Nearly had something to break up the monotony of these posts. But life stuff got in the way and the plans had to be cancelled at the last minute.

Here is today’s poorly thought out and constructed post.

I kinda write a bit about RPGs. Nothing intelligent and useful like the likes of Sly Flourish and others.

My writings fit in with this blog, which if you haven’t noticed is more a diary/notes/brain dump of stuff than carefully crafted intelligent useful articles. Maybe some people stumble across this blog and find something useful. That’s a bonus.

You can read my thoughts and ideas for my campaign and sessions I run by following the session planning category of this blog.

Whilst you can see how I think the sessions went by following the post mortem category.

Having the two categories I’ve just mentioned is really useful to me. It makes finding my notes easy, and I hope sharing them may help some-one. But combined they are basically what I’d be putting in a physical notebook for myself.

Following the RPG category captures most (hopefully) of my posts about RPGs irrespective of the system. I do have other systems that I dearly would like to get to the table. But finding interested players has been a challenge. May be I’ll have better luck once our gaming group starts back up playing in real life.

That’s it brief and to the point. More tomorrow.

Another shortish post is in your immediate future giving you some brief thoughts from my mangled mind.

Here is today’s hashtag entry.

So far in my limited time as a DM I’ve used a couple of traps. The first was in the Matt Colville “one shot” for beginning DM’s The Delian Tomb. The other was in the pirate liar that my party of adventurers stumbled into at the start of our campaign.

I try and use things like traps and puzzles/riddles sparingly. I don’t want to be reliant on “gimmicks” or be formulaic when it comes to sessions and what happens in them. I want things to feel natural and authentic when players come across them. So when the party comes across a trap I want them to think “oh this makes sense to be here” and not that it’s something I’ve put there because I can, and to give them something to do.

My preference for trap design is to follow the additional advice given in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything over that in the DMG. I like the advice better, especially the layout and information given for designing your own. Most probably simple traps are the only ones I’ll use.

If I need to create a trap on the fly the Lazy DM Workbook has 5 tables to roll against to generate one. Plus it can also be used to inspire/create one during session prep.

If my players are reading this. There may or may not be a trap or two in your future (once we return to the table).

Wrapping up this post with some sage words from the man himself Matt Colville and Dael Kingsmill on the subject.

Not much to say here so let’s skip to the meat of the post…

I’ve gone with the alternate theme Tribute today.

Historically a tribute has meant a “payment made periodically by one state or ruler to another, especially as a sign of dependence.”

In my campaign I made use of a bit of lore for Mintarn from The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide involving the dragon Hoondarrh, the Red Rage of Mintarn.

The lore specifically spoke of a yearly tribute that the Red Rage demanded from the people of Mintarn.

The party of adventurers were hired to guard the small fishing town of Queen’s Cove contribution to the tribute as it was sent to Mintarn. On the way they were attacked by sahuagin who were trying to steal the contribution. An attack they successfully repelled.

In Mintarn the party of adventurers ended up being asked “nicely” to escort the whole tribute to the home of the Red Rage on a nearby island by the Tyrant of Mintarn.

A bigger sahuagin raiding party tried stealing the tribute whilst it was at sea. After a very very close battle on board the groups ship they defeated the sahuagin, and delivered the tribute.

Once back at Mintarn the party were rewarded with some magic items.

I liked how I used the tribute as a plot device. It worked really well. It’s certainly one I’d return to in the future.

I’m phoning it in today. Just knackered. Need rest.

There are some really great supplements out there for which ever system you play.

My favourite ones are campaign settings like Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, Eberron: Rising from the Last War, and Guildmasters of Ravnica, Android: Shadow of the Beanstalk to name a handful.

I love how they combine lore, character options, new monsters, themes and genres to fuel the imagination for your own campaigns.

There are also a rather lot of great supplements online by independent designers in places such as DriveThruRPG and The DMGuild. Think of a subject and you will probably find some-one has done it on one of those platforms. Tables to roll against, lore, new classes, new monsters, the list goes on. And the standard of the supplements produced is usually very high as well.

