#lots of incredible names for NPCs in a ttrpg here

[iwannarunawayandbeapirate]

GM Resources

Here are my favourite websites that help me prepare and run TTRPG sessions (I mainly play D&D 5e but many of these will also work for other games). All of these are either completely free or have a free base version.

2-Minute-Tabletop: Lots of free tokens, maps and more! Also contains some content you have to pay for, but the free selection is usually enough for me. Very useful, especially if you're running online games. You can even customise the tokens' colours.

Lost Atlas: A huge selection of free maps, with filters to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

Falindrith's D&D Monster Maker: Create custom D&D monster statblocks. Lots of customisation options, from spellcasting to legendary actions. Very useful if you want to create a unique BBEG, but too complex to use for minions imo.

Fantasy Name Generators: You've probably heard of this one before, but it's incredibly useful. Whether you need to quickly come up with some NPC names, figure out what that town is called, or invent an extra riddle because your players solved the puzzle way too quickly, you'll find what you need here. It's very versatile and even has specific name generators for some RPGs!

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator: This is my favourite world map tool. You can generate a random map and then customize it until it fits for your campaign. You can let it generate country and town names for you or come up with your own.

Dungeon Scrawl: Create your own digital battle maps. Base version is free, but you can pay for a premium version if you want more features. Not as quick as simply downloading an existing map, but you will be able to create exactly the kind of map you want.

I Loot The Body: Great if you need to quickly generate loot, treasure, or NPCs (I mainly use it for the latter). Compatible with D&D 5e and Pathfinder 2e.

These are just the ones I know off the top of my head, if I remember or discover more websites/tools I will update this post.

Feel free to reblog and share your own resources!

[cishetamine]

without googling, guess what this is.

