u/RandomName9328

Reading various posts on this subreddit shows that issues arise when DMs portray Strahd as too kind or gentlemanly. When players do not feel constant danger, they tend to:

(1) Ignore the main quest to complete every side quest.

(2) Openly mock or underestimate Strahd.

Despite his gentlemanly demeanor, Strahd should always remain sinister, evil, and oppressive.

Another DM trap is treating Curse of Strahd purely as a sandbox, not a quasi/semi-sandbox. While CoS offers open exploration, a subtle linear narrative runs beneath it. Running the campaign too loosely causes players to lose direction. Players should be constantly (1) pushed by threats or (2) pulled by NPCs, toward certain directions, even though players have options on where to go.

I submitted my thesis on Jul 15. Throughout the second half of July, I feel a severe lack of energy to work on manuscripts.

Starting CoS next week. It is my first few time DMing D&D (after holding 8x sessions in other systems) and CoS appears challenging and exciting.

It is an extremely thematic theme park and each area representing a tiny world with distinctive vibe. There is a clear enough main quest and lots of interesting NPCs, setting a nice foundation for DMs to build on.

I made it less survival horror but much more theatrical, dramatic, hysterically obsessive..

My >!Strahd!< is a >!Tywin Lannister style puppeteer with Joffrey's arrogant sadism.!<

My >!Vargas Vallakovich!< is a >!King George III in Hamilton.!<

My >!Ireena!< is a >!Sansa Stark (later seasons) mix with Brienne.!<

My >!Death House!< has been drastically modified to showcase >!Strahd's twisted tyranny. After player escaping from Death House, outside the front door, there is an ornate table with a bottle of fine wine and a polite, mocking letter from Strahd.!<

Excited and also a bit of nervous... anyone has thoughts on making CoS campaign theatrical, almost like a gothic horror musical, althouth we role-playing it not singing it? My plan now is to map each NPC into a famous character (e.g. >!king george iii and sansa!<) and absurdly exaggerate the vibes and madness in each area/place.

PS. I misspelled in the title. "Soon"

As a self-identified open Christian who attends a church upholding open theology, I noticed that many "open" or inclusive people are only open toward those who already align with their own values.

This is my biggest critique of the openness and inclusiveness movement. If I am not open to anyone outside a selective group of people who happen to meet my criteria for what is 'good', I am not truly being open or inclusive.

A fundamentalist Christian is open and inclusive to those who share their fundamentalist beliefs. If I only open to those I agree with, in that regard, open Christians and fundamentalists are the same.

In a long campaign, 2 PC want to get married in-game. DM refuses the request and demand they either drop the proposal/marriage narrative or quit. DM's reason is to forbid any mini-group within a group of players.

DMs on this subreddit, what would be your decision?

For context, I am neither the DM nor any player in that group.
Assuming they are not abusing the Ceremony spell. Marriage is not an X-card item in their game. DM did not specify marriage-related rules until player proposed.

Of course, they don't RP the intimacy. That would lead to a direct x-card.

I had a short game which the DM used a homebrew false hydra as the BBEG. The RP and game were good until the monster was revealed to be a false hydra.

DM wrote the false hydra's song ability as: not a charm or magic effect. It has no DC save, bypass truesight, blindsight. It ignores any immune/resistance to charm/magic effect, and it cannot be detected by detect magic. Anyone hear hydra's song psycholocally ignore its presence. So, by RAW, faerie fire, detect evil and good, and any other spells cannot make it visible. Also, it modifies people's memory such that when a person is eaten by it, anyone's memory of the victim is erased, as if the victim has never exist in the world.

The only way to win is to either run, or to make your character unable to hear its singing with a silence spell, deafness, etc. Unfortunately, my group cannot deduce the solution during the game, so the DM has to whisper to us out-of-character "You know why that NPC can see the hydra? Because he is DEAF!"

I told the DM that they should not put a non-DND creature into DND and make it override the rules. At least, simulating the hydra's song as a charm effect, with a DC, and can be detect/affect by anything that works on charm effect. If they run it RAW as how they wrote its stat, even a Tiamat or Asmodous cannot detect the false hydra.

PS. if DM makes it a charmed effect, with high DC, and player roll DC save whenever they encouter discrepancy (e.g. seeing a bird disappeared mid-air) maybe its more D&D. When I played the combat I felt the false hydra is mocking players "You can't see me because my own non-D&D rules say so." The investigation and RP are fun, the final monster is not.

For context, it was a 6-7 hours short game with 70% non-combat social/investigation play, and the hydra was the only combat encounter. It was not part of a campaign. Non-combat play was good but definitely not the false hydra.

PPs. The day after we had finished this game, I read DM's note. DM intentionally hid obvious, explicit clues during the game (e.g., we found a diary in game but DM hide the page mentioning deafness and ear poking). They hope subtle clues are enough for us ro discern the solution, but it turns out we couldn't. Therefore, DM has to tells us the solution out-of-game in the final battle.

How to defend this rush that use Banana Farm to lend money to accumulate a rush?

If i dont want to copy the exact build and see who rush faster.

Well, one way is to quit the game whenever seeing a star Jericho in this mode 😀

Humans are sinful and unsuitable to rule (see the presidents and CEOs around this world). God should uses autonomous AI to oversee humans, bringing justice and equality to the world.

So, I will have a combat heavy one-shot (level 6 ,2024 rules). Since DM allows flying characters, is it possible to have a trickery cleric flying 120ft on sky and casting word of radiance on the ground?

The cleric took find familiar via sage background. So, a tiny spider/bat inside a party member's pocket will deliver touch-based buff spell if needed. Taking shocking grasp cantrip (with duplicity) also help party member to escape from OA when necessarily.

If enemies chasing the duplicate who is running around and taunting everyone with cantrips, I can lure enemies into a party member's fireball or web.

It also feels that the duplicity paired with disguise self can do quite a lot of tricks in non-combat situations.

I come to this subreddit since most of the churches in the city I am living are conservative, although I have found a progressive church to attend to.

Evangelical/fundamental/pentecostal denominations constitute at least 80% of Christians in my hometown, with 10% Episcopal. There are 1000+ churches but less than 10 are progressive.

Sometimes being a minority is kind of lonely and feeling not part of the (local Christian) community.

In this subreddit, I found many progressive Christian comrades.

When i started playing DnD, i read guides to build powerful characters. When i am more experienced, i found that it is more fun to have the whole party agreed to not optimized but build according to stories, backgrounds and narrative genres.

However, if one player starts to optimize and outshines others, others would start optimizing. Lol.