Let’s hope tomorrow is a better day.

And yes I’m still doing this hashtag.

So shut up, stop complaining and go and do something a lot more entertaining like watching grass grow.

Oh if that’s too much excitement for you here is today’s post.

I was looking at some of my newer RPG books such as the Alien RPG, Cyberpunk Red, Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 A.D. and they show that the older D&D DMG isn’t the only core rulebook that doesn’t include advice about running a session zero and in particular using safety tools (although the Alien core rulebook does give some questions to ask the players about their party and characters at a “session zero”). Which is kinda disappointing.

It wasn’t until Tasha’s came out that we got a couple of pages from WotC about running a session zero, social contracts and soft/hard limits. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft added to this with talking about content with the players. Which it should do as it is a book about running horror campaigns in D&D.

I really like how Alice is Missing handles providing information to players before and at the start of the session. An example is below.

“Just a heads up, this game inherently deals with a missing teenage girl in a small town, and all of the topics that can arise when that happens. Our characters will be the people closest to her attempting to unravel the mystery behind her disappearance. Because of this, themes like tense family dynamics, grief, death, violence, jealousy, and helplessness can and often do come up during the game.

If this sounds like something you might be sensitive to or triggered
by, please don’t hesitate to let me know—even if this is something you only realize during play —your safety and well-being are always more important than the game.” Alice is Missing manual

It doubles down on this warning and discusses the use of X cards as part of the games setup. Alice is Missing goes even further on all the above by telling players to have a debrief after finishing the adventure to ensure players are ok after dealing with such difficult subjects.

Personally I’d like publishers to follow the Alice is Missing example and have CONTENT & TRIGGER WARNINGS at the start of each published adventure for DM/GMs to reference. This I feel would be a great help in that session zero for DM/GMs to discuss with the players. But also in aiding the selection of which adventure to play.

Sly Flourish has a great two pages (“Session Zero Checklist” and “RPG Safety Tools”) in his Uncovered Secrets document on his Patreon, that are great references to use as a starting off point.

The safety tool that a group uses should be something that everyone agrees on during the session zero as part of the whole discussion about the content and triggers. Everyone should be comfortable with what’s being put in place, and know how to use it during a session.

I think it’s great that these safety tools are being discussed and used more. But no matter how good these tools are they don’t fully protect you from a DM/GM who is just a massive dick (as one or two high profile examples over recent years have shown). To stop that one you need experience to spot the warning signs (which hindsight is great at) and the confidence to walk away from the table (much harder to do) when they deliberately do things they know will trigger players.

However the majority of DM/GMs are not massive dicks and want everyone to feel welcome, included, and have fun. There will be odd occasions when they stumble onto something that causes a player to feel uncomfortable, but that’s not deliberate, and the reason the safety tools are there. They take that final bit of the Alice is Missing quote above “…even if this is something you only realize during play —your safety and well-being are always more important than the game.” very seriously.

Be safe and have fun.

Unlucky for some, and definitely those that read this blog. I’m back with my 13th post for this hashtag.

Let’s get the pain over with…

Three floods come to mind.

The first is from the D&D Starter Set adventure, Lost Mine of Phandelver. After surviving the initial goblin ambush on the Triboar Trail our party stumbled upon the Cragmaw Hideout. If I remember correctly the goblins did manage to trigger the flooding of the main passage catching a couple members of the party. The majority of us were safely on higher ground.

The second flood that comes to mind is the flooded gladiator arena for a historical recreation of an infamous halfling battle that my players took part in, in our campaign.

This encounter was based on the Adventure League adventure called Shackles of Blood (DDEX3-2). I share some notes on it in my session planning notes here and how it went here.

The third and final flood I thought of was one for a setting for the Genesys RPG Android: Shadow of the Beanstalk to be used in a one shot/campaign.

The setting takes place after the events detailed in the Android novella Monster Slayer by Daniel Lovat Clark.

I thought having the campaign/one shot take place after the tsunami hitting New Angeles would be a good way to explain how the party all ended up meeting (assuming the characters did not know each other before hand) and why they only had the equipment/gear that they had with them.