I. Choir Gamba 16′ Principal 8′ Concert Flute 8′ Viola 8′ Viola Celeste 8′ Dulcet II 8′ Kleine Erzähler II 8′ Prestant 4′ Zauberflöte 4′ Gambette 4′ Piccolo Harmonique 2′ Fife (Carillon) 1′ Sesquialtera (Carillon) II Carillon III Rauschpfeife III Dulzian 16′ Trompette 8′ Krummhorn 8′ Orchestral Oboe 8′ Rohr Schalmei 4′ Tromp. Harm. (Bomb.) 8′ Tremulant I. Positiv Principal 8′ Cor de Nuit 8′ Quintade 8′ Principal 4′ Nachthorn 4′ Nazard 2 2/3′ Principal 2′ Spillflöte 2′ Tierce 1 3/5′ Larigot 1 1/3′ Sifflöte 1′ Septerz II Scharf III Zimbel III Rankett 16′ Cromorne 8′ Tremulant II. Great Subprincipal 16′ Quintaton 16′ Principal 8′ Diapason 8′ Montre 8′ Bourdon 8′ Spitzflöte 8′ Flûte Harmonique 8′ Bell Gamba 8′ Grosse Quinte 5 1/3′ Principal 4′ Octave 4′ Koppelflöte 4′ Flûte Octaviante 4′ Gemshorn 4′ Grosse Tierce 3 1/5′ Quinte 2 2/3′ Super Octave 2′ Blockflöte 2′ Tierce 1 3/5′ Septieme 1 1/7′ Acuta III Full Mixture IV Fourniture IV Kleine Mixtur IV Cornet V Double Trumpet 16′ Trumpet 8′ Clarion 4′ III. Swell Lieblich Gedeckt 16′ Gemshorn 16′ Geigen Principal 8′ Gedeckt 8′ Claribel Flute 8′ Flauto Dolce 8′ Flute Celeste 8′ Viole de Gambe 8′ Viole Celeste 8′ Orchestral Strings II 8′ Salicional 8′ Voix Celeste 8′ Prestant 4′ Fugara 4′ Flauto Traverso 4′ Nazard 2 2/3′ Octavin 2′ Hohlflöte 2′ Cornet III Cymbale IV Plein Jeu IV (from Plein Jeu VI) Plein Jeu VI Contra Fagot 32′ Contre Trompette 16′ 1ere Trompette 8′ 2eme Trompette 8′ Hautbois 8′ Voix Humaine 8′ Quinte Trompette 5 1/3′ Clairon 4′ Tremulant IV. Bombarde Diapason 8′ Octave 4′ Grosse Cornet IV–VI Grande Fourniture VI Bombarde 16′ Trompette Harmonique 8′ Trompette 8′ Clairon 4′ IV. Solo Flauto Mirabilis 8′ Gamba 8′ Gamba Celeste 8′ Concert Flute 4′ Nazard 2 2/3′ Piccolo 2′ Tierce 1 3/5′ French Horn 8′ English Horn 8′ Corno di Bassetto 8′ Tuba 8′ Cornet V (Great) 8′ Harp 8′ Chimes Celesta (Harp) Tremulant V. Antiphonal Diapason 8′ Gedeckt 8′ Salicional 8′ Voix Celeste 8′ Principal 4′ Kleine Mixtur III Trompette 8′ Vox Humana 8′ Tuba Mirabilis 8′ Cornet (Great) V Tremulant Percussion Chimes on Great Chimes on Pedal Harp on Choir Celesta on Choir Pedal Montre 32′ Flûte Ouverte 32′ Contre Bourdon 32′ Principal 16′ Flûte Ouverte 16′ Contre Basse 16′ Violone 16′ Bourdon 16′ Gemshorn (Swell) 16′ Gamba (Choir) 16′ Lieblich Gedeckt (Swell) 16′ Grosse Quinte 10 2/3′ Principal 8′ Violoncello 8′ Spitzprincipal 8′ Flûte Ouverte 8′ Flauto Dolce 8′ Gamba (Choir) 8′ Lieblich Gedeckt (Swell) 8′ Quinte 5 1/3′ Choral Bass 4′ Nachthorn 4′ Gamba (Choir) 4′ Lieblich Gedeckt (Swell) 4′ Principal 2′ Blockflöte 2′ Full Mixture IV Cymbale IV Grand Harmonics V Bombarde 32′ Contra Fagot (Swell) 32′ Ophicleide 16′ Trombone 16′ Double Trumpet (Great) 16′ Contre Tompette (Swell) 16′ Dulzian (Choir) 16′ Posaune 8′ Trumpet 8′ Double Trumpet (Great) 8′ Contre Trompette (Swell) 8′ Krummhorn (Choir) 8′ Clarion 4′ Chalumeau 4′ Kornett 2′

[undergroundwubwubmaster]

what's you D&D campaign about? are there little babies?

Oh crap, I'm gonna try keep this brief because nobody but me cares. Sorry in advance.

We are playing Waterdeep Dragon Heist adventure, with our own adaptations and flavor in it obviously - for example my whole gaming group finished up Curse of Strahd before this, with me only joining now, so we have a running story and returning faces going on. It's very fun.

It's hard to say what it is "about" because the thing with TTRPG is that the story evolves all the time and can and WILL get derailed a lot. I can say that from my PCs perspective, an aasimar monk named Maaru, his reasons for going along with the ride is to find out what happened to his students. I don't want to babble too much because my group (you cretins) follows me here and I don't want to reveal too much.

I will say that is VERY amusing for me how child-oriented this campaign is so far - two of the PCs are old teachers, one is just a big brother-vibed dude, Maaru as a character is incredibly child-loving and motherly and we have bunch of NPC kiddos running around. It's all very wonderful and I'm loving it.

Haven't ran into any actual babies YET, but I did draw some flavor art to -ahem- encourage our DM.

[aboleth-eye]

Hello! Would you have any advice for new DMs/things you wish you had been told when you started DMing? I'd like to try it myself, but I've only ever been a player, and just figuring out where to start is a bit overwhelming! Thank you in advance!

Great Question!  Here are my Lessons Learned from when I ran a game for the first time!  

There are Four Lessons I wish I’d known when I got started:  Have Your Resources Handy, Start Small (3 Parts), Things Go Awry, and Have Fun Together!   ((This is going to be a very long post, so I’ll cap it a little less than halfway down))

1.)  Have Your Resources Handy!

