#and let me know if you've got any feedback on my format or anything

[deergoddeargod]

Rimster sickfic recs

The Madness to his Method - DivineVarod

Only a few months into his time on board of Red Dwarf Dave Lister becomes witness to Arnold J Rimmer's bizarre exam preparations. Everyone on the ship tells him to just ignore it, but fearing the Second Technician is in a very bad place Lister can't. Soon it is clear he was right to worry.

Feverish - just_a_dapper_fellow

Rimmer contracts a holovirus but attempts to keep it hidden due to a fear of being locked back up in quarantine. Of course, he only manages to make it on his own for so long before Lister catches him.

Take Care - just_a_dapper_fellow

Rimmer picks up a holovirus on a derelict that gives him a nasty cold, but years of conditioning from his childhood make it hard for him to accept the fact that he needs rest. Luckily, Lister is there to help.

Lovesick - SeparateWaysTogether

Lister's appendix is about to burst. Rimmer sinks into a neurotic spiral of worry for his ageing bunkmate. Who's more sick?

Shake - andimeantittosting (Saylee)

Sometimes Rimmer glitches

enjoy :)

[staytiny-dreams]

dating streamer! beomgyu (c.bg x reader)

pairing: choi beomgyu x gn! reader

genre: streamer! au, fluff, tiny bit of angst but not really

warnings: some parts focus on covid-19 pandemic if that's a trigger for you, i think that's all but lemme know if you think i missed anything

wc: 3.4k

note: so tired at 3am i accidentally hit the post button when it wasn't ready so if you've already seen this, no you haven't. i'm unsure how it turned out so let me know, i've also never formatted it like this before so any feedback on that lemme know too, and... look forward to the other members versions <33

squeals leave beomgyu as the tension rises, the anticipation of the jumpscare he knows is coming getting the better of him

the chat speeds by

“i thought you were supposed to be good at horror games”

“what happened to beomgyu has no fear”

“we told you you should play fnaf beomie!”

“took you this long to play fnaf?”

beomgyu whines at all the ‘i told you so’ comments

“come on guyssss im so late to this how am i supposed to know you’d be interest-” he cuts himself off with a guttural scream as freddy finally makes his long awaited appearance

seeing the bamtoris laughing at him in the comments he pouts at them

“chat you distracted me okay, i let my guard down because of you!”

his pc pings with a notification and the text to speech reads out “themarcotoyourpolo says ‘HAH you are such a liar beom you would’ve screamed either way’”

when beomgyu was seventeen, he spent his time like every other teenage boy did

playing video games

but sometimes his best friend would come over and he’d pull himself away for a few hours

only to sit with you and watch streamers play other games

honestly you didn't mind when beomgyu played games when you were over

he was entertaining to watch

really entertaining actually

“hey gyu, don't you think you’d be a good streamer?” you suggested one day jokingly.

you both giggled at the little game of ‘yes and’ that followed, planning out an entire future together where beomgyu was rich and famous, and you lived in a mansion together that was just a haven for video games and your friends, but after your little tangent, the thought was dismissed as quickly as it came.

or so you had thought.

a week later, sitting across from each other at the cheapest your favourite restaurant in town, beomgyu brought it back up again.

“do you really think i’d make a good streamer?”

“why are you actually thinking about it?” you snorted, taking a sip of your water thinking he was joking again, but when beomgyu didn't say anything you tilted your head up at him.

“oh shit are you actually thinking about it?” beomgyu gave a noncommittal shrug and picked at his food, staring down at his plate. he refused to look at you until you knocked the table in front of his plate lightly.

“beomie,” you started as he stared at you with wide eyes, “i could watch you play for hours.” you don't think you could ever forget the way his smile took over his face at your words.

and that led to the next few months spent with you and beomgyu on call for hours a day

playing mostly minecraft together although occasionally he’d branch out to other games

you hit all his milestones together

he still remembers the day you first got a double digit view count

excitement flooded through the both of you as the kind soul who raided you spams your comment section

the same day, beomgyu also hit ten followers, prompting you two to make his discord server

whenever you were too busy to join him on stream beomgyu would whine and complain like his life depended on it

more often than not he’d actually end up cancelling the stream for that day

one day you didn't feel well but you decided to sit on call with beomgyu while he streams so that he wouldn't cancel

beomgyu chattered on as he normally does, yelling about how, “beomgyu never dies,” but he noticed that today you were not reciprocating that same energy.

in fact you had been so quiet that he wasn't even sure you were still alive on the other side.

