Hasbro Executives Report Their Gambling Habit is Under Control, Not Addiction.
When asked for comment, Hasbro Executives report that while they do gamble, what they're doing is a normal part of their job.
"Listen, everyone in our industry and economy deals with growth, and the risks of growth. We need to make investments to attempt to grow or our stock prices will fall as investors chasing profits will put their money elsewhere. So when we spend billions of dollars in 2020 and 2021 to attempt to grow our brand, we do so with the sobering knowledge that this isn't a sure thing, but calculated risks need to be made."
"But we manage those risks sufficiently, because we have other peoples' jobs as collateral. I mean, just imagine how we could possibly make these financial risks if we had to shoulder the responsibility for underperformance ourselves!"
Unprompted by questions, the executives continued. "And don't you dare try to put this in a negative light. This is just how our civilization conducts its artistic output. What, do you want people to make fun things just for the joy of it? You sound like a stuttering gap-toothed simpleton. You need to grow up kid!" The Executives took this moment to pull out two Cigarettes, lighting them simultaneously before taking a series of quick drags. "WAKE UP!" They added before going eerily quiet to stare into the middle distance.
At time of printing, Hasbro Executives have entered into negotiations with eldritch powers to obliterate all cultural knowledge of Dave Arneson to improve their next Financial Quarter's figures by half of a percentage. They are additionally hoping to leverage other cultural history of the hobby for tax breaks, stating "You know, like how streaming services destroy art. Can we do that?"
Sure, but even then it doesn't make a lot of sense that all the different ways that Warlock patrons can present themselves, that they all are great about giving people raw damage potential as a cornerstone of their pact, regardless of how you flavor it.
Across the entire panoply of Warlocks patrons, there is incredible variety.
cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/464263
> There are devils who scheme and wheedle souls. There are beings of ancient wills and unknowable intent. One may even have entreated elemental forces from the primal dawn of the world, or Genies who have within them a stunning variety of desires, wants, and whims. Alongside Archfey who encompass a dizzying variety of the beliefs and motivations. What unites them all? > > They all think Eldritch Blast is a pretty cool spell.
"Child pure of heart and innocent of mind. You have caught my attentions, a Unicorn who wants nothing but to live and peace, and to see the joy and love of the innocent as yourself. For your purity of spirit, I shall grant a boon of this magic gun."
Across the entire panoply of Warlocks patrons, there is incredible variety.
There are devils who scheme and wheedle souls. There are beings of ancient wills and unknowable intent. One may even have entreated elemental forces from the primal dawn of the world, or Genies who have within them a stunning variety of desires, wants, and whims. Alongside Archfey who encompass a dizzying variety of the beliefs and motivations. What unites them all?
They all think Eldritch Blast is a pretty cool spell.
The secret is to not work from what you'd like to do, but to work backwards from what your players want to do.
Seriously, throw out all the prep you have that isn't landing, and just ask your players what kinds of things they want to do. Then, make stories inspired by the actions or accomplishments they want to undertake.
... This does require that your players have some idea of what they want to do, though. If you have checked out or uninvested players, there's essentially nothing you can do I'm afraid.
So now I will soapbox to the players reading this: Your job is to be invested in what the DM wants to do. If you don't put energy into being invested, you're not fulfilling your side of the arrangement at the table.
Huh, well I had an incorrect conclusion.
I went to find the original artwork, and I found this picture.
I had not seen the bottom left picture yet, I had only seen everything else, which lead me to conclude that the artist did a few sketches to imply that he had more intermediary works that he did.
I retract my prior comment!
I don't think those advancements were categorically good, or were the morally correct things to occur. I won't go through them all, but just because something has happened, doesn't mean it was inevitable, or that it was a good thing to have happened and the world is better for it.
But putting that aside, the clearest difference that I see between those advancements and Machine Learning (A subset of Artificial Intelligence research), is that Machine Learning always takes datasets to train the system. As a result, the Machine Learning Generation truly isn't coming up with something new, it is just repackaging the work of other people. This is further morally fraught, as you have made a system with the aim to make the work of people irrelevant, while using their own work to do so without their consent.
