Another Himedere checking in. I love setting up situations where the players and/or the characters squirm in anguish about what to do.

My favorite so far was an estranged princess living as a man and hostel owner. He had turned his back on the throne and wanted little to do with it. As a bonus he was the only child of the king’s only remaining child. Fast forward a bit and he needed a (legal) favor from the king. Went to court and met with his grandfather. The king would do it, no strings attached if a) he returned to court and resumed his duties as prince and b) sired an heir.

There were a good thirty minutes of the players anguishing if he should accept while going deep into character motivations and the setting. During that game I don’t think I did as much concrete worldbuildning as during those thirty minutes. I loved it, the players loved it. Great time.

Cat is grumpy because someone stole its humans

The more abstract the map is the more of a support for TotM it becomes. I selfom do a map, rather a flowchart. Quicker, easier and knocks out the last desire to measure things.

This brings us back to zones, a good middle ground. Draw rough map, or great map, and on it mark intresting combat zones. Some are separated with emptiness, others by obstacles.

For example a tavern brawl. Zones could be the Bar, Kitchen, Common Room, Balconies, Private Rooms, Out Front and Out Back.

Fighting on the Balconies could be tight, only one in width and with the risk of being thrown off it into the Commonroom. In the Kitchen there would be fire hazards, improvized weapons, knifes and the Stew. Not to forget other ways to spice things up in there. Around the Bar there would be some cover fighting someone on the other side, bottles to be broken and combatants to glide alond the bar for maximum mental damage.

And so on. Make each zone memorable and with special features. Did I mention drawing it out really helps?

No grid only effect templates. Freeform battlemapping y’all!

And rulers.

It would silence as many screams as hands you are loosing pulling items from it. Which is zero.

Something that is also helpful in this situation is to ask what their Intent is with their action. The why they want to do it. Often striking up that conversation looses some blocks.

D&D is hard. Sure the core of it is straight forward but then things start to add up. It is a game that wants you to care about minutia. How far travelled, distance between two points, the height of dungeons ceilings, how long passed since that spell was cast, how much you ate yesterday. And it wants you to arbitrate spell interactions, players weird schemes and prepare a lot of stuff. Also it wants you to actually run the narrative. Some love this difficulty, find the intricacies challenging and desire to master it all.

The good news is that the behemoth of D&D isn’t alone out there. Really lots of good stuff can be found. First problem is knowing what one want to find. Second is finding others that have similar taste to you. But it is doable and a good thing to do is ask for help. Because if it is something we like here it is to talk about ttrpgs. Getting us to shut up… better ask santa for a dragon.

If the DM asks you you really want to do something look at their expression and do it anyway.

If you want to do something really stupid, crazy or narrativly disruptive look towards your fellow players to get their consent. Then do it.

The time to argue technicalities is outside of sessions to not waste precious gametime. Do it during sessions only if you are into that weird shit.

The best way to get to use new character options is through DM bribes. In this case a sourcebook is recommended.

If you help clean up afterwards you may get inspiration.

But then do really need the d8? If we toss that in the bin we can go to the universal d60. This one dice will allow us to get
d2 (even/odd)
d3 (d60/20)
d4 (d60/15)
d5 (d60/12)
d6 (d60/10)
d10 (d60/6)
and d12, d15, d20, d30

Base 60 is cool yo!

D8? D20/5 x d20/10

Am I missing something here? Can this even generate 5 or 7?

D20/5 gives [1…4] and D20/10 [1…2], of course assuming whole numbers. Where to get the factors for 5? 5 can be factored only as 5x1 or 1x5 and the 5 cannot be found either in d20/5 or d20/10. Same is true for 7.

And I don’t see it happening either if we allow rational numbers. To get 5 we would get the following expressions
5= d₁20/5 x d₂20/10 = d₁20 x d₂20/50
or 250= d₁20 x d₂20
And two d20 multiplied together cannot give us 250.

Math baby?

This is why I recruit to five and play with three. Sometimes the stars align and three persons are away, but it is seldom. So the show does go on.

