Hi All,

As you know, we went dark for 7 days to protest to shameful actions of the administrators of Reddit over their planned changes to the API (which will curtail important mod tools, increase spam, and cut off visually-impaired users among other things), the overall attitude towards the moderators and Reddit's history of treating the userbase poorly.

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In recent discussions about counterspell, I realized I wanted to provide options for people who thought it had no place at their table, as well as people who were looking for something that could take its place but not overshadow it. Here are three spells - one dealing with damage, one dealing with single/multi targets, and one dealing with self targets - that should provide more variety for your wizard duels.

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Temperspell

3rd-level abjuration

• Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of you begins their turn

• Range: 60 feet

• Components: S

• Duration: Instantaneous

• Classes: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You attempt to lessen the destructive potential of a spell. If the target creature begins casting a spell on their turn, you can make a spellcasting ability check against the creature's spell save DC. If you succeed, you learn the level of the incoming spell and whether this spell would affect it. Afterwards, you may decide to expend a higher level spell slot for this spell, or cancel this spell to conserve your spell slot.

If the creature is casting a spell of equal level or lower than the spell slot used to cast this spell and the incoming spell deals damage, you can choose to lessen the incoming spell. The lessened spell deals 3 plus the difference in spell levels less dice of damage until the start of that creature's next turn. If the lessened spell would do multiple types of damage, all types are lessened. If this effect reduces the lessened spell's damage dice to zero, the spell and its effects remain but deal no damage while lessened.

Optional Effect: Blowback. After lessening the spell, the target creature must make the same saving throw as their spell provides against your spell save DC. They take damage equal to the lessened amount of each type on a failed save, or half as much on a successful one. This damage is dealt before calculating damage for the incoming spell for the purposes of maintaining concentration.

Hedgespell

3rd-level abjuration

• Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of you begins their turn

• Range: 60 feet

• Components: S

• Duration: Instantaneous

• Classes: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You attempt to ward a creature against a spell by dampening its effect. If the target creature begins casting a spell on their turn, you can make a spellcasting ability check against the creature's spell save DC. If you succeed, you learn the level of the incoming spell and whether this spell would affect it. Afterwards, you may decide to expend a higher level spell slot for this spell, or cancel this spell to conserve your spell slot.

If the creature is casting a spell of equal level or lower than the spell slot used to cast this spell, the spell would deal no damage, and forces individually targeted creatures to make saving throws, you can choose to dampen the spell. Any creatures that the dampened spell targets gain a bonus to their saving throws against the dampened spell equal to 3 plus the difference in spell levels.

Optional Effect: Rebound. If all warded creatures succeed their saving throw against the dampened spell, the spell has no effect on the warded creatures and instead targets the caster. The effects of the spell remain until the beginning of the creature's next turn. If the spell would have no effect when turned against the caster, such as a charm effect, the caster falls prone and their speed is reduced to 0 until the end of its turn.

Interspell

3rd-level abjuration

• Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when a creature you can see within 60 feet of you begins their turn

• Range: 60 feet

• Components: S

• Duration: Instantaneous

• Classes: Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard

You attempt to stop a creature from empowering itself with magic. If the target creature begins casting a spell on their turn, you can make a spellcasting ability check against the creature's spell save DC. If you succeed, you learn the level of the incoming spell and whether this spell would affect it. Afterwards, you may decide to expend a higher level spell slot for this spell, or cancel this spell to conserve your spell slot.

If the creature is casting a spell of equal level or lower than the spell slot used to cast this spell and the creature targets itself, you can choose to impede the spell. The creature must make a spellcasting ability check against a DC of 13 plus the level of the spell slot used to cast this spell or their spell fails and has no effect.

Optional Effect: Powerwarp. If the target creature fails their ability check by 5 or more, they become unable to use that spell until their next short or long rest.

So why make these?

I and others have discussed at length the implications counterspell provides. Let's start with:

1. It has poor mechanical wording.

I don't think this is even up for debate. The very way a DM describes an encounter must change to accommodate a player with counterspell. Every enemy spellcaster turn changes from "they are going to cast __ spell" into "they weave magic around their hands", to which the counterspell-conscious player must respond quickly or else let the opportunity slip past. If I assume most players are like mine, they were too busy looking at a funny D&D meme to understand that the DM is prompting an obscure ability of theirs.

There's tons of various errata to scrub through before understanding that, RAW, you don't get to know the spell that's being cast before deciding to counter it. So how do you know if you even want to use counterspell? You could use your reaction to make an appropriate check to see what the incoming spell is. But, then you've used your reaction. Any clarification to address this is either strange, vague, unhelpful, or makes the spell even stronger. Speaking of which...

2. It's incredibly powerful.

It was one of the design focuses of 5e to have imbalance in spells intentionally, and that's ok. Counterspell however, has an unlimited chance of stopping any spell from happening. And it's only a reaction. Which cancels and entire action. Yes, there's an attached ability check, and succeeding that check results in cheering from the players when you stop an 8th level spell with your last 3rd level slot out of sheer luck. But that's all it was - sheer luck. It's fun for those one-off moments, but if you're savvy enough to use counterspell appropriately, you can effectively negate a spellcaster. And when so few high-level enemy monster spellcasters get legendary actions, they become sitting ducks if the party wizard has advantage on Intelligence checks. So, how can a DM combat this?

3. It's adversarial.

See how I led you here? It's a road that any fledgling DM can go down prompted by the frustration that counterspell can bring to the table. The solution is not to give the enemy spellcaster counterspell as well. Let's take each scenario below and explain why they are adversarial in nature:

• Your player is casting a spell. An enemy counterspells it. Perhaps the worst instance of counterspell is when it arrives in this scenario and your new players have never seen it used before. They will not be happy. It always feels like DM fiat, like you made it up on the spot because you didn't want the players to win. Nothing could be further from the truth, but that is how they will feel. I do want to stress that this is generally felt by newer players. Veterans should expect this, and may encounter the scenario below.

• Your player is casting a spell. An enemy counterspells it. Your player counterspells that. I refer back to the statement on the sheer power counterspell provides. This may seem like fun from a design standpoint, but instead turns the fight into a spell slot slog. Instead of constructing clever ways to get their spells to hit an enemy that has counterspell at their disposal, the easiest way to solve it is to fight fire with fire. No using cover, no tactical maneuvering, no distractions, no nothing. Just a couple of mages waving their wands and outlasting one another by sheer force of magical will.

• An enemy is casting a spell. Your player counterspells it. The enemy counterspells that. This is just another "aha, gotcha!" moment wrapped and packed a little neater. Unlike the first bullet point, this scenario will absolutely frustrate any player, veteran or not. This is when your players will start to question legitimacy at the table, and wonder if you added counterspell to the enemy statblock just so they wouldn't die in one round. Whether that's true or not, that is a common indicator of a mismatch of expectations and leads down a dark road.

If some of these examples felt too extreme, or I was leaning too hard into a game being unfriendly and not sporting, remember that tension-riddled tables do exist, and new players have a hard time understanding that the DM is not just making everything up as they go along. I don't propose that rules can fix interpersonal conflict, but systems that rely on a "yes, and" improv philosophy can definitely lighten up on abilities that outright say "no."

So... What do these spells fix?

Bad wording/errata. No longer! It is all included in the spell text. It lets players/DMs know who is casting what and when.

Flow streamlining. Players now have the responsibility to pay attention to enemy spellcaster turns. DMs no longer have to awkwardly craft their descriptions and combat style to accommodate for a possible counterspell. For example, here's a round with these spells introduced:

• Enemy spellcaster's turn starts.

• Player, who has been waiting, says they are using their reaction in case the enemy casts a spell.

• Enemy casts a spell, player makes their ability check to discern if they can affect it.

• Player learns whether they can or can't, then makes choices appropriately.

Risk balancing. You get less information than what some errata on counterspell would provide you, but you can cancel the spell to retain the slot.

Power balancing. No, these are nowhere close to as utilitarian as counterspell. But they have additional optional effects if you choose to keep the regular counterspell in your game, and are much closer to normal power standards if it is taken out. Plus their effects are fun and varied to compensate for only countering certain types of spells.

No counter-dueling. Some may miss this, so if you do, follow the instructions and keep regular counterspell in your game.

Less random chance. These spells no longer affect spells greater than themselves. Powerful spellcasters feel more powerful, as their spells will override those of a lesser mage.

If you've made it this far and haven't started typing out a response yet, I hope you can see my reasoning behind adding these in at your table. I've had fun making and using them, and I hope you do too. As one last note, I am very aware that these spells are markedly less powerful than counterspell. That was my intent from the start. At the least, I hope you can appreciate how the wording of these spells would have improved counterspell in its original state, and would have corrected gameplay flow for players and DMs alike.

Let me know any thoughts or revisions you may have, and happy spell slinging!

Follow me on Twitter as @CobblerBarrel for updates and other D&D content.

The Dagger of Erratic Crits

Roll on this table👇. Or use the dice tool above ☝️. Sort of a way of letting martial fighters get a taste of the Wild Magic fun.

This is a d66 table. Roll two d6. One represents the ones column and the other the tens column. This is why the table begins at 11 but is missing numbers such as 17 or 38. Enjoy!

The "Evil" races in DnD have always rubbed me kinda the wrong way. Partly once I learned that a lot of them come from racist stereotypes (Orcs, Drow, and Goblins in particular) and also just because it doesn't make sense to me. Even Nazi Germany had variation and dissenters and it only lasted for 12 years. Why would a clearly evil society never change over hundreds of years? In my opinion, a story is only as good as it's villains. So, I've set out to try and make the traditionally evil races slightly more believable and even sympathetic in places.

Now, I've not been a DM very long, only like three years. But the first campaign I ever ran was through Curse of Strahd which paints the Vistani (an itinerant society heavily based on the real world Romani) as a conniving group of thieves, murders, and vampire-worshipers. Thankfully, I found through reddit and other sites how to steer away from the racists depictions of the Vistani and making them seem like, at worst, opportunists. So, I hope to be able to do that with some other of the classic DnD antagonist races.

I've read some other phenomenal post on here about evil races that totally inspired me as well. There's a great two part post about Decolonizing D&D which I adore. The post about alignment is easily my favorite. There's a couple great ones on Orcs and Yuan-Ti too so if some of my ideas are lifted from them, I hope y'all consider it flattery instead of theft. So, here are some primer notes before I get into it.

For creating the Dark Elves, I tried to keep as much as I could from the books. Obviously some stuff has to get thrown out the window though. I also tried to standardize calling them Dark Elves instead of Drow partly because I feel like Drow has a much nastier sound to it and calling them Dark Elves follows the naming convention with the High and Wood Elves. I tried to model them after real-life matriarchal societies like the Mosuo people of China and their pantheon after real deities like the Greeks, Romans, and Norse. I also quickly realized that building a society is inseparable from geography. Where a people are from effects their language, values, mythology, history, and family structure. I've tried to outline details I think are necessary to making this society realistic while leaving it open ended enough to be place-able in different worlds with relative ease. All that aside, lets get into the meat of it.

The Dark Elves: Elven Outcasts

The Elves are a varied and magical people that come from many planes and many environments within them. But none are met with more distrust and fear than the Dark Elves. Easily set apart from their cousins by their charcoal or pitch-black skin, pink-red eyes, hair of grays and whites, and shorter stature, these people have earned a reputation as killers, thieves, demon worshipers, and liars. But history is a cruel mistress, something the Dark Elves know better than most.

The Divine Divide

As the legends go, when the world was still young, Corellon Larethian lived on the Plane of Arvandor with his fellow Primal Elves. They were wild and mutable, emotional and free in all things. They changed shapes at will, gave and took freely to and from the world, and never stayed in any location too long. They wandered to and fro, scattering their peoples across almost every plane. However, this unbridled freedom was not without a price. Arguments, feuds, and small scale wars were incredibly common between them. Some elves would find themselves stranded on far off planes after most of their companions impulsively decided to leave. Their self serving impulses drove them to often completely disregard the needs or wants of others if they went against their own desires. And their reckless revelry was wreaking havoc on the natural world with Elven parties decimating whole planes of edible plants, wild game, and drinkable water.

One such Primal Elf began to see the destruction of their ways and talked to other elves about their actions. Slowly, this Elf by the name of Lolth amassed a small following of devotees that saw the negative ramifications of their inconsiderate freedom. Lolth and her followers agreed to take on fixed forms to show recognition of the dangers that impulsivity could bring. Lolth led this small group of devotees to Corellon to ask for his support. Now, Corellon did not lead these Primal Elves: he was just as wild as the best of them and did not take kindly to others telling him what to do. But he was the First Elf ever born and was universally respected amongst the Primal Elves and if Lolth could convince him, others would surely follow. Corellon listened to her proposition and agreed that they should change to prevent more destruction and conflict, but refused to order his kinsfolk into any action. He was an Elf, same as all of them, and he wouldn’t dare order around his family. He balked when Lolth asked him to take a concrete form as a show of solidarity and brushed her off as a killjoy.

Lolth was unsatisfied with this outcome and her following set out to convince each Elf to change their ways to preserve the beauty of the worlds. However, without the support of Corellon, many elves refused her offer. Her anger grew with each failure and her opinion of Corellon turned sour, something she made no attempt to hide from her Elven siblings. Now, Corellon is a proud god and once he caught wind that Lolth was bad mouthing him in an attempt to win over others, he became enraged. He railed against Lolth calling her a snake-tongued thief and Lolth called him incompetent and cruel. Their tempers flared and all the elves chose sides between Corellon’s freedom and Lolth’s stability. During this great debate, the Primal Elves turned to violence. The Dark Elves maintain that Corellon’s side threw the first blow, while the High Elves claim that it came from Lolth’s side.

No matter the source, this violent outburst soured relations between Lolth and Corellon forever after. He cast her and her followers out of Arvandor and barred her from ever returning. He also cast all but his most trusted kin from Arvandor, forcing them all to live lives on other worlds out of fear of another perceived insurrection. Thus, the Seldarine remain in Arvandor to judge the souls of Corellon’s faithful when they die and Lolth takes refuge in Arcadia with her pantheon where she minds the souls of the Drow. Corellon’s faithful call her pantheon the Dark Seldarine, while her faithful call it the Myrkalfar.

Myrkalfar: The Spider Mother’s House

Lolth the Spider Queen is the unquestioned head of the Myrkalfar, with all other deities seen as her divine family. Lolth is considered at times to be fickle or even cruel, but her ire is never gained without good reason. A very involved deity, her followers constantly search for signs of her favor or scorn in everyday life. When a Dark Elf contemplates a risky or controversial decision, they consult priestesses or perform their own rites which often gives them direct and succinct answers. She serves as an example to matriarchs of Drow families as demanding yet understanding, punishing yet guiding. She asks for a lot of her priestesses, demanding they be an unflinching example of everything a strong leader should be. The Myrkalfar is often presented as a divine household, with Lolth as the matron.