“(y/n)ie are you alive over there? (y/n)? marco?” he asked and ever so faintly he heard a weak ‘polo’ sound throughout his headphones.

“one moment, chat,” he said to his 20 something viewers before deafening on discord and muting his mic.

he wriggled his phone out from where it hid in his pocket, opened your contact and called you. it dialled almost four times before you picked up.

“i’m so sorry, beomie i fell asleep. i really didn't mean to but i-” he cut you off before you could go on.

“are you okay (y/n)ie?”

“to be honest beom, i don't feel very well i-” cutting you off again, beomgyu announced that he would be coming over to cure you before promptly hanging up and ending stream leaving both you and his chatters confused.

turns out, curing you meant bringing you his mothers soup and watching youtube in bed with you until you fell asleep. your burning forehead left patches of sweat on his chest, but he couldn't find it in him to care.

from then on you had a system in place where you would check if the other was still there by calling out “marco”

and if the other person was okay they’d call back “polo”

sometimes you regretted this system on days beomgyu decided you were too quiet and abused the marco-polo system by continually calling out marco like a broken record

a little while after beomgyu turned eighteen, the pandemic started and so followed lockdown

it was a really hard time for beomgyu

you were supposed to be starting college together that year, along with your close friends from high school soobin and taehyun

but now all classes were online and he wasn't allowed to see any of his friends

going from seeing you everyday to never took a toll on beomgyu that he didn't expect

he just hated knowing you were only a few streets away and he couldn't just walk over to you whenever he felt like it

beomie :>: are you looking at the moon rn and wondering if i’m also looking at the moon rn?

ynnie <3: beom we called for six hours today

beomie :>: i know right, i miss you too :((

ynnie <3: omg fine get back on disc lets watch a movie

but with his ray of sunshine by his side, he eventually found his footing in this apocalypse

a lot of his time was spent on call with you

working on your respective assignments

watching your online lectures on 2x speed

any other free time was spent streaming

since everyone was stuck at home, due to his frequent streaming schedule

and infectious energy

beomgyu’s audience quickly grew

going from 1000 followers when lockdown had started to hitting 3000 followers within a few months

taking your advice, he also became more active on his other social medias

even posting clips of his streams on tiktok

a few of which went viral causing his channel to grow substantially again

he also started a youtube channel for those shorter games

or ideas that required more editing to execute than a stream would allow

one day, while checking his twitter dms his eyes almost fell out of his skull

he dialled you immediately

“(y/n) (y/n) (y/n) (y/n) (y/n) (y/n)!”

you took a deep breath in, prepared to repeat his name back to him in the same tone, but you didn't get the chance.

“do not copy me, we do not have time for that, this is a code blue, (y/n), code blue!”

“what on earth is a code blue?”

“big creator dmed me (y/n), come on, we’ve discussed this!”

“we’ve never discussed a code system in our entire life.”

“what that is such a lie, you just never listen to a word i say!”

“well sorry beomgyu if you talk so much nonsense that it's hard to keep up,”

“nonsense? you take that back!” he screeched, but you could only giggle at him.

“i will literally never do that. come on gyu, what’s the code blue?”

“oh, yeah! j-hope messaged me (y/n). he asked if i wanted to join his friends' discord and play among us with them.” you squealed for him, excitement rushing through you.

“oh my god, oh my god, oh my god! beomgyu, what did you say?” suddenly beomgyu felt sheepish, realising he’d just been sitting there with the message open, too busy bickering with you to have responded.

“oh um… well, nothing yet i called you first…” now this time you screeched.

“you left 20 million youtube subscribers, 1.5 million twitch followers jung ho-seok on seen? beomgyu!” you scolded. beomgyu didn't know whether to be afraid or laugh, but his endearment got the better of him and he burst into giggles at your tone.

“don't laugh at me mister, text him back right now and tell him you’d be honoured to play with them!” and as he began to type out a reply to his senior, all beomgyu could think about was how he couldn't wait to have you in his arms again.

joining such big creators in playing among us put beomgyu in contact with even more big creators and had his channel blowing up

he met many new friends including someone who would become one of his closest friends

huening kai

as covid restrictions were eased and tightened again, beomgyu made sure to see you any time he could

but due to social distancing laws, he wasn't able to tackle you in his affection the way he wished

at the end of 2020 the second wave of covid set in

your anxious mother decided that you were not allowed to leave the house until the pandemic was over

beomgyu struggled with this news

his weekly outings walking six feet away from you - but still with you - were helping him hold on to his ray of sunshine

but with your assurance that you'd spend even more time on call with him and watch all his streams, he was able to keep his mood-maker demeanour in front of his fans

“so what are your plans for valentine’s day, (y/n)?” beomgyu asked, already knowing your answer.

with february 14th approaching, beomgyu was kicking himself for not having said anything sooner because your mother still wasn't letting you out of the house and beomgyu wanted to say what he had to say in person

“what do you mean gyu? you know i’ll still be stuck at home.”