If this is your first time running a Tabletop RPG system, even if you’ve been playing for years, HAVE THE BOOK(S), WEBSITE(S) AND/OR PDF(S) NEARBY!  I’m serious about this, guys!  Playing a game or watching someone else play is a totally different monster to running it!  

When you first declare to the group that you’d like to host a game, I recommend you read the rules over at least two or three times before hand–start with a deep read first to get it all in your head, and then you can choose to speed read once you’ve had some time to digest the rules.  

But even if reading ttrpgs is your thing, have the resources within easy reach.  Either have your laptop available with open tabs to any pdfs/scans of the game source material and any relevant websites (like standard reference document pages), and/or have a physical copy of the game book with you.  If you are running certain monsters or encounters, I also recommend you copy down any stats and information to a separate text document (on laptop or printed) so you won’t have to page through stuff during the game.

2A.) Start Small: The Setting

If this is your first time or fiftieth time running a tabletop roleplaying game, and you are running a new system for the first time, limit the scope of project to start.  Writing campaign and world settings can be very intense, and it is very easy to write something too specific and railroad people into your lore and world.

For instance, don’t create a massive world with a continent of named cities and landmarks!  Don’t plan out every inch of your world, or else it’ll turn into a “fill-in-the-blank exploration” story instead of an organic world you can change as your group learns and grows!

My first campaign started in a very specifically written city on the edge of a vast magical desert.  I planned out a timetable of events that would catapult the players into the “open-world”.  The players noticed this and didn’t appreciate it. 

Also, do not bog your players down with Lore!  I’ve gone into campaigns where you need to know information “for backstory”!  This is your first campaign, it’s good to know what to introduce and when!  A group of starting adventurers typically doesn’t need to know your world’s entire array of deities, pages and pages of history, and legends “that shaped the world”!  You can introduce these things at character creation IF THE PLAYERS ASK, and then slowly dish things out as the characters live in your world.

It’s also good to not ties yourself down to specific placement of towns, countries, cities, landmarks, etc.  Leave the map blank save for the starting area, and any broadly defined areas such as forests and mountains.  Once characters finish their first missions and adventures, they’ll explore!  With all the “white space” of your world, you can insert places and things as you journey with the group!  

One of my favorite encounters when I was very new to D&D was when we accidentally burned down a forest.  We were fighting a massive tiger with a pixie NPC in a forest, and the pixie just trapped everyone (tiger included) in entangling vines.  Our pyromancer in the party tried to set the beast on fire, and they rolled a critical failure.  

The beast was set on fire and died!  And so did the pixie!  And now there’s a raging forest fire we have to run from!  We get an oxcart running and we take shifts to outrun the magical fire–FOR THREE DAYS!  It was an incredibly tense situation, and it was fun to add “an entire forest” to the pyromancer player’s list of things they set on fire.

You know what would have made all that suck?  If the DM had decided: “Okay, you pass through this location which is a lich’s hideout and have to face that; then the next day you’ll have to ford a river with the tired oxes.  Finally, you’ll be passing through this county’s border…”  

We just burned down a placeholder  forest, and all the consequences that came with it came AFTER we were finally safe!  The DM didn’t bog us down with heavy lore and their maps during a tense situation; they kept the focus on the action at hand.

Prioritize the players’ story before your own!  That’s the lesson I want to make absolutely clear.  You aren’t telling your story with friends as the characters; the Dungeon Master/Game Master/Storyteller is the worldbuilder who tells the character groups’ story as they interact with the world.

2B) Start Small: The First Encounters

Another item I want to bring up is Do Not Start Your Campaign with a “Unique Encounter”!  Start your campaign setting with a simple task for the players to face.  Here are the kinds of challenges I mean: defeat a bunch of zombies in a graveyard for a reward, go into a mine full of bats to retrieve a homing beacon, follow a simple mystery to find a girl’s lost dog, etc.  The Players’ should be introduced to your world with something simple to follow–that way they can make their marks and introduce how they roleplay to the story.  