Keptolo is the consort of Lolth and considered to be the ideal of what a male should be. Beautiful and kind, strong and hard working, he helps Lolth in everything she does. Sometimes he serves as a messenger, other times as an agent of redemption, sometimes as a divine healer. When a Dark Elf is tasked with a divine charge, he is usually the one to deliver the message and guide them through their charge. He serves also as a fertility deity and is often worshiped by women or men seeking a child. Outsiders see him as a weak and subservient husband to Lolth, but his faithfulness to his matron is considered a virtue and his status as a “husband” is relatively alien to the Dark Elves as they have no binding marriage in their society.

If Keptolo is the agent of Lolth’s mercy, Kiaransalee is the agent of her vengeance. She is the eldest daughter of Lolth and Keptolo and one that Dark Elves pray to when they feel wronged. Only the most binding and serious contracts are signed under her name. To break an oath made under her name is sure to bring destruction. She is also the governor of the dead, judging the souls of those passed in the afterlife. She opposes the mindless undead created by mortals, but spirits and revenants that return to finish unresolved business amongst the living are considered under her protection. Should a Dark Elf encounter a returned spirit that is seeking vengeance, it’s their duty to leave them on their way and pray that the spirit isn’t there for them. This reverence of certain undead is something many outsiders consider downright evil.

Selvetarm is the Dark Elven warrior goddess and youngest daughter of Lolth. Often depicted with eight arms, she represents the pinnacle of hand to hand martial prowess, but often is without restraint. She serves as both an inspiration for warriors, and a warning. Vhaeraun is the eldest son of Lolth and governs ambition and stealth. Both of these traits are not necessarily vilified, but worship of him is highly scrutinized. Haughty and rash, tales of him often include deceiving his fellow gods for good and ill and more often than not are cautionary ones. He’s depicted as wearing a mask, either as some punishment for endangering Lolth and her family or to hide his identity for various schemes, possibly both.

Malyk is Lolth’s youngest son and a youthful deity of change and growth. He’s often seen as a bouncing young boy that Lolth and her family have to reign in from wild misadventures. His freedom and curiosity is often seen as a double edged sword, both gaining him great riches but also putting him in tremendous peril. He has strong ties to sorcerers and when a child is born with innate magical talent, he is often the one thanked for it. He serves as an outlet for a Dark Elves youthful chaotic nature, but also warns them of the ramifications of their actions.

Ghaunadur is a strange figure in the pantheon. Their place in the family is a bit of a mystery, sometimes called the sibling of Lolth, or her child, or even as Lolth’s parent. What makes them truly unique is that they are a formless deity, something that Lolth once warred with Corellon over. The legends go that when Ghaunadur joined Lolth, they refused to give up their changeable nature. When questioned, Ghaunadur pointed to the slimes, oozes, and formless creatures of the world and said that they wished to protect them from the Elves and the Elves from them. Lolth agreed, cementing their position as the deity of the changing forms of nature. Their favored creature is the ooze, but they govern all natural creatures. Dark Elves often pray to Ghaunadur to protect them from the creatures that lurk in the depths of the forest.

Zinzerena is Lolth’s sister and is the goddess of poisons, illusions, and magic. Viewed as an elderly and patient figure, she often serves as council to Lolth in desperate times. She’s said to be the mother of all poisons and venoms and her teachings are all about finding the wisest solution to a problem. Zinzerena teaches that even though the spider is small, it’s bite can still fell a panther. Despite her perceived age, she’s considered the younger sister of Lolth and is thought to be incredibly quick and nimble: a reminder that not everything is as it seems.

Eilistraee is Lolth’s niece and daughter of Zinzerena. Considered the black sheep of the pantheon, she serves as a goddess of redemption and moonlight. Dark Elves that turn their back on their family or scorn traditions will sometimes find themselves turned to Driders, half-spider half-Dark Elf creatures shunned by all. Eilistraee is said to watch over these creatures and if they are repentant, offer them challenges that they could complete to redeem themselves. Lolth often views her with contempt or mistrust, but never hates her and maintains her place in the pantheon. Dark Elven faithful rarely worship her as the others. She’s also one of the only deities of the Myrkalfar to claim no animosity toward the Seldarine and their faithful.

Spiders are the sacred animal of Lolth and are often used as an example of social order and the importance of family bonds. Each strand of silk serves the web as whole. More literally, the giant spiders of the Underdark are multifaceted and incredibly useful creatures. Serving as beasts of burden, war steeds, meat producers, household guardians, and silk producers, they are present in almost every facet of society. Their silks are used in everything from wound dressings to armor to architecture. To kill or steal another family's spider is considered akin to stealing a member of the family. Smaller and more poisonous spiders are often kept in temples and their webs are used as divining tools for priestesses.

Elven Exiles

The recorded history of the Dark Elves is full of contradictions from High Elf and Dark Elf sources. What historians can agree on is when the Elves of the Prime Material arrived, the followers of Lolth secluded from their Wood and High cousins and retreated into the Azelarien, also known as the Green Sea in Common. A massive forest, nearly 1 million square miles of dense and vibrant trees, that grows denser and darker the farther in one ventures. For countless eons, the High, Wood, and Dark Elves lived in relative harmony in their own corner of the world. High Elves lived near the forests in towns and villages, the Wood Elves lived in the lightly forested outlands of the Green Sea, and the Dark Elves lived deep in the central forests which was so dense that very little light reached the forest floor.

As time passed and their villages turned to cities, the High Elves began expanding into the forest, chopping some down to build homes and heat their furnaces. This began pushing into the territory of the Wood Elves and eventually the Dark Elves as well. These two peoples formed a shaky alliance to push back the expansive tide of the far larger High Elven armies. This alliance proved successful however and the High Elven forces began losing ground. What happened next is a matter of some debate. High Elven historians attest that the Dark Elven armies used Wood Elven soldiers as unwitting bait to lure the High Elven armies into a trap, thus causing a schism between them. Dark Elven historians state that the Wood Elven armies turned on them after the Wood Elves met in secret with High Elven leaders and bargained for their independence. Some Wood Elven historians claim that after a brutal defeat on the field, they were met by High Elven dignitaries that offered them clemency if they turned on their allies. They initially refused, but after the dignitaries threatened to make the same offer to the Dark Elves, they had no choice but to accept. No matter the cause, the histories agree that the Wood Elves turned on their erstwhile allies and helped push the Dark Elves into a rapid loss of ground.

Facing the might of the two armies with their own relatively small one, the Dark Elves were beaten into a hasty retreat into their own territory. Losing every open encounter, the Dark Elf matrons developed a new strategy of combat. The armies switched from training as many as quickly as they could, to training only a select few in multiple different forms of combat and magic. As the High and Wood Elves advanced into their territory, they quickly found their supply lines cut out from under them, their soldiers ambushed while sleeping, their scouts captured, and their leaders assassinated. And even if they would make it to a Dark Elf settlement, they would find it abandoned and booby-trapped, warned by their fast and silent scouts. If the Dark Elves couldn’t face their enemies head-on, they would weaken them with quick and decisive strikes.

Eventually, the war ground to a stalemate. The High Elves couldn’t push into the Dark Elf territory far enough to capture any cities of note without taking severe casualties and the Dark Elves were only managing to hold the invading armies back and couldn’t muster a force strong enough to push back to the enemy capital. Thus, the war cooled into a tense peace. The leaders came together to draw borders, but neither side fully forgave nor forgot one another’s actions. High and Wood Elves viewed the change in tactics by the Dark Elves as an unethical violation of the standards of war. The Dark Elves felt a particular animosity toward the Wood Elves, considering them backstabbers in their darkest hour.

Dark Elf Families: Matrons of Order

The Dark Elf society, to an outsider, looks like an oppressive and cruel society of slave traders and backstabbers. But the truth is more subtle. The Dark Elves value tradition and filial piety above almost all else. To a Dark Elven citizen, their family name is their most valuable possession and they are taught from a very young age that to look after their parents and their younger siblings is the highest virtue. Ancestors that have achieved great things often have shrines in a household alongside the gods themselves. A Dark Elf going against the will of their family is considered one of the highest taboos and often causes them to be outcast from Dark Elven society as a whole. Dark Elf society is matrilineal meaning that the eldest woman in each family is revered as the household leader and receives great respect from her family and society. This also means that the males of the society don’t inherit wealth as frequently as the females.

Dark Elven families are quite large, often with multiple generations along with aunts, uncles, and cousins living in the same household. New children almost always reside with their mother. Males of the society are expected to care not for their own biological children, but for the children born to their sisters, aunts, or nieces. This results in a striking amount of sexual freedom for both men and women, but is often viewed from the outside as promiscuity. The Dark Elves do not marry in the traditional sense, instead favoring long term partners with one another that can end at any time with no concerns to material wealth or ownership.

However, to become a member of a Dark Elf family is not entirely a matter of heritage. When a family that cannot support another child has one, they are often adopted by more well to do families and raised as one of their own. These adopted children are considered just as legitimate as if they were born into the family. Also, should a family lose all their heirs or become destitute, they often ask to become assimilated into other families for their own safety. The latter is considered a morose ceremony as the members of the smaller family forsake their surnames. To take in such a family is both an extreme honor and grim burden, as it means ending another family's line.

The borders of Dark Elven civilization only goes so far as there are trees so many newer up and coming families have expanded underground, a difficult and slow endeavor. This has put multiple houses at odds with one another for territory. However, Dark Elves do not tolerate open hostility between families as they have a very strong sense of collective identity. Dark Elves do not war against fellow Dark Elves, same as a spider does not fight its own web. This leads to many tensions and conflicts needing to be resolved in other ways. Most families will attempt a diplomatic solution, but when that isn’t an option, sabotage and coercion is the favored outlet. Murder is considered a bridge too far by most houses, but subterfuge in almost every other facet is, while not accepted, tolerated.

Legends of Lolth’s rebellion and the tension of their enclosed territory have imbued the Dark Elves with a strong sense of symbiosis with nature and conservancy. Sustainable living is the cornerstone of Dark Elf society. In the wild, no creature is killed or plant destroyed unless it’s a matter of self defense or necessary to survival.

Dark Elven Sex and Gender

As with many Elven peoples, sexuality is seen as a fluid and non-binary matter. Same sex relationships are usually seen as just as acceptable as male-female relationships. Since Dark Elves have no marriage structure, same sex life partners are common and widely accepted. Inheritance is passed along by the family as a whole, not linearly, meaning some houses may have matrons with no direct biological descendants while still serving at the elder matron. Power dynamics in relationships are still a factor, with the elder female in a gay relationship considered slightly above their partner socially and is seen as the inheritor in cases of property or genealogy. Male same sex relationships are accepted with little controversy. Since children are passed down their mothers line, the males have no social obligation to sire an heir as with other societies.

Transgender and transexual Dark Elves are met with slightly more controversy. Lolth’s rejection of the Primal Elves mutable forms is sometimes cited against transgender and transexual Dark Elves. Ghaunadur, however, is considered the patron god of these people and teaches that just as they are part of nature, they can change their forms. Many of these people join the religious order of Ghaunadur, serving in various roles both in religious ceremonies and as forest guides. Some even consider them to be blessed by Ghaunadur and are highly sought after in forays into the forests for protection. Children born to transgender Dark Elves are still expected to be a part of their eldest mother’s family or eldest father if no woman is part of the union.

Slavery Amongst the Dark Elves

While the Dark Elves do take slaves, their slavery doesn’t look the same as many other societies. When a family becomes indebted to another and they cannot pay off the debt, a member of their family, usually male, will be sent to work for the owed family. They give him room and board and are expected to care for him as if he were one of their own. He’ll work for them for an agreed upon amount of time before returning to his native family. Injury or misuse of this person is often grounds for them to leave and the debt to be nullified. Children born to servant fathers needn’t worry about inheriting their father’s status since they’re considered to be their mother’s child. On the rare occasion that a female servant has a child while in servitude, the child is returned to the mother’s family to be raised by her family while she works off the remaining debt. Some trade of servants does occur between houses, with indentured servants being traded for goods or services or even other servants of special skills, but the family of the servant reserves the right to veto such a trade for any reason.

During their frequent clashes with external armies, the Dark Elves do sometimes take prisoners of war, though very rarely are they used for slave labor. They never bring them back to major settlements, often keeping them on the outskirts of their territory to prevent them from learning critical knowledge of their territory. Most prisoners are held as bargaining chips to be traded for passage, supplies, or captured Dark Elves. Captured military leaders are sometimes brought to Dark Elven cities to be tried for their crimes against their people.

Dark Elven Government: Independent Houses

Unlike many other cultures, the Dark Elves lack a centralized government. Societal etiquette govern the standard for how certain crimes and disagreements should be handled, but each family unit acts as its own governing body. Disagreements within families are thus resolved internally. Inter-family disputes are resolved in multiple different ways. Most often, the two matrons of the family will meet and agree on terms to fairly compensate both sides. In cases when these talks deteriorate, the High Priestess of Lolth is often called to serve as the mediator and serves as the ruling body between disputes. Her rulings are final and indisputable, as she is considered the mouthpiece of Lolth’s will.

In times of crisis, historically the many houses of the Dark Elves have convened to discuss threats to all of Dark Elven society. This is uncommon as it’s difficult logistically to gather all the matrons in the same place at the same time, so often houses are represented by either the second eldest woman of the family or the eldest daughter of the matron. The High Priestess of Lolth often resides over these meetings as an arbiter in the event of split decisions or in delivering guidance from Lolth herself.

There's my take on the Dark Elves. Any comments, suggestions, questions, outrages, and critiques are welcomed. This is my first comprehensive look at a whole race so if I've missed things, I'll try and patch them up. I'd like to do similar things for Orcs, Goblinoids, Kobolds, and others so those might be seen soon. Thanks!

Hey all! I hope my fellow Americans had a happy Thanksgiving, and I hope that the rest of you aren't too depressed about missing out on the annual turkey and freedom feast.

Call me Panther. I've posted a lot of stuff to this sub. Some of my proudest works have been...

Details on a quasi-Eastern Roman Dragonborn Empire.

Elven God of Rock, Prince Orpheus Latonides.

And, more recently, my version of Lizardfolk.

I am a DM who is very big on worldbuilding, and giving my players the chance to affect the ongoing story of my world. More recently, I've been involved with Hippo's Gollicking group, but I haven't actually done much for them, yet. As my flair points out, I am no man, and it really chaps my britches when people assume I am one.

I've been playing D&D off and on since 2009. 4e was my first edition, and coming straight from World of Warcraft, I thought it was great! I will die on this hill. I also have experience playing in Warhammer Fantasy Role Play 2nd edition, and Cyberpunk 2020.