And as to your proposition that artists shouldn't have to make money to live, I agree wholeheartedly. But this technology isn't going to lead to that future. It is currently being used by people with means to make more money by cutting out the people who would have to be paid to make creative works. Machine Learning already did this with language translators.
When Google Translate was getting somewhat good in the early 2000's, many companies fired their foreign language translators. What they discovered quickly is that the technology wasn't quite there yet, so they had to hire them back. But by and large, they didn't hire them back as translators, but as editors, who would clean up the bad translations from Machine Learning language translation software. We're currently on the same trajectory with this technology for a wide swath of creatives.
This is bad for right now, the foreseeable future. I do not foresee a future where we are freed from needing to exchange a majority our waking-lives for money, and this technology will only perpetuate that reality.
That all sounds really dramatic and escalating
And yes I do believe you're being rather dramatic by implying that I'm a luddite who doesn't want technology to work at all. I want technology to work for people, not the other way around. I want the Jetsons future, where people work a minority of their lives, not the majority, where we can focus on quality of life over vainglorious pursuits that ultimately benefit the idle rich. The trajectory of this technology will ultimately only benefit those who don't need to work to live.
Also, I think it's patently dishonest for the artist to imply that their sketches (which are not in the same pose as the original concept art made by another artist) was used in the AI generation. The end result clearly used the other artist's work as a basis for the image generation. It seems obvious to me that Ilya profited from other artists' work, and tried to pass it off as his own with some half-baked deceptions.
I was in error with this comment! I am leaving it up as an abject lesson. See the below linked set of pictures that gives more or less proof that Ilya Shipkin did use his own artwork for AI processing.
Artists should be able to make a living with their art.
The fact that anyone in the world is able to do that is great, and we should be allowing for inroad for more people to enter into creative careers, not endorsing technology that aims to make them obsolete while profiting from their efforts.
I had taken the artist's statement that the art is being reworked as evidence of the art being pulled, and at least future published books not containing them.
https://twitter.com/i_shkipin/status/1687829743268442112
I should have waited until the actual statement (linked below), as it's clear that the artist was making something of a lie of omission above, as I believe he purposefully wanted readers to believe that the art was changing in the books, not that he would redo the art to... essentially no promised effect. Maybe he was lying to himself with the hope that he could get another go at?
https://twitter.com/DnDBeyond/status/1687969469170094083
I've updated the title of this post to reflect the info from the official WotC statement on the issue. I'm glad they won't be allowing AI "augmented" submissions from their artists going forward, but I would only be truly happy with a statement that they will be taking the massive inconvenience of making sure that the art is revised for future publications at a minimum (I think a recall would be asking a lot tbh).
New Dungeons & Dragons Sourcebook Contains AI Generated Art, with No Promise of Removal
An artist for Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants! has admitted to using AI to generate "certain details" of new art for the sourcebook.
> A source at Wizards of the Coast has said that Shkipin’s use of AI art was not something that the team was aware of. Further, they state that no text in the book was AI generated. Wizards has said that they will update their guidelines to more explicitly prevent these sorts of incidents from happening in the future.
> io9 has reached out to Ilya Shkipin for clarification and comment. Shkipin has further stated on social media today in light of his confirmation and the deletion of his prior posts that “the future of today[s] illustrations is being discussed.”
I don't think you picked up that I playtested both, though.
The monks played okay, if rather awkward in my playtests of the rules. They should do more damage, but they were all suitably impactful in a fashion that this dance bard cannot replicate with the ribbon features it has been given.
The bard was just a bard with what is effectively a free melee attack cantrip that doesn't scale with their casting stat. They do not step on the monk's toes, because they were too busy casting shatter, fireball, and other uses of their magic action.
It's flavorful and fun, but the impact of the dance bard is not on their level 3 features. It's their level 6 features that give the class a tonne of impact.
Because I have playtested monks, and their ability to control and knock enemies around while punching more often and for more damage while being quicker than the dance bard.
The dance bard in my playtest was awkward, and did less single target damage than the monks in my other playtest. It also was not able to attack and disengage for free, giving it much less of a skirmishing feeling.
A bard without any subclass features is a strong and versatile character. With the dance bard subclass, the bard is actually playing suboptimally, and does not outperform the monk in my playtest.
