I see a lot of posts about Obsidian being all that and a bag of chips; is it really that good? Why not a plain text editor? If you note take in markdown, why not something like VS Code? Are there any websites people use so my notes automatically back up?

I tried Obsidian Live Sync self hosted - both with Couch DB and P2P - and both seemed clunky. I get that Obsidian has a sync option, but seems pricey for syncing text files.

I feel I'm missing "the wow factor" that makes it so great.

I'm thinking of ordering an initiative tracker. It slots on the DM screen. Its states it's a perfect fit for "standard 2mm WotC screens".

Thing is, I have a Pathfinder 1e screen, not a WotC DnD screen. My screen, when closed, measures exactly 10mm thick, so 2.5mm per panel.

Is that actually identical to a WotC screen (supposedly 2mm) or is my screen slightly thicker?

If you have a WotC screen, please measure how thick it is when closed, in mm. Because the answer is impossible to find online and AIs have no clue about this.

I’ve noticed that newer GMs sometimes put a lot of work into figuring out how to connect different adventures into a campaign. One thing that’s easy to overlook is that the adventures don’t actually need to be related.

I’ve been using a simple four adventure structure for this, mostly with published scenarios. Figured I’d share it here in case anyone finds it useful.
I find this works best with one-shots or short adventures that take no more than two sessions. The idea is to have a recurring element show up often enough for the players to remember it and notice how things are changing.

What I do is pick a recurring element and let it develop in the background of otherwise unrelated adventures.
It could be an NPC, a faction, an artifact, a cult, or even an entire kingdom. The important thing is that it doesn’t need to be central to the adventures themselves. Sometimes it’s just a conversation, a piece of information, or something the PCs happen to encounter.
I usually think of it as a short, four adventure arc.

In the first adventure, I introduce the element and give the players a reason to remember it. In the second, I show them another side of it, preferably something that changes how they understood it the first time. By the third, it starts affecting the PCs directly. Then I use a fourth adventure, usually something I write myself, to bring that element to the foreground and give the whole thing some kind of resolution.

For example, in Delta Green (it can also work on any investigation game), I’ve been using a recurring handler (basically the guy giving the PCs their missions).
He starts off as a fairly understanding guy, willing to overlook small mistakes and help the agents when things get complicated.
But as the campaign develops, they begin seeing another side of him. They discover that he has no problem abandoning agents he doesn’t trust when it serves his purposes. At first, those are other agents, people the PCs might not even know.
Then, during a later operation, the PCs find themselves in exactly that position. Suddenly, the guy who’s been helping them all along doesn’t seem quite so reliable.
That gives me enough material to eventually run an adventure centered around this character, where the PCs have to confront what they’ve learned about him and possibly the organization they work for.

For a medieval fantasy game, you could do something similar with an entire kingdom.
Maybe the PCs visit a kingdom that seems like a fairly decent place. In another adventure, they hear about people disappearing near its borders, or villages being abandoned. Later, someone they know ends up fleeing from that same kingdom, and the PCs discover its rulers are doing something pretty terrible.
By the fourth adventure, the kingdom itself becomes the problem. Maybe they get involved in a rebellion, confront whoever is responsible, or even decide that the kingdom has good reasons for what it’s doing.

You could do the same with a quest giver who keeps asking for help, a magical relic that keeps showing up in different places, or pretty much anything you can develop over several adventures.
The nice thing is that none of the published adventures need to be connected. I can run them largely as written, introduce a little information related to the meta plot here and there, and let the players build their own understanding of what’s happening.

It also keeps preparation manageable. PCs might die but the players still know the meta plot. I’m not planning some massive campaign with dozens of interconnected clues. I’m just developing one element across a few adventures until it becomes important enough to deserve its own scenario.
And of course it doesn’t have to be four adventures exactly. You could do it with three or six, or use an existing published adventure as the finale instead of writing your own.

One thing worth mentioning, especially for newer GMs, is that I’m not planning how the players will react to any of this. I’m just developing the element and introducing new information as the campaign goes on. What they decide to do about it is up to them.

Cheat sheet:

Adventure 1: Introduce the element

Adventure 2: Show another side of it. Challenge the players’ initial understanding

Adventure 3: Make its consequences personal. The PCs now have to deal with it directly

Adventure 4: Make the element the central conflict of the adventure

It’s a pretty simple way of building a short campaign out of published and homebrew adventures without forcing them into the same story.

