u/DnDVM

Polytheism, such as Hinduism, Shinto, 9 Divines, Faith of the 7, etc, teaches you to honor and respect multiple powers. This broadens your ability to respect other people's choices. You worship a different deity than me? So do a lot of people, even ones in the same religion, and it's taught to not be a problem.

Monotheism, like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc, teaches you to honor and respect 1 singular entity. This narrows your ability to respect other people's choices. You worship a different deity than me? Our religion teaches there is only 1 god, and therefore they are also your god whether you believe it or not.

Getting annoyed. I ran a campaign for a couple of years for some new people, me and 5/6 players. That ended and one of them wanted to run the next one. But he invited someone else to the table. I told him session 0 i think 7 players is a lot, especially for a first time DM. Combat slows down, side chatter increases, scheduling becomes a nightmare. He said he was trying the airline method, where you oversell seats and hope people don't show up. Like, he wanted 7 players assuming 1 or 2 wouldn't make each session, and then running for those 5 or 6 who do make it would hit the sweet spot for group number, plus ensure sessions don't ever get canceled because of too few players. I thought, ok, worth a try, makes sense on paper. We'll, we're about 7 months in and have​ had 5 sessions because he keeps canceling because 1 or 2 people can't show. Like, today, he sent a message saying "hey, G***** is out of town. I figured we could play some other games this weekend and continue when he gets back." I'm sorry, why? That's literally opposite his own rule. A lot of us have tried adding in our messages "play without me" just so the game can continue. And he does it with start times too. Always, always, we are starting 1-2.5 hours late because 1 person isn't there yet. So of the 5 sessions we've had, it's been very little actual game time. I don't know, it's just frustrating thinking this campaign that was supposed to be short will probably go another 4years and all the while those players (aside from me and 1) will turn down other campaigns because they don't want to be in too many when this one is hardly playing at all.

I have a friend running RotFM. The cleric wants to try to commune with Auril. He (DM) and i theory crafted some ways to do this and when we got to the ritual Her clergy have to do, sit out in the cold naked and try to resist hypothermia, the question came up if the cleric has to do it alone, what will the other players at the table do. I brought up a phenomena i heard about, I think it's called the Other People Phenomena, when a person is alone in a life or death situation they start hallucinating other people on the periphery of their vision encouraging them to keep going and survive. And we thought what if the cleric hallucinates the rest of the party during some encounter and the players play their hallucination PCs? How would you run that? What stats would a hallucination have? And what sort of encounter in the arctic wastes would be appropriate for a level 3 hypothermic cleric and his 4 hallucination friends?

I believe in trading card games, MtG, Pokemon, YuGiOh, the special holofoil cards are worse than their non-holo counterparts. My reasons below:

1. Sometimes the foil coloring makes the artwork hard to see.

2. I find the foil cards succumb up humidity and bend a lot quicker than others.

3. The foil shows scratches a lot clearer.

4. A lady at TSA at the airport told me big decks of cards with foil will set off the xray machine. And I've been pulled out of line plenty of times for them to check my bag for that.

I find players in combat get into a fight with an enemy and then just stand there in full view of being targeted for more attacks rather than move around and use the space. And the answer they always give is because they don't want to take an attack opportunity and don't want to waste their action disengaging. So it turns into who can dish out the highest dice rolls first. Would combat get more fluid and exciting if attacks of opportunity were removed as a mechanic? Has anyone tried this? This would be in addition to things like lair effects, countdowns, mass field changes, etc.

We got tiny gnats in my kitchen and bathroom. They were annoying but doable. But now it's been upgraded to big house flies. Since they're only in rooms with sinks (two different floors), I wonder if they're coming from the drains? We have traps and we're going to call an exterminator once we find a good recommendation from our neighbors, but I wanted to ask if anyone else dealt with this? No clogs or foul smells I can detect. Would drain-o or any other chemical clear out the eggs/cocoons if they're down there?

Many dads (not all) from the baby boomer generation are boring. They devoted so much of their lives to working for their family that now they're in retirement, they don't have much to do. So they end up watching the news and listening to podcasts. These are dangerous gateways to politics, and we all know how perilous politics are for people over 60. If you have a father like this, do your best to get them involved in a hobby, maybe find a local group so they can play/practice/compete together and form bonds within their community. More time rolling dice and building stuff is less time complaining about the country and considering running for office to fix it.

I'm relief and picked up a shift at a new clinic. When I got there, I asked the two girls if they were techs or VAs. They said techs. Out of curiosity since we get all kinds, I asked if they were CVTs or LVTs or something else. They both said they didn't have any of those licenses but they took all the classes. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Maybe they hadn't taken the test yet or maybe it was too expensive, whatever.

But later in the day I had them do a skin scrape. Came back to double check the slide, as I always do, and saw there was no oil on it. I asked about that and they told me the oil "washes off in the stain." ........ They stained their skin scrapes. I had to explain if the mites are caught in the oil, and the oil is now in the stain, then the mites are now in the stain and not on the slide. Plus they're mites, not bacteria, you don't need to stain to see them.

It made me think back to what they said about not having a license but calling themselves techs and I wondered if they're VAs that think VA and tech are the same thing? Or were they still taking classes and just not finished yet? Shouldn't there be more a push of responsibility from the PMs and resident vets to teach their staff not to call themselves techs unless they actual have the license? Not only to avoid mistakes like this but also just a respect thing for techs.

