#roll20 presents

[mapdoctor]

Fishing Village [25x25]

New map! The road continues somewhere in the coastal region of your setting when a small fishing village presents itself to the traveling party. The adventurers enter a small, salt-corroded tavern. Soon after they set foot in, a fisherman with a distinct mark on his face approached them, offering the hard-to-refuse quest.

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[rustedportal]

SCAVENGE the ruins of Humanity like the Walking Dead, SLAY Damned and Risen Dead like Buffy, and SURVIVE Soulslike danger is a deadly and magic rich Post-Apocalyptic Earth.

[mekkthemighty]

Fire Dragon Lair, roll20 screenshot, I'm just proud of this one. The lair is built like a blast furnace carved out of a mountain top.

Holes in the ceiling can be used to fly through as well as act as the heat vent of the domed ceiling

Lava has a layer of floating magma rock over it, the reason it looks a little weird is cuz its on top of the shadows so it can be deleted as its crossed, can't pass through an area of it more than once and can't stop on it. I also have a separate lava rock token for if the lava is hit with strong wind, water, or cold to create a safe spot

The Lair is at the top of a tall cliff, 100ft, or 10d6 fall damage if you dive off the top

Pillars supporting the ceiling and the ring and wavey pattern seemed like a furnace-y shape, rocks all over the place for cover and such

Heat Metal effects all metal inside the lair its effects increasing over time, DC 0+1 per minute, the dragons fire breath increases the DC by 5 for everything present, the metal begins melting at DC 20 for nonmagical metal or the crafting DC roll of the item itself. Melting weapons have a chance to break, melting armor lowers AC slowly. You can lower the DC by 5 by dousing it in water (full waterskin) or hitting it with cold damage. Exhaustion for every minute spent in a DC 20+ heat (I'm counting the DC on the person as well, not just their items)

Lore wise I think the dragon melts all the gold and jewels and riches to "sort" it, the magical stuff doesn't melt nearly as easily too, I think it makes sense as a red dragon nest, the extra heat would be good for the eggs too, it can also bathe in the lava which must be relaxing

Strategically the Dragon has many movement options, crawling on the ceiling, flying in and out of the ceiling, can get cover with the roof and pillars, lava swimming. It also can weaponize the heat and lava, splash attacks, pushing them into the lava, and it can knock them off the mountain too

[choshasan]

DND question...

Help??

I'm still fairly new-ish to dnd, have some experience, but I'm not an ancyclopedia..

Most recent game was a game zero(?) I think that's what the DM called it, anyway, not the point,

And I made my character, all was well, except, everyone present was pretty fucking tired during the character making, all pretty half asleep, and trying to share one PHB and google with D&D Beyond & Roll20, so I cannot tell if I did something wrong in making my character, if our DM gave me the wrong info, and all I can find of google is "you went wrong somewhere", here's what's the problem;

I'm Lvl 3 bard, I, according to google, should have 6 spells and 2 cantrips?? (4 lvl 1 & 2 lvl 2??)

Buuut, somehow, I wound up having 8 spells and 3 cantrips, and I do not know how. And I didn't note which of my spells were meant to be lvl 2 and which were lvl 1...

So I'm trying to find which is meant to be which, and I just have no clue...

My DM is 1. Currently busy, 2. Has strong ADHD and 3. Was extremely tired and half awake when he helped me make my character, so, Not really gonna get any help from him until next session, which doesn't even have a date yet, but most likely not in the near future, but I've been trynna get everything in order for it, and yeah.. I'm stuck here...

Info about my character;

Race: Asmodeus Tiefling

Class: Lvl 3 Bard

Background: Charlatan

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Spells:

Hellish Rebuke

Song of Rest

Charm Person

Disguise Self

Cure Wounds

Dissonant Whisper

Calm Emotion

Enthrall

Cantrips:

Thaumaturgy

Vicious Mockery

Mage Hand

Stats:

Str: 10 (+0)

Dex: 18 (+2)

Con: 14 (+2)

Int: 8 (-1)

Wis: 9 (-1)

Cha: 21 (+5)

Things my DM made me put in Features & traits:

Dark Vision

Hellish Resistence

Mantle of Inspiration

Bardic Inspiration

Jack Of All Trades

Weapons:

Longsword

Daggers

Instruments:

Lyre

Lute

Viola

Languages:

Common

Infernal

Halfling

Elf

Gnome

I would guess the reason I have so many spells may be because I'm an Asmodeus Tiefling?? I remember that giving me extra stuff, I just don't remember exactly what...