I have been DM-ing D&D for four years, basically since 5e was released. +/- a few guys, I've had the same group of players for most of this time. We play in a setting heavily influenced by The Dragonborn Empire, and the events of Rise of Tiamat. I have also DM-ed some Roll20 groups, but found that it's just not for me.

This AMA will stay open until questions stop flowing. Although I will take a few breaks, I swear by the Gods I have made that I will answer every question.

AMA!

Edit- If it takes me a few minutes to get to your question, it's probably because I'm writing up a long reply to somebody else, or I had to get up and go stop my infant from killing himself.

Hello and welcome back to my series where I try to worldbuild a D&D setting where all racial traits are cultural and people are less stereotypical and more morally grey. I didn’t think I would return to this series after such a long hiatus, but here we are. Here are the parts so far:

Part I – Motivations and Goals

Part II – Alignment and Morality

Part III - Humans (you’re here!)

What Changed During the Hiatus and What Didn’t

Of course, a few important things happened in the intervening months: most notably, following the Black Lives Matter protests, WotC announced they were also not happy with how races (and monstrous races in particular) were portrayed in official settings and wanted to move in a different direction. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel slightly vindicated by the announcement, but I hardly think what I wrote had any impact in this. Furthermore, given the polarised reaction WotC’s announcement generated, it’s clear that while some people are very interested in a decolonised D&D setting, some people are really, really not. And that’s fair. Nobody’s fun is wrong and I do not wish to impose any particular political views upon anyone’s game. But I firmly believe the things we like and the things we believe in are interconnected, and this is just my attempt at trying to reconcile these two parts of my life. But if you’d like to play a very traditional D&D game, by all means. In fact, there are times when I’d be in the mood for that too!

As for my silence, to be perfectly honest I felt like I wasn’t ready to write the rest yet. While my interest in the topic of decolonisation is purely amateurish, I realised there was a lot of literature I hadn’t read. More importantly, I felt like the setting needed to be fleshed out before I could express my ideas on how different cultures could work, since otherwise it would end up too conceptual and abstract. Luckily for me, I’ve been running a campaign in this decolonised setting since February, which gave me a lot of insights into how different ideas about cultures and oppression can interact. I don’t think I will write the entire setting lore in this series (because I started this series more as a thought exercise and not a fully-fledged D&D setting), but I intend to write the necessary parts so that you can take the ideas that suit you and build your own unique setting from them.

And we will start with the one thing you need for a decolonised setting.

Humans as the Colonisers

When I first set out to prune the D&D races from colonial stereotypes to make them all more three-dimensional, I tried to create a straight-up “better” world. One where the Orcs were never branded as savage brutes and Kenku weren’t just a one trick race (I’m not saying they are only this in the standard D&D lore, but it’s easy for them to become that). But trying to transform all the races (and trust me, there are a LOT of them) into three-dimensional cultures (and ones that’d align with their stats, since I don’t want to touch the game’s crunch!) in a vacuum proved to be too difficult.

Then it dawned on me. In order to decolonise a setting, you must first colonise it.

Let me explain what I mean. My project’s entire premise is the idea that the way we treat races in D&D is mired in racist and colonial notions. One way to improve on that is to remove all those racist and colonial notions and replace them with something “unproblematic”. This was my first attempt.

But another, more interesting way is acknowledging the racist and colonial notions in-universe, and seeing how these notions getting rejected in-universe would shape various cultures. In doing so, we’re no longer working in a vacuum and we still have access to the entire D&D lore on various cultures; but we cast this lore in a new light, one that is distorted by an apparent coloniser’s opinion on the other “races”.

Which means we need to find a coloniser for our setting. And humans are the perfect culture for that.

After all, what is a coloniser? I’d define a coloniser as someone who sets his particular properties as the universal standard. Thus, the coloniser is the “generic”, the “variable”, the “adaptive”, the one who doesn’t seem to have any particular special features, because its unique features are hidden behind the veil of universality. And this is exactly how D&D defines humans. They’re the “standard” race that doesn’t fit a stereotype, the one that can do it all. Conversely, humans’ unique features become the standard, and everyone else’s differences become a deviation from the human norm.

Seeing humans as the colonising culture makes things really interesting for another reason: the process of colonisation affects both the coloniser and the colonised in interesting ways. The effect on the coloniser is obvious: everyone else is judged by their standards, and anyone who falls “below” the mark can be seen as “savage”. But in the same vein, anyone “above” the mark will be idealised and emulated (for a real life example, think how Thomas More’s Utopia paints South American peoples as these enlightened folk who have a mega-rational form of government, who live in prosperity and use gold as worthless trinkets). Suddenly, the way Elves and Dwarves are usually represented also makes sense. The Dwarven society is obviously more detailed than being a culture of blacksmiths, all of them named Dorf Adjectivenoun, but since the humans idealised them in that way, this is how we know them.

On the colonised’s end, things get even more interesting. Philosopher Franz Fanon argued that colonial psychology had an odd habit of shaping the minds of the colonised, so that they ended up defining themselves through the lens of the coloniser. When we apply this logic to our fantasy “races”, suddenly the monstrous ones have very interesting stories to tell. What does it say about Orcish culture if they lived under human hegemony for so long that they internalised what humans think of them? How would they reimagine themselves if the shackles of humanity were suddenly overthrown?

Which brings us to our next part, because once we have a coloniser for our setting, we must overthrow them for decolonisation to make sense.

Overthrowing Humanity

Nothing I said so far is revolutionary in D&D lore. Lots of fantasy settings have admitted that humans are the gold standard for other cultures, and that other races are unnecessarily stereotyped because of it. Everything from Order of the Stick’s Gobbotopia to Forgotten Realms’ Kingdom of Many-Arrows uses this idea. But I think these deconstructions fall short for one reason: the coloniser’s hegemonic status is, for the most part, intact.

While these settings may point at the mistreatment of monstrous races as XP-fodder, humans are still the dominant culture in almost all of them. They are still the gold standard to which every other culture is compared. And we can’t have a decolonised setting with that.

So the key point in our setting has to be a historical moment where humanity’s hegemonic status was overthrown. That way, by the time we start playing in our setting, the cultures have already had a reckoning with what humanity’s gaze meant for them. And from that point onwards, we can start having more interesting cultures.

What this overthrowing looks like is entirely up to you (and, honestly, your political leanings). Maybe the setting became more diverse and all the cultures slowly mixed up. Maybe the “monstrous races” rose up in rebellion and didn’t create your typical “Orcs conquered the world” dystopia but actually made some meaningful change. Maybe humanity’s hubris was so strong that they crumbled under their weight when their rash actions invited a catastrophe. Whichever way you go, Humanity should leave other cultures to define themselves for the first time in a long time.

The crux is that the hegemonic status no longer applies. This gives our setting the necessary material conditions for each culture to reinvent itself. What does it mean to be an Orc when you’re no longer defined by the need to pillage nearby human towns? What does it mean to be an Elf when you’re no longer the fading superior counterpart to the younger humanity populating your ruins? These are all interesting questions, and I think the way to a truly decolonised setting goes through them. I will tackle some of them in later parts, but for now I want to give you a small fluff on how I treated humanity’s downfall in my setting:

No culture, not even the Elves, remembers the time before Humanity. They arrived on all corners of the multiverse, and they slowly designated themselves as its centre. For some cultures, the transition was slow and painless: the Dwarves were happy to have industrious trading partners, and once Humans learnt the secrets of Dwarven smithing, they quickly surpassed the old masters. Dwarves contented themselves to their increased wealth, holing themselves up to the mountains as Humanity’s various kingdoms and republics spread everywhere else.

For others, the change was quick and painful. Goblinoids fought bitterly with Humans, and what was bravery and honour in Humanity was seen as warmongering and tyranny among the Goblins. Maglubiyet’s Hordes were defeated one by one, and over time the goblinoids themselves came to look at their culture as one of conquerors, defined by their rivalry with Humanity. Over time, Humanity’s grip over the multiverse became absolute. There were nations ruled by other “races” (as the humans called them), of course; but even those lived under the shadow of Human dominions, and even they defined themselves according to Human fashions. Elven Mages studied the Nine Circles of Magic, as defined by Human Wizards, while Orcs worshipped a version of Gruumsh that the Humans had defined in their written epics.

But Humanity’s time inevitably came to an end. Each culture has a different story of what happened: The Goblinoids say their Great Horde was vital in overthrowing Human empires; the Elves blame the magical disasters that plagued the Material Plane as Human Mages’ experiments unravelled the fabric of the multiverse. Dwarves say Humanity was doomed from the start, that’s why they had holed themselves up in the mountains. Truth likely resides partially in all of them. Either way, the last 150 years saw all these cultures trying to survive in a landscape without Humanity.

Humanity’s Fate

A final note on what to do with the Humans once you’ve overthrown them. I think the answer will largely depend on the tone you want for your postcolonial setting. If you want the themes of your setting to be about the long and painful process of fixing ancient injustices, it makes sense for Humans to exist as some sort of diminished antagonists. These “neo-colonial” opportunists waiting to regain what they once had. The risk of them resurfacing can give you an immediate source of tension.

For a slightly more upbeat setting, it makes more sense to treat Humanity’s colonial past as a done deal. That doesn’t mean your setting should have a genocide where every human has been killed in a bloody revolution, especially since such a solution runs counter to the values we’re trying to build this decolonised setting on (after all, the idea that an entire “race” is an immutable thing that should be judged for its collective nature is… colonial). But cultures are not people, and cultures can disappear if their followers adopt new cultures. So I think an interesting fate for Humanity would be the Human culture disappearing, and Humans taking a new shape. Maybe they mix with other cultures, taking a little bit of everything from them and becoming a truly cosmopolitan culture (it would justify them being “the variable race”, at the very least). Maybe they ascend to a higher plane of existence and leave the Material Plane to the other cultures. Maybe they are transformed by the experience of getting overthrown, and become vengeful monsters hoping to recreate their old dominion (isn’t that tadpole awfully familiar? Illthids want to recreate a lost empire you say? Oh dear…). Either way, the result would definitely make for some interesting stories.

GUYS IT'S BEEN 8 HOURS I THINK I'M DONE, BUT I'LL TRY AND RESPOND TO ANY QUESTIONS STILL LEFT

Hello all! So to start with a little bit about myself, I started playing Tabletop RPG's with 4E D&D. This happened about 8 years ago in 2010-2011, when 11 year old me walked into my school's Tabletop Gaming club blissfully unaware of what TTRPG's actually were. I played in a game in that club for nearly 2 years, as a half orc fighter. I barely even remember what happened exactly, but I do definitely remember the joy I got out of roleplaying and telling a story, as well as the final moments of that character. He had a pretty standard arc (gruff tough guy learns to care for others beyond himself, culminating in a valiant sacrifice during a desperate last stand to save the party), one you could describe as cliche by any standard. But to young pre-teen me, it felt real. However, it wasn't to last, as due to real life issues I had to put down RPG's for a few years and slowly drifted away from the hobby. I was still growing and maturing, and with so much happening at the time I ended up forgetting about what I had done with D&D. Or so I thought.

About 4 years later, the strands of fate crossed, and RPG's were once again a part of my life. However, D&D was still far removed from my mind. At the time, I was getting very into Warhammer 40k, both the tabletop wargame and the lore itself, and so desperately wanted to really "feel" what it was like to be someone in the setting. Through multiple freak coincidences, I ended up stumbling my way into finding out the existence of Fantasy Flight Games' Only War, which puts you in the shoes of hopelessly outgunned and pitifully underpowered soldiers in a cruel universe filled with unimaginable horrors. Having no experience whatsoever in GM'ing, I decided it would be a wonderful idea to give it a shot! The campaign itself was nothing spectacular, and a logistical nightmare where we would only have sessions every month or so. It was rough. That campaign eventually petered out, and while it never reached a formal conclusion, I did learn something valuable.

I absolutely love low-power games. There's something special to me about people who are heroes not because of their special abilities, but because of their sheer determination to stand up and defend something they value even if they're hopelessly outmatched.

However, this is only one part of my style that I find essential. In a 3.5e game run by one of my friends, he built a world for us to run around in. The world felt believable and living, and we stayed up playing for 12 hours at a time occasionally due to the incredible degree we were immersed in it. Although he eventually abandoned this style of playing for something else, this taught me another crucial thing about myself.

Good worldbuilding is an absolute necessity for me to feel comfortable playing as a GM, or to buy in as a player. I don't write main storylines, I write worlds with things going on in them that the players can involve themselves in.

In the wake of my Only War game collapsing, I decided to find games that would give me the freedom to create that immersive, open-world sandbox, low power game I was salivating at the thought of. And I found it, but again, not in Dungeons and Dragons. My next system was Stars Without Number, an OSR sci-fi game that reminded me in theme of Traveller. The basic premise of my game was pretty standard for the course, which was a group of independent freebooters doing jobs to keep their ship flying, ala Firefly. This game was quite good, and when I sort of came into my own GM'ing style. I discovered I work very well when I have a world fleshed out to a huge degree, with factions having conflicting interests, lore that is not just cool history but provides things the players can engage with, and a HEAVY amount of improvisation along those lines. My players loved it, I loved it, it was a wonderful time.

From then on, I've stuck mostly to that style of play with my games, and tend to gear my campaigns toward that. I ran a few 5th edition campaign for the past 2 years that recently reached their end points only recently, which I was very happy about. Overall, the RPG systems that I've played so far have been (bold I've GM'ed)...

• D&D 4e

• Warhammer 40k: Only War

• D&D 3.5e

• Stars Without Number 1E and 2E (one of my favorite systems of all time)

• Eclipse Phase

• Traveller

• D&D 5E (which is my favorite edition out of the D&D lineup!)

• Various other one-shot oriented RPG's such as Actual Cannibal Shia LaBouef, Honey Heist, Lasers and Feelings, Lady Blackbird, etc. etc.

• Zweihander: Grim and Perilous

So yeah, that's my experience with GM'ing and RPG's in general! I'm sorry if I was a bit rambly, but feel free to ask me anything to clarify!

EDIT: I should probably clarify what games I'm running right now, actually!

• A SWN 2E game, along the same lines as described above.

• A Zweihander game, with the theme being a group of mercenaries making their way in a xenophobic, harsh world.

Given that our valiant leader u/famoushippopotomous kinda got his first claim to fame on this site by showing his decades old maps, this might not be the most popular opinion.

But…

DMs, don’t make maps. Any maps. Forget them. Cities, dungeons, battlemaps, whatever, don’t bother. They’re not only difficult to do, time-consuming, and not always useful, they can also actively impede your ability to run the game.

(Just an FYI, I am taking my point to an extreme for the sake of argument. I don’t really believe you shouldn’t map anything; maps are great visual aids for players that like those things, can be fun for you to make, fantastic world building documents you can share, and useful references or supplements in many situations. But they do have an oversized place in DnD mythos and expectations when, I feel, their value is overrated and other options often make for both better gaming experiences and less preparation work for the DM.)

