#d&d

[wilwheaton]

The following tips and advice for running D&D games comes from years of research, hundreds of interviews, and thousands of surveys from both new and experienced DMs. Be careful at 1st level. 1st level characters are extremely vulnerable, more than at any other level in the game. Consider giving 1st level characters five extra hit points. Don't run more creatures in a battle than there are characters and run only monsters with a challenge rating of 1/4 or below. Level the characters up to 2nd level quickly. The Starter Set and Essentials Kit adventures can be lethal if a DM isn't careful.

How to Play Dungeons & Dragons: SlyFlourish.com

This is just one of a handful of *extremely* helpful tips for anyone who is new to D&D, or is looking to refocus themselves as a DM.

[jimbo-thy]

Actually, I'm seeing people in the tags being like "we need to save D&D's brand" or "support Hasbro so they don't go through with it."

Save D&D from what? Itself? The "D&D brand" has been dead for years. What are you worried about? That Elon would make an already shitty product and company even more shitty?

Hasbro/WotC have been leaning into automation and art theft for years. Elon's AI bros are only going to make the problem more visible. Is he going to push for more "anti-woke" politics to be in print? D&D has been fumbling its virtue signaling for years, your experience with representation comes from the choices you and your friends made at the table. Elon can't stop you from making LGBTQ+ characters anyway.

Elon buying WotC would just be another nail in the very sturdy coffin that the corporation has been building for years. And if we're being realistic, Hasbro is very unlikely to part ways with their WoTC cash cow. D&D might be "unprofitable" but Magic the Gathering is too lucrative for the dying toy company to let go of.

WotC doesn't "need your support" and you don't have to "save D&D from Elon." WotC is not D&D. You and your friends, or local library, or LGS, or wherever you play. Those people are D&D.

[the-griffons-saddlebag]

⚔️ 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗺! Helios Spear
Weapon (spear), legendary (requires attunement) ___ This spear radiates with warmth, as if it had been left in the sun. You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with this magic weapon, or +2 if you’re in sunlight. On a hit, the weapon deals an extra 1d10 radiant damage. Whenever you roll radiant damage for the spear and roll a 10 on the die, the target of the attack must also make a DC 17 Constitution saving throw. On a failed save, the target is blinded until the start of your next turn. On a success, it’s immune to this effect until the start of your next turn. The spear glows with light while in flight. The first time on each of your turns that you hit a target hit with the thrown spear, that target takes an extra 3d10 radiant damage from the attack, instead of an extra 1d10 radiant damage. Making an attack at long range with the spear doesn’t impose disadvantage on the attack roll. In addition, you can use a bonus action to magically teleport the spear to your empty hand, provided it’s on the same plane of existence as you. When you do, it reappears in your hand in an instantaneous flash of light. When it emits light, the spear sheds bright light in a 20-foot radius and dim light for an additional 20 feet. 𝙎𝙪𝙣𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙢. You can use an action to throw the spear and speak its command word. When you do, you duplicate the effects of the “sunbeam” spell (save DC 17), and the spear immediately vanishes amidst the beam of light. This version of the spell is instantaneous and doesn’t require concentration. The spear then reappears in your hand at the end of the spell. Once used, this property of the spear can’t be used again until the next dawn. ___ ✨ Patrons get huge perks! Access this and hundreds of other item cards, art files, and compendium entries when you support The Griffon's Saddlebag on Patreon for less than $10 a month!

[gavamont]

Got thrown out of the Eroticism Of The Machine Club because I made the argument that Viktor Frankenstein’s Monster counts as a machine because he is man made.

After several slapdash keynote presentations, 2 separate wizard duels, a screaming match, and a smashed bottle of rosé, they have banned me from coming back. Whatever. Just gives me more time to work on a constructed man back at my wizard tower…

[czepeku]

If you're looking for your first job in the world of adventuring, this is a great place to check, they have a behest board, a map room, a stock of arms, and places to train!

[vintagerpg]

Man, I love Ultraviolet Grasslands. This is the second edition, which came out last year in hardcover. It has a giant interdimensional root vegetable on the cover. I know this is a road trip RPG, so you’d think, “Hm, perhaps a picture of a road,” but no. Root vegetable is actually probably the correct vibe.

For the most part, 2E has more. To make room for that, there’s 50ish extra pages, but also the on-board SEACAT system has been toned down (those rules are now called Synthetic Dream Machine and will be published separately in a more robust form). The new real estate is full of more things to noodle around with: vehicles, pets, spells, rules for caravans (this last is particularly in depth, feels crucial to the experience and I am surprised I didn’t feel its absence in 1E). So many tables. There’s a brand new bestiary. I’ve not thoroughly re-read the main campaign/travel guide, but I don’t think much if anything is changed there, which is OK, I liked that just fine the way it was.

The main thing, though, the main attraction is the art. There is more of it, new, weird, mostly purple. Luka’s got a dizzying talent for creating curiously proportioned robots. His psychedelic landscapes are both strange and welcoming, dangerous but also kind of cozy. I am always down for new Luke Rejec art. And a lot of the old art is bigger. Which is kind of like being new, in its way.