“hm… well, maybe we could do a minecraft date, like a valentine's day special.” he suggested tentatively.

“like for your stream?” you asked and he shrugged.

“we don't have to stream.”

“but beom, aren't our friends all having dinner at soobin’s that day? don't you want to join them?” you reminded him and he simply shrugged again.

“don’t want to leave you all alone on valentines day (y/n)ie.” your face felt hot. you loved your mother to pieces, but sometimes her self imposed covid restrictions really got on your nerves.

and then march came, and for the first time in twelve years you feared you wouldn't be able to spend beomgyu’s birthday with him

“mum please, i’ll do anything,” you begged, “legally four people are allowed at an indoor private gathering.”

“and what if someone there has covid (y/n)? you have asthma it could really affect you!”

“it’s only going to be gyu, soobin and taehyun. you know all of them, you trust them! plus we’re all going to test before we go!”

“and what about transport, (y/n), what if you catch it on the bus?”

“i’ll take a taxi.”

“and what if the taxi driver has it? or what if you get in the car with a bad driver or a kidnapper?”

“mum! where is all this coming from? please. it’s beomgyu’s birthday, i can't miss beomgyu’s birthday. i swear i will never ask to go out again. just please let me go see him tomorrow.” tears welled up in your eyes. you hated fighting with your mother, but you couldn't let beomgyu down like that.

but the fight was all worth it when you knocked on soobin’s door the next night and beomgyu opened it.

he pulled you inside and slammed the door shut before squeezing you tight to his chest.

“you're here?” he asked, voice muffled as it was buried in your shoulder.

“happy birthday beom,” you smiled, arms tight around his stomach.

he pulled away from your hug and before you could joke about how your mother would never let you see the light of day again, beomgyu pulled down your mask and pressed his lips to yours.

two seconds passed where you stood still, wide eyed in shock before you registered what was happening and jumped into action.

one of his hands still held your mask, and the other came down to your cheek which you’re sure must’ve been burning him from how hot your face felt. you followed his lead, grabbing his shoulder with one hand and pushing your other through the hair at the bottom of his neck.

too soon, beomgyu pulled away, resting his forehead against yours.

“i’m sorry (y/n). i wanted to wait, until after lockdown, i wanted to talk to you first but i saw you and i just-”

“i love you beomgyu.” you cut off his rambling and he let out a flustered laugh.

“i love you too (y/n), i love you so much.”

due to covid still ongoing and your mother’s strict rules, you and beomgyu decided to take things slow after that night

there were no more meetings in person as you kept your promise to your mother

nothing much in your relationship with beomgyu changed due to your agreement to take things slow

he flirted a little here and there but there were no new pet names or anything of the sort

beomgyu continued to focus his energy on streaming and you continued to focus on your studies

beomgyu’s streams always providing the perfect background noise

but don't tell him that you don't devote a thousand percent of your attention to him at all times

luckily as 2022 approached, your mother began to let beomgyu visit your home provided he wore a mask in common places and if he had any symptoms he did not come over

and in april 2022 most legal restrictions were lifted

with your second booster vaccination, your mother lifted your house arrest

it had been over a year since you confessed your feelings to each other and your 20th birthday approached

you both had a big discussion about giving your relationship a real try

beomgyu now had almost half a million followers on twitch

after grinding for two years, he now had a rather large fan base

you expressed that you were a bit worried about having your relationship public to them

beomgyu didn't quite understand your concern as you had been participating in his streams and been a prevalent figure on his social media since the beginning

however, respecting your wishes, you both worked to keep the romantic nature of your relationship between yourselves and your close friends.

while beomgyu seemed to have found his schtick after 3 years of streaming

playing horror games on stream and co-op games with you for his youtube channel

and the occasional vlog

the friends he had made playing among us, huening kai, ho-seok and jungkook had begged him to join a minecraft server and stream with them

so with your encouragement

and his conditions that his partner and best friends also join the server

beomgyu joined the bighit smp started by kim namjoon

it was only a few months after you officially started dating

just before his 21st birthday and both of your fourth and final years in college

when beomgyu came to you with his proposition

“move in together?”