Do Not try something you’ve “never seen before”!  Don’t have the characters whisked off to another plane or world while they slept!  Don’t have the players face fifteen or so mooks at once during an ambush!  Don’t have your characters struggle to tread water or leap floating platforms while fighting a monster!  These kinds of encounters instantly put players on guard and feel railroaded!  Give them the chance to decide how they integrate themselves into the adventure.

My first campaign violated this rule.  When the players left the city to enter the desert, they were suddenly beset by 12 monstrous scorpions!  And me, in my ambitious tunnel-vision, thought it’d be interesting to have each scorpion have its own turn.  I rolled twelve Initiatives for the scorpions and it was a LONG combat when it clearly didn’t have to be.  

It all looked so good in my head, but when you get players involved you can tell how grueling and boring something like that could be.  I learned a lot that session.

That combat ended the campaign for me.  I decided to go back to the drawing board because that kind of thinking was not going to fly for me and my friends.

Instead, give your players a task that could easily be solved in one or two sessions!  Do not give your players “only one way” to solve this!  For instance, if your first challenge is to get past some guards, let the players come up with the solution themselves.  They might decide to fight the guards, use magic/science to teleport past them, go off on a side quest to become guards so they can infiltrate them, or even walk up and attempt to socialize with them.  You as the storyteller/DM merely narrate the results of whatever the characters do; just bridge the gaps and think of consequences from the players’ actions.

ALSO!  Have a time limit for your first session, or plan breaks for food/drink/stretching.  This activity of DMing can be very stressful, and you might need a break to take stock of what problems and choices occurred during play.  

2C.) Start Small: The Players

Have your players build starting or low-level characters (I typically start with 3rd level for D&D).  The low levels will mean most powergaming and gamebreaking attempts by certain types of players will be nipped in the bud right from the start.  It will also typically limit the powers and abilities of your group (so you won’t have to memorize or look up high-level stuff until much later).  

Another thing I highly recommend is that you are present during character creation!  Do not let people determine/roll character abilities and stats without you.  Either be physically present when dice get rolled and abilities get determined, or be present digitally in a chatroom, discord or roll20 when electronic character sheets get filled in!  

My first campaign I allowed one of the players to bring a character from a friend’s campaign into it.  The original DM ended the campaign; and even though I had played in that campaign alongside this character I had no clue what they could do.  This made things challenging because this character “suddenly” remembered they could fly–so I had to add aerial combat onto my plate during the first fight of the campaign.

It made the situation tense, especially with my bad early encounters (see the 12 Scorpions combat above).

3.) Things Go Awry

If you’ve come this far, there’s one last piece of advice I want to give you.  Your first campaign is gonna suck in one way or another.

I don’t mean that to be disheartening; I want you to think of it as a learning experience.  Whenever a person learns a new skill or engages in a new activity for the first time, it’s always gonna suck.  (Even if someone has a “natural talent”).  You as the DM/Storyteller are going to notice problems crop up left and right; especially if you don’t take the advice I offered above.  For instance, if you start learning to paint with a new medium or start a sport you’ve never tried; you need to practice with the tools and techniques you’ve prepared to see what works for your style of learning.  

Running a roleplaying game is a very unique mashup of activities.  There’s typically a math element you need to consider behind every action the players take.  You need to workout your improvisation skills to bridge connections and gaps your players make.  You need to get in front of a group of people (sometimes more or less experienced than you) and tell a story that keeps their attention.  It’s a stressful mix of being an improv actor, a storyteller and the physical laws of your world.

Hopefully your players will understand when things get crazy and overwhelming.  Gametime might come to a halt because you need to look up a specific rule or wording that you aren’t familiar with.  It’s okay.  Until you get to know how your game world runs with your players in it, it is totally fine to take a breath and think things through.  Oftentimes you can ask your players for help in making a determination or house-ruling.

Last note on this topic: Get Feedback!  At the end of the session, be bold and ask your players if they enjoyed the session, what they liked and what they didn’t like.  Feedback is how DMs get insight on how the game is playing out.  While you’re DMing, your mind is on a million different topics; let the players tell you how they felt during gameplay, so you know what made them feel good or bad on the other side of the curtain.