Bigby's Glory of Giants preivew. A practical demonstration of how to use the upcoming book.
I'm less interested in the contents of the linked free adventure, and the below design notes on the adventure.
> # Design Note > If you have Glory of the Giants, you can follow along with the process we used to create this adventure. The basic adventure seed—“a fire giant captures a renowned Humanoid smith”—comes from the Fire Giant Skill table (chapter 2), with additional inspiration from the “Magnum Opus” adventure idea connected to the Star Forge (chapter 4). The name of the giant villain comes from the Giant Names table (chapter 2), and the encounters within the Star Forge are inspired by the Fire Giant Encounters table (chapter 3) and the Elemental Fire Encounters table (chapter 3). The map of the Star Forge is in chapter 4. The giant wrestlers of Fireside Monastery are firbolgs (chapter 6), and several other monsters in the adventure come from the bestiary in chapter 6 (cinder hulk; fire giant forgecaller; fire giant of Evil Fire). Information about fire giant bags (chapter 5) fills out the treasure characters might acquire along the way.
WotC is demonstrating how to use this book to make your own adventures.
They should have done the same for Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, then maybe people would have understood that it was tip-to-stern the best DM toolkit they released yet.
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As always, I have posted this link to /r/dndnext, please feel free to upvote it there to raise visibility.
All I'm really hearing here is that casters are overtuned, and monks don't have a well defined niche.
I agree with both. The Dance Bard is the least of their issue. Most of all because the Dance Bard would be LESS effective than another, more caster focused Bard.
IMO it really, truly does not invalidate the Monk.
- Their unarmed strike isn't any better than Shocking Grasp.
- Their AC is better with Medium Armor Proficiency and a shield.
If they got multiple attacks per turn, and a way to use them while also weaving in and out of enemy reach range without catching attacks of opportunities, then they would invalidate the monk.
That's a fne thought, I was just wondering if there was a way to explicitly link hunter's mark to the other various spells that improves how they should interact.
I could even see something like being able to move your hunter's mark to a target you hit with any of the other strike/arrow/shot spells.
I think the changes to the Paladin smites do present a neat way to change hunter's mark for the better, as there are a tremendous number of other attack-rider spells that should be able to be looped in to the typical ranger round, in addition to hunter's mark.
In my own playtest with the ranger, I was absolutely floored with how much damage it can do, so I hesitate to make damage output even easier. It's not a bad idea to have rangers be the absolute Kings of ranged damage, but only if we're okay with them having a strictly ranged damage dealer class identity.
However to your point, I think making each attack-rider spell into some permutation of hunter's mark is the way to go. Perhaps hunter's mark should be something that is automatically applied if you use any of the primal shots, but only for rangers (or maybe a particular ranger subclass)?
Hunter’s Mark damage scales every other spell level, so it goes to 2d6 at level 9 if you use your highest spell slot at the time. No point in casting at 2nd level at all.
Ah whoops I goofed on the scaling of hunter's mark! In my defense I was juggling a lot of new mechanics and the ranger was a last minute addition to one of my playtests.
But looking at the general numbers, one fewer d6 per turn would have been a drop in the bucket to the damage they were outputting. It was sincerely surprising on how impressive they were, I expected them to perform worse based on my first impressions of reading the class. Actually playtesting revealed that they are in no way nerfed.
I promise you, “Don’t group up when you fight things with breath weapons” is not a strategy unique to Rangers. That’s just something kind of busted with ranged builds in general.
That's kind of my point, that Ranged builds having guaranteed high damage is an issue because there are so many perks, like ease of safe positioning. I think Rangers are doing great damage, and that might be a problem.
I'm honestly not as sold on the idea that resources are a balancing consideration, all told. Or at the very least they aren't as big of a consideration as many people presume. But perhaps you're right and rogues are fine, at the very least I don't think rogue players will generally notice that they are doing less damage due to how clutch they can be with their cunning strikes.
As to Hunter's Mark damage, it's higher damage at level 5, when you miss once. Which means that the damage floor is higher in general starting at level 2 spellslots (character level 5), and the damage ceiling is lower only if you are able to make 3 attacks. At level 3 spellslots (character level 9) and onward, it's simply the same or higher damage, excluding gimmicky action surge builds.
