u/QuietCrest

I'm running a Halloween one-shot for a group of 4 players where they'll be fighting the 2014 Strahd statblock. I'm making them Level 10 since that's what players would be at near the end of a Curse of Strahd campaign, and I also want them to have a chance to add magic items, since Strahd nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. What rarity should I allow, or how many? I feel like I don't have as much experience with figuring out that kind of distribution.

I don't know if this question makes any sense, but I feel kind of stuck. As a bit of context, I want to cover "Machine Love" by Jamie Paige, and I want to use the SVP as a vocal guide for the harmonies. However, I'm not able to see all of the tracks in the basic version of SynthV, and I can't really justify spending $100 on the complete version when I'm unemployed and don't even intend to use it for music production. I'm wondering if there's any way I could convert the SVP to another type of file, or maybe take the MIDI information out of the SVP so I can open it in another software, like Reaper? I hope this question makes some amount of sense.

I have an outline for my first case, but I don't know if it'd be too simple or easy to figure out, and I'd like some feedback to see if I can make it better in any way.

The three most important figures in this case are Kuromi, the Ultimate Chessmaster, Akemi, the Ultimate Astrologer, and Aoto, the Ultimate Astronomer. Akemi and Aoto are twins, but don't look exactly alike. Akemi wears contacts and has longer hair, and Aoto wears glasses and has short hair.

The host of the game runs a game night that builds a sense of camaraderie, which gets broken when the motive is revealed: As a reward for starting off the killing game, the first student who kills someone can permanently add a rule to the game, within reason. (So, they couldn't do something like "the Blackened can escape without a class trial", but the rule could be used to add an extra condition to the game.)

After the motive is revealed, Kuromi delivers some kind of speech about how every one of them could have the capacity to kill, and how because of his ability to see every angle of a chessboard and predict his opponent's behavior, if he were to commit a murder, he's certain he'd be able to fool the rest of the class easily. Meanwhile, Akemi subtly tries to ask Aoto if she can borrow their room key, saying that she thinks she lost something in there.

Kuromi invites anyone who wishes to challenge him to a game of chess later that night to the game room as students disperse after the motive reveal. Aoto plans to search for a way out that doesn't involve bloodshed, with another student as a sort of buddy system thing.

As a form of self-defense/possible weapon, every student has a taser in their room. Late at night, Akemi goes into Aoto's room while they're asleep, steals their glasses and one of their outfits, and ties her hair up to give the illusion of shorter hair. (Aoto normally wears a hat of some kind, so Akemi hides her bun underneath the hat.) She also takes a knife from the kitchen, as extra assurance.

When confronting Kuromi, there's a bit of a struggle, but Akemi manages to tase Kuromi to stun him/knock him out before slitting his throat. But, before he fully loses consciousness, Kuromi leaves a subtle dying message, gripping onto a knight chess piece.

Akemi hides the knife and Aoto's clothes in her room, and leaves Aoto's key in front of their room, convinced she was able to frame Aoto. Then, the mascot asks what rule she wants to add to the game, and Akemi decides that the Blackened can choose one person who can be spared from execution and escape the game with them, planning to save Aoto, even if it's at the cost of everyone else's lives.

What do you think? Are there any plot holes or inconsistencies? Are there the right amount of twists and turns? Does the motive make the killer feel too obvious? I feel like difficulty with mysteries is a very hard needle to thread, so I'm hoping I have something that's at least good enough for a first trial, difficulty-wise.

I've been trying to get into audiobook narration with ACX, and I installed the ACX Audacity plugin so I can ensure my recordings fit the necessary requirements. However, I haven't been able to figure out how to increase my RMS level to where it needs to be. I'm consistently too quiet. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions for what I could do to increase my RMS?

I've seen a couple posts like this on this subreddit, and I feel like a couple of my motives could use a bit of work, so I wanted to ask for some feedback.

Chapter 1: First Blood Perk- The first person to kill someone else gets to add one rule to the killing game that persists even if they can't get away with their crime. The killer makes it so that the Blackened can choose one person who can be spared from punishment and escape with them to the outside world if they get away with their murder. This might make the killer's identity fairly obvious depending on when this particular fact is revealed. I might make it during the killer's breakdown/explanation, just so it won't feel too obvious that it's that character, as they wanted to escape the killing game with their twin sibling, who is also trapped inside, as soon as possible.

Chapter 2: The host of the game displays a handful of secrets about the players, but each one is encoded. No one knows who they're about, and the students could either live with the unknowns, or crack the codes before someone else can find out something they'd rather stay hidden. I know secret motives get used a lot, is this a unique enough take on it? This is also the chapter where I'm planning on the Ultimate Cryptographer dying, which would probably put up a lot of death flags for her in particular, but maybe I could swap her talent for something similar? Still, I think she'd be the most determined to uncover the secrets, as she enjoys puzzles but hates lying.

Chapter 3: This motive is a bit more subtle, and might be a little more out there. The mastermind starts playing recordings of the previously deceased students' voices from robotic birds, hoping to get someone to crack. The person who dies this chapter (the token Ultimate ???/Robotics Engineer) starts remembering his talent, and that he had worked with the mastermind briefly. The mastermind, not wanting him to spoil the plans, rigs the robot he's working on to explode, leaving him as good as dead. Another student hears the explosion, and decides to mercy kill him instead of letting him bleed out, then takes his own life to avoid a brutal execution.

Chapter 4: This one is admittedly the least original, and is kind of inspired by THH and V3. A computer lab opens up, and every student gets two video files showing the world outside and the people who might be missing them. Each student gets their own file, and someone else's, assigned at random. However, I hope that the fact it's later in the game might make it different enough? The killer in this chapter has an online fanbase, and wants to get out so they can keep making content and don't leave their audience on a cliffhanger. They rope in the Ultimate Sharpshooter into being an accomplice, promising to save her life if they succeed.

Chapter 5: There's no real motive here, but it kind of plays off the consequences of the previous motive. The killer in this chapter realizes in the previous chapter that they were basically forgotten about, which is one of their greatest fears. Determined not to die in this place and make a comeback, they decide to kill someone else to get out of there before someone else could kill her.

Chapter 6 has no motive either because it'd be the mastermind trial.

So, are these interesting motives? Are some of them too derivative of things that have already been done? Do they all feel like they make sense? I'd really appreciate feedback on this.