4.) Have Fun Together!

This is something that needs to be said, if I’m honest.  Running a game can be a stressful activity that “ruins” some things about it now that you are “behind the curtain”.  This is your first session, in what you hope to be a series of games where you and your friends make all sorts of memories.

However, some DMs get incredibly discouraged and no-nonsense when they run a game for their first few times.  That is understandable, especially if being the “mastermind” is a challenge you haven’t prepared for.  A few sessions in and you might find the game isn’t fun for you and/or your players.  That might be a sign that you need to take a break from hosting–use that time to think how you can make the game fun for everyone, or if this campaign just needs to be scrapped!

The priority of the DM is to bring people together.  If a game system, campaign concept or player actions aren’t making the group (you included) happy; it’s better to stop things and take stock before things go too far.  It is never fun to admit your game isn’t viable or enjoyable, but hopefully you’ll have new experience you can take with you the next time you try your game.  

And heck, if you find you prefer playing at this time, that’s fine!  Even if this attempt didn’t have the results you expected, there is nothing to stop you from trying again later if you wanted.  But now that you know how it is behind the curtain, you are naturally more observant to how your own DM/GM runs their games and you can learn from it.

Remember how good the game system/lore/etc made you feel!  It’s why you wanted to DM in the first place; you recognized you had a story you wanted to tell, and this ttrpg had the tools to bring it to life!  No matter what problems arise when you’re behind the curtain, the game should still bring you enjoyment whether you play or manage the game.  Do not give up on the game just because of one bad session or two!  

When I decided to end my campaign, it really was a painful decision.  I loved the world as it was in my mind, but I was not executing it well so that my players enjoyed it.  I got feedback after that terrible 12 Scorpions combat, and decided to take some time to think about everything.  Our group went back to our original DM, with other members trying to DM in that time; and honestly I didn’t DM until I started a small separate group months later.  

During that gap in DMing I digested what I liked and didn’t like about my campaign, and had more time to reflect on the rules.  I decided to take a few steps back and learn from my mistakes.  I still made mistakes the second and third times I DMed, I make mistakes even to this day.  

But at the heart of it all, I love games so much that I want to constantly make my stories and worlds even better, even to this day.

I take the struggles of DMing as learning experiences, rather than let them define me as a writer, storyteller and game master.  I use them as stepping stones so I don’t fall through the gaps again.  I may have started out with a bad first campaign, but I would never take those mistakes away.  

I hope these lessons were helpful!  I love D&D and tabletop roleplaying games so much, and love giving out advice on how to make the experience your own.  I hope this helps a lot of new people bring their stories to life!  Also, I hope I helped everyone’s expectations into the right state of mind.  

Good luck and happy gaming everyone!!  Much love!

– Aboleth-Eye

[dndtarot]

Building a city: two warring factions

Quick note before we get started: my inbox is open! Feel free to send any TTRPG writing questions you have, either adventure writing, or even character backstory writing! Include as many details as you can. Obviously tumblr asks have a character limit, so feel free to send multiple if you need to.

Now let's get into it! The setting today is going to be a generic mid-size city in a D&D fantasy world like Faerun.

The goal of this reading is to develop two opposing factions, and an NPC leader/figurehead for each. I think this is a cool way to quickly flesh out a city and make it feel alive, and gives the players plenty of RP hooks and decisions for how they want to engage (even beyond siding with one faction against the other).

Faction 1

Archetype: The World — What an interesting card for this! The World represents, well, everything. But it also represents "the right path," or perfection. When I say this, my mind immediately jumped to Library (can you tell I was a book nerd growing up)? Specifically, the uptight over-influential library which rigorously guards its hidden knowledge. Right now, I'm going to leave it at that, rather than deciding any additional details about what kind of library it is, what kind of hidden knowledge, etc. I'm going to let the rest of the cards flesh that out.

Motivation: Three of Cups — This is perfect. Cups represents divine magic, and the three represents a minor force, defender of the commonfolk. So it's a religious library, devoted to helping the poor. Remember, we don't want one faction to be obviously better than the other, because we want the players to have a meaningful choice of which faction to side with (or none). We'll avoid making this faction too "good" then.