Thank you to anyone who's capable of helping!

(My character's name is Barbie btw, he's fun ✨️)

[annazonart]

Going on sale until next year!

Trying to afford holiday presents for loved ones and general bills.

Payment up front (via PAYPAL) but I have a decently fast turnaround!! I need references (unless you want to pay extra for design work).

NSFW - Patrons and mutuals only.

Ocs, dnd characters, furry, anthro, mech, weapons, whatever!

No real people, no gore, no hate.

Roll20 tokens example 👇

They're very small but I pack as much detail into them as I can! :3c

Thank you for any interest! Message if interested!

[podcastingpineapple]

Liveblog for One Scene. Palisade 54, 01:21:30 onwards.

AH FUCK AH TITS AH FUUCK THEY INVITED HER IN?? WAS THIS A TRAP????

"This time She moves not of her own will." Oh fuck. FUCK!!

"You see fear in Elle." OH YEAH? UH-HUH?? YEP. FEAR IN ME TOO.

Amazing. Terrifying. You really didn't read fine print on that contract, Elle!

"We gotta learn how to kill divines D:<" "ELLE, I KNOW WHERE WE ARE GOING!!" (Protective girlfriend win!!!)

And then fucking "What is the goal of this scene?"

Head in hands. Face on the floor.

Sidebar! I am little bit confused why Present can just teleport into the Mirage.

I mean, okay, it is not enough for the Principality that One Divine gets in. Also Present was/is in the Pact, so, you know. Useless I suppose in grand scheme of things. Also also! Arbitrage had a Box with a button on Palisade in a shed, so maybe that is like... a beacon. Or like a gluetrap.

Roll20 hates the cast so much. I hope Evil Keith has given good councel and cori will get out. I am scared.

Aaaaghhh CORI BABYGIRL!!!! THE DICE!!! THIS IS SO MUCH MISFORTUNE!

Divine Present loosing it's elect and fighting cori all the way to the arms of Perennial..... space is kinda sad.

[gnusnoteunuchs]

How is Wallflower going for your group and what kind of mech does Castrati use?

the Wallflower campaign that i was in is on basically a permanent hiatus; some of our players got burned out, and we couldn't keep going. it's a shame, because it was a super fun campaign and we had an awesome GM, but it is what it is

Castrati was running a SSC Emperor for a while, but after it was destroyed in battle he did a homoerotic forging-a-new-weapon montage with the old warrior TERROR to switch to a frame variant of the Emperor that my fellow players homebrewed as a birthday present for me. I really enjoyed the Emperor's whole "ranged support" thing and their frame variant reimagined it as a shorter-ranged, tougher, less focused version that was meant to perform better for close quarters engagements.

I gotta admit, one of the things I miss about that game was that the Emperor was the very first anything i encountered in a TTRPG that genuinely felt like it was mechanically perfect for what I like to play.

anyways, this was the art i did of the Swan Song, Castrati's final mech. The remains of his Emperor have been fused with earthmoving equipment and cast-off shells of native Hercynian fauna to create this awful transformable bug samurai thing. my lovely girlfriend @heartfuldame also did an incredibly cool pixel art kitbash for the roll20 sprite that i hope she will post here

[lex1nat0r]

White Elephant: Rumble in the Jumble

AAR #19

Session reports from my ongoing Lancer campaign

Characters (LL 2):

Raiju (They/Them, Hacker 2/Heavy Gunner/Centimane/Nuclear Cavalier, Barbarossa 2) - HA Barbarossa “Counterproposal”

Sunshine (They/Them, Grease Monkey/Technophile 2/Engineer/Juggernaut, Pegasus 2) - HORUS Pegasus “Exchange of Affection”

Rook (He/Him, Walking Armory/Stormbringer/Brutal/Brawler 2, Balor 2) - HORUS Balor “Your Burden”

Daylight (She/Her, Technophile 2/Engineer 2/Infiltrator, Vlad 2) - IPS-N Vlad “Look What You Made Me Do”

Magpie (They/Them, Hacker 3/Technophile 2, Goblin 2) - HORUS Goblin “Destructive Interference” Player not present this session

NHPs:

Molotov - Via Sunshine’s Technophile talent - Projects as a small velociraptor - unshackled

Willow - Via Daylight’s Technophile talent - Projects as 1-2 squid - unshackled

Murgatroid - Via Magpie’s Technophile talent - Projects as a wizard? - shackled

Prometheus Antichiral - fork of a cascaded NHP from the Sanctuary Blue cloning facility - projects as a wizened old man - unshackled

Prev session writeup

The Lancers attempt entry into the Rimtech corporate archive but are blocked by Guardian Fleet forces already on the ground. So just a fight for this session.