“is it too soon? i know we've only technically been dating a few months, but-” you cut beomgyu off with a hand on his mouth.

he stared at you wide eyed for a split second before his expression changed. luckily, you recognised the suspicious sparkle in his eye and removed your hand from his face before he could lick it, leaving him pouting at you.

“don’t look at me like that,” you giggled but his pout only deepened and he reached over to grab the hand that was previously on his face.

“so? what do you think? you wanna live with me?”

“hmm… i think…”

“(y/n)…” he whined, dragging out your name.

“i think we’ll need to find a place with an extra bedroom, so you can stream in there and not in our room.”

living with a horror streamer

most days of the week it's fun

a substantial income

your boyfriend’s always home

your boyfriend is practically fearless… in theory

okay maybe he’s only fearless when it’s fictional media

even a little bit of clout, not that it matters to you

as you always have, you tend to join beomgyu and your other friends when they play minecraft in the bighit smp

as well as being in all of beomgyu’s vlogs

since you moved in together, you decided it was best to come clean to bamtoris (his fans) about your relationship

they were very supportive

due to your presence in his channel from the beginning, there were some long time shippers who were more than pleased to hear this news

and maybe a little cocky, plastering ‘i told you’ so posts all over their socials

yes, the beomy/n truthers were very pleased

of course there were those who were convinced he was dating other streamers

or those who shipped him with his other friends, soobin and taehyun

and just general psychos who simply hated you because he wasn't dating them

nevertheless you both saw the relationship reveal as a success

so sometimes you go and sit with beomgyu while he streams, just as you used to sit on call with him

but this particular wednesday night was a tough one

you’d been up late the night before working on your final project for college

then worked from 7 to 5 even though you were originally rostered for only 7 to 12

your head was pounding

and tonight, despite the soundproofing you had installed on the walls of the office

his shouts still reached your tired ears and made your head ache

you tossed and turned for a while, not wanting to ask beomgyu to quiet down as he was clearly having fun

but, after an hour of not being able to sleep you decided you were being stupid

beomgyu would never be upset with you for not feeling well

so you rolled out of bed, padded over to his door and knocked lightly, then cracked the door open

the light from the hall spilled into the room and caused beomgyu to look over at you with a smile

his hair was fluffy and his face was lit up by his screen and his purple leds and he just looked so soft

and before you could say anything, your face crumpled

and a few tears slipped down your cheeks

immediately muting his mic, beomgyu threw his headphones off and ran over to you at the door.

“baby, what’s wrong?” he asked, pulling you into his arms and you laughed at yourself.

“sorry, this is so stupid, i dont even know why im crying.” you mumble into his chest.

that night beomgyu ended his stream early and laid in bed with his arms wrapped tightly around you, whispering how much he loves you

and how whenever you wanted him to be quiet or even end stream he’d do it in a heartbeat

but, if you're not sick, busy or streaming with beomgyu, you're still watching his streams

and sending silly comments

you are simultaneously his favourite and least favourite chatter

your comments always make him laugh but are often at his expense

“themarcotoyourpolo says ‘poor baby, so scared of a big teddy bear’”

“you know what (y/n), get your ass in here, we'll put the headphones on you and see how confident you are then!”

but knowing you're in his chat has always given him comfort

and made him a smidge happier to be there

if beomgyu ever had zero viewers it'd be because you died and he knew that

even then if you ever wanted him to turn his computer off and hang out with you, he’d come running

at the end of the day, whether beomgyu’s screaming at his computer screen or peacefully cooking dinner with you, he is the love of your life and you wouldnt change a thing

[nightcitygigs]

𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕠 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 ℂ𝕚𝕥𝕪!

𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚞𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗 𝚙𝚛𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚍𝚎𝚜 𝚢𝚘𝚞, 𝚜𝚊𝚖𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚒. 𝙸𝚏 𝙸 𝚐𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚢 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔, 𝙸'𝚕𝚕 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊 𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐. 𝙻𝚎𝚝'𝚜 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗.

𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕒𝕣𝕪

Welcome to Night City Gigs - a weekly prompt page that encourages interaction with those in the community! Regardless of your medium, we encourage you to participate and meet new people! Here's how it works On each Monday, at 12:00 (Noon) MST there will be a "Gig Post" with the information for the gig! Gig's will be either issued by a moderator or user-submitted; if you want to submit your own gig, please do from our page!

