one of my favorite d&d podcasts is doing a one-shot based on the friday the 13th movies. except the DM hasn’t told any of the players that it’s based on friday the 13th. he has them convinced it’s based on a sex-comedy coming-of-age film they’ve never heard of (that he made up). which is so fucking genius. because the characters in a slasher flick don’t know they’re in a slasher flick, why should the players? if you’re going for genre accuracy, make your players think they’re acting out animal house or something, or else they’ll end up weirdly genre savvy. it’s perfect.
and like, throughout the whole session, to keep the players convinced that the fake not-horror movie is real, the DM keeps mentioning weird, specific details about the fake movie, like, “oh yeah, didn’t i mention? your character is played by crispin glover before he was famous” or “so in the actual movie, you got lost and had a nice scene in an orchard, but so-and-so succeeded on his navigation roll”
and this has the players lulled into a false sense of security for the most part. but over the course of the game they get more and more suspicious of all the weird, doom-harbinging horror-movie details the DM keeps sprinkling in. every once in a while a player will be like, “okay so these identical hitchhiking twins are hot, right? wait, why are they speaking in unison”
it’s so genius. the DM introduces a small child who creates and collects ultra-realistic, cinema-quality latex monster masks, and none of the players even bat an eye. they don’t clock this creepy horror movie child at all. they’re too busy trying to hit on his older sister, just like their characters would be.
at one point one of the players gets weirdly, genuinely angry, and is like, “WHY DO I CARE??? so this old couple is talking about a tragedy at the local hospital, SO WHAT????? aren’t i just supposed to want to get laid right now?! why did you put this in the story, man?!?! was this couple even in the original movie? i don’t know, because you won’t let us look it up on IMDB, even! what is going on?!” and i know it’s an auditory medium, but fuck, i could SMELL the shit-eating grin the DM must’ve had on. that’s so fucking awesome
so like, i really and truly have no idea how to “correctly” dm a dnd game. yesterday i made my friends go through this forest full of puzzles and every time they came across a puzzle i made them play $1 games i got at the dollar tree. if they won first or did good i gave them a sticker and then when they finally escaped the forest they leveled up equivalent to the amount of stickers they got.
I dont understand. that sounds like the correct way to dm a dnd game
A dnd party where the ranger’s companion, the wizard’s familiar, the warlock’s patron, and the cleric’s deity are all the same creature
I want to be clear – it’s not that each of these is the same breed of cat, it’s that one cat plays each of these roles, whether it meant to or not, and they all have to share
On second thought, both options are good, because imagine the confusion. Imagine the cleric throwing open the wizard’s door, switching orange tabbies with them, and leaving in a huff with, “I’ve been praying to your mouse-catcher for three hours.”
I raise to you:
For some unknown reason, they all have the same breed of cat, but the cats are never in the same room all at once, so a companion just assumes it’s just the one cat for all 4 people, until one day they’re all like “?????no???? Each of us has one????” And they all just show their 4 identical cats
Bonus points if they all have the same name
Extra bonus points if they all have “unique” spellings of the same name
barbarian: honestly any of them, but that’s irrelevant because barbarians are designed to have those stats dumped we gotta get into the Real hot takes
bard: listen most people would say wisdom BUT you should dump intelligence. be an idiot who can talk real good
cleric: dump charisma. live out your low charisma dreams. you have Good Plans but nobody listens to you because you cant talk well. be cassandra
druid: dump intelligence!! live out your woodsy dumbass dreams!! you know that leaves exist maybe!!!!
fighter: dump wisdom. be reckless. punch a guy. punch TWELVE guys. get kicked out of a bar. get into fights and then get Out of them
monk: listen monks are supposed to be spiritual and knowledegable shit but u know what? dump intelligence. be dumb punch shit
paladin: dump charisma. make your god hate you with how bad you talk to people. smash things with your holy light and shitty social skills
ranger: again, dump charisma. animals > people. eat leaves and weird people out
rogue: dump wisdom baby!! you got +7654354678 to stealth and nobody can Stop You from being impulsive if they dont know where you are
sorcerer: dump intelligence or wisdom. in fact, dump both. talk yourself out of any situation you get into because ur reckless and dont know shit
warlock: same fuckin thing, dump intelligence and wisdom. have a good time. u dont know how u got into ur pact and u probably dont care because now youve got sick magic powers
wizard: dump wisdom!! sure ur super smart but somebody could be 25% behind a rock and u wouldnt see em! blast spells at a moments notice!!! live ur dreams!!!