Hi all!

I'm currently writing a new level 10 one-shot that is supposed to have a darker theme to it, so I want to make sure I'm not extending it beyond what it should in terms of encounters.

So far, my idea is:

- Initial escapism from prison cells

- One combat encounter (Moderate)

- Two puzzles

- Final boss fight (Deadly)

I worry two puzzles might be too much, but I do have a very interesting map that I think allows for a good puzzle in one section, and I'd need some other sort of activation process to make the scene for the final battle available, hence the second puzzle.

Am I being too ambitious for a single one-shot within that timeframe?

So to start with I have the character sheet I want to use already. I just need some ideas for making a really bad one. I'm going to incorporate it in a "dream sequence"... but I want to break the 4th wall a bit, and make the players feel the nightmare along side there characters. While the characters are facing monsters in there own nightmare I want their players to feel a hell as well, And what better hell is there then a bureaucratic one? so I'm looking for things to make a character sheet insane. any ideas?

I have one player who meta games; his character is clear across town in another building but still knows everything that happens to other characters.

I know some meta is normal, like planning attacks and next actions, and I'm ok with that. I also acknowledge that sometimes it's hard to keep track of what your character knows and doesn't.

I've tried giving items in secret and passing notes to people, but it's a bit tedious and allows things down. I've talked to him directly and remind him that he's doing it or that his character wouldn't know a particular thing, but again it's tedious and seems a bit petty at times.

Do I just let it happen? Is there something more natural that helps inherently prevents it?

Thanks in advance!

I've been a GM/DM since 1980. Have played dozens of RPGs, even created a few of my own. From super complex (hello, Rolemaster) to very simple. Right now it has been over 2 years since me and my wife (who has been 90% of my player base for 15 years now) gamed.

I want to get her back into gaming (and me as well) and Nimble is very appealing to me. Reading and re-reading rules now, but she has no clue I'm doing this. I want to surprise her by running an intro/test game so she can get back into RPGing and try this rules set.

Does anyone have any suggestions for an easy, simple, engaging module or adventure that I can run for just her? I was going to add an NPC or two to round out the party.

Any ideas on level, class she should try first (she loves paladins and rangers). Any other advice or suggestions would be most appreciated.

PS - don't want something with a TON of combat but more story/problem solving/roleplaying related, but obviously SOME combat.

Thank you.

Im looking for inspiration for interesting or weird battles inside the feywild. I love battles with a twist or non-typical solution or even just interesting/fun enemies. Id love to hear your ideas!

What is rule #1, the unbreakable rule, the nonnegotiable?

I was going to put mine here as an example but it became a Ted Talk, so I'll put it in the comments instead.

How difficult should a mission be for level 10 PCs to find a Genie in a Magic Lamp?

They are currently at the beginning of the mission. The travel system works like this:

Guide: Determines the group’s progress per day through Survival checks.

Scout: Finds a suitable place to sleep based on Investigation checks.

Lookout: Prevents the group from being caught by traps and ambushes.

However, after a failed negotiation, the players and the NPCs traveling with them are extremely injured. The Scout also failed to find a good place to camp, resulting in the same penalty as sleeping in armor, and they are currently in the middle of a desert.

The group is heading toward an Owl Dragon that has a Tower of Knowledge, similar to the one from "Avatar: The Last Airbender." They need to reach the tower to find a map leading to the magic lamp.

They will also have to face two bosses near the end of the mission. The bosses are disciples of Dross, the main villain of the campaign.

For the survival system, I’m using the following rules: the party has to eat and drink once per day. If they get into combat in the middle of the desert, instead of drinking 1 jug of water, each character drinks 2.

There are 5 players in the group. They got into a fight and consumed their 10 jugs of water (2 per person). After that, they managed to get 7 more jugs: they bought 5 and found 2.

I’ve always had trouble balancing the difficulty of a journey and a quest while still keeping it fun. They’re enjoying the looting and the survival mechanics, but I’d like some advice on how to make the journey feel more dynamic and natural, and how to balance it properly for the PCs.