Tagging onto @sbv - why. Why is this kingdom being besieged? Is a local temple an actual focus for ley energies from creation itself? Is the local well off upstanding citizen actually harbouring deep grudges and just want it all to burn?

Depending on the why the who will fall into place.

Got some tips for you

0 - Don’t expect to get an awesome group on the first try, may take a while as you gather up people you want to play with.

1 - Look for communities, especially if they run shorter or west marches style games. Not necessarily join with the intent to run games, but play. Get to know folks and then extend invites to them for game.

2 - Run a few shorter games of limited length. 3-5 session long I find to be awesome to get something done. Some may be awful but you only have to stand them for a few games.

3 - Questionnaire where you discreetly bring up your red flags and feel the waters around them. For example I always mention that safety tools will be used and if they want a specific tool used I’ll happily do that for them. If I get replies they don’t need safety tools or disparage them in some way that would for me be a red flag.

4 - Don’t be afraid to disband groups or kick out folks. It is not a failure.

Apocalypse World has this awesome GM move that covers this situation

Announce Future Badness

Combine it with

Think Offscreen Too

Then you know how to handle the sacking of a stronghold. By the gods how I love GMing after AW’s principles.

I’m with you here. Compatability with adventures (monsters, loot) I find good. Classes and player facing rules not so. I mean what if you take a 5e character that uses a 5e rule for something to a One table where the rule that the 5e build depends is altered. Or just a class feature? Imagine the confusion if a feature that does the same thematic thing have the same name in both? What about mixing features from both editions?

CHAOS! (and not in a good way)

I have recently encountered ICON and come to really like its dying mechanic. Each time a character is reduced to 0HP they become incapacitated, but stable, and gain a wound. Each wound reduces max hp by 25% and only goes away after an adventure (quest). A character can help an incapacitated character (rescuing) bringing them up and healing them to their new max HP, which after one wound would be 75% of max. Second time dropping to 0hp, a second would and new max hp of 50% of original.

It gives good longevity in individual encounters and forces caution in the longer run.

I love the “happy backstory” characters and love GMing for them. Having an auntie the next village over is just wonderfully quaint. A couple of siblings whose mess has to be cleaned up. Cousins that have to be bailed out of trouble. That is just the low stakes. Turn up the heat a little and put some conflicting interests in the mix and you have a recipe for character drama.

And then there are all the larger and societal issues that become personal. Those affected by the situation are those that matter for the pc. While out killing goblins the bank took the farm. Auntie with an anarcho-syndicalist streak is accused of witchcraft.

Or mr edgy edgelord number fifteen who cares about nothing and none. My taste is clear - homebaked apple pie and an afternoon in the hammock.

Or you could just take some ready made package, deactivate things you don’t need and accept what you are left with.

how would you characterise dominate person cast with indefinite duration?

As “your character is now mine until the spell is broken, here is a new sheet for you”. Reread the spell and if I would be the recipient of it I would be very uncomfortable. Agreeing with jjjalljs that when it is used on a PC is really sucks.

upcasting dominate […] difference in power between […] heightened metamagic plus […]

Mechanical stuff. Permanent Dominate Person feels like the realm of a Wish spell so saying it is the equivalent of a ninth level spell sounds appropriate. Unless it was cast in combat, in front of the players and their characters I wouldn’t really bother with exact rolling mechanics. Things happening behind the scenes I just let happen. But if it was in front of them, with the saving throw called for it was in front them, I’d say it would and should be fair to ask the DM what powers were behind the roll. Especially since it is practically a save-or-die (-for-a-while) spell.

Rant about enchantment spells
I personally really don’t like many enchantment spells, particularly those about mind control and domination. They make me uncomfortable. When DM-ing I wouldn’t use any unless I would have gotten explicit permission from the player that it would be OK for them and general permission from the table at large. They can be triggering and I always have “Mind Control/Alteration” as a topic on my Lines&Veils document I ask my players to fill in. Play safe, take care of eachother and push boundaries only with consent in safe spaces.
End rant.