I one time did a campaign in DND where the entire party woke up in a trash heap, memories wiped, when a man in shining white armor approached them. He helped them up, healed them, and helped them escape what was essentially the dump and find their way into the sunlight. He told them of the tale of a wicked king of immense power who bargained for his abilities from a demon, hoping to save his kingdom, and succumbed to the evil after his wife died. The wife had a pearl necklace, and it was the man’s duty to find those pearls, because they held a magic in them that could defeat the king.
This particular NPC was startlingly overpowered at first, right a long the levels of 6 while everyone else was just starting out, and he helped them along in the most dire situations, healing, defeating, and even resurrecting for them. There would be periods where he would be gone, and the party would have to face a crypt full of mummies together, or dive into the deepest parts of the ocean and retrieve these milky white pearls that would give them the ability to help their friend and defeat the wicked king. Slowly, their memories came back to them, and that was a stark comfort for them, but the entire time, there seemed to be a piece missing.
After they retrieved 5 pearls (they broke the 6th one), they journied with the man to the wicked king’s castle, and fought their way through endless ranks of guards, undead, demons, and even a lich, until they made their way to the sacred bed chamber of the king, that they all remembered the story of from before they had awoken in that garbage pile. They opened the doors, only to find it empty, save the usual furniture, marred by scratches and the ancient scrawl of demons. The man in the white armor sighed and walked into the bedroom.
And his armor changed from white to pitch black, and the whole party remembered suddenly. That was the face of the wicked king, the face that smiled at them whenever he healed them, the face that looked stern as they suggested stupids things to find the pearls. Apparently, in lapses of the demon’s control, the king had found a way to set him self up for defeat, by bringing his wive’s pearls along with brave, powerful warriors. Every absence he felt was where he had to return to the demon’s control and become the wicked king again, but he was determined to fight himself, to rid his own evil from the world, to end this curse of immortality and see his loved one again.
I made the party fight the final boss, and they saw the eyes of a friend.
They all cried, and I am no longer allowed to DM for them.
sometimes a descriptor is just that, guys: a descriptor
oh, goat?
PLEASE give me context for that
so, our party was traveling in a mountainous area and the DM mentioned there was a goat a little ways away, just a little scenery building. the party immediately spent the next (real-life) 20 minutes insight checking the goat, detecting magic on the goat, questioning the goat, ect. eventually the sorcerer ended up killing and eating the goat. DM was very exasperated.
oh my GOD
i have the solution for this, my darlings: describe everything.
players do this when you’re usually sparse on description; they’ll fixate on the things you do describe, because whether consciously or not, you’ve trained them to think that you only describe important things. if you say, “it’s a 20×20 room with pillars along the walls, and at the end there’s a throne with a red brocade cushion on it,” they will fixate on the cushion. because it’s the only movable object in the whole scene! it’s the only thing with a color or texture!
so instead, you say, “this is clearly where he held court before he became a lich. it’s a pillared arcade of honey-colored marble [a nature check will reveal it was imported from a thousand miles away, very ostentatious] with square pillars in the southern style. a dusty carpet runs the length of it; where your footsteps stir up the dust, you can see the carpet was purple once. between the pillars are carved wooden chairs, some of the gilding still intact, where courtiers and functionaries could’ve waited for an audience. at the far end, beneath the rags of a moth-eaten banner, is a throne of age-blackened wood. unlike the other chairs, it was never gilded, but its brocade cushions are still there and still red on the underside where the light hasn’t bleached them.”
now you not only have plenty of things for them to investigate, most of them more informative to their goal, you’ve immersed them in ATMOSPHERE, which is what turns a game from a mere exercise in dice-rolling to a cooperative storytelling experience. your lich king is now more than just a dungeon boss, he’s the sad but frightening remnant of a once-great civilization, clinging to the shadow of its dust-smothered glory.
that’s the kind of thing that raises your ‘adventure zone’ and ‘critical role’ type adventures above the bored number-crunching of freshman weekends. and also avoids the frustration of a zillion pointless digressions.
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