As to when it is useful to upcast, it's useful in any fight that you think is serious. The biggest problem is that the rest of the spellcasting toolkit is sitting there, doing very little for the most part (standout exception is Conjure Barrage which is fantastically powerful and fun).
edit: Oh and to answer this...
If the Ranger was optimized for being fast, and the Rogue was constantly tripping the enemies, why are you surprised it was hard to hit the Ranger?
These were two different playtests, with different classes. The ranger and the rogue weren't in the same playtest group, so this wasn't the result of complementary kits. It's mostly a consequence of the the enemies having only average movement speeds, and the counters being somewhat melee heavy.
But even in the encounter where I had 60 flight speed dragon wyrmlings, the situation constantly played out that this ranger was never grouped up with the rest of the party, so I couldn't hit them in the breath attacks. This amount of safety is a bit problematic with their higher damage output, IMO.
UA 6 Playtest Report: Rangers and Rogues are strange bedfellows
Please note: this feedback will mostly be focused from my own perspective as a forever GM. I am less concerned with how powerful X is against Y, as I am for the health of the game, and the ease of running encounters.
During my playtests I was given the opportunity to see both a Rogue and a Ranger, and they both feel good and bad in opposite and complementary ways. In short, the Rogue is fun but a breakdown of damage spreadsheets reveal it’s in a bad spot. In contrast, the Ranger has a lot of moments that detract from its fun, but joyless math shows that it’s super-effective.
Rogues are affable & attractive idiots
For the rogue’s part, being able to tactically choose what cunning strike to use at each given moment allowed for ranged rogues to opt into a controller role in combat, making one enemy’s life hell for a turn. When this works, it feels amazing as you are able to severely hamstring or simply exclude opponents from contributing at all on their turns. Unexpectedly, the Trip Attack with the Light Crossbow Weapon mastery allowed the rogue to make enemy melee bruisers get nailed to the ground, with a net -20 to their next movement due to being slowed, and having to use half of their reduced movement to stand up. This forced enemies to default to the party frontliner when able, or to use their action to dash instead of doing anything useful in the turn.
However, their damage is quite low. The player didn’t really notice this at the time, but a look at their output showed that they were not really big contributors to damage, and there were circumstances where their Cunning Strikes really didn’t have any impact on enemies.
The Ranger is a high performance hot mess
As for Rangers, they have so many problems that just amount to their spells all requiring concentration. There are so many toys that a Ranger simply can’t access because it would mess with their attempts at optimal damage output, and the mechanisms of bonus action to cast, concentrate, and then hit to apply the riders feels quite outdated, especially compared to the treatment that the Smite Spells received in this playtest.
However they were the number 1 damage dealer at the table. Honestly I think it’s too much damage for a ranged class, particularly because my Hunter-Ranger optimized around getting 60 movement speed, and getting the ‘Hunter’s Leap’ level 7 subclass feature. I simply couldn’t get them in melee because of how elusive they are, using their reaction the moment an enemy closed to engage them, prior to me being able to put attack actions onto them.
But this puts the dev team in a strange spot. If they fix how mutually exclusive all their damage increasing spells are, their damage output will skyrocket to preposterous levels. The solution is one that will be unpopular: Lower ranger damage quite a bit.
Additionally, a raise to rogue's damage should be performed, particularly in Tier 2-4. Maybe increase the number of die they get starting at level 5, 11, etc, or increase the size of their sneak attack dies at those places.
Finally, people who think that the new Hunter’s Mark is a nerf really need to actually give it a shot, because this feels much better.
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As per usual, I have crossposted this to /r/onednd, feel free to upvote it for higher visibility. Cheers!
UA 6 Playtest Report: Rangers and Rogues are strange bedfellows
Please note: this feedback will mostly be focused from my own perspective as a forever GM. I am less concerned with how powerful X is against Y, as I am for the health of the game, and the ease of running encounters.
During my playtests I was given the opportunity to see both a Rogue and a Ranger, and they both feel good and bad in opposite and complementary ways. In short, the Rogue is fun but a breakdown of damage spreadsheets reveal it’s in a bad spot. In contrast, the Ranger has a lot of moments that detract from its fun, but joyless math shows that it’s super-effective.
