archer, a Brawler, a Tank, and some Generalist Infantry. That’s like, 80% of your martial enemies, done. Spellcasters are a bigger pain in the ass, but a few pre-mades thrown into a campaign pays off if you know your themes. If you’re dealing with a death cult, make some death clerics. A dragon will probably have sorcerer acolytes. 

My second pool is a pool of character mannerisms. Some should absolutely be practiced ahead of time. Figure out what mannerisms make your villain really pop. And if the party skips that villain, just move those mannerisms to some new guy down the line and you’ll still be fine. Nothing wasted. A lot of the mannerisms are going to be picked with no heads up when the party does something weird, like following a random merchant around for a few days just to see how they live. You can get through almost all of those extremely well with just variations on the 4 humors, the 3 socioeconomic classes, and regional dialects.

Tip 5: Give your players permission to inject themselves into the world. 

It is common for people to over-formalize the rules and responsibilities of “being a player” vs. “being a DM.” I think the most common way to phrase it is something like “The Players are in charge of their characters and their backstories, the DM is responsible for the worlds and its NPCs, and both need to stay in their lanes.”

It’s isn't just better to mix it, it's necessary.

Failing to share these roles forces the world to exist in a crystallized state before the campaign even starts - at least if you want to integrate backstories into the plot. Groups that fail to do this can often feel like the characters were born the day the campaign began, and did nothing interesting beforehand. 

So, for DMs: Don’t be afraid of trying to inject NPCs and details of this world into your player's past. Imagine that your party rogue goes into a town and finds a fence for selling some stolen trinkets. Maybe, have the fence recognize the rogue. “Gods of fire, it’s McClellan. I haven’t thought about you since the candy-rat incident. You took a real beating making sure I got away that day. Glad to finally have a chance to pay you back!” 

Now, the rogue still has a choice here. They can say something like “Ah, this guy is mistaking me for someone else, but I can roll with it to get a better deal.” It’s their character, and their choice. But they can also go, hey, I do know this guy. I was apparently part of something called “The candy-rat incident.” I can decide how I know this guy, and where, and for how long, and what that incident was. That’s not less control - that’s more! 

And for players: Don’t be afraid of injecting your past into the world. Maybe you’re a fighter in a wartorn setting and you run into a group of deserters robbing refugees by the roadside. The DM has clearly planned this as some vindication, some enemies you get to thrash without feeling bad. But you have different plans. You take your helmet off, and you look the deserter’s leader in the face, and you say “Jack, you saved my life back on Stone Ridge. You were a good man once. You could be one again. Ride with us.” 

Now that's powerful stuff. Do you even know what Stone Ridge is? Hell no. Are you gonna? Hell yeah. And what you just did was way better than the DMs plan of bonking bad guys to feel good. You changed the writing of the world, commandeered an NPC, and made the whole encounter far more interesting.  

Tip 6: Ignore all portrayals of D&D in the media. 

The best players that I get are people with no experience with D&D of any kind. The second best are those that are willing to drop their preconceptions at the door and just play. The worst are people that have seen D&D portrayed somewhere and are insistent on imitating the portrayal. The exact nature of the failure varies - at worst, they’ve seen some kind of tongue-in-cheek parody, like order of the stick, and then hyperfocused on all the worst parodied aspects as the whole point of the game. D&D is not about outsmarting the mechanics (which is trivially easy, and largely pointless - it just makes your own storytelling less fun), nor is about turning everything into shallow tropes about Horny Bards and Dumb Fighters and Insufferable Paladins. At best, they’ll have seen some kind of ultra-cinematic example of D&D played on a podcast, where the DM has a theatre degree and ever party member is a professional actor. Those people are nice, but they often have unrealistic expectations.

[botanyshitposts]

Sign i saw recently had a bunch of paint worn away with lichen in its place, however i unfortunately did not have my phone on me 😔😔

in an alternate universe where science funding is stable and abundant regardless of monetary gain we have already gotten to the complex root of which lichens enjoy signs but only the letters or only the sign and what about the letters or sign they prefer and this haunts me

[seraphont]

I really love your Tessa artwork! You got me into Jessa! If so, what's your interpretation of why J still followed the AS? Is it because of it being her admin or J's loyalty to Tessa still clinging to her as the AS wears Tessa's skin? You think the AS uses it to get J to listen?

YIPEEE I’m glad u like it! my yap sesh below lol

honestly my own interpretation is her number 1 priority being survival.

By the time we see her in ep 8 interacting with the AS, she’s pliant- doing her job. But with her quote about not being able to escape even in death, I’m led to believe she was forced into submission. Implying she did try in her own way to get away/not work with the Solver at first - probably several times even. The only solution to staying alive was being on the strongest team.