Once a Gig is posted, commenting under it (it can say anything, but it does need to say the OC who is responding to the gig!) will earn you a slot! Slots for the gig are determined by the Caper Crew Maximum; it will say on the Gig Listing! These slots are first come first serve for each listing- that being said, if you have participated in the previous listing you are considered LOW priority for the next one. This allows others to join in who haven't yet participated! Gigs will be available to join for 24 hours after posting- these posts will be labelled as CLOSED after those 24 hours and the individual's will be @'d in the comments letting them know they got the slot!

You then have time to create! Write, in-game photography, art, or even RP! Whatever you can contribute to it, do it! Have fun! Meet new people! Once you post content, please @ this page! We would love to reblog your content!

We ask that you read the rules below before participating (this is a requirement) and like the post to ensure that you have read it in full ♡

ℝ𝕖𝕤𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕔𝕖𝕤

Want to use our generator? You can find it here!

Formatting lines are from here!

ℝ𝕦𝕝𝕖𝕤

Anything above and below is subject to change- I'm sure that I'm overlooking certain aspects and rules might get more lenient or strict as we see how these go. Please message this page with any and all feedback or suggestions that you have! That being said, for now we ask of a few things:

References

Before applying for a slot, please ensure that you have some kind of reference for the character that you are entering for that gig. This is kind for those who are working with visual mediums. Not having a reference (even an in-game reference is better than nothing) might have you restricted from future gigs.

Please be kind to those participating.

As this is a group activity, there are going to always have a variety of skill sets, personalities, and tastes. Everyone has come here to allow the community to flourish and celebrate our interests. Finally, being kind is a lot easier than being mean. We're all adults here- please have a kind and calm conversation if you've come to a disagreement!

Tapping Out

Someone might enter a gig and then might not be able to create due to personal circumstances. In this instance, we please ask that you message the appropriate parties (it could just be this page) so you can pull out of that Gig. This is only a preventative measure so that nobody is taking advantage of free resources or having the rest of the Caper Crew members feeling as if the circumstance is unfair. Tapping out this way will NOT bar you from future gigs!

Age Restriction To stay safe, we ask that you are 18+ to participate and follow this blog. You will be immediately blocked and blacklisted if you break this rule.

Thank you for reading!

As we said, there might be changes with any of this. We will keep you updated when the rules have been changed!

Special thanks to @another-corpo-rat for helping with any and all ideas & writing! You're an amazing and talented person and this wouldn't be possible without you. Thank you for continuously supporting me, my ideas and endeavors! Love ya!! ♡♡♡

[scham-wcan]

KNOWLEDGE GATHERING TIME!

Let's go with....

3(star swoosh), 4, 6,9, 13,14,21 (podcast fic), 23,26

Thanks for the lengthy ask!

3(star swoosh), 4, 6,9, 13,14,21 (podcast fic), 23,26

3. what is your favourite kind of comment or feedback?

I enjoy when people enjoy or have an emotional response the chapter or work honestly, there isn’t much else better than seeing someone have some reaction to something in something you wrote in any regard

4. there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

I think the more expected answer is Elemental because that story has been planned and has been developed since volume 6 basically. From that whole story the themes of self acceptance and carving a space for yourself were both really special to me so they became core to that whole story.

6. what makes you want to give up on writing? what makes you keep going?

The thing that makes me not want to write anymore is just not thinking I have any skill, capability, originality and so on and so forth. Too many times have I thought about quitting when I couldn’t write a few thousand words in a day, haha. I think spite it probably the thing that most effectively keeps me going honestly, naturally every supporter around me helps but wanting to shut up that voice in the back or my head is equally helpful in keeping going.

9. give yourself a compliment about your own writing

no

13. what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

My most recent one for Star Rail honestly, no idea why that got so much attention, haha

14. what one fic of yours you think people didn't get?

Stitches and CinWins honestly or Wandering Heat. One for being horribly written, the latter, and the former being that it was more for Rookie and I so some of the larger things and ideas in it didn’t really come across well.

21. what is your post-writing/sharing aftercare? How do you take care of yourself or celebrate yourself when you've finished a fic?

Honestly I don’t really have anything different that denotes celebration, most often I jump into the next thing or sleep or the rest of my day. When Ele finishes I will probably just make a new plan for a multiparter

23. What do YOU get out of writing?

I get to do my drabbles and nonsense in a socially acceptable fully made prose format.