Looking for swarms, different CRs, a boss, etc. Players are venturing into the FeyDark and I've got this idea for a Fomorian Wisp Keeper, like the beehive giant in WBtW.

Anyone know of good supplements or info for the Feydark?

My players (level 9) are already in a shadowy mirror of the Feywild. Per one PC's background and another's deal with a hag, they must help the city of the 7 Duergar defend themselves against an invading force of ashkin (dark reflection of fire elementals/genasi). I'm looking for good details and descriptions to flesh out that underground section of the Feywild, maybe some notable NPCs, some side missions, anything you can offer. Please and thank you.

Last night, a girl in the cast (she's just graduated high school) asked what the bar across the street is like. In trying to explain it, we learned she didn't know the terms "dive" or "seedy." Is that just her or has the language changed that much, m'lord?

I'm reading through my Ghosts of Saltmarsh book and come across the Dreadwood. In it lives a Hag named Granny Nightshade. Is this the same as Skabatha Nightshade from Wild Beyond the Witchlight? Is this a crossover or a prequel or something?

TLDR in the title

Background: I'm running a pirate campaign for a bunch of people that have played in my previous groups over the years. This campaign (fairly new, they're at level 3, not world heroes) I wanted to try a more open world approach. I told them in session 0 there will be a main story line, but there will also be numerous side quests they can do any time. The group have been on shore leave for like a month in game. They arrived and the captain said he needed to meet some contacts before determining their next course. So the players have been running the job board and mercenary-ing themselves.

Presenting situation: Last night, after they fumbled an in-town job, there was a lull in the session and people suggesting they wait until the job board refreshes since they felt the ones left weren't worth it. I took this as a good moment to prod the main story again as i have been (see next section). The first mate found them and told them the captain and the ship left with 5 NPCs but that he'll let them know when he returns. The players... did not take this well. They argued with the first mate (and I feel like with me).

My reasoning: The players up to this point had either not been aware of the hooks for the next arc, or actively ignored them. "You see the captain talk in hushed whispers with a stranger at the tavern. That same stranger tries to tell you something you don't understand but recognize as thieves cant. He says something about the Sacraments. The rogue said the mysterious tapestry had a message about the Sacraments. You see the first mate walk into a shop with the tapestry and walk out without it. The shopkeeper tells you the captain is struggling with a decision but can't tell you more." I made sure every session had a couple of bread crumbs so I assumed the players all knew to start the next arc, they would have to speak with the captain or the first mate or find that stranger.

Their counter: they said they thought they weren't allowed to approach the captain because of an earlier altercation. They were sent as envoys to investigate a ship, found the ship full of thieves, and decided to kill all the thieves and commandeer the ship. Out of game, they just wanted their own ship. I ruled the captain berated them because those weren't his orders and he needed to establish chain of command before the crew thought they could revolt. And they said that taught them the captain was someone not to be trusted and not to turn to. Oops.

Our results: we talked. I thought they would initiate the next arc. They thought I would. We know where we're going from here. But it left me with a question:

When your players are doing side quests, what happens to your NPCs with the main quest line? Do they sit around and wait for the players? Or does the main line keep moving without them? Or is that table dependent?

My husband and I got gay married last night! I thought this might be the appropriate sub since not a lot of previous generations could do this, but honestly I just wanna spread the word.

Asking for any exotics focused people: what do you use for your closure for tail amputations in bearded dragons that are 20g or less? They just look too tiny for sutures but that's all I see everywhere when looking it up.

How about a thread for self-affirmation and positive rewards. As a DM, what was the most recent moment at your table that had your players cheering for joy and made you think you were a good DM?

Mine was at the end of an arc, my second attempt to make a non-combat boss encounter. After making the deal with the hag and going into a PC's dream to save her when she only had 2 memories left, they encountered the entity macguffin. The PC, whose dream it was, asked if she could cast beast bond with it. Against the rules as RAW, but I said yes, announced that she was now bonded with the entity and got all her memories back, and everyone (including the guy who asked to watch to see if he wanted to join) erupted in celebration. Made me feel really good.

My group has been playing for 3 years. Most everyone was new except the first DM and the current second (they swapped after the first campaign). There are 2 sisters that have been with us from the start and they... just don't seem to get the rules. They do things like forget which numbers to add to dice rolls and forget their own abilities. Last night, one of them who played the Barbarian last campaign, she's playing the Ranger now, we told her to use her bonus action for Hunter's Mark. She argued back she had already used her action to stealth, until someone finally realized the confusion and explained the difference between action and bonus. She said she didn't know she also had a bonus action. We've been playing for 3 years. And 2.5 of those years she was the barbarian using her bonus action to rage. You might think, maybe she's still getting used to the new character? But no, this wasn't our first combat.

How do we help them? The first DM took an approach of patient explanation mixed with I'm going to let you make mistakes and explain them later so you learn. The current DM is a little more abrasive and up front with saying no that's a bad idea and calling them out for not knowing things. We the rest of the players try to pick up the slack and help answer their questions and make suggestions asking the way. But like what advice do you have for helping people remember the basics?