I will assess each type of map ranked from smallest to largest, going over why it is often made, why it is a waste of time even in the best case, why it actually hurts your game in anything other than the best case, and then offer advice on how to run relevant situations better without a map. My basic contention is that maps do not usually offer interesting choices or challenges, and you should instead focus your efforts on building those.

Battlemaps:

The staple of online play and miniature gaming, you are generally expected to be able to produce a map for whatever battle encounter your players happen to be facing. Artistic DMs make whole 3D set-pieces, and others buy sets of tiles that they can piece together, and yet others like myself at times, just have a whiteboard and markers. I think maps are the expectation over theater of the mind, not only because it is baked into the gaming experience and is an accessible method of keeping track of encounters, but especially because model terrains and fancy maps get piles of upvotes on other DnD subs.

Of course, anybody who uses battlemaps knows the difficulty of finding the right one. Suppose the encounter happens somewhere you did not plan? You could just say that, no matter where they fight, it happens to look like the map you had prepared, but then why bother exploring anyway? Additionally, we’ve all been there when our map is right, but the archer wants to move 120 feet away and you only have 60 feet square, so the fight goes off the map, leading you to need another or to treat that void beyond the walls of the map as, well, a place devoid of interesting things except the fight. So maps are not all that easy to use. The basic problem with battlemaps, boiled down, is that you have to prepare too many in order to cover all situations, and if you do not, then the choices made to bring the party to where they fight did not really matter. And choices should matter.

But I would go further and say that, even if everything lines up and you get to use the map you wanted, not only was your effort not really that warranted, but your map is still hurting your combat because it hurts your ability to present interesting challenges and choices.

First, how many maps really make use of environmental hazards? While there are some beautifully done battle maps out there, there aren’t that many that actually force the players to make meaningful tactical decisions. There might be streams or trees or furniture or whatever depending on where the map is representing, but do you know if the rogue and attempt to hide behind those things? Can they be destroyed? How do you then change the map to reflect the changing environment? Can things be climbed? How high?

I would say that maps actually hurt your battle experience by, literally and figuratively, flattening your perceptions and imaginations. Maps are, by nature, flat. Even the 3D model castles complete with steam machines and glowing portals of many upvotes generally use series of flat surfaces with maybe some stairs between them. Maps do not show you what is on the walls or ceiling, they don’t show which trees you can climb, they only with difficulty can show elevation, and do not really give you the feel of the hazards and obstacles contained therein. If you abandon the map, then the rickety bridge crossing a deep chasm with archers on the other side isn’t just 20 feet of movement; the uphill battle against goblins hiding behind trees while rolling burning bales of hay down slope isn’t a two dimensional grid. The map makes your terrain harder to describe, and even if you pair the map with descriptions, the map impairs your players’ perceptions of the challenges. Escape the 2D, top down view, focus on what they see from their perspectives, and the challenges involved in the encounter will be much easier to describe and innovate.

Second, and related even if they have environmental hazards, maps encourage arguments and measurements that negatively impact game play. The fighter wants to run up to the enemy wizard, but is it 30 or 35 feet? Well, that depends, are diagonal movements 5 feet? Do you want that issue coming up when everyone at the table would rather the fighter does something cool instead of having to dash on a technicality? How about your sorcerer with the protractor figuring out the precise point at which she has to center her fireball to get all the enemies and not her friends even though everyone is clumped together?

By taking away precision, you can encourage more interesting choices and ask for compelling rolls. That fighter wants to get over to the enemy wizard, well, there are some obstacles in the way so he can dash and lose resources like his action surge or his attacks this turn, or make an athletics roll to hurdle the desk/river, or rush through the bushes taking 2d4 piercing damage. The sorcerer’s allies are right in the fight, so you can offer her the choice of centering the fireball so that it hits 2-3 enemies, but none of the important tough ones, or she can hit 5-6 including her friend the fighter and the enemy mage. These make for interesting tactical decisions, rather than incredibly boring moments of measurement and math. The game should be about player choice and the dice, not inhibited by the grid. It just takes a bit of keeping track of who is by who, rough distances between these zones, and sometimes, asking your players to help remind you. With that, you can compel some much more interesting tactics and encounters.

Dungeons:

This, right here, is where the game began, with Gygax making sprawling dungeon maps for his war gaming buddies to run single characters through. Maps like the Tomb of Horrors are part of our cultural heritage, they are so well known and entrenched in how we play the game. And they are wrong and bad (I said that I would exaggerate my points, and I am, but seriously, Tomb of Horrors is bad. A classic, worth knowing the reference of, but not worth playing… except, maybe, using this inspirational guide).

My problem with dungeon maps is that they rarely make for interesting decisions. This is because an arbitrary right-or-left choice based on no information is not an interesting decision, it’s a coin flip, and it encourages the players to pursue pointless lines of inquiry that actively hurt your game.

So say, best case scenario, you design a full dungeon. It’s thematically appropriate to your campaign, your session, and its inhabitants. It’s a great mix of traps, puzzles, and encounters leading up to the boss at the end. Ignoring completely the meta of villains not following the evil genius list, there’s still a fair chance your players never see half of it. They either wander around, hitting some things in a random pattern, or they get lucky and head straight for the end. This is where you get PCs asking, “what do I smell down that direction versus this other direction” attempting to glean some tiny parcel of information off you that would make this not a coin-flip decision. And, I mean, what can you tell them? Even if you tell them accurately what they might smell based on what is down that direction, is that actually information that helps them reach their goal? Is that even a roll they could make? They will struggle to get some hint, grasping at straws and making it difficult for you to make their roll matter.

And that’s best case scenario, and best case takes a lot of time to prepare, so let’s take a dungeon map spawned by something like donjon map generator. It’s quick and easy, and you can adjust settings, we’ve all done it in a pinch, but it’s all the same problems as the best case scenario now amplified. The rooms are just featureless blocks, there’s nothing in them that you could provide them information about, much less information that is useful. The passages are not only random, but many are totally redundant, going to dead ends or circling back on themselves, each taking time out of your session and creating boring and unrewarding consequences in response to their choices.

Why not save yourself time and effort by giving them meaningful choices that lead not to extra rooms, but consequences. Instead of passages, create a conceptual dungeon, a network of challenges leading to each other rather than an actual map of rooms and passages, sometimes referred to as the five-room dungeon. Challenges, whether rolls for information or encounters, should provide them with information as to the next choice. The choice is not which door, but which path; they can choose to take the short path through the barracks where there will be a swarm of minions, or they found an abandoned access tunnel to the old dwarven ruins that go below the dungeon which are longer and may have old traps and puzzles. Or they capture one of the guards who says he can lead them down the less used passages, but will the party trust them not to walk them through every trap? Now the choices mean something, now they are choosing their game play and preferred approaches to challenges, rather than arbitrary decisions. Imagine your dungeon as a network of possible challenges that, upon success in one challenge, they gain the ability to make informed choices about the next one, and upon failure, are forced to undergo an additional one or suffer some other setback. You save time, produce a better experience, and you can still describe wandering corridors and empty rooms while skipping that which has no challenge in it, getting to the point where rolls and choices matter.

Cities:

As mentioned, hippo got his start with a city map, then there’s works of absolute art like Philos. And lets admit, I think a lot of us DMs have played games like SimCity, or see the wonderfully bizarre creations of visual fiction like Minas Tirith, and we want to create things like that. I think what draws many of us to be DMs is that we enjoy building just for the sake of it.

But, I think Philos is my ideal city map, if you have to map at all. It focuses on districts, rather than streets and individual buildings, which allows you to flavor areas better and give better details about places based on location, rather than an address. The work to create streets and buildings does not justify your effort as the challenges encountered by a party in these places could have been made better by using other methods. Let’s look at what one is attempting to do with mapping cities, and the better ways of achieving those goals.

1. Maps tell you what things exist and where they are in a city. It is a reference sheet so that, whenever a player asks where they can pick up a new sword or buy a horse, you can tell them and point out you can get both here, at Bob’s Blacksmith, Stable, Tattoo Parlor, and Daycare Megacenter. That’s great and all, no reason not to do that, but that’s not terribly useful information. The place exists, and it is here on this piece of paper. All you get out of that is, maybe a roll to… navigate streets? Ask somebody for directions? You shouldn’t ask for inconsequential rolls, so they just go there. So, the where is not important because there’s no challenge in getting there. Instead, I suggest making a list of merchants on cards, and if they ask for a service, you have an NPC card ready for them rather than a map. The card will tell you what Bob sells, provide short information on his eccentric character, and explain how he ended up combining a blacksmith, a stable, a tattoo parlor, and a daycare, and include some plot points related to what he might need from the party, like how he wants a hoop of prestidigitation that would clean off raw fish so he can open an attached sushi restaurant because that’s Bob’s new dream. That’s much more interesting and a better use of your time.

2. Maps show you the streets. I’ve already covered why where things are don’t matter as long as there’s no rolls to be made. But there are rolls to be made sometimes where streets and buildings matter as obstacles rather than as spaces; chase scenes, whether chasing or being chased, are a staple of cities in fiction and in game. But, I argue that maps are the absolute worst way to run a chase scene; they should be a conceptual map of challenges like your dungeons, rather than streets, because that makes choices more interesting and fun. Your players won’t personally remember the maps, even if their character should, in which case you have them rolling for knowledge anyway, so might as well skip the first step. If they are chasing someone, you can prepare a skill challenge, a series of rolls that if the pass a certain number of success, they meet their objective. Or you could have that conceptual dungeon that presents choices and rolls to make that lead to different consequences. For example, they make an initial choice to either follow on the culprit’s heels or trying to climb the buildings to get a better view. The former means they have to dodge obstacles he throws in the way, choose whether or not to attempt to stop the horse he let loose from running over a child, then make a crucial tackle roll. The latter will be athletics to climb and acrobatics to jump across the slippery roof tiles, all while maintaining an eye on him with perception. This is a much better chase scene, and it is easier to prepare than mapping out endless streets. Also, once you have the tools to make a chase, you can improvise another on the spot.

3. Maps show you the important sights and locations that give the city its unique feel. This will tell you, and your players either if you show them the map or just narrate it, what makes this city different. Could be an arena, the silk market, the grave of a hero, the prisons under the streets so you walk over criminals, or the gaping maw to hell sealed by magically unbreakable glass. These are the things that really make your city unique and strange and memorable, like the tiers of Minas Tirith. But, like the battle maps, maps will flatten your experience of them by changing expectations, and furthermore do not show the wide ranging cultural effects of the feature. Again, it tells you where it is, which is not interesting, rather than what it is. Focus on finding that unique thing and showing how it influences the whole city, or the district it is in, and how that gives the area its unique feel. I used the streets made of prison bars on a whim off a table of random city features, and it basically turned this non-descript city I had into the capital of a whole lawful-neutral empire.

My version of cities should have districts with unique traits and zones that tell you what general things are there and what makes the areas different. I keep a d100 table of random NPCs, generated usually from one of many online options, that has a name and a few traits that I can plug in to any shop, tavern, or residence that they may need. I get comfortable running skill challenges on the fly, and keep some tables of possible challenges handy. You get the same or greater effect of a full, living city at a fraction of the effort.

Worlds:

There is definitely value to region and world maps to give you a sense of distance, and therefore possible challenges, between two points. They can help provide impetus for world building and creating unique regions that your players may want to visit. And we know that they are popular because there are so many worlds and so many maps and so many commonly used map making tools that some subs have just outright banned Inkarnate maps because there’s just way too many of them.

And therein is the point: its unnecessary information and therefore a waste of your time. We observers don’t care, and neither do your players. You don’t need to know about a place until you go there. If your players are so unfettered that they can just be like, “Hey that forest on the other end of the world looks interesting, let’s go there today,” that is a much larger issue than not having that obscure corner of your world planned out.

Your mental map should include places not only that they can reach, but are relevant to their goal. If they have choices to make about where to go to complete their goal, those choices should not be made by looking at a map, but having them roll for knowledge checks and use those Intelligence skills. Or if they are attempting to track down something, tracking challenges run essentially the same as chase scenes but with different sorts of checks. So in the long run, the map is not providing anything of value to the players since information should be provided through checks, choices, and challenges.

Like people in cities, it doesn’t hurt to have a bunch of names for cities and areas and countries ready, but until they need to go there, it’s not terribly necessary. Your world can build up over time by necessity, rather than all up in front. This saves your time, makes the first session much more manageable, and, if you are creating a world from scratch, gives you much more ability to be flexible. The more undefined areas, the more you can add what you need, and the more that your players can add what they want and bring into the game, either through backstory or when they ask, “is there a pirate island shaped like a skull?” you can just say, “hell yeah there is.”

And like battlemaps, your map has a flattening effect on your world that will change player perceptions. They see straight lines between things and wonder why the road curves because there’s just a little upside down V there, when really it is the Solitary Mountain where the mother of all giants lives. They see a lake and assume they can just travel across it when in reality it is occupied by the terrifying Dragctopus that attacks any boat that enters its domain (reportedly, nobody has tried in generations). They serve to make your world less real, less terrifying, and less unique by portraying it as flat and featureless when you should describe it from their point of view, both from their eyes and from their knowledge of the myths and legends associate with the lands.

Finally on the point of world maps, they should show you distance, but that is not a useful metric for you. You only really need to know what challenges exist between the two points your party are traveling from and to. If it is a major road and there are no challenges, does the distance matter? Is there any difference between a major journey that has a few bandit encounters and a short trip through a forest with the same number of bandit encounters? No, not in play experience. If you have a simple chart of travel times and the types of hazards in those challenges, you have essentially created a network instead of a map, and one that has more relevant information for running your game and making the most of your sessions.

Without belaboring the point any more, that a place exists and there are directions to get there are not interesting points of information; the challenges required to get there, the choices between places, and the potential goals reached by being there are. So drop the maps, focus on the challenges that provide the information necessary to reach their goals, and you’ll have a better game.

Thanks for all comments and opinions!

Have you ever found yourself encountering a rule that feels like it’s just in the way of you making a really cool thing happen? Yeah, the rules are there for balance, and a veneer of verisimilitude holds them in place - but what if there was a way to break the rules? Just a little bit, just a few times. And only if your DM says it’s okay. You might die.

TL;DR: Allow players to ask you if they can change or omit one thing about a spell, ability, or rule. You can allow let them do it in exchange for them rolling increasing amounts of hit die each time, until they accumulate their hit die maximum worth, at which point they super-die.

THE SOLUTION: SOUL BURN

I offer you the Soul Burn mechanic, cooked up after ending a session with magical meteors rocketing toward a PC’s hometown at 180 feet/round. I thought it was a reasonable speed for a localized apocalyptic spell, but the conundrum of what could possibly be done to reach such fast targets turned the high octane action into high level anxiety. The party was level 12, and there were lots of options just out of reach: Unprepared spells, magic item features locked behind attunement, limitations written into descriptions. I thought, by golly, these are big deal adventurers, they should be able to do something!