Rogues are attractive idiots
For the rogue’s part, being able to tactically choose what cunning strike to use at each given moment allowed for ranged rogues to opt into a controller role in combat, making one enemy’s life hell for a turn. When this works, it feels amazing as you are able to severely hamstring or simply exclude opponents from contributing at all on their turns. Unexpectedly, the Trip Attack with the Shortbow Weapon mastery allowed the rogue to make enemy melee bruisers get nailed to the ground, with a net -20 to their next movement due to being slowed, and having to use half of their reduced movement to stand up. This forced enemies to default to the party frontliner when able, or to use their action to dash instead of doing anything useful in the turn.
However, their damage is quite low. The player didn’t really notice this at the time, but a look at their output showed that they were not really big contributors to damage, and there were circumstances where their Cunning Strikes really didn’t have any impact on enemies.
The Ranger is a high performance hot mess
As for Rangers, they have so many problems that just amount to their spells all requiring concentration. There are so many toys that a Ranger simply can’t access because it would mess with their attempts at optimal damage output, and the mechanisms of bonus action to cast, concentrate, and then hit to apply the riders feels quite outdated, especially compared to the treatment that the Smite Spells received in this playtest.
However they were the number 1 damage dealer at the table. Honestly I think it’s too much damage for a ranged class, particularly because my Hunter-Ranger optimized around getting 60 movement speed, and getting the ‘Hunter’s Leap’ level 7 subclass feature. I simply couldn’t get them in melee because of how elusive they are, using their reaction the moment an enemy closed to engage them, prior to me being able to put attack actions onto them.
But this puts the dev team in a strange spot. If they fix how mutually exclusive all their damage increasing spells are, their damage output will skyrocket to preposterous levels. So clearly those fixes will need to come with nerfs to their damage output.
At the same time, it wouldn't be a bad idea to raise rogue damage up as well, particularly in Tier 2-4. I think it would be fine if the number of sneak attack die per increase goes up in Tier 2-4, or if the sneak attack die increases in size, something to reward Rogues for going mono-class, as I think that should be the ideal design.
Finally, people who think that the new Hunter’s Mark is a nerf really need to actually give it a shot, because the damage output is crazy good.
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As per usual, I have crossposted this to /r/onednd, please feel free to upvote it there to raise visibility.
The amount of specificity of rules is not binary, it exists on a spectrum.
I think that the amount of specificity we're seeing in the Playtest rules are beginning to encroach on an unsung virtue of 5e, with allowing for 'Rulings, not Rules.' Several times I have found that these specificities put more work on me, the GM, to sort out if a situation is clearly defined and doesn't require my ruling, as opposed to just entirely requiring me to make a ruling in the moment.
To this end, PF2e does say this quite often. Where a situation that has many vague outcomes the rules will state 'the GM will determine the outcome.'
It has felt like in 5e, that could be a general guideline in almost all cases without being explicitly stated. It feels like that's being chipped away.
UA6 Retrospective: On Paladins, Find Steed, and Rule Specificity.
An issue came up during our playtest, regarding Paladins and mounted combat that I think reveals a fraught issue with making rules more specific. One of my players decided to lean fully into the new Find Steed spell, and to make the most of it. This included pulling a lot of rulings from the following RPGBOT blog post.
https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/mounted_combat/
Before we get into it too far, I feel like purely Rules as Written (RAW) interpretations of the rules are quite silly, and do not make the most fun at the table. To that end, I try to make table rulings that are the best for the fun in the moment, rather than trying to obtain an ideal RAW.
However, these playtest rules have been written with a lot more specificity in mind, taking a queue from PF2e’s conventions in several areas.
With all that in mind, I see the above contents of the blog post as basically RAW in 5e… Until you encounter the specific rules for Find Steed.
> Combat. The steed is an ally to you and your companions. In combat, it shares your initiative count, and it functions as a controlled mount while you ride it (as defined in the rules on mounted combat). If you have the Incapacitated condition, the steed takes its turn immediately after yours and acts independently, focusing on protecting you.
