I feel like, as I get into DND, I'm encountering a part of the TTRPG community that I struggle with. I'm a creative, I write as a hobby. I'm currently running a heavily rewritten Curse Of Strahd campaign where I rewrite basically everything. Even things I don't take issue with, I might rewrite just to get more of my creativity into the game. I love writing, so any excuse to write, I enjoy, and I'm doing so well, my players are having a good time, everyone's lines and veils are being respected, it's just all around a good time.

Yet, despite me being a GM of 10 years, with tons of experience across a ton of different systems, I am noticing an issue. Everyone is terrified of making mistakes. Every time I ask for advice, I get tons of advice on what not to do, and almost zero advice on what I can do that's new and exciting. No one is helping me write, I'm only getting hit with roadblocks and people telling me what I can't do. And often, what I can't do is different depending on the person.

I chalk this up to the Mercer Effect, weirdly enough. Everyone cautions you against doing something different, because it's not what people insist a DND game is.

I cannot imagine being a new DM who's trying to be, y'know, creative, because all you'll ever get is people telling you you can't do anything, and everything is a bad idea. But like, mistakes are part of the process, y'know? You need to write garbage to be a good writer. HP Lovecraft wrote some of the most influential horror of all time. He also wrote a story where a murder victim turns into a fly and buzzes around a clock and drives a man insane. Writing bad is a crucial step in writing good, and you gotta have games that fail, everyone laugh and you learn from it to be a good DM.

God knows I've run bad games before, but learning from them is what made me a good GM. Now I'm at a point where I communicate with players, I listen to what they want, I make sure everyone is heard and having a good time, and that's only possible because I learned from my mistakes rather than trying to obsessively prevent them.

I am giving you my permission! This goes out to any new DMS out there. Write cringe! Write dumb OCs and AUs so bad that AO3 would call them awful. As long as everyone has fun, who cares if it was dumb and stupid! Be free and be cringe!

Getting back into 5E, and felt inspired to make a class. So, I spent a few hours thinking up an idea and workshopping and put this together. It's not meant to be perfect, but homebrew is a form of creative expression, so I did my best to cater to my design prerogatives.

The Occultist is a spontaneous caster that dabbles in the occult and profane to gain power. It's main mechanic is Dark Boons. Essentially, you gamble with debuffs in exchange for guarenteed free spell slots. This is similar to Arcane Recovery or Sorcery Points. However, whereas those are capped, this one is not but can also blow up in your face rather quickly. The main mechanics are built around accepting dark boons for different things, and getting more and more opportunities to get free spell slots.

Feedback is appreciated.

I wouldn't say I'm an optimal player by any means, but I do like dumb builds, especially when they're just dumb enough to work.

I'm running Karlach as a Storm Herald Barbarian, courtesy of Barbarian Subclasses Combined, and absolutely loving it. I think it's so thematic, and it's cool being able to deal more damage to multiple targets. Buuut, it's like no damage! I get that it doesn't require a saving throw, but I really like the idea of Karlach immolating herself and everyone around her.

Is there any way to make the Desert aura specifically deal more damage? I'm hoping for a magic item or something, or maybe a multiclass. I know the game doesn't exactly work in a way to make this convenient, but I'm hoping someone has an idea!

I love online GMing, I think I honestly prefer it over IRL. It gives me a lot of control over the experience that I wouldn't have otherwise, and I can keep the mystique of the session up a lot easier when people can't see my face. So, as someone who's been running games online for years, here are some unique applications and resources I've found.

Virtual Tabletops

Virtual Tabletops are basically your bread and butter. They're how you share character sheets, store statblocks, make tokens, run battlemaps, and all that happy jazz. The two big ones are Roll20 and Foundry, so here's some pros and cons of each.

Roll20
Pros:

• Completely free
• Server based, so you can access it at any time

Cons:

• Less features
• Somewhat awkward to use

Foundry
Pros:

• Feature rich, with TONS of support
• Much easier to use than other options

Cons:

• Requires you purchase a license to use
• Client based, unless you pay for a server. This means you have to have it up for players to access their stuff
• Requires you port forward your internet, which some GMs may be unable to do

Making Tokens

Making tokens is pretty easy once you get the hang of it, but a lot of new GMs might not know about the resources available. There's a website called tokenstamp/rolladvantage that lets you turn any image into a token. It's completely free, and just requires you save the image as a PNG or JPG to upload it. Super useful for making tokens.

If you're running Foundry, it also has a module called Tokenizer which, while definitely a bit clunky, lets you make tokens in seconds once you get the hang of it.

Music

Music is something I consider required for my games. Oftentimes, narration can only do so much to set the mood, and players struggle to stay in tone without some reinforcement. I make music playlists and play them over Discord using an app called Kenku.FM. Kenku is completely free, and can play MP3 files you've saved to your PC. It uses Discord's developer portal, so the bot you make is for you and you only, but it's one of the few ways remaining to play music on Discord.

To actually get music into the bot once it's set up, you're gonna need to get an MP3 file. I recommend using many "youtube to MP3" sites to download a song, and then you can just drop it in Kenku.FM

Making Maps

This is one of the things I'm the most happy to have as a GM. Using the assets from 2-Minute Tabletop, and an app called DungeonDraft, you can create basically any map you could ever want with completely custom and beautiful assets. I make my own maps almost exclusively, and love being able to create exactly what I want.