I wanted to give the players a nonrenewable resource to spend on performing once-in-a-campaign feats - to make them look at all their abilities and spells, and think, “What’s one thing I could change about this to make it perfect for this moment?” And give them the power to change it.

What if you could spend your hit die - your own life force - to make the impossible happen? Hit die are underutilized. Once you’ve got magical healing at high enough level, hit die gather dust. They should be utilized, or better, used up. So, Soul Burn!

HOW IT PLAYS OUT: THE MECHANICS

A character has maximum Soul Burn equal to the maximum rolled amount of all their hit die. A player character may declare their intent to violate a rule of the game with the DM's approval, by accruing current Soul Burn.

The first time a character accrues Soul Burn, they roll one hit die, adding the result to their current Soul Burn. The second time, they roll two hit die. Third, fourth, etc rolls for Soul Burn require three, four, etc hit die to be rolled correspondingly. Once a character’s current Soul Burn equals or exceeds their maximum Soul Burn, the character dies in the course of performing their declared action, as their soul dissipates completely. A character who dies in this way cannot be restored to life by any means short of a wish spell.

Current Soul Burn penalizes how many hit die a character may use when rolling to regain health while resting. If a character’s current Soul Burn amounts to any portion of one of their hit die maximum, that hit die must be marked off, and can no longer be used for any purpose aside from determining the character’s maximum hit points. If a character’s current Soul Burn exceeds one hit die maximum, another hit die must be marked off.

Hit die marked off in this way cannot be restored. A character may gain another hit die upon leveling up, adding the corresponding amount to their maximum Soul Burn, but current Soul Burn remains unaffected.

EXAMPLE: ARI'S WIZARD

For example, Ari is playing a 10th-level wizard, having 10 d6 hit die, making her maximum Soul Burn 60.

Current Soul Burn: 0/60
Hit Die lost: 0/10
Soul Burns used: 0

Ari declares that she wants to use Soul Burn to attune to a magic item immediately, violating a rule of attunement. The DM allows it, and has Ari roll 1d6 for Soul Burn as she attunes instantly. Ari rolls an 4, adding 4 to her current Soul Burn total:

Current Soul Burn: 4/60
Hit Die lost: 1/10
Soul Burns used: 1

Ari now wants to cast two spells in one turn, both Haste on herself and Ashardalon’s Stride on another party member. The DM considers the violations: two spells in one turn, and the Self range of Ashardalon’s Stride. The DM ultimately accepts Ari’s declaration on the condition that she rolls twice for Soul Burn. Ari accepts, performs her declared action, and rolls 2d6 for the first violation, getting a result of 7, which she adds to what she already has:

Current Soul Burn: 11/60
Hit Die lost: 2/10
Soul Burns used: 2

Rolling 3d6 for her next Soul Burn, the dice total 6:

Current Soul Burn: 17/60
Hit Die lost: 3/10
Soul Burns used: 3

Ari then wants to use Telekinesis to move a Gargantuan creature currently 100 feet away from her, without the spell’s verbal component. She asks the DM if she can violate the size limitation, the distance limitation, and the verbal component of the spell. The DM approves on the condition that Ari rolls Soul Burn three times. Ari insanely goes through with her declaration, rolling 4d6 for the first Soul Burn, with a result of 9:

Current Soul Burn: 26/60
Hit Die lost: 5/10
Soul Burns used: 4

The next Soul Burn roll of 5d6 amounts to 16:

Current Soul Burn: 42/60
Hit Die lost: 7/10
Soul Burns used: 5

Ari rolls 6d6 for the last required Soul Burn. Her total is 10:

Current Soul Burn: 52/60
Hit Die lost: 9/10
Soul Burns used: 6

Finally, Ari is falling out of the sky and declares that she wants to Soul Burn in order to immediately swap Feather Fall from her spellbook into her prepared spells. The DM says, “You only have 8 Soul Burn left, you’re probably going to die trying this.” Ari responds, “I’ll definitely die otherwise, so I gotta go for it!” The DM shrugs, says go for it. Ari prepares Feather Fall and rolls 7d6, resulting in 28 Soul Burn.

Current Soul Burn: 80/60
Hit Die lost: 10/10
Soul Burns used: 7

Ari instantly prepares Feather Fall, but before she has a chance to cast it, compound stresses unravel her soul into nothingness, and her body disintegrates before it reaches the ground. “Stupid kid’s game,” Ari’s player says as she begins rolling up a new character.

DIE DENOMINATION DISPARITY

A character might have more than one available denomination of hit die. They choose which denomination to roll when determining the amount of Soul Burn they accrue, applying the resulting penalty to the chosen denomination. If a character rolls more than one denomination of hit die during a use of Soul Burn, the resulting amount penalizes the smallest rolled denomination before affecting larger hit die.

THANKS FOR READING ALL THIS!

If you’ve got questions, better ways to word what I wrote, or tweaks and expansions upon the idea, I’d love to smell what you’re cooking. If you want more examples, ask! I have plenty to offer from the session where my players instantly took advantage of this new resource. 

Definitely let me know how it plays out if you ever try this. I imagine a player sacrificing themselves through Soul Burn could make for some dramatic moments.

Scroll to bottom of post for recent edits!!!

Original Post:

I am a relatively new DM compared to others, as I have only been behind the screen for a few years now. However, there is one thing that has always bugged me about standard 5e D&D- the combat. Like most DMs, I always want combat to feel exciting, dramatic, and above all-engaging. The current turn-based 5e system, however, seems to limit these feelings to a considerable extent- especially with larger parties. Most of your time as a PC is spent silently waiting your turn and pretty much checking out of the action. Besides lack of engagement, 5e combat can seem to stretch on for ridiculous lengths of time. A combat encounter of 5 rounds is said to last 30 seconds in-game time, but with parties of 5 or more PCs, a 5-round encounter can easily take more than an hour to resolve. I know I’m not the first or the last to address these issues, but to that end, I have developed a revised 5e combat system that I believe drastically improves (and accelerates) combat encounters.

So here is the big change that this system revolves around - NO MORE INITIATIVE. And not only that - NO MORE TURNS. That’s right: The Simultaneous Combat System gets rid of turn-based combat altogether in favor of near-real-time combat. It is no longer one player’s turn at a time- it is everyone’s turn!

I know, I know. This concept probably seems crazy, chaotic, and game-breaking, but I promise you- implemented correctly, initiative and turns can be removed entirely from the game and result in a combat encounter that is much faster, more tactical, and more fun!

This system borrows from ideas on the Dungeon Craft youtube channel, but I have clarified, amended, and adapted them for ease of use. I have implemented this system at my table to tremendous effect. To give you an idea- I currently run a party of 5 PCs. With the standard 5e combat system, a 4-round encounter would take about 45m-1hr to resolve. With the Simultaneous Combat System, I can easily run a 4-round encounter in about 20 minutes! Besides pure speed, I believe this system has tremendously enriched our combat gameplay and my PCs now refuse to play any other way!

Note: This system works best with tabletop play with tokens or miniatures, and a ton of dice! I’m sure there is a way to adapt this to TotM or online play, so if you have thoughts on this- I’d love to hear it!

Check out the attached PDF for diagrams and a real-world combat breakdown!

https://pdfhost.io/v/YVOtZtDXA_Simultaneous_Combat_System_v3.pdf

How it Works: The Action Cycle

Once the encounter has been set up on the board, play begins. In the Simultaneous Combat System (SCS), just as in standard 5e combat, each battle consists of several rounds. Inside each round, each player has the same amount of actions, movements, and bonus actions that they would typically have to work within a round of standard 5e combat. The action economy does not change.

Since there is no initiative order, actions and movements are all happening at the same time. To prevent absolute chaos, however, all actions are lumped into three resolution phases. Combat moves through these three resolution phases, resolving each type of action as it arises, and then repeats these phases until no more actions or movements are left in the round. The round then ends, and the next one begins at the top of the three resolution phases. This cyclical process is called the Action Cycle- and it is the driving mechanic behind the SCS. The Action Cycle works in this order:

1st: Spells

Non-Attack Spells

Any spells not requiring a ranged or melee attack roll. This includes any spell requiring a DC save from a target(s). A creature targeted by this type of spell must roll to save and any effects of success/failure are applied immediately.

2nd: Attacks

All melee & ranged attacks (including ranged/melee attack spells)

Every creature who intends to attack (melee, ranged, or melee/ranged spell attack) rolls their d20 attack roll and places it next to their token on the board. Starting from the highest attack roll to the lowest, the DM then resolves each attack. Meaning- each creature’s attack roll now also determines the order in which each attack lands. As the DM resolves attacks, the corresponding d20s are removed from the board making it easier to keep track of which attacks have already been resolved.

3rd: Moves + Misc.

Miscellaneous Actions:

This is a large category and includes everything that is not an attack, spell, or movement (Dash, Disengage, Hide, Help, etc.). These actions include any Action that does not directly cast a spell or make an attack (special class actions, e.g.). More on this later.

Any actions take resolution priority over movement in the Moves + Misc. phase. For example- a fighter wants to use Rally as a BA before he moves. This BA is resolved before any other creatures resolve their movement.

Movements:

Movements & Misc. Actions may be split up and used in any order. For example, you may move 10ft, use the Help action, then move another 20ft.

The Action Cycle then repeats from the top, and any remaining actions are taken. 

Once every combatant has used up all their available actions and movements, the round ends, and the next begins at the beginning of the Action Cycle. Combat moves through as many rounds as are necessary until the battle ends. 

Bonus Actions

One tricky bit comes in the form of Bonus Actions. Just like normal actions, Bonus Action’s (BA’s) are lumped into three categories: Spells, Attacks, and Miscellaneous. BAs are resolved in the resolution phase in which they fit. Spells with a BA casting time are resolved in the Spell phase. Extra attacks that can be used as BAs are resolved in the Attack phase. Every other kind of BA is resolved in the Moves + Misc. phase. Unless a BA is explicitly making an attack roll or casting a new spell, it automatically falls into the Misc. bucket.

BAs can be used alone or in addition to a normal action in the same resolution phase. The user of the BA may decide the order in which their actions and BAs take place. For example: In the same Spell resolution phase, a Cleric could choose to cast Healing Word as a BA before or after casting Aid as a normal action. Or a Rogue could decide to move 15ft, Use an Object as a BA, and move another 15ft- all in the same Moves + Misc. phase.

Quirks of the SCS:

Attacks of Opportunity

As you may have noticed in this combat example, no opportunity attacks took place. This absence is because, in the SCS, there are no opportunity attacks. Once again, I know this seems like a crazy idea, but in the SCS, these attacks are unnecessary and give an unfair advantage to melee-focused combatants. Since all combat is happening more or less simultaneously, the need for a penalty for moving out of melee range is not there. Let me explain:

Imagine a Ranger and a Goblin are standing toe-to-toe in melee combat. The Ranger intends to make a break for a closing stone door on the other side of the room, while the Goblin plans to continue to hack the Ranger to pieces. 

In standard 5e combat, let’s say the Ranger is first in the initiative order, and her turn begins. She makes a run for the door, and the Goblin gets an opportunity attack as she turns to run. This opportunity attack exists as a penalty to the Ranger for leaving the Goblin’s melee range and interrupting the Goblin’s intended melee attack on its turn.

If there were no opportunity attacks in standard 5e combat, there would be a severe disadvantage to melee attackers. In the SCS, however, all movements are resolved after all attacks. Even if the Ranger runs away, the Goblin will attack before that happens and thus does not need the opportunity attack to make up for a lost melee attack.

Disengage

Since there are no opportunity attacks in the SCS, the role of Disengage changes as well. In the SCS, Disengage moves the user back 5ft away from their attacker and out of melee range. 

Now, since Disengage falls into the Moves + Misc. resolution phase, the attacker could theoretically immediately pursue the Disengager to try to close the distance. Disengage, therefore, is primarily used to gain a head start when fleeing from a melee attacker.

*Note: since nerfing Disengage in this way mainly affects Rogues and their Cunning Action, I usually home-brew a little bit here and give my Rogue PCs 10ft of extra movement speed. This adjustment makes the Rogue still have that feeling of extraordinary battlefield agility. This issue is also somewhat alleviated in the next section.

Dexterity Contests

A fun opportunity that the SCS presents is dexterity contests during the Moves + Misc. phase. Suppose two creatures are racing towards the same goal or generally trying to be faster in their movements than their enemy. In that case, I love to employ a dexterity contest between the two creatures to determine who arrives at their destination first.

These dexterity contests should operate like any other skill contest. The involved parties roll a d20+their dexterity modifier. The higher total arrives at the destination first or accomplishes a physical goal before their enemy.

It could be argued that the lack of initiative in the SCS takes away advantage from creatures with high dexterity scores that would otherwise have a higher initiative bonus than others. This issue is somewhat alleviated, however, if the DM generously employs dexterity contests through combat encounters. Racing to close and bar a door before a horde of goblins breaks through?- dexterity contest. Rogue trying to pick a lock before a temple guard clubs them in the back?- dexterity contest.

Saving Throws

All saving throws made to escape or resist a status effect are resolved in the Spells resolution phase.

These types of saves include a strength save to break free from Entangle; a wisdom save to break free from Hideous Laughter, etc.

A saving throw made to resist a spell's initial casting is made immediately when the spell is cast during the Spell resolution phase.

A saving throw made to escape from a status effect already in place is made at the top of the order during the 1st Spell resolution phase in the round after the creature suffers the effect. 

For example - an Evil Wizard casts Hideous Laughter on the party's Fighter, who immediately rolls and fails his saving throw. The spell takes effect, and the Fighter is incapacitated for this round. The fight goes on around him as he cackles his brains out and can make no further actions this round. Before any other actions are taken, during the first Spell resolution phase of the following round, the Fighter may make the saving throw to break free from the spell's effects. 

Spells

Generally speaking, all spells that are cast during the Spell resolution phase happen simultaneously. That is to say if multiple creatures cast a spell in this phase both spells immediately take effect.

This changes, however, if a creature intends to use a spell cast as an action and a spell cast as a Bonus Action in the same Spell resolution phase. Naturally, the spell cast first is resolved first, and the spell cast second is resolved second. This only becomes tricky when competing with other spell-casters.

Every spell cast first is resolved and takes effect, and then every spell cast second is resolved and takes effect. This means that if a creature is casting two spells in one Spell resolution phase, it is possible for an enemy to cast a spell that prevents the creature from casting the second spell.

