u/Level-Distribution46

New release today. Enjoy all the fun stuff!

• Session Journal — Keep a running record of your game from anywhere in the app. Write notes with formatting and a live preview, edit and reorder entries, and let rolls, card draws and table results log themselves. Turn what happened into characters, places and lore when you're ready.
• Entity Reports — Pick some entities on the canvas, graph or table and generate a report from them, with locations, connections and their sources included. Save it as an ordinary note you can edit and read in Zen mode.
• Entity Templates in Settings — See every starting layout for new notes in one place, duplicate a built-in one, and edit it as plain markdown. Choose your own default for each type of entity, and import or export templates to share. New characters start from your choice, and asking the Oracle to revise a note now keeps to it. Includes a compact Table Card for improvised NPCs.
• See the Dice — Open up any resolved roll to see the individual dice behind it, in roll tables, the journal, stat sheets and solo adventures. Roll tables now also handle multi-dice formulas such as keep highest and keep lowest.
• Richer Canvases — Give entity cards different looks, show a faction's roster right on its card, and browse a member image gallery.
• Saved Views Keep Your Layout — Return to a saved graph view and find its arrangement exactly as you left it.
• Faster Cloud Backup — Backups now send only what changed, so they finish sooner and use less of your connection. You can also attach a vault to an existing backup.
• Session Prep Builder — Answer a few guided questions and get AI-assisted prep for your next session.

Hi all,

I created an automatic spell card that updates with all the information you need by just changing the name (from a dropdown or typing it in), and wanted to share for you all to use.

It came from a DM frustration of a player saying they're using a niche spell and me having to scroll/search on a PDF to find it, and then inevitably not having it and going to a wiki instead while they stare at me accusingly (definitely just in my head but shush).

It was built off an excel sheet I found off another post (I went to credit them but their account is deleted), but I tidied up the text and formatted in an easy-to-use way, and left all the formulas unlocked in case anyone wants to change something about them.

I hope you enjoy and that fellow DMs find it useful!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_km76gH_DpLB2fZWDIin8T1I6-X7sVN_/view?usp=drive_link

(PS - yes I know it looks like a stat block not a spell card, but I like the appearance and it took ages finding fonts and hex codes so leave me alone lol)

(PPS - don't use it in Google Drive if you care about formatting, it looks terrible - it was designed to be downloaded first)

I was a big fan of the game and the lore it presented and I was interested in running a game for my friends but I have no previous experience with any kind of gm experience in any game system. What are some things I should research and or books to grab to get ready to run a game

I hardly ever use city maps unless it's just for flavor or to show players the general layout—where the castle/palace is, what the districts are, if there are walls, rivers, and so on... But I don't really bother mapping out dozens of shops and locations just for the players to waste an entire session saying they're buying this or that, or whatever strikes their fancy. Still, I notice that detailed city maps are super popular. I'd love to know how you approach cities and running sessions or campaigns in them. Thanks!"

Ajout de Shadowrun v6 et INS / MV v5 (purée un jour j'arriverai à jouer un ange ...). Liste des jeux disponibles pour la création de fiches de personnages en pdf éditables :

- Appel de Cthulhu v7

- Bloodlust

- Cyberpunk RED

- Donjons & Chatons

- Eclipse Phase v2

- Fading suns v1

- INS / MV v5

- Mage l'Ascension v1

- Shadowrun v6

- Star Marx

- Star Wars

- Star Wars Force & Destinée

- Vampire la mascarade v5

- Warhammer v1

- Werewolf l'apocalypse v5

Site : https://decados.fr/

I'm currently prepping for a short 5-6 session campaign and am very happy with my plot world and pretty much everything else.

The big finale is supposed to happen on the in world summer solstice, it is not flexible due to the BBEG planing to do her evil ritual then. Before that the group has to accomplish a certain number of things / set things into motion and prep. While I can estimate pretty well how many sessions it will take, I'm kinda worried about how many long rests they want to take, and with that, how much in game time might pass. I don't know how to give them a number of days till summer solstice and at the same time be flexible enough for if they somehow (in game) speed thru everything or choose to take rests every five meters.

I have an idea for an ancient artifact in a fantasy setting, (specifically an anatomically correct, heart shaped gemstone capable of resurrecting anyone, even those long dead), but I have no idea what to name it, and would appreciate any ideas.

...long enough to see the AI hate in music, video, gaming, fade away. History would tell us it will take a generation or two. At 65yo, I might be here for one more generation so I guess its possible I could see it. I started making music/videos a few months ago and have been learning a lot about lyrics/music/video production (most of my work has been posted in SunoAI because its AI friendly and doesn't prohibit religious topics.)

Does anyone have any other relevant examples of eventual acceptance beyond the list below (obviously, generated with AI).