Combat 3.2: Difficulties in applying for a library card

Sitrep: Beacon Recon (from Enhanced Combat)+

Rimtech forced in the area had left a high-powered transmitter buried in some rubble (the yellow-outlined area on the left of the map). It could be reached by a dismounted pilot, and a Quick Action could be used to clear Lock-On from all friendlies.

OPFOR:

80-ton Gorilla (Veteran MBT (from Winter Scar) - Stabilized Railgun, Marker Nexus, Secondary Gunner, Legendary)

Stingbringer (Veteran Vehicle Rainmaker - Endless Rain, Shock Armor, Flier, Hover)

Scout x4 - System Flayer

Hive Grunt x6 - Tier 2, Seeker Cloud, -HK Nexus, -Razor Swarms

Outcome: PC Victory

(Tokens by Retrograde Minis (on the basic blank hex tokens that come with Lancer so they show up well), map by Interpoint Station’s Lancer map creation tool, VTT is Roll20)

Thoughts:

This is the first fight I've run that had a real Plan. Namely to inflict Lock-On on as many PCs as possible and then use Stingbringer to hit three targets a round with AP, Smart, Seeking missiles.

I thought this was going to be a tough setup, but DPR was lower than I was hoping for as the lancers predictably focused Stingbringer down in the first few turns. Its Shock Armor did nothing as it was hit with either Heavy or Auxiliary weapons. Giving it Lightning Reflexes would have made more sense (it's a helicopter) and might actually have dodged a hit.

80-ton Gorilla's railgun was the secondary source of damage for the fight and it did manage to structure both Counterproposal and Exchange of Affection, the only major damage from the combat. Still, I should have made the tank Elite instead of Veteran, giving it an extra turn each round to make up for the fact that the Scouts don't do damage.

That said, the Scouts' System Flayer annoyed the hell out of the players, so they did their job.

Making bespoke Hive Grunts was fun, and I liked that stripping out their options meant they had obvious actions each round. I bumped them up to Tier 2 since the PCs are LL 2, but 4 kinetic damage a shot isn't a whole lot of hurt with a Balor in the party.

More grunts in general per sitrep, I think, given we have a Pegasus and a Balor. And more activations on the damage dealers to put the squeeze on the players. It seems they can take it.

More Tier 2 enemies?

The Apocalypse Rail once again proved underwhelming for a 4-turn charge up. Going to tweak that.

It sounds like I'm being negative here, but it was still a solid fight that everyone enjoyed. Plus I have some definite takeaways and it definitely simulated a pack of lancers surprising a group of regulars.

Bonus thought:

As I was finishing preparing the setting Retrograde added a bunch of vehicle NPC sprites and I am very excited about finding excuses to use those. Love throwing combined arms opposition into a fight.

Next time: Adrift in a sea of manna?

[gdadp3y2]

How I would present my project:

To present a DnD campaign, the easiest way would probably to play it. This could be done either digitally or in person, with tools like Roll20 or Foundry, which are virtual table tops, (VTTs) being popular tools to play DnD digitally.

In person, the campaign would probably be best presented through a sample encounter, that shows one of the locations, as well as some of the creatures, through combat and dialogue. The players would probably play as premade characters, possibly even playing as characters in the story. This way, the players would get a window into the contents of the adventure, as well as the short sample session being a hook to entice players to return.

[mapdoctor]

Your Everyday Dungeon [40x50]

Dear friends,

I present to you the perfect dungeon for your everyday needs. It's plain and simple, ideal for some dungeon crawling. Rituals, cultists, old books, levers, and tombs full of skeletons? Yes, please!

Patreon

Roll20

Subreddit

[rustedportal]

Coming Soon! AtR: Survivor Starter, a 5th Edition DND Compatible campaign starter for Apocalypse the Risen Campaign Setting. Follow now, back at launch for a free adventure pdf and 6 free Perilous Hunts, deadly encounters, 4 released weekly during the campaign.

[open-hearth-rpg]

Cards (Generative): Great RPG Mechanics #RPGMechanics

Prologue

One of the great tragedies of moving to online play has been making certain ttrpg elements more challenging. There’s the obvious: not being able to fully see & grok other players’ body language and the tactile element of a shared table with books & sheets in your hand. But there are also system elements made difficult like maps and shared dice rolling. While these particular issues had been solved by various VTTs and apps, there’s a cost in ease. For me it’s more work to assemble an electronic map and tokens than to grab stuff off the shelf. 