Like the Jay we had at the manor already balked to authority (most powerful figure), so trying to resist -like the chain scene- probably required some dedicated effort for her.

the Solver is known for enjoying its mind games. I can only imagine how easily it manipulated her knowing her weaknesses (like it did w V for N), maybe even pretending to be her close friend for a bit? I mean- it would make a lot of sense for the line “It tricked me too.”

I can def see it using the small comfort of pretending to be Tessa, as a means of manipulation. especially when J has no reliable allies to turn to: N, one who’s blissfully unaware of the horrors; and V, someone who is completely (cracked) closed off emotionally herself.

The way “Cyn” showed dislike towards her during ep 5- not taking being locked up lightly - I Imagine she was definitely a plaything to torment as well.

So maybe J- like V- was trying to hold down ship on C9 to prevent any punishment from Cyn? maybe even at one point she was trying to keep them all alive- especially with the mad cope line “I never needed either of you” right after asking V to join her. she’s such an asshat she puts on a show of pretending to be in control, but she’s the furthest thing from it.

So no, I don’t interpret it as loyalty thing rlly- only as a means of survival.

[rig-biped-complicated]

Plays out a bit differently the other way around. I tried adding callouts but with the last one I felt like it clashed with the medium.

Based on that thing goin' 'round, under cut. I feel like I remember this panel, I wonder if I have the comic its from. Was a good opportunity to try out some motion blur.

[keighthundred]

NGL it's kinda crazy that people think there's no possible way Rain could be trans when there's literally a bit in canon ward about him wearing a dysphoria hoodie and refusing to look at his own body in the mirror

[pasta-pardner]

attack dogs shouldn't bite the hands that feed them

[ba0shanblack]

"Pour yourself into me and I will not let a drop of you hit the ground"

R.F.

[veryextraincorrectfegbaquotes]

That set is doing numbers, huh

[visenyaism]

ok i make fun of the asoiaf conspiracy theories being dumb a lot however some people really ARE about an inch from posting like “the (((maesters))) control everything” and need to dial it back it’s getting weird

[maurruce]

"I don't know what the hell I was wearing. The less, the better, I suppose, at that time, because the chest was doing really well on its own. I had no control over the fucking thing. It would show up everywhere I went." – Robert Plant on 1975

[fatedroses]

The Devil's in The Details

[reptileguy-txt]

does anyone want to hear my fo4 companion headcanons that DOESNT mischaracterize half of them and infantilize the other half . and actually includes the more niche companions for once instead of being the big ones everyone likes . (please say yes please say yes please say yes)

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[crooked-wasteland]

You probably wanna avoid interacting with Chai btw. They’re just a toxic person who condones doxxing and harassment based on ships. Only sending this as a warning in case you weren’t aware of the things they’ve done, a lot of their fans have been bullying critics and downplaying what they’ve done and said. I literally don’t trust any of their mutuals it’s all internet brainrot

Frankly, Anon, I think you and I have fundamentally different ideas of what Toxic is. For example, I think lying about someone simply because you don't like them is toxic.

Chai has always been a vocal advocate of letting people ship whatever they want in fiction for the last 2 years I have been following his social media. It is something so consistent, in fact, that I am entirely comfortable saying that portion of your post is a blatant lie.

Second, if there are fans of Chai, their actions are their own. Once again, Chai has always been very accepting of shipping whatever anyone wants to ship so long as they don't harm real people and animals. If so-called "fans" wish to act out, that isn't Chai's problem. Unlike Medrano, Chai has told his audience to not engage in that sort of behavior. So he has done his due diligence and is not responsible for the actions of others in my opinion.

I am not a friend of Chai, I have barely talked to him in fact. I personally follow him because he does have connections and information I use to form my thoughts on Spindlehorse and Medrano's character. Not based on Chai's opinions, but on the patterns of behavior Chai has been able to bring to light by knowing those who were directly involved with Medrano.

If you genuinely believe these falsehoods and are earnestly looking out for some stranger on the internet, then rest assured I hear you and am able to say with personal certainty that the information you have is simply incorrect.

But on the off chance that I am wrong, I do request you bring me evidence instead of making baseless accusations the next time you have a concern.

[agenericplaceholdername]

I think that the gem Thunderfang gives to the Forbidden Five contains the souls of ancient Dragonians loyal to him. Notice that when the gem is destroyed in "The Spectral Lands", what emerges from it looks nearly identical to the souls of the Forbidden Five in "Chaos Unchained":

I wonder if, since these Dragonian souls serve Thunderfang, the ancient Dragonians fought alongside the dragons against the Oni? Maybe the Dragonians kept in the gem were the Dragonians Thunderfang commanded in battle? Would love to learn some more Dragonian lore.

I know the villain faction in S3P2 are "Spectral Dragonians," so if this is explained in the leaked episodes (or if it was obvious just by watching S3P1 and I didn't catch on until now), my bad.