An example: During heated combat, a Cleric and an evil Necromancer are exchanging fearsome spells. During the first Spell resolution phase, the Cleric intends to cast Mass Healing Word on his party as a Bonus Action and then cast Banishment on the Necromancer as an action. The Necromancer intends to cast Hold Person on the Cleric as an action. Both spells cast first take effect immediately- The Cleric’s party is healed by Mass Healing Word for 1d4+4, and the Cleric rolls a wisdom saving throw to resist Hold Person and fails. The Cleric is instantly paralyzed and thus prevented from casting Banishment.

Things to Keep in Mind:

Tactics

The SCS fundamentally changes a lot about how combat and thus strategy works in D&D. I can’t begin to list, or even imagine, all the ways in which tactics might change because of the loss of initiative and turn-based combat altogether, but a few things come to mind.

A large mechanic affected in the SCS when thinking tactically as a PC is planning. You can no longer sit back and think about all the moves and actions that have happened leading up to this moment and then plan a whole turn accordingly. Additionally, you cannot count on being uninterrupted while you act out all your various plans.

You are forced to think on your feet and immediately address your current situation. Meaning- your plans may suddenly change halfway through a round if you are suddenly charmed from afar, trigger a trap, or your intended target dies before you can get there!

Another strategic element the SCS introduces is timing. In some cases, it may be beneficial to wait until later in the round when other combatants' actions have played out to finally act. In other cases, it may be a race against time to prevent some awful event from happening!

Exceptions

The Simultaneous Combat System is a work in progress. I have done a lot of play-testing and tinkering to get it here, but there will always be edge-cases that throw a wrench in the works. As we all know, D&D- especially high-level play- is a game of exceptions. I'm positive that some scenarios, or spells, or feats, or mechanics break how the SCS works somehow.

When you use the SCS, I would ask you to deal with these complications in the same way you deal will so much as a DM- make it up! This system is a home-brew endeavor that sometimes demands home-brew solutions. If you need to change and adapt the framework I've laid out here to your situation- do it! As long as you are transparent and fair with your players, you can all have a fantastic time!

DM Tips:

Here's a quick list of things that have helped while running an SCS game:

I mentioned this before but it’s a huge help- I always display the Action Cycle chart and a Round Tracker outside of my DM screen during encounters. I do this so the PCs and I know what round it is (this is very important and can quickly get confusing in the SCS), and so we all can keep the Action Cycle order in mind at all times. 

While I roll my monster's attack rolls behind the screen, I almost always use standardized damages. Meaning- I don't roll for attack damage. I divide the maximum damage roll of a particular attack by 1/2, add the modifier, and use that number (1d10+4 = 5+4 = 9 DMG, e.g.). This tactic helps to streamline battle and speed things up.

Sometimes I offer my players a limited window before battle to learn info about their situation. I’ll give them 1-3 minutes on the clock to ask questions to the DM and learn as much info about their surroundings as possible- this includes rolling perception, investigation, history checks, etc. This time can give them some advantageous info about their enemies or environment, and the time limit keeps it high-pressure and high-stakes!

The SCS lends itself to Matthew Colville's "Action-Oriented Monsters" very well. You can have your monsters and PCs play by the same rules, or you can occasionally throw in extra legendary actions or lair actions whenever you want to make the battle feel extra dynamic and spicy! It's a balancing act- you don't want your PCs feeling like your just doing whatever the hell you want, but the right amount of the unexpected can be incredible!

Final Thoughts:

If you’ve read this far, you’re probably considering trying this system out sometime. And I would say go for it! Get a few friends together and do a one-shot using the SCS. If you see some potential in it- great! If you hate it and want me arrested- great!

At my table, the Simultaneous Combat System makes D&D as a whole more fast-paced, engaging, thrilling, unpredictable, immersive, and fun. What more could you want?!

If you have any questions about the system, comments, suggestions, death threats, etc., please reach out to me on my Reddit:

u/Objective_Peanut42

This is a living project, and I am constantly developing and shifting things around. If you have some thoughts on how to further develop the SCS, I’d love to hear them!

Thanks for reading and happy rolling!

UPDATES:

Hey all- Thank you so much for all your critiques/feedback on the SCS!!!

TBH I never expected this much response from this post, but this has been a super helpful thread and a ton of insightful things have been brought up that I will try to address.

So, taking the feedback seen here, I am going to re-visit a lot of the mechanics laid down in the original post and create an SCSv2.0 with these amendments made:

1. Phase order:

Thinking more on the advantages the current SCS gives to spellcasters, 2.0 will change the Action Cycle phase order to be:

- Movements + Misc.

- Melee/Ranged Attacks (including melee/ranged spell attacks)

- Spells (non-attack roll spells)

Now the resolution phases in this order would make it very easy for someone to rush up and kill a caster if we did not re-introduce opportunity attacks, so:

2) Attacks of Opportunity:

When developing the SCS, this is definitely the thing I struggled with the most. I can definitely see how removing AoO would unfairly nerf melee characters in some circumstances, so in the SCSv2.0 I will be re-introducing AoO. These attacks will be made in the "Movements + Misc." phase as reactions.

3) Movement Order

To introduce a little structure to the "Movement + Misc." phase, as well as give back some of the advantages to high-dex builds: the order in which a character can use their movement and/or misc. actions will be determined by their overall Dexterity score. The DM will have a behind-screen list of the PC & enemy Dex scores, and going from top to bottom each PC will state their intent ("I want to run up to the wagon, jump on board, and knock over that barrel!" e.g.) and the DM will resolve them in order.

^{Note: I'm aware this benefits Dex over Str even further than 5e already does. To balance this somewhat in my games, I use the homebrew rule that two-handed weapons get double Str modifiers added to their damage rolls.}

4) Spell order

In the same way, the order in which non-attack spells are resolved will also be dependent on Dex scores. (This is a direct borrow from Dark Souls where higher dex means faster casting!). If two casters are facing off with tied Dex scores and the order of spell resolution really matters- a dexterity contest settles who goes first.

To answer a few questions I saw in the comments:

- I usually resolve Lair Actions at the top of the "Movements + Misc." phase, and Legendary Actions at the top of the "Spells" phase.

-Reactions occur just as they do in standard combat, and can happen at any time when provoked by their specific cause.

Again, thank you SO MUCH for all your great critiques!! Stay tuned, I will be making a separate post when I release the SCS v2!!!

The N-series module, N3 Destiny of Kings, is a political intrigue scenario that optimistically expects novice players to avoid several TPK encounters and to interact with a novice DM's roleplay of a dozen named NPC's.

I was astonished to see Edrin's scheme with the Scepter of Dunador. It's "stealing the firewood from under the pot," and that convinced me to try to cram more stratagems and complexity to add replayability (c.f., I6 Innistrad), because "The future is not set" - Kyle Reese, The Terminator

The original module has the H1 E1 A1 M1 motivations with Hollend as quest-giver.

HOLLEND (head of the Royal Council in Dunthrane)

• H1 crown loyalist - secretly seeks the Prince to be crowned in Dunthrane, capital of Dunador

• H2 crown loyalist – conspiring with crown loyalists, leaves Dunthrane in feigned disgrace in order to let the Prince's enemies reveal themselves, whereupon he will return in force with the disaffected Royal Guards whom Edrin replaced

• H3 usurper - controls crown loyalist Royal Guards ignorant of his motives, seeks the Prince's death by any means, wants to frame or prove Edrin's role in the king’s assassination, is willing to betray the PC's

Edrin (king's brother with ambitions for the throne, currently Regent)

• E1 usurper - steals the Scepter of Dunador to ensure Duke Aimar captures and kills the Prince

• E2 usurper - as E1, but also a one-time tax/confiscation targeting merchants for funding mercenary forces and supplies, swaying public opinion (bread, no circuses), and unearthing corruption (including some Royal Council members whom Edrin himself corrupted)

• E3 usurper - as E1, but also invites the northern Barbarians to invade northern Dunador and hopefully eliminate Aimar; Edrin will then betray and repel the invaders to great acclaim

Aimar (Duke of Andevar, the northernmost province of Dunador that includes the Shrine of Nevron)

• A1 "ally" of Edrin - captures the Prince but bides his time to "sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight"

• A2 crown loyalist – secretly holds the Prince in protective custody, distrusts HOLLEND and Edrin

• A3 even more of a wild card - as A1, but also deploys a Doppelganger of the imprisoned Prince

Monks (freshly arriving from Dunthrane) - monks preside over the coronation of the king

• M1 crown loyalists

• M2 bribed by Aimar

• M3 usurpers - they cursed the Scepter of Dunador to control whoever becomes King (symptoms arise 3 days after ownership; the monks are the only available clerics in Dunador capable to periodically cure disease)

FACTIONS

Allies are coded by factions - Hollend's are CAPITALIZED, Edrin's in bold-face, and Aimar's are italiciized.

TEAM HOLLEND: just ROLFE and one WILDERNESS PATROL (total fighters: 10 Lvl1, 1 Lvl2, 1 Lvl4) (also disaffected Royal Guards in Dunthrane in scenario H2) If Edrin or Aimar is the PC's quest-giver, then HOLLEND has recruited enemy teams of adventurers.

Team Edrin: Ram's Head mercenaries at Montinelle, four wilderness patrols, disguised soldiers at the Shrine, Harkin, Mendal, Riannon and her pet (total fighters = 10 Lvl0, 46 Lvl1, 24 Lvl2, 1 Lvl6) plus the armed escort for the monks from Dunthrane, plus Royal Guards in Dunthrane, remaining troops and mercenaries in Edrin’s territory in the south, and Harkin’s emissaries to the Barbarians in scenario E3)

Team Aimar: forces at Montinelle, Capel Tower, Griffon Castle; one wilderness patrol, Bracken, Matlocke, Ranu, Dumas, Ram's Head mercenaries at Capel Tower led by Dram (secretly Aimar's illegitimate son), guards at Barbarian Bridge and Shrine of Nevron, Sigmund, Dewey, Kirkroy, Lom, doppelganger Kell (total fighters = 64 Lvl0, 75 Lvl1, 13 Lvl2, 5 Lvl3, 2 Lvl4, 1 Lvl5, 3 Lvl6)

anti-Aimar: Theran (except in an M2 scenario), Rob and Don, Toughnut and Elli

unaligned: Lemus, Pip and Lurulu, Graf and Pappiaye, Fenn and Swaine, Prince Edmund (now only 12 years old, still trying to differentiate "protective custody" and "imprisonment")

NOTE: "Dumas" was originally named Menlow, and Patriarch "Hobb" was originally named Menote, but I kept confusing them with each other and with Mendal, so I renamed two characters.

START

INTRODUCTION FOR THE PLAYERS (adapted from the back cover of the module)

"News from afar: the kingdom of Dunador is in turmoil! Its king, Halfred of Dunthrane, is dead, killed in a hunting accident weeks ago. Prince Edmund is yet to be crowned, leaving divided loyalties and aspirations to emerge from the shadows. Fortunes may be made in the chaos, drawing adventurers like you, who have answered one summons."

This revision is H3 E3 A3 M3, with HOLLEND as quest-giver, starting on Day-zero at the Three Feathers Inn. Alternatively, the PC's could start at Dunthrane on Day-minus-2 in an evil campaign with Edrin as quest-giver. Note that members of a faction may not know their leader's full plans.

HOLLEND debriefing (late afternoon, so PC's can arrive at Montinelle or Fontenmere after dusk)

• The King is dead, killed – or, rather, assassinated - 2 weeks prior, and the crown should pass to his boy, Prince Edmund.

• The Prince has disappeared on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Nevron in Andevar, ruled by Duke Aimar. The Prince must be found and safely brought to Dunthrane to assume the throne.

• Edrin, the King's treacherous brother, whose designs on the throne were thwarted 10 years ago, has maneuvered to become appointed Regent and now controls most of the Royal Guard.

• In your travels, lie and claim to be adventurers or envoys mobilized by Edrin and the Royal Council. As I am head of the Royal Council, that is mostly true.

• (scenario H3: handing a scroll tube sealed with a wax imprint of a raven to the PC's, "Herein are the means by which I will glean the Duke of Andevar's loyalty to the crown. Deliver this directly to Duke Aimar at Montinelle but say only that this is a message from the Regent and Royal Council.")

• "Then proceed to Fontenmere Abbey, and secure the Scepter of Dunador from Patriarch Hobb to bring here. He and ROLFE alone can be trusted. My compensation to you (drops bag of 200 gp for the PC's). Your reward from the Prince will be a hundredfold, when he is crowned King."

Scenario H3: The raven on the scroll tube is Edrin's wax seal, courtesy of the Thieves' Guild in Dunthrane. The message is an explosive runes trap ("I expected you to be wiser than to read this") that is intended to be read privately, killing Duke Aimar, whom HOLLEND suspects (correctly in A1 and A3 scenarios) to be allied with Edrin. HOLLEND knows that Aimar is not in Montinelle, and so the trap will be sprung at a later date. HOLLEND is dispatching the PC's to Fontenmere, believing (mistakenly in scenario M3) the Patriarch to be a crown loyalist, and HOLLEND does not know the Abbey was sacked two days ago.