And there we have it, three floods that come to mind fir today’s theme.

We are fastly approaching the mid point of this hashtag stuff. There have been more than one or two that I’ve struggled with, and it’s shown.

But hey we are here now. So let’s look at today’s theme.

“Think (think)
Think (think)
Think (think)
Think (think)
You think (think)
Think (think)
Think about it (think)” Aretha Franklin/Ted White

Obviously with today’s theme, apart from the rather excellent song sung by Aretha Franklin in the bloody amazing cult classic The Blues Brothers now an ear worm for the rest of the day. I associate the theme with problem solving and puzzles.

I haven’t run a puzzle in my homebrew campaign yet. I like the idea of them, but have run shy of actually doing one.

With the Matt Colville intro adventure The Delian Tomb from his now very well known web series on being a DM, there is a simple riddle/puzzle. Which would qualify as the only puzzle I have used as a DM.

In the D&D Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything we are given some puzzles that can be dropped into any campaign on the fly. However that chapter of the book starts with a bit of great advice.

Which mirrors a DM tip I got off Twitter last year I think. It was definitely before Tasha’s came out.

Which takes a bit of the pressure off the DM, especially during prep.

The puzzle with no solution could be an obstacle of some sort to overcome like having to cross a river or chasm. It could be a locked door. Your imagination is the limit.

I also have a small, and I mean small bank of puzzles I can utilise for a game such as the Gygax Ingenious Door Puzzle.

There are also more than a few third party puzzle books on DriveThruRPG or the DMGuild, especially from older editions that still can be used.

More tomorrow, see you then.

After yesterday’s train wreck for this hashtag thingy we are back for more. It’s just hard to turn away. We’ve got to see where this thing is going. No matter how ugly it gets.

So let’s get on with this mess…

Once our group starts up our campaign again after it’s 18 month plus hiatus due to world events shutting it down. After what I’m sure will be an over long catch up with each other, and finally a strong restart (step 4 of the way of the lazy DM) to the campaign, the party will have to navigate a wilderness to find a lost Dwarven mine.

I haven’t settled on a way to handle wilderness travel that I’m happy with yet.

In the DMG there are a couple of suggestions for handling it. Those being the travel montage or hour by hour. Neither grabs me.

So far I’ve tried a version of wilderness travel that is based on how it is handled in The One Ring. Which was fine but a bit of work is required in prep before hand.

I adapted what is basically a hex crawl from the WotC D&D published campaign The Tomb of Annihilation for sea travel. Which is basically wilderness but with lots of water. And that was ok too. But again I was not entirely happy with it.

I have two options I want to try for wilderness travel next.

The first is treating wilderness travel as a skill challenge. The idea for this came from a D&D Beyond scenario they did as part of the Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus series called Encounter of the Week: Detour Past Dragonspear.

The other approach I want to try is Pointcrawls. Which I first found out about from the legend that is Sly Flourish who talked about it in his Icewind Dale prep videos. Which then got it’s own video and blog post discussing in more detail what they were and how to create them.

Although the rules in the Dungeon Master’s Screen Wilderness Kit for journeys and chases look worth a try as well. I’m particularly drawn to the chase rules that look very combat like. I want to run a chase at some point (story allowing).

I’m not convinced I will ever find a way to handle wilderness travel that I’m entirely happy with. I’ll probably end up choosing one of the methods from above during the prep for a session, never doing the same one twice in a row. Although that list may be whittled down based on feedback from the group. After all they may not like one or more of the approaches.

Here we are with more free time on ours hands than we know what to do with.

What shall we do?

I know, read my latest ramblings on the latest theme for a hashtag thing.

Today’s theme can easily be linked with one of the later themes. But I will save that discussion for the later post.

Instead I’m going to briefly talk about what my players can trust me to do.

They can trust me to:

• Do my best to help them have a fun experience whilst at the table.
• Make sure they are in a safe supportive environment.
• Use their characters backstory to influence events in the campaign.
• Surprise them.
• That I have no clue where the campaign is going and I’m making it up as I go along.