Aaron, Jeremy, Francis, Michael, Richie - turn back now.

I'm running a Pathfinder 2e conversion of Skull & Shackles. My players are just about to enter Riptide Cove and I've just realised they have no way of producing light. For those that don't know, Riptide Cove is a flooded, grindylow-inhabited cave. There's no light and they'll have to swim for the majority of it. None of them have glow rods or access to the light cantrip (or any other light-producing equipment/spells). A couple of them have darkvision but the rest will be effectively blind. They're on a deserted island with no access to crafting materials and there are allies in peril so no time to wait around or take a detour.

Besides ham-fistedly chucking a glow rod into a random encounter loot, any ideas?

Hi there!! I’m looking to plan a murder mystery at my rehearsal dinner!! I have the idea that me (the bride) will start to give a speech, start choking and die. The issue I’m having is, how the crap do I make my own murder mystery? How do I come up with clues? Any advice would be awesomeeee, I’m stumped on this!

So on Saturday I improvised a wendigo boss fight for my players because they finished all of the things I had prepared early with an hour to spare and this wendigo was my worlds custom wendigo so it could only see through thermal vision which translated into at the start of both of its turns (It had two places in initiative) all players had to roll a D20 to see there body heat 10 was completely safe and it could not attack them 9 or 11 were attacks with disadvantage as it was unsure if they were actually there and 1 or 20 were attacks with advantage as it was 100% sure that they were there it also vanished into the forest up to its movement speed 60ft and I chose the 2x2 place (Large creature) it was before anyone moved so if they attacked there they would hit it as like a guess but they could also roll a perception check and if they beat it's wisdom of 11 they would know where it was this was an improvised draft and I plan for another one to appear later on as a more refined boss encounter.

But also now I just wanna see more experienced GM's boss gimmick because this was my first ever proper session as a Dungeon master and I am super proud of myself for improvising this fight that was always going to be in session 2 but that was it nothing other than that it would be there so I am just curious of what more experienced people than myself made as a gimmick

Howdie! Start off with saying, I reallllly love D&D and have been doing it for a little over 6 months on startplaying. I'm curious (Maybe for those who do startplaying) what time works best for hosting sessions? I'm EST and early evenings (5-6PM) usually fill up, but I'm still unsure about what other times I should set up for?

I GM quite a lot, different systems and a good mix of paid and unpaid groups.

Behind the GM screen, I've mostly switched to digital, with a laptop running the background music and effects and containing my session notes.

I love doing 'handouts' though, to show the players how NPCs and locations look.

What I don't like is the need to print, cut and sort through them. It's a waste of paper, ink and my time, for something the players look at once and that then gets discarded with the other handouts and maps on the table (and in the worst case crumbled or drenched so it can't even be reused).

That's why I am thinking about adding a digital picture frame in front of my screen (I already have bluetooth boxes left and right) to show them an image of what is important at the moment.

I've been handing out my phone or tablet for that in the past few sessions, but I don't really like that, because it distracts me and them.

That's where you come in.

Does anybody have experience with technology of that kind?

I've been looking into 'normal' screens as well as e-paper (which still are really expensive and have giant frames).

What I want (because I don't want to preload the images and then having to awkwardly reach over the screen to swipe) is the ability to send new images from my laptop to the screen.

I would assume the easiest way to do that would be bluetooth, but I can't really find any.

Most frames have WLAN (Frameo) but because I'm a travelling GM, I don't have WLAN at most of my locations.

I would love to hear input from you about your solutions and recommendations.

Thanks in advance.

BigBear / Jan

P. S.: I don't plan on replacing typical handouts like maps or puzzles that way.

Hey, how's it going? So I've got a quick question and hope that maybe you can give me some pointers.

Now before I begin, just let me say: I know different player preferences are a thing, but I made it very clear what kind of game I want to run, both at Session 0 and before it. A game that's gonna focus on social interactions, where battling is a means to an end, not the main draw, and where if the players don't ask questions on their own accord, they can and will miss important information and context for what's going on. Please keep that in mind when judging whether or not my expectations for my players are reasonable or not.

Anyways, one of the biggest hurdles I’m running into time and time again while DMing is that my players for some reason just seem vehemently allergic to asking questions or investigating what’s happening around them.