Fear: Ten of Wands — The ten of wands traditionally represents being overloaded, carrying a heavy burden alone. Meanwhile, the ten of wands with our D&D specific matrix represents a minor tyrant of arcane nature. The traditional meaning is pretty clear: the library is carrying (or at least, thinks they're carrying) the heavy burden of helping the poor all alone. For the tyrant, let's say that represents the Lord in charge of the town. This Lord has a traditionally arcane background (a wizard turned politician) and maybe has a reputation of being aloof. The library is worried that this Lord doesn't care about the poor, and that the library is the only organization in the city that does. This is a great opportunity to make the library a little less clear-cut "good:" it quickly becomes apparent to the players that actually, there are other organizations helping the poor, but since they aren't religious organizations, the library ignores their contributions.

NPC Lead: Ten of Pentacles — Pentacles is our traditionally nature-y suit. And as above, the ten represents a petty tyrant. That works fine for our purposes. The Head Librarian is also a High Priest(ess) of a traditional nature god. Strict and controlling, the Head Librarian leads the library with an iron first. However... the traditional meaning of the ten of pentacles is wealth, relaxed nature, a happy and peaceful life, etc. So let's add a little twist to our Head Librarian: yes, they may be a tyrant, yes they may be overly controlling and rigid, and but on a more personal level, they're also fun and cheerful. There's a reason so many people follow them.

Overall, I've got a pretty clear picture of faction 1 now. They're a religious library that also does significant charitable outreach, but are incredibly pretentious about it and believe that they're the only ones actually helping the poor because they're the only ones that follow [insert nature god here]. If I ended up needing it, I could also throw in an environmental cause here as well, but I think that's unnecessary for now.

Faction 2

Archetype: Ace of Wands — Well, isn't this interesting. The wands represents an arcane force, which is perfect. Now we have a classic priests vs. wizards conflict on our hands. The part that's interesting is the ace. The ace in our number definitions represents the common people, the innocent. How I'm interpreting this is as an underground backyard magic guild. Essentially, a group of hedgewitches. And, most importantly, these hedgewitches are largely part of the very group that the library is devoted to helping. Very, very interesting.

Motivation: Four of Swords — This is excellent, actually. I'm going to pick and choose which meanings I use here, because the second I saw this card I had a cool idea. I'm going to take the swords to represent martial combat, and the traditional meaning of this card, which is a forced pause. The city, led by the former wizard Lord, has a habit of getting into armed conflict with its neighbors. While not full out war, there is routinely bloodshed and the city maintains a fully armed garrison at all times. The group of hedgewitches, however, is sick and tired of this. Maybe they've seen too many of their friends and family die for nothing, or maybe they oppose the fact that their city is the aggressor in these conflicts. Either way, they want it to stop, and they're willing to go to extreme lengths to do so.

Fear: Four of Wands — Ooh, this is cool. The repeated theme of wands throughout this reading is very interesting. I'm going to take the suit to represent the Lord of the city, the former wizard. I love this, because the hedgewitches have the same fear as the library: the Lord of the city! Albeit in a slightly different way. The four of wands represents holidays, joyful welcoming, safe places, etc. While the four represents an idealist or a dreamer. This one is a little tough: I know the fear relates to the Lord of the city, but being welcome with joy isn't exactly something to be afraid of. Let's make this more literal: there's a major holiday coming up, and the Lord is secretly-not-so-secretly planning a huge attack. The hedgewitches are NOT joyful about that at all.

NPC Lead: The Fool — Incredible. Since the hedgewitches are a more underground organization, their NPC lead is really more of a figurehead. Plans are made collaboratively, in cellars and backrooms with small groups of people, rather than unilaterally from the top. However, there is someone who's defacto in charge: someone on the younger side, with their head in the clouds. Someone who's still idealistic and thinks that they can change the world, who sees opportunities behind every corner. I think this person is in charge because of their ability to inspire others, even though the more senior hedgewitches don't have a lot of respect for this upstart. But being able to unite hedgewitches, obviously a very disparate group, is an impressive skill just by itself.