26. how do you think engaging with each other through tumblr, twitter, comments, kudos, creates healthy fandom experiences? How do you deal with that if you're not a social person/ experience social anxiety?

Well I think it is important for creators to stick together and always look to one another to benefit out and one another’s works. If we all stay closed off there is just no way to think about expanding repertoires or anything like that. But it isn’t about comparing 1:1 because its ludicrous to compare your work to someone else’s because that isn’t you and the work they made is from a whole different world than your own.

So I am not typically very anti-social or anything like that, I do have issues of self esteem but that’s something I deal with closetedly. For the most part I participate in spaces where the upward trend is positive and uplifting and stray away from degradation or hitting down on others.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Do you have any advice on making easier puzzles? I LOVE puzzles, I grew up with adventure games where sometimes why something was the correct solution wasn’t obvious and I loved it because it made me think outside the box. My players … they suck at puzzles. They’re missing so many encounters and loot so they’re under level and under prepared half the time. They aren’t exploring or learning anything about the world. But I haven’t found a good way to tone them down without handholding them.

DM Tip: Puzzling it Out

While puzzles seem almost quintessential to the d&d experience, one of my greatest criticisms of how the game is currently handled is that there's almost no advice available to dungeonmasters about how they should go about designing or running puzzle encounters to maximize the fun at their table. We've got vague ideas about riddle doors, big setpiece traps, and clever envriomental mechanisms from the media we consume, but no idea how to translate those things into a format that works well in TRPGs.

Part of the problem is that there's no head's up display or physical feedback in a game of imagination like d&d: players are purely at the whims of the DM and what information they're willing/capable of providing, forcing everyone to spend a lot of time asking clarifying questions or trying out options that won't work. This grinds sessions to a halt, as not only do players need to figure out how to solve the puzzle, but spend twice as long figuring out what the puzzle is on top of figuring out if there even IS a puzzle in the first place.

Below the cut I'm going to give specific advice about how you as a DM can be better about implementing puzzles for your players in game:

My number 1 piece of advice for running a puzzle is to be OBVIOUS about it: Hint at the mechanisms involved when you initially describe the room and make them do something when the players poke at them. One of the greatest tools I've given to my party is letting them ask " what's the puzzle here?", at which point you describe the goal of the puzzle, the problem that they're faced with, and the different options they can interact with. You can keep some things out of the description, hidden or missing imputs, broken mechanisms that need improvisation or repair, but if you can be perfectly clear with what the puzzle is at the beginning , the party can dedicate their brains to trying to solve it from the get go, rather than spending most of their time at the table poking around in the dark. When they've done what you need them to do, make it obvious: have the door pop open, play the zelda "puzzle solved" sound, scream " YOU'VE SOLVED MY FIENDISH PUZZLE" in the dorkiest wizard voice you can manage, anything to let them save time and get back to the rest of the session.

No skill checks during puzzles: nothing's more annoying than knowing the answer to something and then being forced to try and retry because the dice aren't being kind. Players likewise shouldn't need perception checks to figure out basic elements of a puzzle's functionality anymore than they should need to roll to figure out if a door blocking their way is locked. The one exception to this is when they've devised a bullshit way to circumvent the challenge that's too flimsy to work on its own and needs a bit of the luck-gods blessing on order to work.

Puzzles eat up session time, so if you want to get things done this session use them as gates for optional content. Alternatively, Consider introducing a puzzle at the end of a session giving the party a whole week to think about solutions to get past it. People are generally really bad at problemsolving under pressure, and there's no reason your precious game time should be sacrificed just because the group doesn't feel like doing verbal trial and error for three hours.

General Puzzle tips

Everything I wrote in my post about “Proactive DM Voice” applies to running puzzles, you want to point your party at the problem give them an understanding that time is limited and that their decisions matter.

When they attempt a solution, tell them why it seems not to be working and if the reason is because they’re missing something, tell them that they’re missing something.

To make your puzzles more interesting without making them complex is to have them missing pieces, either intentionally sabotaged or simply broken from long years of neglect. This lets you highlight two advantages d&d has over other puzzle games: improvisation and exploration. Having your players come up with wild solutions is half the fun of including puzzles in your games. 

On the note of exploration, try to include atleast two different solutions to every puzzle somewhere nearby, whether they be lost parts for the puzzle or a means of bruteforcing the barrier it would normally unlock. This lets your players feel smart, even if its not the exact sort of smart the puzzle’s original builder would have intended.