In my read, the problem arises in trying to adjudicate what occurs when a rider dismounts their Mount willfully, in order to take advantage of the ‘intelligent mount’ capabilities as laid out in the aforementioned blog article. The spell specifies exactly how it behaves when you are riding it, and what happens when you are incapacitated. But it says precious little about if it is not being ridden, and the rider is not incapacitated. It clears the bar for 6 intelligence on the intelligent mount rules, so does it get to attack on your turn, effectively? Can you just ride up to an enemy, dismount, attack yourself, and have your mount attack? Can you then mount up to ride to the next enemy, and then dismount? I think RAW yes, but that is tremendously silly to a point that I think it's not Rules as Intended.
Additionally during combat, if you are incapacitated until the end of your turn (By say, the breath of a Sapphire Dragon Wyrmling, which I was running) what happens? We’re taking RAW as far as we can go with it to allow for the potential attack of an intelligent mount just because you aren’t riding it. RAW, it will act after your turn if you are incapacitated in order to protect you. But the Incapacitating Breath lasts until the end of your turn. So RAW, does the summoned steed go to take its action, and then the condition required for it to do so directly after your turn (incapacitation) is no longer there, so it now isn’t able to act at all?
I feel like this example reveals a big issue with trying to make rules more specific, in that you have to write a tremendous amount of rules to cover every situation. And even PF2e doesn’t accomplish that (e.g. There’s no RAW way to target an empty square with a splash weapon to hit adjacent enemies. I have gotten a Family Feud number of responses on how that should be ruled).
I maintain that ‘rulings, not rules’ should be the guiding light for DMs in D&D, and that if you don’t like Rulings not Rules and would prefer a game closer to 3.5e, you should find another system that fits your style better. I think the level of specificity here, and in the stealth rules perversely introduce more vagaries that hurt the ‘rulings, not rules’ playstyle more than it helps empower DMs to make rulings.
Oh btw the Paladin is fun and it looks neat having a toolbelt of neat riders on your attacks per turn that isn’t just raw damage is fun.
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As with many other posts, this has been crossposted to the /r/onednd subreddit. Please feel free to upvote it there to boost visibility.
They shouldn't have included the 2nd picture then. It's the lightest of all of them.
There is an undue expectation of high performance that many GMs feel, and admittedly my post here isn't helping that! So I absolutely endorse your response to making sure that GMs don't feel the need to do that much work.
In that case it would be helpful to give the players options of backgrounds to select that would be appropriate for the adventure at hand.
Cheers!
DM Advice: How to railroad without railroading
I have been DMing for a while, but I have recently come across a method of worldbuilding that has transformed how I create campaigns. This method also allows me to make shorter campaigns that have a end-point trajectory, rather than one that is open ended, and helps me to create satisfying stories. Additionally, this helps to reduce the amount of effort that needs to be performed from session-to-session, by frontloading the most important parts of the campaign preparation before the start of the game.
In short, the process has 3 phases
Phase 1
You get the idea for the kind of world the adventure will take place in. The general story themes and concepts you would like to play around with as well. Write a 1 page treatment for what the world is like and what the broad locations in the world appear to be, and send it to your players. 1 page is important, because it forces you to distill down what is unique and interesting about this world.
For example, in my most recent campaign prep I made a treatment of what the factions in the world are, the virtues of the different areas of the world, and a statement of what is common historical knowledge versus what are secrets that are not commonly known. I ended with a statement of what the themes are going to be for this world as well. NOTE: You should not know what the plot of the actual game is at this stage.
Phase 2
After the players have read your brief 1 page treatment of the world, ask them what kinds of characters they want to play. Work with them on their backstories to make sure they bookend with eachother for a matter of convenience, and ask them to provide information about their families and what aspirations and goals their characters have, or what kinds of stories they want for their characters.
This allows players to either lean into, or purposefully away from the elements of your world. As long as they do one or the other, this process has worked, as they can be part of the established culture of the world, or part of the counter-culture. Either way, you have material and character motivation to work with. The only way this does not work, is if they clearly did not actually engage with the world in some fashion during their character creation. If you notice that, try to gently encourage it with additional requests for information from them.
Phase 3
Use all the information your players gave you to worldbuild and plot out your campaign. Did you have a player who wrote a lot? GREAT! The NPCs will become major plot NPCs, the events depicted will become common knowledge, with some hidden truths that player didn’t know. But before you know what your players want to do, you can't know what kind of plot will engage them. This is where the actual plot for your campaign is written.