If you missed UVG the first time around, there is really no good reason to skip it this time. So don’t skip it.

[mindboogling]

I love making a gag character for D&D, forgetting they’re just a gag character, and then take a step back to look at the original ref

[official-dnd-posts]

official dnd post

(shaking dice in cupped hands) c'mon daddy needs a new pair of money

[probablybadrpgideas]

The Monster Manual but it's blatantly written by the monsters

[bramblepatch]

It's very funny to me that the stereotypical gelatinous cube is bright fucking green when the monster itself is almost perfectly transparent. Like its gimmick is that it's a monster that imitates an empty 10x10 hallway. How many people have fallen victim to gelatinous cubes because they "know" that the ooze is bright green and so don't bother to check the suspiciously clean corridor in front of them.

[ihaveatypeanditstrickstergods]

One of my favorite D&D gags that I ever came up with is part of a oneshot I've run a few times where the party is hired by a young wizard to help clear out a few active security measures in a tower that the wizard inherited from her old teacher.

The first obstacle to be cleared is the re-animated skeletons that the old wizard was using for gardening help. It's a pretty straightforward fight, but during the encounter, players may notice one particular raised bed of herbs that is set back in a corner of the garden by itself.

Upon further investigation, this one raised bed is absolutely shining with magical protections. There are runes carved into the wood of the bed, gemstones inlaid in the top of it, this bed is absolutely protected out the ass... and an arcana check shows that the protections are all pointed inward, attempting to keep what's in there from getting out.

What's growing in that raised bed, you may ask? What is so dangerous that the old wizard felt the need to place all these protections?

Mint.

[peppermint-3]

I DID THIS!! very briefly!!! we only had like one session but my half bronze half silver dragonborn sorcerer pirate was so cool and killed 6 people with a tidal wave

I can’t get over the fact you can play a Dragonborn that’s also a Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer of a completely different color lol

I can’t take it seriously because all I can think of when I try is this post

[whitneyzombie]

Oops I dropped my updated drive of DnD resources that I'd NEVER put the 2024 Player's Handbook on, or any other materials.

That would be so reckless of me. Who would leave 100+ DnD materials just laying around?

[oldschoolfrp]

The redcap is a diminutive murderer from Scottish folklore, with a cap soaked in the blood of his victims. The D&D version of the redcap appeared in the 1993 Creature Catalog as an evil subtype of brownie, illustrated by Dave Simons.

[dragon411keeper]

"Oh, you mean the 2 million souls thing? It took me a few literal life times to figure it out, however, I have managed to set up one or two contingencies on the off chance that I die before the needed number of souls have managed to accumulate in time, one of which is making a set of daggers specifically enchanted to land themselves in the hands of assassins, and the hearts of those who willingly torture others for their own pleasure or something along those lines, the second is premature activation, simply put, the magic activates prematurely and then I'm incased inside of the stupid amount of iron that is needed to house my skeleton."

They nod along as if they're listening, I continue.

"Speaking of which, do you have any idea how stinking expensive tungsten was back in those days? If I had that money now, I could purchase 15 islands and still have enough to renovate all of them."

Their eyes are like stone.

"Anyway, I had to get enough tungsten to make an entire skeleton, my skeleton, then I had to find a necromancer who was willing to do surgery on me to replace each and every bone in my body with that of the tungsten equivalent, which mind you had circles hammered in to mimic the natural function that bones do, make blood."

they get comfortable since this is taking a bit.

"In addition to all of that, I had to make sure that when I went forward with it, that no other religion didn't interrupt it, and trust me, there was a few who either tried to stop me, siphon off what I had done to fuel their plans, and those who thought that I wanted ALL SOULS, not the very specific minority that I was targeting."

they looked confused before muttering; "death cults."

"And don't get me started on trying to advance the study of the stars, yes, there was one or two kingdoms that had the sciences that could rival todays in terms of outer-space, but trying to locate a very specific celestial body inside a sea of literal millions is harder than you think, and that very specific celestial body was a MAGNETAR!"

again with those eyes of stone.

"I specifically chose a magnetar mostly because of its volatile nature and on fucking far away it is, good luck destroying when it is 2 million light-years away."

they lean forward "hold on, you mean to tell me that your phylactery is a magnetar?"

"that is correct, why else do you think I needed 2 million souls?"

they stare at me dumbly.

"putting all that aside, why else do you think that a painting that old still exists?"

they blink; "because you're the one who commissioned it?"

"absolutely."

"huh" they say finally leaning back into their chair. "so was there goblins back then?"

"they were more or less the same as they are today."

"what do you mean by today?"

"well after thousands of years of the home world not having magic and then suddenly a piercing purple shows up out of nowhere, what do you think is going to happen?" I say while splaying out my arms, "magic is going to return full force whether we like it or not!"

They stare past me towards our home planet, I turn my head to see the northern lights active with boundless excitement.

"and so it begins." I state before bringing out a tungsten staff from pocket-storage to lean against.

“How could you?” “I can expla-“ “No, I don’t mean morally. Logistically how could you even pull something like this off?”