Myconids are peaceful, and normally from the underdark. I think something that would help resolve confilict in a non-violent way, like something that could case hold person or something like that, would make sense. Or something that casts darkness, or just reduced light levels, might be something they like to have on hand.
For the people who have a lot of hours on this game, how well does it play for co-op?
My spouse and I actually dated doing Star Wars the Old Republic co-op, where we could play two different characters going through bespoke personal quest lines while being able to help each other out on their journies.
How easily could we get that experience with this game?
It worked great even a few years ago, and I assume has only gotten better. My friend and I did a playthrough in co-op, and we each had an npc we sort of claimed both in combat as well as for talking to. We could be in completely different places on the map and talking with different characters, and those conversations would affect the world, like we were two different people making decisions. There were some clunky bits, but that was about 5 or 6 major patches ago. It’s gotten even better since then, and we’re planning on a big playthrough with my friend, my partner, and I. It’s not going to be necessarily like TOR in the way that each of you would have completely independent stories you’re doing, but it feels really close to an actual game of dnd. And at any point if someone is on a conversation/cutscene you can eavesdrop/observe on it too, and make recommendations on which options to pick.
Tome of Beasts books are fantastic. I once found two monsters in Kobold Fight Club from that and made a themed dungeon around them, giant ant and Spawn of Akyishigal, the Demon Lord of cockroaches.
The whole Tome of Beasts series is pretty great, including the Creature Codex. Some of them are a bit too “out there” for me to use in my particular game, but I’d rather have that than another reskinned goblin.
The main 4 monster books from KP are published under an OGL and are available on open5e , you don’t get any lore, art, or advice on how to run the monsters without paying for the books, but you can see the statblocks.
The kobold press website also has a tool that can show you the environments a monster can typically be found in.
I would still recommend getting the books, especially if you want to use any of the higher CR monsters as the lore makes it a lot easier to understand the mindset the creators had when designing them.
@KurtDunniehue@Brunbrun6766 well the more monsters you have access to the more interesting your campaign can be everyone's heard of giants and beholders etc etc etc so books like these add variety and spice to the encounters you can create
Thanks! They look quite slick and have a lot going on. Particularly the void dragons you sent my way.
Each would be more or less perfect for a single-monster encounter, as they are dense with fairly novel mechanics.
Many people think that the WotC statblocks are a bit too boring, but I consider them a good entry point for new GMs. This is clearly a nice way to up your game.
Kobold Press' monsters are fun and original. Just be aware that they hit at their listed Challenge Rating, while many of the first party WotC monsters are easier/less effective in combat than their listed CR.
I’ve always been partial to a “telepathic” comms sort of device, especially when it’s given with the best of intentions and assumptions are made that such includes non-invasive transmission methods. The myconids may be peaceful and non-combative for the most part, but they’re also an alien intelligence to whom many cultural norms outside the Underdark are completely foreign, and thus the ingestion of spores would never occur to them as undesirable much less offensive… 🤩🍿
Traditionally, pirates elected the captain and bosun. They would recall people in these positions if they didn’t like the decisions that were made. Does your crew do this?
Yep, the pirate captain that helped them take their ship do so on the condition that they implement some version of The Pirate Code. All major decisions are decided by vote, with each crewman also getting a vote. In practice I would rarely have the crew vote against the party, just cos that’s no fun. But morale has been getting low, and if they don’t address it, they may decide they want a new Captain and try for a vote, giving the players a crisis to deal with.
Loot is also shared out equally, except the captain/officers get two shares. The players decided that they all collectively share the position of captain, while also having other roles. So they all get twice what the crew gets. I believe this is pretty accurate historically.
I just let the players decide the route though, I’ll only get the crew to protest if they haven’t taken a prize for a while, or if I think the crew would have an issue with the specific destination they choose. One of the players has the role of navigator so she does a check to see if she does a good job of that. If she doesn’t, I roll on my encounter table and something gets in their way, slows them down, or attacks.
I’m with you. Don’t get me wrong, I have a tv and use arkenforge for maps. But 2d is enough of a time sink (epically when the map is only one part of the whole session)…
I own it. It’s fun to play with but ultimately suffers from the same problem that almost every tool in this style does. The resources you get to use are limited to the ones that they’ve thought to include. If you want to make a jail, that’s fine, you can make it work. A tavern? Easy. An ancient Greek temple? Eh, you can get there with a bit of imagination. A bathroom? Sorry, bud, you’re on your own.
I’ve traditionally used Dungeon Painter Studio for my maps, and while it has similar limitations, it has the benefit of being able to import other art, and you get a whole dimension to hide your crimes in. That vaguely bookshelf- looking rectangular thing on the map? It’s an armory cabinet in the barracks. Now in the bathroom it’s a medicine cabinet. In the bedroom? A wardrobe. You can’t see what’s in it, can’t see how tall it is or how high it’s mounted on the wall, so you get to fill in the details with my description. 3d limits your ability to do that because everything looks like what it is. So if you don’t have a model of what you’re looking for, it’s more obvious when you’re making do.