Cards in rpgs are a tougher issue for online play. There have been apps to manage standard playing decks, but unique ones present more of a challenge. I’ve played quite a bit with the Roll20 app– and it works for some purposes but not for others. And, even with the ability to make unique electronic decks, you still don’t have the tactility– the sense of holding, shuffling, and managing your cards. The various board game simulators have aimed to replicate this, with varying success.

On Cards

Cards in tabletop rpg play usually have three possible functions: reference, generation, and resolution. I’ll talk about their place as a heightened randomizer tomorrow. Today I want to cover the cool ways in which they’re used to create worlds and set things up. 

The earliest memory I have of someone doing this was an old-school player who picked up D&D in the mid-1970s as a college student. He ran a campaign where he would do a tarot reading and then based on that modify your stats, give you a family background, and assign you traits. It was simultaneously exciting and disempowering. 

I had that in mind years later when I sketched out a tarot for our ongoing fantasy world. I mocked up cards and wrote up meanings for the whole deck, based on the history we developed. Eventually I used that as a prompt system for generating NPCs. You would draw three cards and then sketch out a character based on those elements. 

That’s not unlike the approach taken by The Story Engine. It’s both a writing and a roleplay tool. The original one is a collection of prompts, which is interesting and probably a useful tool for doing in-depth session planning. But I’m more intrigued by The Deck of Worlds. This offers set of world-building elements and prompts. You stack and build up details on the tiles, creating an interesting picture. It’s beautifully put together. 

Likewise we’ve seen a variety of cards as tiles used for generating random dungeons and wilderness areas. I can imagine a Hexcrawl done like this, letting the GM create the terrain as they go. I’m certain those are already out there. These generators make use of the strength of cards: the richness of information possible on them. They’re a step forward from the classic random roleplaying tables. 

With cards, instead of a simple prompt, you can easily add more text, sub-tables, and graphical information. You elevate the randomizer. If you want to increase utility, you can use both sides or have the orientation of the cards impact the results. It’s a great way to bring tables to life– but does have the disadvantage of a more serious investment of energy. There’s a big difference between a multicolumn, one-page table and a version of that table done as a deck of cards. Speaking as someone who has accumulated a lot of RPG reference cards, I can attest that the space and storage component can become an issue– beyond the question of how many times you’ll actually need to use the deck…

But two recent games build the use of cards directly into the set up in an interesting way. Alice is Missing uses cards to establish the world. It’s clever because of how the cards to impart information and keep the play silent. You have character, clue, suspect, and location cards. The particular combination of those dramatically affects the story being told: what & when those appear. 

Likewise Zombie World offers an cool approach to using cards as building blocks. A checklist card of elements guides the collaborative creation of the PCs’ enclave. But more interesting is the random set up which frames the whole game. Players are dealt four cards: 1 Past, 2 Present, and 1 Trauma. The first and the last of these they can look at, but are kept facedown. From the Present cards, describing who their character is now, each player picks one and turns it face up, discarding the other.

The decks are substantial for these– expanded by a couple of supplements. Based on the mix of their three cards players come up with character details and background. After introductions another set of cards is dealt out between players. This describes a relationship between the two of them. They then negotiate and work out the details. Once play actually begins, one of the goal each player has is to hit their trigger and reveal their Past and Trauma cards. 

I love the way the use of the cards reinforces the themes of play. Character creation is super fast– you can set up and get to playing in 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the group. That’s the kind of energy you want going into a horror game like this. Zombie games lean into “we are our own worst enemies,” and the hidden elements of characters reinforce that. Characters are rich, but they are also disposable. If you die early, generating a new character is the work of a few moments. The cards also factor into resolution, but I’ll come to that tomorrow. 

For a time Magpie had a sci-fi version of the Zombie World system on their docket. That seems to be in limbo now– perhaps the form factor of ZW didn’t do as well as they hoped or perhaps the success of the Avatar rpg washed everything else away. It’s too bad because right now, with the success of Among Us, a sci-fi take on these mechanics could be awesome.

[roll20]

Coming Soon to a Livestream Near You!

Next month be prepared for the adventure of a lifetime. GM Shareef Jackson is bringing a whole new cast together to explore the world of Kids on Bikes. Come meet them and get hyped alongside them for a collaborative story-telling roleplaying game full of ordinary people grappling with strange, terrifying, and very, very powerful forces. Join them all on February 15 at 8am PT (4pm UTC) as they begin their journey together!

