#dungeon master

[thisisahorrorstory]

Back on my bullshit, I fear.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Why You Should Try Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy Part 12: It Loves Game Masters and Teaches You How to Be One

This is part 12 of a multi-part series of posts about the awesome features of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, in no particular order.

Find the earlier parts here:

Part 1 Link: We Worked Hard on It!

Part 2 Link: It's Easy to Learn!

Part 3 Link: It's Easy to GM!

Part 4 Link: It's Easy to GM and Supports Narrative and Roleplay!

Part 5 Link: It Revolutionizes Investigation and Mystery Solving in TTRPGs

Part 6 Link: PCs are Not Just Mystery Solving Automatons

Part 7 Link: Excellent Time-Keeping Mechanics Keep the Pressure On

Part 8 Link: Fun and Easy Character Creation

Part 9 Link: Themes of Disability

Part 10 Link: It Has Intense Action

Part 11 Link: Oh By the Way We Made Turn Order Fast and Snappy Too

I know I already talked about how it’s easy to GM in an earlier part of this series, but I’m bringing that up again and going into more detail. You already know if you’ve read earlier parts that Eureka treats the GM as a player and insists that they should be having fun too, not just being an entertainer.

Even if a game has something called a “[game master]’s Guide,” we’ve found that these “guides” don’t really guide or teach you how to game master, they just tell you a bunch more rules. Eureka doesn’t have a separate book called the “[game master]’ Guide,” but it does go out of its way to teach you how it wants to be GMed every step of the way.

Eureka also has a whole chapter in the back full of additional GM resources such as optional rules, how to handle edge cases, game running advice, and homebrewing guidelines, guidelines for how to convert adventure modules from games such as Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green for Eureka, and more!

There’s even a whole step-by-step guide on how to write and publish your own Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy adventure modules. Writing mysteries is really hard, but there’s no reason it has to be a mystery itself!

This, combined with how the rules themselves are presented with their intent made clear, means you will learn a lot about game design and game mastering just from reading the Eureka rulebook, whether you end up playing it or not.

The way that Eureka wants to be played and GMed may not work for every other RPG, but the truth is that every RPG has particular ways it wants to be played or GMed, but the designers rarely write this into the rules text. Simply seeing a game spell it out like Eureka does will teach you that, and teach you to look for the signs in other games of how they want to be approached. Like I said, people tell us all the time “Eureka changed the way [they] think about RPGs.”

[crayfishcoffee]

How it feels.

[wipbigbang]

The 2025 WIP Big Bang & WIP Reverse Bang Are Open For Sign-Ups!

Welcome to a new round! We're bringing back the OG WIP Big Bang, which is for finishing fic and getting art to go with it, and introducing the first full round of the WIP Reverse Bang, which is for finishing artwork and getting fic to go with it. All fandoms/ratings/ships are welcome, including original works!

Schedule

All times are by 11:59pm PST. Convert time zones.

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Sign-ups Begin- April 1st

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Sign-ups Close- May 21st

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #1- May 22nd

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #2- June 15th

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Snippets Due- July 1st

Big Bang Art Claims/Reverse Bang Fic Claims Begin- July 17th

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #3- July 22nd

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Check In #4- August 6th

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Rough Drafts Due- August 15th

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Posting Claims Begin- August 23rd

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Posting Claims Ends- September 1st

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Final Drafts/Art & Fic Due- September 7th

Big Bang/Reverse Bang Posting Starts- September 8th

SIGN UP LINKS

WIP Big Bang | WIP Reverse Bang

FAQ

[cat-cosplay]

Be me

DMing birthday one shot for friend.

Leave plot hook note.

Bugbear player licks note.

Expected to figure out how to describe to everyone what Beholderkin (Gazer) tastes like without saying Beholder...

[curse-of-dming-strahd]

one of the only downsides of running Curse of Strahd as a PG-13 quasi-comedy adventure is that I have to think long and hard about what I'm going to do if someone looks Strahd dead in the eye and calls him a fartface.

[kika-ila]

Gave them a little DnD contest ^^;

[elisabethbgrace]

i'm watching the apothecary diaries and (spoilers ahead) the episode with the shrine of choosing? the whole red-green colorblind solution? It would be a perfect dungeon labyrinth puzzle -

You set your players up so they know the legend, an ancient mythic ruler created a labyrinth so that only those of their bloodline can pass through.

This ancient ruler was known to have poor eyesight, but could see clear as day during the night. On a high enough intelligence check, you can let a pc recall that this can happen when people are red-green colorblind, a hereditary trait.

After that, you set it up just as they do in the show, with solutions that make no sense to someone who's not colorblind, (e.g., "Do not go through the red door", with the options being red, green, and blue. To someone with CVD, they can only be certain that the blue door is not red).

It's simple enough that with the right clues, they could figure it out on their own. But it's also able to be brute-forced if need be. A perfect puzzle.

[purr-in-ink]

[just-dnd-thingys]

[rollingtablesiguess]

Rolls to Alarm Your Players

Want to spice the game up? Why not try alarming your players for no real reason? Make sure to make a show out of counting the dice before you roll.

[thatonenewdungeonmaster]

[finn-from-adventure-time]

Maybe this is a silly statement, but I never realized how much love and care goes into being a dm and it’s made me really passionate about planning my current campaign. It’s like yeah you’re putting in a ton of work learning all the rules to the game and writing the story and planning so much shit, but you’re also making a gift for your friends. You’re sitting down in front of your laptop, energy drink in hand, asking yourself “How can I perfectly curate a world that my friends will love? How can I incorporate their interests and their wants and their needs?” It’s like no matter how hard writing the campaign gets or how tired I get of working at it endlessly, I never ever feel like giving up because it’s not just for me, it’s for my friends whom I love dearly. I love you enough to build an entire world for you, I hope you like it.

[irrel]

Asking people to play D&D with you but in a stealth way‍ 👀

[salmonsalad69]

Making brennan lee mulligan proud by drafting a dnd campaign where you get hired to find a mercenary responsible for the death of a nobleman who owns every apothecary and healer in the city and along the way you discover more and more about the city's working class struggles and how the people have started to rally in support of this one man and can you guess what current event has inspired this one?