A DM map with a bunch of numbers on it, and text sections corresponding to the numbers detailing an encounter in a certain area. I personally skim these ahead of time, to know which parts to read out to the players when/if they get there. These should be traps (with exposition hints), puzzles, and combats.
A hook, escalation with two options, and resolution, all encompassing a possible plot. TBH, this should be something that a DM can discard and replace with their own plot, if they have the inspiration and energy to do so. But if they don't, then your prewritten plot is there for their use. This is required reading either way, to know what's important (or what to replace).
Some NPCs that have basic goals and motivations, for the DM to RP if the players find them (or need a push.} You don't want more than a paragraph or two for each, because all the extra details should be ad-libbed anyway. Motivation is key tho--why are they there, what do they want, and where their lines lie. Two one-liners from a Background table along with an alignment can usually cover most of that, TBH. Limit the required reading to 3-ish named NPCs per session, or less, with fewer introduced in subsequent areas of the module.
Make dndbeyond good/better, invest in 3rd party VTT integrations, and keep selling books through those channels. Keep partnering with 3rd party content creators to get a cut of their profits selling through dndbeyond.
I'd stop trying to disrupt the industry or chase massive profits, and just be okay with reasonable profits.
Most people hear "<blank> bubble" and think "oof, that's not a good thing."
Capitalists (the ones with the actual capital) hear the same thing and think "just imagine how rich I'll be if I get out right before it pops! Blow more hot air into it! Quickly!"
I am a bit old, and never got why so many people watch "actual play". I've done it once or twice to get the mechanic of a game, but found the experience more technical/boring than fun....
I enjoyed watching Harmonquest, the episodes of which have parts video of the table and parts animated story. It's a comedy show, for the most part, which genre appeals to me. Past, that, I enjoy a good actual play podcast, sans video, like BomBARDed or NaDDPod, both of which are also comedic stories.
Just watching a group play a game can indeed be boring. But if that game is just a format for the genre of entertainment you already enjoy, that's the appeal.
I've found that the least inspiring behaviors of players, from my perspective as a DM, are when they hack and slash in combat. Whether it's built into the system, or you brew it on, giving players free skill checks alongside (rather than instead of) their normal combat turns can make things significantly more engaging and rewarding (for both them and the DM).
Meta just announced that they are trying to integrate Threads with ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.). We need to defederate them if we want to avoid them pushing their crap into fediverse....
I would like to talk a little bit, and hear your opinions, on something not too often mentioned when discussing action resolution mechanics and processes in tabletop roleplaying games. That is when during the process you do the roll. The endpoints on that spectrum can be called Go then Roll and Roll then Go. At their extremes...
It depends on your medium of play, the members of the table, on how much trust there is, and on how crunchy the entire experience is allowed to feel. These days most of my D&D is in play-by-post discord servers, and I tend to stick to ones that are roll-then-go. It lets the player run the mechanics of their actions through avrae and find out successes and failures, and then describe how they do what they do. There is a strong onus on everyone understanding the game mechanics, and only engaging the DM in "can I?" Questions when pushing the envelope with improvised actions. The result is a faster (IMO) game with better writing (which starts to read like collaborative storytelling, especially if everyone uses a literary style).
In a go-then-roll world, the burden falls on the DM to "ratify" each character's intended actions. " would try to do an acrobatic flip" would need a "The floor is slippery, and falls flat on their face" followup, and this is just really slow in an async format. Inevitably, this is the most common way of sharing out the results of Perception and Investigation, though I appreciate pbp DMs who rely on passive stats and give things out in preemptively spoiler tags (that's whete the trust comes in).
" would try" is also a grating construction that feels terrible to read in general--it's just not a common tense signature. That said, in a low-latency live game, where the DM can roll immediately after learning of the player's intentions, go-then-roll(-then-go) is much more viable, and is probably preferable for new players who are new to the system.
Right, which maintains a disproportionate onus on the DM to intervene on every turn (both the monsters' and the PC's turns). Deferring success or failure to a bot (avrae) given a shared understanding of the rules allows the players to own their own narration (e.g. I decide how badly I faceplant after failing to jump the obstacle, rather than the DM doing it), and reduces the time commitment that DMing otherwise takes. The DM is already necessary during social and exploration pillars, where the go-then-roll is often required just b/c the check to make is not obvious (unless the DM makes prodigious use of spoiler text and passive skills). Roll-then-go in combat however is, IMO, superior for speed and player engagement.
Reactions need special care in roll-then-go, with strategies being necessary like declaring them ahead of time, retconning, or, my favorite, narrating what actually happened (e.g. to show how the pre-reaction narration was a fork in reality that didn't happen the way it looked).
Watch as Joe Rogan leads the party of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Gordon Ramsey and Miley Cyrus as they team up for an epic adventure into the fantastical world of Dungeons and Dragons! With the help of AI voiceovers (Elevenlabs) and AI-generated imagery (Midjourney) , this motley crew dives headfirst into a world filled with...
All of the above. It's AI generated, which, while interesting, is black-mirroresque after the past few years where people have put real effort in holding sessions and recording them for podcasts. It also features some really annoying voices, several of whom are in politics--it's unsurprising that the community doesn't want those voices to have airspace here. It's also not good. Much of the banter is weak (or only "funny" by being offensive, which is also weak) and the DM exposition is bland. And it's a link out, rather than a conversation--youtube has a comment section to discuss the video, making it being linked here nothing more than advertising. Advertising, while necessary for businesses, is absolutely horrible to the individuals bombarded with it who did not sign up for it. It's one thing to have a bespoke community to serve as a link aggregator that people can opt into, but the downvotes here serve as a critique of this type of content moving forward. At least, that's some reasons why I would downvote this.
How to create pre-written adventures
Hi, everyone, thank you for your time....
How would you save D&D if you were the new CEO?
The question is discussed in this podcast episode....
What do you enjoy in "actual plays" ?
I am a bit old, and never got why so many people watch "actual play". I've done it once or twice to get the mechanic of a game, but found the experience more technical/boring than fun....
How does your favourite game ease the GM job ?
I keep reading over various internets communities, how being a GM is hard, how player are ungrateful spoiled kids, and how much GM struggles....
Dear server admins, please defederate threads.net. Dear users, ask your server admin to defederate threads.net. ( mstdn.social )
Meta just announced that they are trying to integrate Threads with ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.). We need to defederate them if we want to avoid them pushing their crap into fediverse....
Go then Roll vs Roll then Go
I would like to talk a little bit, and hear your opinions, on something not too often mentioned when discussing action resolution mechanics and processes in tabletop roleplaying games. That is when during the process you do the roll. The endpoints on that spectrum can be called Go then Roll and Roll then Go. At their extremes...
AI D&D | Campaign 1 - Episode 1 | AC (ft. Joe Rogan, Trump & Elon) ( www.youtube.com )
Watch as Joe Rogan leads the party of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Gordon Ramsey and Miley Cyrus as they team up for an epic adventure into the fantastical world of Dungeons and Dragons! With the help of AI voiceovers (Elevenlabs) and AI-generated imagery (Midjourney) , this motley crew dives headfirst into a world filled with...