#( dnd ramblings. )

[foldingfittedsheets]

DMing is hard. I acknowledge this. Weaving a story with words for long periods of time means you’re gonna say something silly sometimes when your brain blips. And it’s not your fault that it’s so silly that your players share it around turning it into an inside joke, immortalizing your brain fart moment forever.

My DM was narrating a scene between our tiefling rogue and the NPC she was romancing. He was trying to set the mood for their first kiss, up on a tower overlooking the city, looking into each others eyes. They’d just been on a romantic date, there was a bottle of wine between them. And this was their moment.

The NPC leaned in to kiss the rogue and the kiss was, according to our DM, “long and normal.”

The entire session went off the rails. We became ungovernable creatures of hilarity. How long is normal?

We are informed normal is six seconds and we devolve even further into chaotic paroxysm of laughter. The DM desperately tried to rein us in but for the rest of the session everything took a long and normal amount of time.

My betrothed and I would kiss each other while counting to six in our heads then declare afterward, “Ah yes! Long and normal!”

I accidentally told my school team about it, reasoning that they’d at least never meet the DM who lives out of state. They’d say we needed the scene to be the long and normal length, or hold a pose for a long and normal time.

At the end of the year I invited them to my house for a celebratory meal and was surprised when my DM joined the DnD video call early. My teammates looked at him, expressions slowly spreading into evil grins. “Long and normal!” They greeted him.

He turned a look upon me of utter betrayal while I hustled them out of my house.

“It’s been a year!” He cried at the unfairness.

“Maybe it’ll phase out by next year,” I told him.

[singing-not-sleeping-beauty]

I don't want a direct sequel to the DnD movie

I want more DnD movies with the same cast, but they play totally different characters every time, except for Xenk, who is the only recurring character in the entire franchise

[gorgynei]

is this not the coolest shit you've ever seen. why did practical effects ever fall out of fashion (answer: capitalism)

[dnds]

THINKING ABOUT DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS‼️

[feebledungeons]

If your some of your goblins don’t speak in terrible cartoony gobbledygook in Common but intelligently, suavely or charming in Goblin then I fear you’re missing a trick in your Games Mastery

Gobbo in Common: Craig say you go there bad big bad go boom! Boom!

Gobbo in Goblin: Oh thank the gods you understand me. I skipped Common to fast track my chemistry masters. Enchanted to meet you but we have a dastardly plot to foil. If you can take me to the detonator I’m sure I can defuse it. It was… my design after all… *smoulders in biochemist*

[strawberryscare]

ally confirming in the adventuring party that kristen still wants to be a cleric and still a follower of cassandra is both comforting and sad. there’s been speculation abt kristen switching to monk/sorcerer/etc and while that would be really interesting narratively, it would sort of throw the last three episodes of sophomore year out the window in doing so.

i also think this last episode mirrors/reaffirms her commitment (in that she opted to allow cassandra to turn their anger onto her willingly), hence the comforting aspect of her keeping her class. but it is really sad bc as ally said: it’s not that kristen’s not caring, but she’s truly disorganized and so young. in a perfect world someone else would have been cassandra’s prophet, and kristen could just be a normal cleric of cassandra.

the unique role she’s in now, as cass’s sole follower AND prophet, is so similar to the life she left behind as helio’s “chosen one” that i can’t imagine it WOULDN’T be triggering. in a way she’s been almost set up to fail.

[the-fallen-aesthetics]

Monsterframe Valkyr inspired by @daboof's monster frame sketches :>

[basketobread]

I JUST REALIZED I NEVER SHARED PALADIN LUNARA LOL (yes i drew her in aylins armor... IT'S SO PRETTY I HAD TO!!! just pretend they're swapping outfits cuz they're besties ^_^ /j)

[mayakern]

not following rules as written because the other option is more dynamic/interesting: rule of cool

not following rules as written because the other option is funnier: rule of fool

[lazylittledragon]

hi i'm unw el l

[mossy-rot]

love a character that would sooner claw their own stomach open and swallow their organs than admit they have a problem

[foldingfittedsheets]

There’s nothing that can get my brain to officially log the difference between stalagmite and stalactite. Every time I’m offered a mnemonic on the subject it slips gracefully out the other ear and I frankly just don’t care.

So when our DM tried to set an ambush during a cave fight with ropers, some clinging to the ceiling and others on floor I just said, “I cast Shape Earth on the ones hanging on the ceiling stalags.”

There was a brief pause as everyone processed this.

“Do you mean the stalactites?”

“Yeah, whichever. Mites, tites, they’re all stalags to me.

The party found this hilarious and “stalags” has been used ubiquitously since then.

“The cave you enter is full of stalags,” is a real sentence I got my DM to say and I’m so proud and relieved to stop pretending to care about geology terms.