I love this faction. I was heavily inspired by the hedgewitches in the Magicians books and tv show, by the way. I see them as arcane casters united together under a "magic is for the people" ethos.

The Conflict

Surface Issue: Ten of Swords — Lots of tens today. This card represents a sudden end, or badmouthing people behind their back. Yeah, that works perfectly. The library is badmouthing the hedgewitches because they're arcane casters, rather than religious followers, and the hedgewitches hate the library because they see them as in the pocket of the military industrial complex— I mean, the Lord of the city, and assume the library is badmouthing them because the library supports the military conflicts. So at first glance, the conflict appears to come from members shit-talking members of the opposite faction.

Deeper Issue: King of Wands — This is so, so perfect. Right now, we have two factions. Or do we? The third faction is the Lord of the city, the one who's pushing all these military conflicts. There could be some very interesting reasons why he's doing that, and I could draw a card to flesh that out, but I think that would be a perfect place to tie in a campaign villain. Maybe the Lord is in the pocket of the BBEG and is acquiring resources for them. Anyway, back to the card: King of Wands so clearly represents the Lord. I interpret this as meaning that the Lord themselves is pushing this conflict. Maybe they're aware of the hedgewitches, and are worried about any anti-war propaganda that's spreading, so they manipulated the library into putting a target on the hedgewitches' backs. The more those two factions are fighting between themselves, the less time they'll spend pushing back against the Lord's own ominous agenda.

Roadblock: Six of Wands — Honestly, I could've stopped with the previous card. We've got a great and interesting conflict brewing here, and already I can see many plot hooks and side quests and ways the players could get pulled into the politics of this city. However, I already laid out the cards, so let's finish it off. The six of wands represents victory. I'm going to keep this simple: the Lord recently led the city in a small but significant military victory against a nearby group, and the people are proud of themselves and celebrating. It's hard to push anti-war propaganda when things are actually going well, isn't it? And the Lord can use this new-found popularity to push the two factions harder against each other.

Risk: Queen of Swords — I'm using this part of the reading to outline the consequences of this issue between the two factions not being resolved. But I think we've already got some great ideas from everything above, so I'm going to keep this simple: the Queen in question is the BBEG, or the BBEG's main lieutenant, and if the Lord is able to continue their work unchecked, then the BBEG will absolutely benefit. Maybe the Lord is taking over a mining operation, or has stolen magical artifacts from nearby cities, but the result is the same: the villain is getting stronger every day that this Lord remains unchecked.

Overall, I love what we've created here. Obviously, bits and pieces need to be fleshed out. NPCs need names and maybe stat blocks. I'd nab a city map from somewhere as well and incorporate that into the city. I'd also probably use a tavern/shop generator to quickly add some places to visit, and actually I'd use a simple location spread to add a few points of interest into the city as well. Then you just need a few side quest hooks, and you can let your players loose. I'm definitely picturing this as an open-world city adventure, rather than a linear story, where the players can do a few small quests for each faction and learn more about the issues. Then drop a major conflict event that forces the two factions to act in some way— maybe the Lord mobilizes the military against the hedgewitches, or maybe the Head Librarian is killed (by accident?). I would hold off planning that though until the players had had at least a session or two to explore the city, maybe even more. There's definitely a great opportunity for this major triggering event to come in response to the players fucking up a side quest.

[staggeringsmite]

2, 4, 8, 17, 18, 24, 32, 36?

(pick and choose if that’s too many 😅)

thank you!!! once again under the cut because this got long <3

2. what was your first time running a game like?

ohohoho it was genuinely pretty stressful bc i had been wanting to play dnd for a while and wanted my friends to like this cool fun game sooooo bad, but i Was in middle school and that time is mostly forgotten. somehow i remember this very well. the first game i ever ran was in 7th grade and was holiday themed over our school break. it was set during a winter solstice festival in this moderately sized city the party had just arrived at to see what the celebration was about. they did minigame time for a while running around the town, joining in games and celebrating winning little prizes or a few copper, which was a great way to introduce skill checks to a group that had never touched a ttrpg system before bc we were 12-13. i was fumbling around with rules everywhere, and it was suuper messy but we had a great time!! i think it culminated in a scrooge-esque character placing a nasty curse over the town and them having to go to his mansion to idk beat the nasty out of him and his little cult or something <3 the actual dm'ing part was a mess but also super rewarding, and i realized i really enjoyed doing it and cooking up a little game for everyone!