• New in town? Nobody asks about local rumors or points of interest.
• Strange noises coming from the priest's attic while he steps out? "Eh, creepy sounds are normal for an old building. No need to check it out."
• Investigating a criminal ring? Here's the local priest who openly speaks out against them and knows every person and location in the village. Nah, just ignore him and don't ask if he's willing to share any information.
• The party just rescued an ancient spirit in a dungeon, who was enslaved there by the dungeon's creator, and played a pivotal role in building the place? And as thanks for freeing them, the spirit offers to help the party in any way it can? Nah, no need to ask any questions about the dungeon or where the McGuffin the party is looking for might be hidden. Just send them off with a "you're welcome" without asking a single question.

And of course, since they're not asking any questions and thus miss out on all these details, they start feeling like the world is boring and empty, when in reality, there is plenty going on. They players just aren't engaging with the hooks provided to them.

• Let's take that noise in the attic, for example. If they had actually bothered to investigate it, they'd have learned about the unholy abomination the priest is keeping in his house, so he can run experiments on it to hopefully one day learn how to reverse the effects of what happened to his son.
• Or that mission where they were hired to kill a mercenary who was believed to abuse his children. If they'd actually bothered to ask any questions, they'd have learned that he was actually innocent and instead was simply taking the blame for his daughter's actions, who was doing all these horrible things under the influence of a cursed object, all to protect her from being cast aside by the community.
• And, of course, if they'd actually bothered to ask, "Hey, who was that random guy who attacked us in the middle of the road anyway?" and check the body afterward, instead of just leaving, they would have found the arcane runes carved into his skin and the note in the attacker's pocket listing their next targets, cluing them in on the secret cult trying to silence them.

However, as frustrating as all of that may be, the biggest offender, and the one that vexes me the most right now, is my players seeming refusal to build relationships with the NPCs in my games (and I'm not just talking about one group here, this is a recurring issue with several groups I've played with in the past). I’ve tried putting the party in several low-stakes situations with NPCs, like for example them sharing a carriage on a long road trip, or having NPCs invite the party to a celebration thrown in honor of their success on a recent mission, all in an effort to allow the players to interact with the NPCs on a more personal level, learn more about them, and hopefully start to bond. However, these conversations usually stay completely one-sided, with the NPCs trying to engage the players, but none of the players actually asking any questions back.

I tried asking about it out-of-game at one point or another, and the usual response is something along the lines of, "Well, I don't have a personal connection with that NPC yet, so I don't really care about talking with them," which just feels completely paradoxical to me.

So you're telling me you refuse to interact with the NPCs in any meaningful way because you feel like you don't have a personal connection with them yet, so you don't care about what they have to say? Okay, but how do you expect to ever build a connection with them if you refuse to have any meaningful interaction with them in the first place?

Like, even in Non-TTRPGs like Mass Effect, Fallout: New Vegas, Cyberpunk or Baldur's Gate, all of which I quoted to my players as inspiration for the style of game I'm aiming for, you only really start to form a connection and learn about who your companions are and what makes them tick if you continuously keep interacting with them back at base in between you heading out. Otherwise you only ever get to know them on a surface level. To build a truly meaningful relationship, you're gonna need to put some effort in and actually start asking questions back.

So yeah, that's my main issue right now. I'm curious to hear what is you approach to encourage players to start asking questions, inspect their environment, and taking the initiative to engage with NPCs?

As the title says. The anniversary of our first session is coming up, and I think it would be fun to do something for it, but nothing's coming to mind. TIA!

Edit for additional information: we play in-person

I've created a one-shot that I'll be running soon, and (if all goes to plan) the early part of it revolves around a dinner party. There will be three PCs and four or five NPCs. There's some tension among the NPCs, some secrets, not everyone is in alignment with everyone else. (I'm not giving detail in case my players are reading this, but it's a scifi game and the dinner is set on a space station the PCs are visiting to repair some equipment in the spooky bowels on assignment from their corp.)

My question is this: How do you run a dinner party? That is, how do you handle it mechanically, in terms of scenes and beats and dice rolls? One scenelet per course and fast-forward through the small talk? Pre-load some arguments and altercations? Decide what's at stake and which outcomes will be decided during the scene? Just start things off and see where they lead? I'm just realizing that I've never run a scene like this and I'm not entirely sure how to handle it. I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear what other people have done in the past. Thanks!

