Exhaustion based castle siege one-shot: Vigil at Cavel
I've only recently begun using Exhaustion effectively at my table. I've always thought that it took too long to clear, leaving the players annoyed with their useless characters. But! When used effectively, dramatically, and in short periods, it works really well. So I built an encounter for just this: Exhaustion.
This one-shot works to grind your players into 5 levels of exhaustion and force them to keep going. It's been a blast at my table, so I thought I would share it with the rest of you.
I do have a separate exhaustion table that I sometimes whip out and let my players roll on, but it works equally well with the usual dnd 5e exhaustion rules.
I hope you enjoy.
u/GoofySpooks — 9 days ago
Exhaustion encounter - Vigil at Cavel Castle
I've only recently begun using Exhaustion effectively at my table. I've always thought that it took too long to clear, leaving the players annoyed with their useless characters. But! When used effectively, dramatically, and in short periods, it works really well. So I built an encounter for just this: Exhaustion.
This one-shot works to grind your players into 5 levels of exhaustion and force them to keep going. It's been a blast at my table, so I thought I would share it with the rest of you.
I do have a separate exhaustion table that I sometimes whip out and let my players roll on, but it works equally well with the usual dnd 5e exhaustion rules.
I hope you enjoy.
AI Disclaimer: The images are made using Midjourney. I've used Claude as a sounding board to organize my thoughts into a coherent layout.
u/GoofySpooks — 19 days ago
[OC] “Point of No Return” vs “Inciting Incident” Technique
Ive been thinking a lot about how to spur our players to care about the story and world more.
In novels/books and stories where there is no agency there is an important decision made by the protagonist that fuels the rest of the arch. The point of no return or “the first plot point”:
In The Matrix, Neo choosing the red pill.
In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo deciding to leave the Shire with the Ring.
In Breaking Bad, Walter White deciding to cook meth after his diagnosis.
Those decisions do not just start events. They eliminate the possibility of returning to ordinary life unchanged.
We often do not use this in Dungeons and Dragons, as it is actually a choice, and we do not want the players to not chose the adventure. Rather we use the “inciting incident” mechanic/technique which creates the problem that the story revolves around:
The Lord of the Rings: Gandalf reveals that Bilbo’s ring is the One Ring. Frodo’s peaceful life becomes impossible because the Ring now carries existential danger.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: Harry receives the Hogwarts letter. The ordinary world cracks open and the hidden magical world enters his life.
The Matrix: Neo receives mysterious messages and is contacted by Morpheus’s network. The red pill choice comes later and functions more as the point of no return.
Often we force our story/module/campIgn onto our players and hope they are hooked. They often are, because the setting if DnD is that they can do good and save the realm and world - great motivator for many in a fantasy setting.
But not always. Preferably you want your players’ goal to misalign with the goals of the opposition/BBEG. That way they are almost unable to resist the story/world/campaign/BBEG you have set up.
It’s something to think about when planning a new campaign.
Set your players up to care about the world/story. This is mostly for homebrew, as most modules have some sort of Inciting Incident - and less often a point of no return - that incites the players.
u/GoofySpooks — 1 month ago
▲ 241 r/DnD
Here's a little trick to get your players to either reveal or develop their backstories:
Just before you end a session, have an enemy call out one of your players by their character's actual name.
Not "you there" or "the big one." Their name. The one sitting in their backstory that nobody at the table has thought about in three sessions.
It costs you five minutes of prep. You pick one character, find one detail from their background, and put it in the mouth of the first threat they meet. A bandit captain who knows what they did. A guard who uses a surname like it's a warning. A creature that shouldn't know them at all.
What happens is your players immediately stop being passengers. The one whose name was called wants to know how. The rest want to know why.
You don't need to have the answer ready. You ask your player why they know their characters name and what they want. Your players will hand you the content for your next 3 sessions.
Works really well in both shaping your campaign and getting your players integrated and invested!
That's it. That's the whole trick.
u/GoofySpooks — 2 months ago