One of the best ways to use puzzles is to use them to double up on dungeon rooms: placing a fight or other challenge in the same chamber as the puzzle to add a more interesting backdrop.

If your party is really stuck on something, rather than letting them make an intelligence check to know the answer, describe how the mechanism of the trap works and ask how they think they’d get past it/break it. Looking under the hood like this does give them a leg up, but still requires enough problemsolving to make them feel smart.

Environmental puzzles:

These are going to be your bread and butter for most ruined or abandoned dungeons, created either by intention or because objects in the environment landed just so to create a knot that the party now needs to untangle

Rather than letting your party flounder on something that isn’t solvable never be afraid to say  “That doesn't seem to do anything right now” or “looks like you’re missing a piece before you can make this work”. It’s videogamy, but your players will thank you for respecting thier time.

One of the best ways to give your party an advantage when dealing with environmental puzzles is to take the central mechanic of the puzzle and have them encounter a simplified version of it early on. Puzzle about getting an elevator unstuck? Have them do the same to a freight crane for a minor loot drop. Puzzle about draining the water from a flooded chamber? Have them empty a massive barrel so they can reach the keys inside.

If you want to be particularly devious, consider chaining environmental puzzles, making the ones they encounter earlier in the dungeon reliant on the solving of others deeper in. That gives you an excuse to reuse dungeon rooms, as the party circles back to play with the toys you’d previously singled out for later.

Riddles

Riddles are better suited to games with the fey than for locked doors, as anyone trying to keep someone out of their chambers would be better served with an actual lock or password than 

The exception to this rule is “linguistic gap” riddles, where a knowledgeable partymember is making a translation from instructions on how to get past the obstacle but due to age and cultural difference the translation doesn’t exactly match up: navigating a cave by “heeding the unseen serpent” and following the sound of rushing water, or “follow pelor’s patient gaze” to see where the sun points to at a particular time of day.  

If you must have riddles, use them as hints rather than obstacles, pointing out secret caches of supplies or secret passages that let the party skip past other barriers. That lets them feel smart for figuring out a shortcut, while still giving them the main road of progress to follow if they get stuck. 

Riddles also work when the architect is trying to prove that they’re smarter than the intruder, Riddler style, or wants to leave behind a false clue that leads them into a greater trap.

As a design consideration consider having the awnser show up as a physical thing somewhere in the dungeon, even if it’s just a representation the party can spot, or evidence that it once existed there. People’s brains are better at drawing connections then they are at coming up with random ideas, so figuring out that “all in armor never clinking/never thirsty always drinking” pertains to a fish is a lot easier if the party noticed a lot of fish in the fountain frescos a few rooms back.

Traps

I like to think that there’s two kinds of traps, death traps, and slap traps. With the former being large indiana jones style setpieces where the players desperately need to escape, and the latter being a minor hazard that softens the party up before an actual fight. 

Deathtraps are like boss encounters, and can be run either in tandem with a fight or as a sort of environmental puzzle on their own. Given that the architect probably didn’t intend for intruders to escape the method the party uses will likely be improvised, letting them feel extra clever for surviving, rather than simply lucky. 

Slaptraps are either best deployed as an ongoing navigation challenge , or as an unexpected threat introduced into another encounter. The days of random 20ft pits in the middle of hallways are a dark and godless time and we should not return to them

Traps that don’t have someone maintaining them will either break or leave behind bodies which attract scavengers. These are important signposting to a delving party that a trap might be coming up, so be sure to include them before you unleash a new trap on them. 

An old bit of advice Traps are put in places where the dungeon’s architect/current owner doesn’t want people to go, and as such arn’t likely to be in populated sections. 

I’m tremendously fond of Dael Kingsmill’s “Click” system, which turn traps from a random suckerpunch into a tense problemsolving encounter. TLDR: When a trap is triggered the party hears a loud “click” , and has a moment to do one thing in response. This action might grant them advantage or disadvantage, or fully negate the trap’s effects on them depending on what they chose as compared with how the trap hits them. It’s important to pair these sorts of traps with a dungeon room that has some details in it, so the party can guess in advance what the trap is.

Mazes, Codes, and Physical Puzzles

Despite how essential they seem to the genre, don’t try to run these sorts of obstacles by way of actually having your players solve them. They take too long and there’s too much of a chance for miscommunication to get in the way of progress. I’ve killed far too many of my sessions dead by throwing one of these in front of my party and expecting them to solve it then and there. Consider instead using my minigame rules to simulate the trial and error of working out something complex.