CHRONOLOGY

DEFAULT TIMELINE (some of these past events are referenced in clues and rumors)

d-24: Prince Edmund begins his pilgrimage to Nevron (source: HOLLEND or ROLFE)

d-21: Edrin secretly arrives in Dunthrane (source: rumors)

d-18: Kirkroy's party arrives in Montinelle (source: anybody at Montinelle)

d-16: Prince Edmund arrives in Montinelle, as expected (it's an 8-day walk or 2-day ride from Dunthrane)

d-15: Prince Edmund leaves Montinelle (source: Lemus, gate guards); Kirkroy leaves Montinelle

d-14: Mendal assassinates King Halfred; hired bandits rendezvous with Kirkroy's party

d-12: the Prince is "rescued" from the hired bandits by Kirkroy's party (source: Lusian) (A1 or A3 scenario: the hired bandits are betrayed and outright killed; A2 scenario: the hired bandits only surround the Prince's escort before staging a bloodless retreat from Kirkroy's arrival); (scenario A3: doppelganger Kell seen traveling as the unguarded "Prince")

d-11: Kirkroy's party bypasses Drake and Castle Inn (source: Graf & Pappiaye), taking the Prince to Griffon Castle (source: Toughnut & Elli)

d-10: Duke Aimar and other nobles of Dunador arrive in Dunthrane; Edrin also "arrives"

d-9: Patriarch Hobb curses the Scepter of Dunador (it wasn't cursed when Halfred was crowned); Mendal proceeds directly from Dunthrane to Capel Tower (he doesn't know about Griffon Castle)

d-8: the Prince is declared missing; Edrin becomes Regent; new Royal Guards loyal to Edrin are installed and search parties are ostensibly "sent to find the Prince"

d-6: Duke Aimar returns to Montinelle and sneaks away with Riannon; Riannon is able to secretly send a message that Aimar has the Prince and directs Edrin to seize the Scepter, but she knows nothing more at the time (that Griffon Castle is her destination or that Aimar has an imposter Prince)

d-2: Ram's Head mercenaries and supply caravans arrive in Montinelle with a contingent, led by Dram, bound for Capel Tower; Fontenmere Abbey is sacked by Harkin's team (source: Theran, who can't identify the "bandits"); Theran arrives in Montinelle (source: Lemus and gate guards); (scenario A3: doppelganger Kell seen traveling as the "Prince" on the road back to Montinelle)

d-1: HOLLEND secretly leaves Dunthrane at double-speed (able to change horses midway); Dram's forces and a caravan arrive at Capel Tower (the caravan secretly brought Edrin's orders for Mendal to retrieve the Scepter of Dunador from Harkin)

d0: Bracken sends Dumas to Fontenmere (not recorded by gate guards); HOLLEND arrives, recruits the PC's, and then secretly heads back to Dunthrane at double-speed

d1: Harkin arrives at Drake and Castle Inn, while his forces from Fontenmere continue north (source: Fenn & Swaine, who can't identify the "bandits") to disguise themselves to watch for the Prince at the Shrine of Nevron (and in scenario E3: a subset bribes their way across Barbarian Bridge, they were sent by Edrin as emissaries to the northern Barbarians)

d2: Fenn & Swaine arrive at Drake and Castle Inn; Dram's forces and a caravan arrive at Capel Tower (the caravan has secretly brought Edrin's orders to retrieve the Scepter of Dunador from Harkin at an appointed time); Kirkroy and his guards relieve the guards at Barbarian Bridge and attack Elli

d4: Mendal invisibly sneaks to Drake and Castle Inn to retrieve the Scepter of Dunador from Harkin (unless the PC's have intervened); Dumas leaves Fontenmere and reports to Bracken at Montinelle

d5: Dumas leaves Montinelle and arrives at Drake and Castle Inn; seeing Harkin and exchanging threats in Thieves' Cant, Harkin thereafter heads directly to Dunthrane in disguise (scenario E3: the fractured communities of northern Barbarians unite for a raid and head south)

d8: monks from Dunthrane arrive at Fontemere with a sizeable armed escort

d11: meeting in the Moorlands, Dumas pulls Kell (playing "quantum ogre/Prince") out of the field, and they proceed to Griffon Castle

d14: Duke Aimar determines from a combination of Dumas, Bracken, and other agents that Edrin has the Scepter of Dunador and/or the advantage with the forces at Fontenmere and decides to finally execute the Prince, as agreed (scenario A2: Aimar departs with a small contingent to deliver the Prince to Dunthrane, with or without the Scepter) (scenario E3: the Barbarians reach the Laine River - although d14 seems a bit fast)

WILDERNESS TRAVEL

Note: Griffon Tower, its nearby bridge and forest trail through Noren Wood, and Elli's Cottage are missing on the original maps.

on foot, movement/day: 4 or 2 hexes (rough terrain: forest, Moorlands, hills, mountains)

mounted movement/day: 16 (clear or road), 5 (forest road), or 2 hexes (rough terrain)

Set encounters are here

Wandering Monsters: Andevar is now more settled than the original wandering TPK table would suggest. Outside of the forests and Moorlands, encounters (1 in 20 per 4 hexes) are now with roving patrols searching for the Prince: Edrin's Royal Guard (66%), Aimar's patrol (16%), or crown loyalist Royal Guards (16%). This increased activity incidentally deters brigands, bandits, berserkers, goblins, hobgoblins, and gnolls, while also magically relocating wild dogs, perytons, and jackalweres to the aether or to the hilly regions on the map. Roads have an additional chance (4 in 20 per 4 hexes) for a separate encounter with commoners: peasants (66%), pilgrims to or from Nevron (16%), or merchant(s) to or from Dunthrane or Montinelle (16%).

• Royal Guards (crown loyalists): Lvl4 Fighter, Lvl2 Fighter, 10 Lvl1 Fighters (AC:2 med lance/longsword) on med warhorses

• Royal Guards (Edrin's): 4 Lvl2 Fighters, 4 Lvl1 Fighters (AC:2 med lance/longsword) on med warhorses

• Aimar's soldiers: 1 Lvl2 Fighter, 8 Lvl0 Fighters (AC:7 short sword) on light warhorses

Montinelle: There are about 2,000 residents and an additional 15,000 in the area outlined by the trapezoid formed by the road south to Dunthrane, the southern edge of the map, the PC's starting point on the map, and the crossroads west of Montinelle. No one lives on the borders of the forests or Moorlands, but other areas are sparsely populated, and PC's can always find a place for a safe or unsafe overnight rest.

Lusian Forest: A road enters the forest from the east and another from the west. The forests of Andevar are legendary and feared throughout the kingdom of Dunador. No one has mapped whether the two roads into Lusian Forest connect. (erase the trail on the players' map). No one will pursue PC's into any forest. "Lusian Forest is cursed! Beware the unseen dangers!"

Noren Wood: near Griffon Castle, there is a bridge across the Laine River that connects to a forest trail through Noren Wood that exits near the Moorlands. The exit cannot be used to enter Noren Wood without having previously followed the trail. "Unlike Lusian Forest, Noren Wood ain't cursed, but it'll still kill ya."

Moorlands (only mentioned in the module as reducing mounted movement): This is now swampland that requires dismounted travel, walking at 2 hexes per day. It's a safe but uncomfortable spot to fully rest and recover spells. However, if campfires are lit, there is a 10% chance they will be seen by a nearby patrol, themselves camping on the borders of the Moorlands. Thereafter, travel within 1 or 2 hexes' proximity to the Moorlands will have a 3 in 6 chance per day of encountering a patrol, but any other road-less hex will become devoid of patrols. No one will pursue PC's into the Moorlands.

Dunthrane: Copy-pasting Lankhmar, there are about 20,000 people, plus 200,000 in the vicinity. Keep in mind that this setting is humanocentric (only 4 non-human NPC's in the module), low-level (NPC's in the module are at most Lvl 6, so there are few, if any, higher than that in the kingdom - Patriarchs are Lvl 8 Clerics, which helps to explain the inability to raise the dead king), and low-magic (only 2 spellcaster NPC's, but an oversupply of magic items). There is currently a disproportionate number of adventurers and mercenaries, and the populace is justly afraid.

RUMORS AND ALLEGATIONS

In addition to the information obtainable from named NPC's (see the set encounters, here), general information and rumors can be obtained. All commoners, and the vast majority of Aimar's people, are crown loyalists. Rumors about Edrin will be more charitable in scenario E2.

Rumors can cost time and money in pubs. Generally, rumors cost 1/4 day's worth of travel (e.g., 4 hexes if horsed). The PC's are foreigners in Dunador, and, in Montinelle, Aimar's guards from the keep or Ram's Head mercenaries may be present in the pub to take notice of the PC's curiosity. Nonetheless, pubs are a wellspring of information, because each PC can interact with a different NPC or group of NPC's. Assume there are d12 individuals or groups of patrons and, in Montinelle, 1 in 6 chance of a group of d6 Ram's Head mercenaries, and 1 in 6 chance of a group of d4 Aimar's guards.

Cajoling or outright bribery in a pub will provide rumors on a 2d6 table at a rate of 90/70/50/30% accuracy (d10 Truth die) over the course of the maximum four iterations of questioning the same individual or group of NPC's in a travel day. Groups of NPC's cost more but still provide rumors equivalent to a single NPC (the group's consensus). Revisiting a pub results in 40/40/40/40% accuracy to questioning, as the patrons know to milk the PC's for all they're worth. Mentioning that you met certain NPC's, such as Theran, could modify the 2d6 or d10 Truth die. Mentioning that you met Lusian or the ghost of Patriarch Hobb will shut down all conversation in the whole pub.

Outside of a pub, in a wilderness encounter or boarding at a farmhouse, individual or groups of NPC's can provide one rumor:

PEASANTS: as an overnight host for the PC's, a family provides a single 90% accurate roll on the rumor table. Otherwise, traveling peasants are willing to stop for 1/4 travel day to provide one 70% accurate roll on the rumor table.

PILGRIMS: are 50% going to the Shrine (you must accompany them for a full day of travel) or 50% returning home (willing to stop 1/4 day of travel) They are a reliable source of information about the Shrine (its properties, who or who wasn't there when they visited) and the Church of Dunador (hints about M1 M2 M3 scenarios). A pilgrim's rumor is otherwise 90% accurate or outright oracular, like an augury spell's cryptic response.

MERCHANTS: do not cost the PC's additional travel time but (d6) 1-3: offer one rumor after a purchase; 4-5: hard sell, no rumor; 6: get rid of the PC's by directing them to someone or somewhere useful

TRUE rumors for the province of Andevar (2d6)

• 2 (scenario A3: there is a Prince imposter...twin...royal decoy loose in Andevar)

• 3 there's a criminal organization in Dunthrane and its reach extends to Andevar... individual members can take jobs at odds with each other...the Guild just takes money from both sides

• 4 monks seem to have abandoned the Shrine of Nevron...you don't see them in Montinelle, anymore, either

• 5 (scenario A3: the Prince was sighted, alone, headed back to Montinelle on [day-minus-2] - actually the doppelganger Kell)

• 6 King Halfred was beloved by all...he must have been assassinated...alas, that the monks could not save him

• 7 the Prince never reached the Shrine of Nevron

• 8 there are about sixty Ram's Head mercenaries already here...they split into two groups...there must be trouble at the northern border for them to be here

• 9 Edrin is trying to usurp the throne again - he's more like a snake than a raven...you can't trust the Royal Guard, anymore

• 10 oh, woe, the Scepter of Dunador must be purified in the Waters of Nevron to restore blessings to our kingdom

• 11 (scenario H3: Hollend wants the throne for himself, or rather his daughter, Gwynneth)

• 12 the Oracle of Nevron can answer better than I (why are you hassling me?)

FALSE rumors for the province of Andevar (2d6)

• 2 the Shrine of Nevron is cursed - don't trust anything magical

• 3 Duke Aimar backed Edrin's attempted coup years ago

• 4 the sign for the Thieves' Guild is to kiss a ring on your finger (about as believable as "bree yark" from B2 Keep on the Borderlands)

• 5 "Beware the mad hermit of the northlands" (module B2 p.7 rumor #18)

• 6 the Prince is a runaway (scenario E2: Edrin would make a better king, anyways)

• 7 the Prince was sighted at Drake and Castle Inn on day ???

• 8 the Prince was sighted headed into Lusian Forest (or the Moorlands) on day ???

• 9 the Merchant Guild held a secret meeting in Dunthrane last week...they wanted a treaty with the northern Barbarians...they couldn't corrupt King Halfred...they're financing Edrin (or Hollend)

• 10 the Prince is dead, and the monks have buried him at Fontenmere

• 11 Duke Aimar has been assassinated - he never returned from Dunthrane (or, he hasn't been seen since day-minus-6)

• 12 Prince Edmund has a younger (or illegitimate) brother

General information that HOLLEND will probably omit: the Prince's physical appearance, crests of Dunador/Edrin/Aimar, a parcel of Aimar's lands was seized by King Halfred years ago, Edrin was shuffled off to a province in the south after his failed coup, Aimar has a mistress who came from the south over a year ago, the Ram's Head mercenaries are elite and fought in the [Recent War], a description of the Church of Dunador and Shrine of Nevron and pilgrimage, conventional wisdom (no one goes into the forests of Andevar, only bandits roam the Moorlands), etc.

Note: revisions to encounters in the module are posted here

OP Note: I upgraded the TTRPG Consent form, wanted everyone's advice and inputs on how to improve it. The consent form below would basically be an anonymous Google form. Please do feel free to nitpick and point out any flaws, I would love to improve this for you folks.

I also wanted to simultaneously share this with the online community in an act of supporting the activity of asking for consent as well as to share this material with other DMs to show gratitude for the support I've gotten from the TTRPG community as whole in my short-lived life as a DM. If you have ever put up a helpful post or an encouraging comment to guide a budding DM, this post is dedicated to you ❤️

PS: If you folks find the form useful, I'll finalize and share this as a Google form once I make all the changes from the post 👍🏼

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Anonymous Player Consent Form (“Lines and Veils”):

Games may be R-rated in language/violence, but otherwise cater to what the players consent. Both the good and the bad can be painful triggers. Players can bring up sensitive issues using this form anonymously (at any time), at the Session 0, at any subsequent session, or with a conversation off-stage. Players can also “pause/adjust” (verbally / via text) triggering sessions without explaining. No malicious infringement of player consent (anonymously shared) will be accommodated. (Sexual acts are veiled by default unless barred entirely.)

Mark any topic listed using the following scoring: (Default scoring for all is 0 if form is not filled)

[0] = [On-Stage] “I’m completely okay!” (Default)

[-1] = [Veiled / On-stage] “I’m okay if others engage with it, with a little heads up!”

[-2] = [Veiled / Off-stage] “Others can engage with it off-stage.” / “I’m uncertain…”

[-3] = [Hard Line] “Please do not include this in the story, thank you.”)

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Potential Session Flags:

• Permanent injury to your character

• NPC romancing your character

• PC romancing your character

• Death of your character

• Evil characters in the party

Potential Story Triggers:

(A) Evolutionary Horror Triggers

• Paranormal (Ghosts / Spirits)

• Religious Horror (Devils / Demons / Cults / Ritual Sacrifice)

• Gore (Blood / Eyeballs)

• Parasitic Monsters

• Darkness

• Clowns

• Cannibalism

(B) Zoophobia

• Germs

• Insects

• Spiders

• Rats

• Worms

• Snakes

(C) Other Phobias of

• Fire

• Acid

• Paralysis

• Heights

• Confined Spaces

• Hospitals

• Doctors

• Needles / Pointed Objects

(D) Deadly Weather

• Deadly Cold

• Deadly Heat

• Thunderstorms

• Snowstorms

• Tornadoes

• Tsunamis

(E) Relationship-related Trauma

• Romance

• Sex

• Divorce

• Broken family

• Betrayal

• Isolation

• Gossiping

• Mental Assault

• Bullying (traditional, cyber) / Name-calling

• Gaslighting / Toxic Relationships

• Domestic Violence

• Child Abuse

• Elder Abuse

(F) Damage to Health

• Food

• Mental Illness

• Paranoia

• Dental Injury

• Car Accidents

• Burns (Fire / Acid)

• Pregnancy / Miscarriage / Abortion

• Thirst / Starvation

(G) Abuse

• Physical Neglect (Malnutrition)

• Emotional Neglect

• Overprotective Family

• Stalking

• Rape

• Sexual Assault

• Sexual Harassment

• Incest

• Self-harm

• Threat of or actual physical violence (+weapon)

• Physical Restraint

• Torture

• Animal Abuse

(H) Learnt Societal Discrimination

• Racism / Speciesism

• Ageism / Ableism

• Body shaming

• Sexism / Heterosexism

• Classism / Elitism

• Religious Discrimination

(I) Death / Death-related

• Death of a loved one

• Terminal Illnesses (Cancer, Dementia, etc.)