[awkwardosthe3rd]

I love that animation of the tiger and fox ocs that you have for DnD! What are the two characters names? I wanna learn everything I can about them omg :0

Awe, thank you kindly!! ;; I will do my best to answer, pardon if any of this is confusing, I am a bit sleepy- /// Big ramble ahead, for I cherish this opportunity The tiger is actually not one, but based on a fishing cat, though I can see how the very broad face can be a bit confusing! Otherwise I have also drawn the fox with an actual tiger fella, but he is not the one featured in the animation. <:

The cat, lovingly going by the name of Vodnik, belongs to my friend, as far as I understand (given his backstory is partly kept secret from me) he is a retired pirate, now fisher, whose a bit grumpy toward the world and wizards (Because they are elitist?). Additionally big ol' communist, tho the pirate part may have already suggested that.

Adding this lovely height chart done by @rema-rin to show the characters, with her wizard being the lanky blue nerd to the right.

The fox, named Mishka, is my lil thief, accursed fey of sorts who eats shiny things, because she has some form of pocket dimension in her gullet. The DM very charitably granted me this infinite vault, knowing that my character would never let go of a single object that goes into it, so at this point they could have a dragons treasure in there and still refuse to spare a single copper coin. If its shiny, it goes down the hatch.

The two met up in the wilderness, because she wanted to eat the scales off of the fish that Vodnik caught. Because Mishka is so short, she was originally mistaken as a lost child, but no, she is just an adult discount fey in her late 20s that will crawl on all fours and chew on toxic metals with no second thought behind it, because her brain is made for consumption, not for the laws of nature. Vodnik remains as grumpy as ever, but has seemingly grown somewhat empathetic toward Mishka, supporting her little "fill the void with tiny shiny things" without quite knowing the full extent of it. He's been a big Mishka apologist. She would eat the stars if nobody stopped her, she got huge klepto itches for anything reflective enough to catch her attention.

And for reference, the animation in question for those who looked thru this and were wondering:

[raeofgayshine]

Thinking again about the fact that when Eddie and Dustin finally convince Steve to play DnD with the party, all of them, but especially Eddie, quickly become exasperated with Steve who has extremely high charisma, and decides that he can fix almost any situation by flirting with whoever they were in conflict with. Especially the fucking monsters, this man is bound and determined to himself a monster boyfriend and until it happens, he will make every single person they come across fall in love with him. So naturally, this happens a lot:

Steve: I’m going to flirt with them

Eddie, exasperated: Steve, you can’t date this monster, he’s trying to kill you-

Steve: Hot.

Steve: I’ll flirt with them harder then

[nburkhardt]

Claudia definitely calls Steve “my baby”.,,,. it’s only been like a day of knowing him.

She clocked him as a scared, sad boy immediately and decided that he’s her boy and will do anything to protect and care for him.

She watched him be silly with her Dusty and just went ‘that’s my baby. I gotta get adoption papers!’

[torpedopickle]

I want to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons Honor Among Thieves is an excellent use of meta humor applied seamlessly to a story without ever breaking immersion.

Mild spoilers. I'll keep it vague so nothing will be spoiled if you choose to read on

This movie integrates many things that someone familiar with D&D would recognize from the narrative structure of a campaign.

There are some things in particular that demonstrate this particularly well

At one point, the party is joined temporarily by the character Xenk. But he really feels like he'd be an NPC party member controlled by the GM rather than a player. So when the other characters banter and quip, this character doesn't really join in or get their jokes cuz he simply wouldn't have the agency to. More examples of this would be how he's much more capable than the others, but he doesn't overshadow them. He provides aid if it's desperately needed, and will sometimes bail rhe party out of situations they can't manage on their own, just like how a GM should utilize an NPC companion. He even has a quote that perfectly reflects this. "I've given you the tools. Now you have to be the ones to use them". There's even a more direct joke about his NPC behavior. When he leaves the story, he walks off in a random direction, going straight forward, even stepping over obstacles and terrain unnecessarily. This all amounts to him feeling like a very clear GM controlled NPC, however he is presented in a way that still makes him feel entirely faithfull to his own world and does not break immersion

Other ways the movie plays around with the GM campaign structure would be the approach to backstory. The only time a character outright explains what their backstory is, in full, directly to us, is at the very start, to give context for the story going forward, as the character even puts it himself. Backstory later in the movie is told to us whenever it's relevant. Characters will toss in another fact or two about themselves in situations where mentioning a past experience would fit in. Much like how players usually prefer to build their characters.

And one of my favorite instances of being meta about D&D campaign structures comes in the second act.

the characters are faced with a complex and dangerous obstacle. The GM's stand in, xenk, explains the method of progressing through this obstacle correctly. But in true D&D fashion, the party immediately does it wrong and now the campaign has been derailed and the GM's setup squandered. So now they straight up don't have a way forward in the narrative. Logically, it should end there. But that'd be a shit campaign, so the GM would naturally bend the rules to get things back on track. So after the party fails the obstacle, one of them goes; "Hang on, that stick we've had with us the entire time isn't a stick after all! It's actually a magic staff that solves our EXACT predicament at this EXACT time". That is such a clear cut meta joke about GM's having to get things back on track cuz players are all chaotic evil. Is it a plot contrivance? Absolutely. One of the biggest ever. But it's what D&D is built on