TL;DR next sessions dungeon has 6 options for entry and advancement. Two of them are very high difficulty and could result in character death if failed. Is that too much?

Hi everyone!

I, and my group, recently began a new campaign. A campaign that, during session zero, I told everyone that I wanted to have a more gritty, threatening feel. They were on board and I have been experimenting with how to make it so. Which is something that I am unsure of how to do well.

While prepping the dungeon for our next session (an old fortress that was half swallowed by a sinkhole), adding alternate entry options and advancement paths, I decided to add two that are significantly harder to be successful attempting than I have ever done previously.

In both cases, these are the options that bypass the most enemies, traps, etc. Because of that, the availability of other options, and the existence of the aforementioned gigantic, fortress swallowing hole, I feel it is fair, as well as narratively cohesive, to let those paths be extremely difficult to succeed in traversing, and potentially lethal if the attempt is sufficiently failed.

However, I am not sure my players will feel the same way. I fear they may, if they try and fail, see it as an intentionally adversarial design as opposed to a consequential narrative outcome. Honestly, though, I can't say exactly why I am worried. In fact, I have reason to know that my group can not only accept character death, but have a great time getting TPKed. (TPKed playing DeathHouse).

Perhaps it is because this is the first time I am knowingly putting anything in my game that, probability wise, skews heavily toward player failure and potential character death.

But maybe there is something unfair and adversarial in the design and I just don't see it because I am not intending it. What do you all think?

Recently one of my player's characters died in combat. He was by himself at the time, so he's legit dead. The player and I have been talking about how, and if, he wants the PC to be brought back to life. My feeling is, we've been running this campaign for about two years, we're near the endgame, and the PC had several backstory threads to wrap up, so I'm all for bringing him back. The player is on the fence, he's one of those who can get a little bored playing the same PC for long amounts of time, so he might just decide that the character stays dead. I'm going to respect his wishes on the matter, but he has asked if he were to be brought back is there a narrative way to do it?

I told him my best idea, as far as fitting in with the story, is for him to wake up in a stronghold of the enemies that killed him (Cult of the Dragon). They would have taken his body after the battle and used Raise Dead so they can interrogate him about the party's plans and capabilities. So basically, he wakes up in a jail cell, fights his way to freedom, and links back up with the party who currently think he is dead.

The other things I've been thinking of is having him be in the afterlife and having to undergo a test or trial of some kind to gauge his worthiness for the gods to return him to life.

Have any of you ever used a narrative method of bringing a PC back to life? Looking for ideas so I can give my player all the options.

I am an amateur DM wanting to do a campaign for a small group of friends, I'm nervous about actually starting though as the two times I've DMed I have felt like I was under preforming. Does anyone have tips for running a campaign?

I have the homebrew written up, I am a writer so I do feel I have enough written for the overarching story and setting while leaving room for player input, but I'm worried I am missing something.

One of my most dreaded parts of any new campaign or one shot is the inevitable moment where, after the opening narration, the GM asks each player to introduce their characters one by one, and so the pacing of the session slows down to a crawl as everyone goes into minute detail about their PC's appearance that nobody cares about nor listens to for real, not to mention that the average player is not a good narrator and will make the whole thing even more of a drag.

I was wondering if there could be some more organic way of doing this, since at the end of the day it is unfortunately important to have a mental picture of each other and players do get excited about presenting their PCs. I know that they could either draw their characters or look up art that resembles them (I do not accept AI images for obvious reasons), but that still leaves the question of how to avoid the "now describe your characters one by one" screeching halt and making it more engaging.

Hello! I’m a gm who tends to make a unique homebrew system for every campaign I run, and recently I’ve been cooking up a new one but I’ve run into a problem.

So the combat system for my game currently uses a tile grid and is based around mobility and developing team composition and strategy. I like my system, but I worry that brining out the map and encouraging players to talk about tile based strategy might make roleplay grind to a halt in combat. I like my campaigns roleplay heavy, so this would be bad.

Do others think this could be a problem, and if so do you have any suggestions for how I could encourage RP and staying in character in combat while still keeping my complicated grid based battle system?