4 & 8 answered here!

17. what is your proudest improvisation moment?

dnd thoughts are like a constant background program running in my brain, so even if i don't write down every monologue or line or narrative moment i think up i'm constantly churning out these moments that make it easier to prep and/or pull out when the tone and timing is right, meaning it's not really improv. i am incredibly proud of the xarus and piper moment before they tried to stop castellane's coup because i did put some thought into what they were going to say, but obviously had to see what xarus' reaction was and couldn't really prep beyond the initiation of the scene. it turned into one of the most intense, emotionally complex scenes culminating in that forehead kiss that i will think about forever, and just, unstoppable force vs immovable object dynamic with xarus' self-sacrifical tendencies and piper's declaration of determination to see him through this fight.

other really proud improvisation moments i think mostly arise during combat. while i think i have a ways to go keeping combat interesting in terms of all the little descriptive moments that happen throughout, i don't prep anything dialogue or description wise and have to do more in the moment that creates them. some of favorites happened in the finale battle for wandering isles including xarus' divine intervention harm spell which manifested as his typical lightning (storm herald barb/tempest cleric multiclass) eye glow this time illuminating thirty feet out from him with the stormlord managing to crack into the demiplane with a huge lightning bolt across castellane's form. this and the tâm and theresa reaching out to/keeping veviri alive and the descriptions of the resurrection and tâm's twin heartbeat (honoring a previous nat 20 to allow this to even happen) were highlights of improvising and the campaign as a whole for me <3

18. funniest improvisation moment?

HOWARD SMOOTHANDS. okay i admit i should've been more prepared but school was a lot and i had spent sooo much time prepping the larger plot stuff where the party was that the simplest, most common dm thing of "hey you should put some people in this tavern in case they go in to ask questions" just sort of slipped my mind, there was a vampire cult happening at a large university you see you must understand. anyway i don't think this was entirely improv bc i remember the name coming from a generator, but i did end up having the on the spot get the atmosphere for this tavern and it was bizarre this was a very rural dilapidated community and they were all super suspicious of the party members that came in and then they met, flirted and slept with howard smoothands the barkeep so everything worked out. i think it is mostly funny because this arc was one of the darkest tone moments in the whole campaign, and it was great to break that up with thirty minutes of a halfling thieves' guild associate named howard smoothands.

24. how long does preparing for a session usually take you? do you chronically under or overprepare?

i don't have an exact number but i also know that it could take much less time than it actually does like most tasks i undertake because well, brain doesn't work great. i think it varies a lot depending on what the party is headed into if i'm running a main campaign, if i'm pulling from other modules to help supplement, running out of a book or completely from a module, etc. for my mostly homebrew stuff some sessions that i know are going to be big battles really only take 30 minutes of setup to get my balance right and everything into roll20 whereas if i'm running a highly individualized session (like one that has dream sequences or trials or highly specific character moments for each pc that i need to conceptualize and write and tweak) that could easily take me 3-4 hours to get finalized.

32. do you have any dice/other mechanic rituals? do you feel like you roll abnormally well (or the opposite)?

i cook my dice for a bit before my games <3 (leaving them on the highest numbers) i also Will Only use the dice or color of dice i associate with an npc when i roll for them. i feel like i roll decently well if not average but there have been Some Nights where it has been insane (double nat 20 for castellane at the dock fight with nyx for example).

36. how do you gear up to run a session? any pregame getting into character/setting moments?

i must admit when school is in i am probably prepping down to the wire on session days, but if i have some time i'll just read over my notes, open my stuff, and maybe listen through the campaign or character playlists