This makes your players into collaborators for your story, which will make them invested in the goings on. Additionally, if you know exactly who their characters are and what they want, then you simply need to place obstacles within the plot between them and their desires. Or better yet, present them with interesting decisions or bespoke antagonists that challenge their sense of self. This allows you to be INCREDIBLY detailed and plan out plot beats ahead of time because you are essentially building a railroad to exactly where the players want to go.
Railroading is bad because it usually doesn’t honor the choices of the players. This is railroading, but it honors the players’ decisions.
Finally, I should credit where this idea came from, as this is the method that Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 fame has described in multiple instances. My latest games have actually been the easiest to prep from session to session, because I have done a lot of the hardest work prior to the start of the campaign.
And as for the game-to-game prep, I have to credit Slyfourish. His 'Lazy DM Guide' series also keeps my 'procrastinating' work down to a minimum as I focus on what is the most important for the game sessions.
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As with many of my other posts, I have crossposted this to the /r/dndnext subreddit. Feel free to upvote it there for higher visibility.
System Neutral GM Advice: How to railroad without railroading.
I have been DMing for a while, but I have recently come across a method of worldbuilding that has transformed how I create campaigns. This method also allows me to make shorter campaigns that have a end-point trajectory, rather than one that is open ended, and helps me to create satisfying stories. ...
DM Advice: How to railroad without railroading.
I have been DMing for a while, but I have recently come across a method of worldbuilding that has transformed how I create campaigns. This method also allows me to make shorter campaigns that have a end-point trajectory, rather than one that is open ended, and helps me to create satisfying stories. Additionally, this helps to reduce the amount of effort that needs to be performed from session-to-session, by frontloading the most important parts of the campaign preparation before the start of the game.
In short, the process has 3 phases
Phase 1
You get the idea for the kind of world the adventure will take place in. The general story themes and concepts you would like to play around with as well. Write a 1 page treatment for what the world is like and what the broad locations in the world appear to be.
For example, in my most recent campaign prep I made a treatment of what the factions in the world are, the virtues of the different areas of the world, and a statement of what is common historical knowledge versus what are secrets that are not commonly known. I ended with a statement of what the themes are going to be for this world as well. NOTE: You should not know what the plot of the actual game is, or what the adventure will hing on at this stage.
Phase 2
Send out a small summary to your players, and ask them what kinds of characters they want to play. Work with them on their backstories to make sure they bookend with eachother for a matter of convenience, and ask them to provide information about their families and what aspirations and goals their characters have, or what kinds of stories they want for their characters.
This allows players to either lean into, or purposefully away from the elements of your world. As long as they do one or the other, this process has worked, as they can be part of the established culture of the world, or part of the counter-culture. Either way, you have material and character motivation to work with. The only way this does not work, is if they clearly did not actually engage with the world in some fashion during their character creation. If you notice that, try to gently encourage it with additional requests for information from them.
Phase 3
Use all the information your players gave you to worldbuild and plot out your campaign. Did you have a player who wrote a lot? GREAT! The NPCs will become major plot NPCs, the events depicted will become common knowledge, with some hidden truths that player didn’t know. But before you know what your players want to do, you can't know what kind of plot will engage them. This is where the actual plot for your campaign is written.
This makes your players into collaborators for your story, which will make them invested in the goings on. Additionally, if you know exactly who their characters are and what they want, then you simply need to place obstacles within the plot between them and their desires. Or better yet, present them with interesting decisions or bespoke antagonists that challenge their sense of self. This allows you to be INCREDIBLY detailed and plan out plot beats ahead of time because you are essentially building a railroad to exactly where the players want to go.
Railroading is bad because it usually doesn’t honor the choices of the players. This is railroading, but it honors the players’ decisions.
Finally, I should credit where this idea came from, as this is the method that Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 fame has described in multiple instances. My latest games have actually been the easiest to prep from session to session, because I have done a lot of the hardest work prior to the start of the campaign.
And as for the game-to-game prep, I have to credit Slyfourish. His 'Lazy DM Guide' series also keeps my 'procrastinating' work down to a minimum as I focus on what is the most important for the game sessions.