Art

[xiaoslxt]

⩥ xiaoslxt -> I'll be there

Characters: Hu Tao

Genre: fluff, angst, hurt comfort

Warnings: mentions of not eating properly = mentions of food, a full-on breakdown, mentions of bullying/being picked on, low self-esteem

Format: one-shot

Word count: 0.8k

Taglist: @adalynn-is-lost @kreideprinzessin (ty both for reading it and giving feedback <3)

A/N: Something on the more heavy side of things 🤕 feedback is very appreciated ! Also let me know if there are any tags I should add !

When people hear the name Hu Tao, the first thing they think of is trouble. She's known for being a prankster and having a very particular personality that's hard to get along with.

But these people don't make an effort to see past the chirpy facade the young woman puts up. You've known her ever since you were in your early teens, saw her real self, were there during her darkest times and brightest days, and yet she still felt so far away from you on some days.

Whenever the two of you roam the streets of Liyue Harbor, talking and laughing among yourselves with your hands intertwined, all the passersby do is give you annoyed side eyes, whispering to themselves. They don't understand how you get along with the Funeral Parlor Director, but they don't know her like you do. They don't know *you* like she knows you. Your relationship is so much more than meets the eye, something they just wouldn't understand.

"What's gotten your thoughts occupied, darling?" Tao's voice reaches your ears, pulling you out of your endlessly spiraling thoughts and making you meet her eyes. "You've been spaced out for a while there."

You reach out and gently grasp her hand in yours, thumbs stroking gently across the many rings that adorned her fingers. "Just… the usual, you know?"

She tilts her head like a confused puppy, "Are you debating the way people treat me again? We've only taken a nice evening stroll, I didn't think there would be rowdy teenagers out this late.. I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. They don't know a thing. We got each other, that's what matters, right?" You firmly state and grab her other hand as well, "no matter what people will say about you, me or us both, I will always have your back, my love."

The moonlight casts a silvery light into the confines of your girlfriend's bedroom, illuminating her soft features in the process. You catch a glimpse of sadness in her eyes, but it's gone as fast as you realized it was there; merely a fraction of a second, before her cheery smile graced her lips once again.

"You truly are everything and more to me." she softly says and tightens her grip on your hands, "I'm so thankful for you-"

Her voice slightly cracks at the end, confirming your suspicions of something bothering her; deep inside. You instinctively move your hands to gently cup her face and watch as tears roll down her face, her smile wavering and turning into a frown. Trying to wipe them away with your thumbs soon turns impossible when her emotions overwhelm her and she starts sobbing. Uncontrollably and so wrecked from buried emotions bubbling up at once, she doesn't know what to do, where to go.

"Tao… it's okay baby, I'm right here." You mumble quietly and gather her into your arms, hugging her firmly but comfortably against your chest. "Let it out, I got you."

And she does. She tries so hard not to be too noisy; burying her face in the crook of your neck and helplessly latching onto your shirt. Anything to ground herself, or she might fall into an endless Abyss of buried emotions, past thoughts and hurtful words being recalled at once.

It hurts you to see your lover break like this, not being able to do anything but hold her and be her supporting pillar, her guiding light during a dark, foggy night. Her mind is shrouded in thick clouds of her trauma, she tried her best to not be shaken and be the best version of herself…. But how is she supposed to do that, if there isn't a single day during which dozens upon dozens of people show their distaste towards her? It always surprised you to see Tao being the way she is; always smiling and positive despite the way almost everyone treats her.

You wonder how she managed to keep her happy and carefree facade up so well over all those years. Years of being picked on, bullied and despised by whoever was nearby. It truly breaks your heart when you recall the one time she had a really depressive episode and refused to eat for a solid 3 days. It wasn't until you found her, unconscious and way too thin, in her room and desperately took matters into your own hands. That's when you realized just how much she really means to you, and Tao realized the same towards you.

Nobody knows the two of your backstory, and yet they still fail to realize that *they* really were the source of your girlfriend's deep down sadness.

Hu Tao calms herself after really crying everything out, too exhausted to move or even open her eyes, just clinging onto you and enjoying the comfort you provide her.

"Hey baby, are you asleep yet?" You carefully ask and put your hand on top of her head.

"Not yet.." She replies, exhaustion evident in her voice. "But.. Thank you for being with me… I love you so much.."

You feel a few tears form in your own eyes and gently run your fingers through her soft hair. "I will always stay with you, you're my everything, my entire world. I love you so much, Tao."