1. Photography (~60 years): In 1859, Baudelaire called it the refuge of lazy, failed painters who couldn't finish their studies. It wasn't until the Pictorialists in the early 1900s—and MoMA creating a photography department in 1940—that it was cemented as a fine art.
2. The Printing Press & Novels (~50–70 years): Calligraphers initially called mass-printed text cold and error-prone. Later in the 18th century, prose fiction was dismissed as sensationalist "mental poison" that ruined real literature until works by Austen and Defoe legitimized the novel.
3. Recorded Sound & Player Pianos (~25–35 years): In 1906, John Philip Sousa published "The Menace of Mechanical Music," claiming talking machines would destroy musicianship and ruin human voices. By the late 1920s/30s, studio engineering and recorded performance became the artistic benchmark.
4. Cinema (~25–30 years): In the 1890s, motion pictures were written off as cheap carnival novelties and crude pantomime inferior to the stage. It took until the 1920s, when montage and cinematic grammar emerged, to be treated as high art.
5. Electric Guitars & Synths (~15–25 years each): Purists in the '40s and '50s said electric guitars just made noise to hide bad technique. In the '70s, the UK Musicians' Union literally tried to restrict synthesizers, calling them "fake orchestras" played with buttons.
6. Hip-Hop & Sampling (~20–25 years): When DJs and producers started looping vinyl on MPCs in the late '70s and '80s, critics declared it pure "theft," "karaoke," and not real musicianship. By the late '90s, multi-layered sampling was widely recognized as modern sonic collage.
7. Digital Art & CGI (~15–20 years): Early digital painters were told the computer did all the work. In 1982, the Academy disqualified Tron from the Visual Effects Oscar because using computers was considered "cheating." By the late '90s/early 2000s, digital pipelines were standard industry art forms.
8. Video Games (~35–40 years): From '70s arcades well into the 2000s, games were dismissed strictly as toys. Roger Ebert famously argued they could "never be art" in 2005. By the 2010s, narrative titles proved otherwise, and the Smithsonian and NEA officially recognized them as an art form.

Every single time, the debate starts with the "effort equals art" fallacy—judging the work solely by manual labor rather than emotional intent.

What other creative technologies do you think went through this exact same gauntlet?

Hello,

I’m joining a DnD campaign soon and wish to use a name that thematically fits being a dwarf paladin, but instead of using something generic or silly. I want to use my own name in some fashion. This is a campaign I suspect will last for someone time, so feel it’s better to opt for a personal touch.

My name is Kyle, so I’m not sure what the dwarf equivalent of that might be. Kyllor or Kylen, my second name also has brick in it. So even Kylen Bricksmith or Kyllor Brickbeard.

Looking some advise on naming schemes, something that feels personal while thematically feeling like an actual dwarf name.

Fenrir, Zheron, Vain, Vesper stop reading.

I am a newly DM. I played the stater kit three times and am now dming CoS for the first time for one group I played the starter kit with. We were all really hyped about it.
My group rolled their stats really good. None is a single digit. Everybody, me included, was thrilled that the dice gods were merciful for the adventure in barovia. The group has a aasimar light cleric, human zealot barbarian, tielfing school of dance bard and now a halfing hollow warden ranger, after her monk died to the hags.
There were some bumps in the organisation regarding 2014/2024 rules but now we found a middle way which somehow works for us.

Now to the frustrating part. I spend a lot of time prepping the sessions. I try to get a good overview over the areas my party is currently in or will be going to next while trying to know the whole story. The thing is, I feel like I can’t get the right vibe for the story. They don’t really „fear“ Strahd even though they know what he is capable off. Vallaki fell to the feast but they merely joke about it and don’t worry about the consequences. I didn’t manage to make Irene as lovable as she could have been. In general my barbarian seems to be annoyed about everyone and everything that his happening.

But what frustrates me the most are the fights. We all love them. I am using a encounter generator to make the fights challenging but they just go through them without any difficulties. They even went to the wizard of the wine at level 4 and they were in no serous danger. I know that I am not playing against them as DM but I can’t seem to hit them and even if I use spells with saving throws the DCs are so low and their stats so high that they always pass them.

I’m feeling so frustrated all the time and I need a break but I also love playing as a DM for my friends and I don’t know what to do.

Sorry for this post. I am just frustrated and feel lost.

I’m trying to find good country names for my fantasy world that has a magic school half of them. I want to be related to the moon and the other half to the sun. Any good ideas?

TLDR : I need ideas for physical items and story ideas for the sessions with my friends to be more interesting. I can't buy a lot of stuff, but I can diy. Pls help. Anything else to keep this fun/entertaining is fine too.

This is both mine, and my entire group's first type playing a dnd-esque game (?)

There are no basestats, and we're really just going off of the backrooms' wiki and some dice, and we started this on a whim after I suggested doing a choose your own adventure type story in the backrooms, and they agreed.

They're quite enthusiastic, (scarily so) and so we decided to do a proper start to the story and now they're making character sheets etc etc, my problem is, I'm worried they'll lose their attention very, very fast.

They seem to be having fun now, but I know damn well they'll get bored soon enough, since we mostly play using words and descriptions, and no physical items.

I can't buy dice or other fancy stuff (not really a cash problem, it's just my country has no shops that sell them and I'm not going online, we don't even have Amazon here), but I still want them to look at something. There isn't any real 'map' since, well, it's the backrooms and the layouts are always changing.

I'm handy with some paper, cardboard, and craft supplies so I can diy stuff.

Other than that, to summarize, I just wanted ideas (story wise too, I need some) I can use to keep the sessions interesting.

I’ve started asking my players to narrate their dice roll results. what did it look like when you killed that orc? what did it look like when you missed? that sort of thing.

In Return Of The Lazy Dungeonmaster there is a short list of additional questions I’m going to add in the future.

WHAT’S AN INTERESTING PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS MONSTER?

DESCRIBE YOUR KILLING BLOW

WHAT’S AN INTERESTING CHARACTERISTIC OF THIS TAVERN? or other location the characters encounter

WHAT HAPPENS ALONG YOUR JOURNEY? ie on a travel day

I would like to find more such questions to keep in mind. Most world building questions are way too abstract, focusing on political systems, trade routes, climate, etc so my searches have been in vain.

Where should I be looking for more ideas like those I’ve quoted here?

Something I've never quite thought about or understood, how to make someone evil truly shine through? Perhaps, I'm too simple minded, but when trying to do someone evil it feels obvious at times and just not natural.