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As with many of my other posts, I have crossposted this to the /r/dndnext subreddit. Feel free to upvote it there for higher visibility.
Milo Rossi: In Turkiye
Youtube playlist of an Archeologist's exploration of ancient Archeological sites in Turkey
Planescape: Adventures in the Multiverse book details
It looks like this will also follow the template of the Spelljammer books, with some player options, setting information, and DM facing content (adventure & creature statblocks).
"I Watched Ancient Apocalypse So You Don't Have To" (full playlist)
A breakdown and debunking of an ancient aliens Netflix 'archeology' series
GameMasters: Annam & Othea
This is a tiny YouTube channel of an old hand in this hobby who typically has an even kneeled and optimistic outlook on the new releases. His enthusiasm for this subject matter always feels sincere, I hope you guys enjoy!
Is the Dance Bard all that good?
As always, I've crossposted this over to the OneD&D subreddit in the link below. Feel free to upvote there to raise visibility.
https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/14ufvvq/is_the_dance_bard_all_that_good/ ______
As part of preparing player characters on behalf of my less UA invested friends for a one-shot I'm running tomorrow, I made a Dance Bard. The player was excited to hear the concept, and I thought it was a really neat idea when I first read over it.
But the act of actually making it lead to a conclusion that this isn't that great.
Yes, Charisma + Dex armor is neat, but since Shield + Light Armor would get you to the same level of AC, it isn't an upgrade over the baseline Bard starting out. (For some reason I thought Bards got shield proficiency. This is still sub-par AC for anyone going into melee, especially without an on-turn disengage or shove) Later on when you can max out your Dex and Charisma to 20, it would be eventually higher AC, but full casters typically don't want to put a lot of investment outside of their casting stat.
"Okay," I thought to myself, "then let's look at this as not a caster, but as a melee combatant who prioritizes Dexterity." Well that's not great either. You get to use your bonus action to cast a spell to help your attack damage, but that is limited to the 1d6/level Smite spells1, or Zephyr Strike. Shadow Blade isn't on any spell list now either, and if it was it doesn't bookend with any of these features anyhow so you can't play it like a Bladesinger who is able to dump spell slots into single-target damage. But even if you did do this, that's in direct competition to your free attack on a Bardic Inspiration.
The fact that this subclass doesn't get a second attack at 5th or 6th level really torpedoes any sense that you'll be getting that much out of their 'bardic-martial-art' die damage. Not even to mention they don't get to pierce Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing resistance.
So what's left?
A bard who can get an extra hit in if they're next to an enemy when they inspire an ally, as well as use their reaction to reposition allies and get another hit in.2 This is the only reason to close to melee range on your own turn. The bard as a fullcaster would be better off using spellslots that don't require being in melee range with their action, most of the time. What that effectively means is that you can use your attack action in lieu of a cantrip, so you get essentially 1 extra cantrip. In tier 2, they can boost their party's initiative by an impressive amount.
That kit is flavorful, but it will be playing very much like a very normal Bard with some neat features. This feels like a faint shadow of what a Monk can do, not a replacement. Almost every Monk subclass has some way to avoid getting hit while darting in and out of combat3, while also having high movement speed. This Bard doesn't do any of that.
Of anything that I mentioned, the repositioning of the ally and the initiative boosts are the best thing about this subclass. Everything else are ribbon abilities. If you think I'm off base, please feel free to let me know how. I'll also be posting a followup after my playtest, but having just playtested a neat session with two monks, conceptually this doesn't feel all that exciting.
edit: I just realized that taking Tavern Brawler at 1st level fixes this subclass's (and Way of Mercy's) problem with engaging in melee, and is actually quite powerful. Each time you hit someone with your unarmed strike, you can push them away. I think that it could be a mandatory feat on anyone who wants to really lean into the dance-fighting vibe of this class.
_____ 1 Altho Searing smite might be OP since you get two instances of the damage before the target gets to save and negate the burn. Which means its the best scaling Smite in the game, and exceeds what a Paladin with half-caster progression can achieve if the target fails its save once.
2 And note that Bardic Inspiration is tied to your Charisma modifier. So as resource hungry as the Monk is, this is worse.
3 Way of Mercy is the odd one out.