Meet the cast:

Shareef Jackson (Game Master) is a STEM diversity advocate who enjoys video games and TTRPGs! Follow him at shareefjackson.com, http://twitter.com/shareefjackson, or http://twitch.tv/reefjackson for links to his work.

My goal is to use the Kids on Bikes system to build a world that everyone can participate in.  I also want to promote a diverse cast of players, as well as in game characters, to show that tabletop RPGs can be enjoyed by everyone. - Shareef

Markeia McCarty is a geek & gaming host, TTRPG player/DM, improviser (UCB, iO, Second City) and is also a Marketing Manager for Hunters Entertainment. She's played on a variety of TTRPG shows including Critical Role, Geek N Sundry, and HyperRPG. She narrates and story edits the animated horror series, Something Scary, on YouTube (youtube.com/snarled). Tuesdays 6pm PT, she RPGs on Hunters Entertainment Twitch (http://twitch.tv/huntersentertainment ). Twitter/IG: @markeiamccarty, Twitch: DarthMarkeia

One of the things I'm excited about with this upcoming Kids on Bikes campaign is the wonderful diversity representation. Differing ethnicities, gender identities and backgrounds both on & behind the scenes. Not only that, but we'll have the feel good pleasure of having a Kids On Bikes campaign where yes, anything thrilling can happen (like Space Robots, possessed toasters, and aliens that can do the Tango) but also real social commentary can be done with knowledgeable and experienced people co-creating together. The possibilities are pretty beautiful and I'm excited to be a part of it. - Markeia

Xu Mason is a bilingual first generation Asian American actress/writer/comedian. She came up through the Chicago improv scene, where she studied at The Annoyance, iO, and The Second City. She has been on multiple iO Harold Teams, and was a 2019 Second City in conjunction with NBC Universal Bob Curry Fellow. Her writing has been found in Points in Case, Belladonnas, Flexx Mag, and Funny-ish. She currently plays games online with her improv team StirFriday Night, and more. Find her on twitter and instagram at @hellotherexu. 

I love collaborative world building. I think it's so much fun to create and explore a world together, using one tid bit here to fuel another. Setting the mood, and creating something zany, fun, and lovely - or all three. It's almost like improv, but only for my head and shoulders. - Xu

Noir Enigma is a voice actor, streamer, musician and improvisor. He has studied at Chicago's iO, Westside Theater, and Second City. He is the Nerdy host of Critical Misses' Morning Ritual, creator and Game Master for Kobold Presses Into the Southlands, Magpies Second City Saviors and The Lonely Throne a 5th Edition game in his created setting of Gloria on Thursdays on his twitch channel. He is the Social Media Manager for LFM Network and can be found at twitter/twitch/youtube as @TheNoirEnigma.

What I’m most excited about is trying out this new system. Kids on Bikes is something that I’ve heard so much about but never got to get my hands on until now. Plus I get that added benefit of playing this new system with such amazing players, I have not played a single game with any of the cast so this is so terribly exciting that I can’t wait. I know we’re going to bring something special together and I can’t wait for you all to see it! - Noir

Kailey Bray is a Juilliard-trained actor from Ottawa, Canada. She is the creator and Game Master of Damsels, Dice, and Everything Nice, the Princess RPG parody. In addition to Damsels, she’s the Community Manager for AMC's Walking Dead Twitch Channel, and a producer for Hyper RPG and Pixel Circus. (Twitter: @hapabarbarian)

I’ve never gotten to play Kids on Bikes and I’ve always wanted to try! I love the collaborative world building aspect of the system and I can’t wait to see what we all create together! - Kailey

Premieres February 15 | 8am PT (4pm UTC) | twitch.tv/roll20app

[yourstatera]

I follow three different D&D shows and sometimes there are recurrent patterns. From last Sunday to this Thursday, this week's theme is "the pcs are in some serious trouble and I honestly thought someone gonna die but actually everything did go pretty well and everyone was clutch" and I'm digging it.

[swordofsun]

Everyone should watch the first 25 minutes of Roll20 Presents Dungeon and Dragons Ghost of Saltmarsh for the in depth discussion on the Ceremony spell.

Tactical weddings. Dispel magic? Marry them, kill them, animate them, 7 days later have a regular zombie, rinse and repeat. Shield or spouse?

[kouratdrhuii]

More mushroom people !!

Here are the latest mushrooms I've ordered for my project 😁

If you are also interested in commissions. They creates character tokens for roll20, scenes and character presentation sheets for DnD or warhammer 40k characters.

Here's the link

And the latest batch of mushroom people, with a timelapse.