That’s been my biggest struggle as well. I can spend way too much time finding the right map for an encounter, only to never actually use it.
The other option is building the encounters around the map, but a lot of the maps I find don’t ‘inspire’ me a whole lot, or aren’t thematically relevant to what I want to run (this dwarf king’s tomb looks cool, but I’d want at least a few other rooms in this dungeon, with other encounters. And my players are on a quest to kill a dragon, not a dwarf king)
I almost prefer a minimalistic tool; just a basic map that I can draw up quickly, basic tokens for enemies, and just flesh out my descriptions more.
This is precisely why I love Owlbear Rodeo. Just what I need, no unnecessary fluff or mechanics, super easy importing, website with no installs. I’m interested in the new version, but I’m not DMing an online game right now so no subscription from me yet.
i’d you’re gonna do a 3d map, dungeon alchemist is the way to go. that’s what i’ve been using. it’s pretty versatile and gets frequent content updates. nice looking maps in 2 or 3 dimensions.
It’s honestly a ton of fun. I like the tactical combat options, I like that everyone has a chance to shine without feeling overshadowed due to other classes, I like the minion system, the cinematic-like skill challenges, some interesting classes, and feats mean a lot.
I don’t think people realize how much 5e is a streamlined version of 4e with some tweaks. And anyone that says 4e isn’t RP heavy - that’s on your groups. We have entire sessions of roleplay no problem.
I tried virtual tabletops in 2020 but I just didn't enjoy it the same way. Little things that don't matter while you're sitting round a physical table with your friends, like waiting while other players take their turns in combat encounters, suddenly play out very differently when you're sitting at home on your own and can easily get distracted by your phone or TV without appearing rude. The players all just felt a lot less connected to what was going on in the game.
My group meets infrequently anyway and will often fill a whole day with the equivalent of multiple sessions when we do meet up, but when we played online during Covid we found it hard-going just getting through a two hour session.
Like... we switched to meeting on discord and I scribbled out updates to the 'table' in paint. none of the VTT's were flexible enough for the homebrews I was cooking up, though.
The more featured the vtt the more pain in the ass it was. In the end I first used a PowerPoint and had "shapes" that were like tokens. Then found a vtt that was basically that. Just literally a background, very simple tokens (circle with space for 2 letters) and a freehand pen.
We’re all spread out across our city and getting together for in-person games was always a pain. Pre-pandemic we played maybe once a month on average, though our games usually ended up being at least 4-8 hours at a time. Since the pandemic when we switched over to online, we’re playing weekly in a consistently 2hr game. I actually prefer how it is now, I like the smaller chunks of time and I like not having to always drive over to others’ houses. It does take a bit more prep work for whomever is GMing, since alot of us tend towards battlemaps, but we’ve also done a bit of theatre of the mind as well.
I honestly don’t care to go back to live games, maybe it’d be fine for one-off substitutions of our normal weekly games, but with kids it’s a huge hassle to organize for those long games and honestly, I just don’t know that I have the patience to hang around that long for games anymore. The other people I game with tend to be horrible about timing and will setup ridiculously long combat encounters, such that we’re spending a full 6 hours on a combat session because they thought us going up against like 30 guys would be a quick fight. And of course the enemies NEVER run away, they will always fight to the last man for the vaguest of reasons.
Our group uses Roll20 character sheets on tablets around the table, they’re really handy for managing all the buffs and math (Pathfinder 1e). Still rolling dice and using minis. That’s the right level of digital stuff for me.
I get the feeling their system will just take all the worst parts of video gaming - micro transactions, walled content, and bugs - and make D&D worse. I'm betting it will be a corporate profit first, community second approach.
What would be awesome is something that makes the table top experience easier and blends the best elements of VTT with in-person gaming. I'd love to a hybrid system in which physical tokens can interact with a digital table top.
“Community second”? That’s very optimistic. Personally, I can’t recall the last time WotC considered their community anything more than a source of backlash (and rightfully so, with their history).
It is a complete misunderstanding of what TTRPG players want and need. This is mostly because they are so focused on profits instead of their player and creator community.
If they really cared about their community they would have just created an API to access the rules and allowed third parties to pay for access. Then we would all have the ability to move to various 3rd party services and keep access to the rules and supplements that you purchased. They would have also created an open market place for 3rd party vendors to sell new content on the same system. Those things serve the community.
If they had done that first and then decided to provide a virtual table top that also competed in the same marketplace, I’d be more OK with it. But that doesn’t seem like that is what they are trying to do. They are building a walled garden. I’ve seen every walled garden fail under its own stupidity or weight, or both.
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