To do this, you have to buy the assets for DungeonDraft from 2-Minute Tabletop or another resource, and then you upload them to DungeonDraft and get to making your own maps. A single asset pack like "bandit camp" has plenty of forest stuff and everything you need for forest encampments, and it only costs $5. The Everything Pack, which has every single asset they've ever made, is currently on sale for $70, so if it interests you I highly recommend checking it out.. I'm not joking about how beautiful these maps are, and how great it is to be able to make your own. And they're completely compatible with Foundry and Roll20. Even better, Foundry has custom lighting controls and vision mechanics, so you can build something like an inn and actually have walls that block line of sight, along with light on torches and fireplaces. Here's a link to some of 2-Minute Tabletop's stuff, give it a look!

That's all for now! Just wanted to share these resources. Have a good one!

I live on 148th and drive a 2016 Ford Explorer. I own it, it's got 50,000 miles on it, and genuinely love this car.

I do not have a lot of money, but I want to start slowly getting routine maintenance done on it and catching up on repairs.

Does anyone know a good, reliable mechanic who I can count on to do steady repairs through the next few years?

Barovia has spent centuries in darkness. A place haunted by dark gods, whose blessings are often indistinguishable from their curses, Barovia is a place trapped in darkness. Underneath the gaze of these inhospitable creatures, a damned man preys upon the valley he once conquered, forever seeking the one thing he can never possess.

Hey! Super experienced GM person with a pension for horror, game design and writing. I'm looking for a group of players to play a heavily modified Curse Of Strahd. This will use much of the existing module, as well as elements from Fleshing Out Curse Of Strahd. Importantly, I will also be borrowing from the Fear And Hunger franchise, adding themes of occultism and psychological horror to make the game that much more fun. This is still Dungeons And Dragons, but I want to capture the heart of Curse Of Strahd, a gothic adventure where you traverse a dark and perilous place, while adding a bit to keep it fresh for such a classic module.

I live on the west coast in Portland, Oregon. I was initially searching for people in PDX to join my game, so I could make friends, but I'm happy to say we have a fair number of PDX people at the table already, so I'm looking for 1-2 more people just to round out the party.

This game will take place at night Pacific Standard Time. I work nights, so the game will most likely be Sunday or Monday nights, as early as 7 PM or as late as early morning.

My table is LGBT+ and friendly to neurodivergent folks like me. Horror is best when everyone is communicating and collaborating. I don't like surprising players, and prefer everyone know what the story will be going in. I'm a DM with a lot of experience making stories, and players expecting to live vicariously through their characters, or hide things from the other players generally don't enjoy my tables too much.

This is still a work in progress, and while the schedule is somewhat stable, the exact time and when we'll finally be starting may take some time. I expect that it'll bare minimum be 2-3 weeks before I can really get things going, buuut that gives you plenty of time to comment down below and send me a chat request. People who don't comment will not receive a response.

As one last thing, I am fully disabled with chronic health conditions. I don't like entering games promising we'll make it to level 20, since one person holding a schedule is hard, let alone four or five. All I ask is that you arrive ready to have fun from the first session onward. Let's enjoy the game to it's fullest from the very first session.

Hope to find some amazing people to be my players soon!

Edit: We are full up! Thank you everyone for applying!

I want to download Playable Non-Playables, I would love to see more content for the characters that don't have a lot of screentime rn, but I worry it's gonna mess up the existing characters' routes and schedules.

Does anyone know what the mod alters in the base game?

Barovia has spent centuries in darkness. A place haunted by dark gods, whose blessings are often indistinguishable from their curses, Barovia is a place trapped in darkness. Underneath the gaze of these inhospitable creatures, a damned man preys upon the valley he once conquered, forever seeking the one thing he can never possess.

Hey! Super experienced GM with a pension for horror, game design and writing. I'm looking for a group of players to play a heavily modified Curse Of Strahd. This will use much of the existing module, as well as elements from Fleshing Out Curse Of Strahd. Importantly, I will also be borrowing from the Fear And Hunger franchise, adding themes of occultism and psychological horror to make the game that much more fun. This is still Dungeons And Dragons, but I want to capture the heart of Curse Of Strahd, a gothic adventure where you traverse a dark and perilous place, while adding a bit to keep it fresh for such a classic module.

I live on the west coast in Portland, Oregon, and, while this game is online only, I am searching mainly for people who live in Portland or Vancouver to be friends with! Fine with one or two players from elsewhere in the world, but my primary target is players who want to be friends and maybe even hang out outside the game on the west coast.

This game will take place at night Pacific Standard Time. I work nights, so the game will most likely be Sunday or Monday nights, as early as 7 PM or as late as early morning.

My table is LGBT+ and friendly to neurodivergent folks like me. Horror is best when everyone is communicating and collaborating. I don't like surprising players, and prefer everyone know what the story will be going in. I'm a DM with a lot of experience making stories, and players expecting to live vicariously through their characters, or hide things from the other players generally don't enjoy my tables too much.

This is still a work in progress, and while the schedule is somewhat stable, the exact time and when we'll finally be starting may take some time. I expect that it'll bare minimum be 2-3 weeks before I can really get things going, buuut that gives you plenty of time to send me a message that makes me want to have you in my game, and hopefully we can do an interview over Discord before the game day.

As one last thing, I am fully disabled with chronic health conditions. I don't like entering games promising we'll make it to level 20, since one person holding a schedule is hard, let alone four or five. All I ask is that you arrive ready to have fun from the first session onward. Let's enjoy the game to it's fullest from the very first session.

Hope to find some amazing people to be my players soon!