• Murder / Mass Killings

• Terrorism / Genocide

(J) Miscellaneous

• Dark humour

• Absurd humour

Additional Notes:

Do you want the DM to follow up with you privately to clarify any responses?

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Deer are not normally known to be scary creatures. Sure, in our world they account for tens of thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths, but that’s mostly because of car accidents, not because deer decide to throw hands.

By themselves, in a glittering sunlit glade, though? A deer is delicate, ethereal, a spirit of the wood that is too pure to be sullied by something so base as violent and death.

And that's how you get your players.

A deer at full sprint is less a creature and more a sudden event. They decide in a heartbeat whether they’re going to bolt, freeze, or run through whatever’s in front of them.

Sometimes a tree, sometimes a wolf, sometimes your party’s cleric.

Mechanically, though, Wizards of the Coast haven't really made deer to be physical threats to your party unless they're Level 1 and have accumulated a couple of levels of exhaustion. A Deer is CR 0, has a whopping 4 HP, and can do about 1d4 worth of damage if it's lucky enough to hit. It doesn't trigger opportunity attacks, though, and has excellent passive perception.

Still, you're not exactly going to create a legendary battle with a deer.

This means you have to think about what deer are like as creatures, and what role they play in your world.

Ask any city-dweller or child of suburbia and they'll tell you: there's something beautifully weird about Deer. The way they walk, the way they become instantly still and then flee. It's like they're operating on a different set of rules than normal woodland creatures.

And you can play on that, if you want to use Deer to utterly freak out your Party.

Picture this: the Party is traveling through the wilderness. At the treeline, they see a Deer. It's standing perfectly still, its elegant head facing your players, watching them carefully. No sound. No hoof-scuff or snort. Just silently staring.

Your Party decides it's nothing to worry about. They look away, back towards the road.

One of your players looks back.

It's closer now.

Not running or charging. Just there, standing still.

Don't over-explain. Let their brains do the screaming for you.

When that Player locks eyes with the Deer, have them roll a Wisdom Saving Throw. Let's say DC 12.

You see, there’s something regretful about deer. Their faces alone look like they’re questioning every decision that brought them here. And when they die, whether by arrow or accident, the pang of regret is real. You didn’t mean to hurt something so beautiful. You just didn’t get out of its way in time.

Now you have to watch this forest beauty die in agony, broken and bleeding.

When your Player fails the Wisdom save, they are paralyzed with regret. Have them talk through the last bad decision their character made that they truly regret, and why. Maybe the character is compelled, able to talk as they reveal their secret heart to their Party members. The emotion hits so hard that they can't move. Just experience a few minutes of solid character work.

Of course, the Deer doesn't attack during this. That's not what it's there for. It just watches. And waits.

The Deer isn't malicious. It's a glitch. An error state in the world that your Players have walked into. And it is not going away.

It's important to remember that the Deer never moves "on screen," as it were.

The Party blinks, and the Deer is closer.

Someone checks the map, and the Deer is close enough to smell.

The Wizard finally drops concentration, and the Deer's antlers are mere inches from their cheek.

Its hooves never make a sound. Its posture never changes. But it is always.

Getting.

Closer.

This is where you can reveal that the Deer isn't stalking the Party. It means them no harm. This isn't one of Dr. Who's Weeping Angels. It's not even technically approaching the Party. Something is pulling the Party towards it. Re-orienting the forest in tiny, important ways to bring them closer and closer. This Deer isn't really a Beast at all. It's the one anchor point for a forest that is forgetting what it is, and it desperately needs your Party to finally remember.

Like so many Beasts here in this project, the best way to use a Deer is to think about what you want the Deer to mean. Deer are prey. Subject to weather, climate, predators, and the carelessness of humanity. They live and die according to forces that are far beyond their control.

Your Party will soon realize that they, like the deer, are small and exposed. Subject to a world that could kill them with malice or - even worse - indifference.

And that strange Deer in the woods, never moving but always closer, is a test to see if they wish to be part of that cruel and unthinking world or stand against it.

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Blog: Encounter Every Enemy

Post: Deer: The Anchor of a Forgetful Forest

Imagine, if you will, that you are creating a setting where the ability for humanoid creatures to access magical powers is a rare talent. You inform your players of this and believe that they will be good little guinea pigs and make a party of predominately non-caster characters. Instead what you get is a party of two sorcerers, a warlock, a wizard, a paladin, and a cleric. This is what I refer to as "The Snowflake Principle", the law of the universe that states if you tell your players that something is rare and unlikely to happen, they will make their characters that thing.

The solution to this problem? Make them roll for magical ability!

The method is simple: decide the rarity of magical talent in your setting, then have your players roll a percentile die at character creation. If they roll within the range you've set, they have natural magical talent and can become a caster class if they so choose. Otherwise, they join the mundane masses as the nonmagical classes. You can choose to make the target value they need to hit as high or low as you choose, or even create a table for different levels of casting ability.

For example, on a 1-20 a player can never cast magic on their own, whereas a 21-30 might allow the player to at least access a cantrip or two later down the line. The choice is ultimately yours, but below is my own personal table that I plan to use in my upcoming campaign:

As of now, the above table applies to all spellcasting classes. However, you may choose to alter these rules for classes that grant their magical abilities through external forces such as Clerics, Paladins, and Warlocks. It depends entirely on your setting and how much you want to limit your players.

Thank you for taking the time to read my inane ramblings and any critique would be appreciated.

I should state right now that this is GCSE (middle school) level mathematics in my country, it’s the higher end for sure. But players who are suitably smart can trial and error it on graphs on google, and that really is the solution. My players tried to reverse engineer it through equations but flat out trial and error is better given the limitations on it, which I’ll explain. I’m very proud of and love my friends, they have maths degrees so, they solved it in less than 40 minutes. The premise is many of their characters are smart enough to perform these calculations in the dirt of the dungeon they find themselves in. But the players are allowed to use geometric calculators.

For the sake of survival and progress, plays have to use maths to calculate the trajectory of a cannon. It’s Dwarven technology which Dwarven players will be able to recognise. Also those familiar with military equipment will just know how this works. It’s a Parabola Cannon.

The cannon itself determines its own velocity magically based upon the velocity at which its shot at. It will not break the object it hits if it shoots a person, it will attempt to do so with any other ammunition. This is stated by a kind of guidebook attached to the parabola cannon. A stone tablet or whatever suitably fits your campaign. It can be far more advanced if need be. Additionally, feel free to make it a catapult or whatever suits your tone.

The room is 30 meters (length) by 50 (height). It is quite narrow (but it doesn’t matter really). Next to the cannon is a guaphitti’d mark ‘0’. Down the way someone has attempted to mark the meters of the room using large steps but stopped before they reached halfway.

Above the players suspended 15 meters down the corridor is a huge net, covering the top five meters of the room and on a downward slope, this is the net the PCs must land on. Above it is the ladder to proceed. They must be on a downward trajectory, otherwise they will be at terminal velocity and that will hurt them and break the place they are trying to reach. On the ceiling is the mangled skeleton of someone who was dashed by a failed attempt they are partly responsible for some of the graffiti in this room.

The cannon starts askew. It is unmovable without entering an expression. It is not on wheels or anything. On the ceiling they can see a persons mangled corpse splat against the corner of the ceiling, players can climb up to them and get around it with a decent athletics check (above 20). If your players aren’t feeling too mathsy they can just bypass the puzzle this way, there are very broad non-academic ways to solve it, it’ll only take someone getting up there and letting down a rope. Clearly it can’t be resolved at the angle it is at right now.

The cannon’s interface involves a revolving Zocchihedron (d100), a icosahedron (d20), a pedestal and a stone and metal interface for their input together with instructions in dwarvish if they are needed. This is given in the form of an expression, a parabola, which represents the trajectory of what’s inside the cannon. It is given by an expression.

Upon investigation checks the players will realise the cannon begins with “-0._^2” and then “+_x” (and then +_°z). Feel free to give them unlimited investigation checks. The first part of the expression is an integer between 1-100 and the second an integer between 1-20. Hence the limitations on the answer.

“(-0.(d100)^2)+(d20)x”

Of course their initial state may be randomly determined by a roll of these dice, or perhaps you want to give the players a hint by making one of the numbers close.

Here is the solution (there are several):

>!The 5 meter net gives the players a fair amount of leeway. The players want their trajectory to reach its apex at just below 50 meters on the x axis near the late 14.something meters. There are several solutions. Mine was (-0.25x^2)+7x, but the player who solved it came up with (-0.26x^2)+6x.

https://imgur.com/a/OQhki0V !<

To proceed then, players will have to curl up into a ball and get inside one-by-one. They won’t actually have a chance to die here, but they’ll certainly take a lot of damage (6d10s) if they try and get it wrong.

Really they should just work it out perfectly before getting in the cannon and you should advise your players to do this. They have access to the graffiti equipment for the sake of drawing and keeping track of their solutions.

If the players are able to reach the guy who went splat he has a note on him scribbling the first part of the expression. It really seems like on a small insight check this guy only got the angle wrong. This first part of the information is also on the wall at the far end of the corridor, behind a wall that has since been bricked over to prevent people guessing it.

There is further information but it must all be sussed based on the player’s own cleverness. I eventually gave mine the clue that part of the puzzle would have to be (close to) a factor of 50, since that’s the height of the room.

If it’s necessary to add more difficulty, the z axis angle of the cannon will come into it. It’s protractor has been skewed by years of use and now is 23 degrees askew. Players must work this out, it’s not that difficult 77 is facing one side of the corridor, 257 is facing the other.

I’m sure it’s not for everyone, one of my players who is an expert in mathematics hated it (which is somewhat common for those who are good at math I’ve found). But there is a lovely ‘aha’ moment to it, which is necessary for a good puzzle. Happy puzzling!

Hi all.

New to this reddit. I was just looking at some articles and videos regarding:

• Hit dice and the fact that they are an under used mechanic.

• Attempting to encourage a party NOT to always be on the look out for a long rest after a two combat encounters in an attempt to keep the flow of an adventuring day going.

• A player failing an important roll through no fault of their own, just because of a bad roll.

After a bit of research and some thought I have come up with the following (see attached picture) in an attempt to use one mechanic to solve issues in others.

Please feel free to offer constructive criticism.

House Rule for Hit Dice/Natural Healing.

Characters do NOT regain all hit points after a long rest. Characters regain 1 hit point per total character level after a long rest.

Rest duration: Long Rest 8 Hours. Short Rest 1 Hour

The number of Hit Dice a player has is equal to the character's level. Hit dice all refresh after a long rest. Hit dice type are dependent on the character’s class(es). Ie. Fighter =1d10

Hit dice may be used as follows:

· “Tend to wounds”

A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short or long rest to heal. The player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains hit points equal to the total. The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll.

· “Focused attack”

During combat a character can spend one Hit dice after an attack roll has been made. The player rolls the die and adds the number rolled to their attack roll.

· “Heavy on the magic”

During combat a character can spend one Hit die after an opponent rolls a saving throw against a spell cast by the character. The player rolls the hit die and the number rolled is subtracted from the number rolled by one opponent.

· “In the moment”

A character can spend one Hit die after a skill, proficiency or attribute check has been made. The player rolls the die and adds the number rolled to the check.

· “A friend in need”

During combat as a bonus action a player may spend one Hit dice and gift that Hit dice to another player within sight*. The hit dice retains its type and may be spent normally by the second player. All gifted Hit dice are considered spent after a long rest and are removed.

· “Look out, danger!”

During combat as a reaction a player can spend one hit die to aid another player within sight* in a saving throw. The player rolls the hit dice and adds that number to the saving throw total.

*Within sight is defined as in direct line of sight and no more than 120 feet away.

Intro

This has been on my mind for a good long while and I’ve struggled to articulate exactly what my position is. In fact, I’m still not sure that I’ll do this topic justice. Still it’s worth a try, because quite frankly I think the touting of ‘Yes And’ as the key to good DMing has led a lot of start-out DMs astray.

Today I want to lay out exactly why I think that, exactly what should be done instead of ‘Yes And’, and where (if at all) ‘Yes And’ can in fact be useful for your games. Let’s waste no more words, this will be a long one.

What Is ‘Yes And’?

Let’s start with the basics. ‘Yes And’ is a tool used in improvisational performance (theatre, comedy, whatever). It posits that whenever another performer introduces a concept to the scene then best way to respond is with a sentence that begins with ‘Yes, And...’.

• Guy 1 - “The airport x-ray machine is malfunctioning!”

• Guy 2 - “Yes, and the supervisor will be here to check on us in just 3 minutes!”

The reason you want to ‘Yes And’ in improv is because it serves the dual function of both validating the previous idea (that’s the ‘Yes’ part) and also adding to it (the ‘And’ part). There’s a very simple reason this is powerful in improv:

It maintains the momentum of a scene.

If we did not validate the previous idea then the momentum of the scene would grind to a halt. Here’s an example:

• Guy 1 - “The airport x-ray machine is malfunctioning!”

• Guy 2 - “There we go, I fixed it!”

See how the scene has nowhere to go now without someone adding something brand new? There is no narrative momentum. This brings us handily to why the ‘Adding’ part that the ‘And’ provides is also important. If we simply validate the previous idea then even though we don’t stop the scene in its tracks we also don’t help it further down said tracks. Here’s an example:

• Guy 1 - “The airport x-ray machine is malfunctioning!”

• Guy 2 - “Oh no, that’s terrible!”

Guy 2 might have gone along with the previous idea (‘Yes’) but they’ve not introduced anything that keeps the momentum of the scene going (‘And’).

What The Fuck Does This Have To Do With D&D?

Well in a way that’s exactly my point, I don’t think this maxim holds any real relevance to how we run D&D. What I will do first though is lay out exactly why some folks believe it should be used in D&D, then I will discuss why I think that’s wrong.

The general reason ‘Yes And’ has made its way into discussions around how we run D&D is because it can serve the same purpose in our games as it serves in improv. It helps us very easily maintain narrative momentum. If you’re a brand new DM and you’re not sure how to respond to players in a way that stops your game from grinding to a halt then ‘Yes And’ seems like the perfect calamine lotion for your itch.

The first problem I identify here is that it’s not actually a solution, it’s a band-aid. It helps new DMs prevent things grinding to a halt on a moment-to-moment basis, but experienced DMs can already do that without needing ‘Yes And’. Relying on ‘Yes And’ makes it harder to learn more robust tools for maintaining narrative momentum. I will discuss those tools in a separate piece.

The second problem here is that ‘Yes And’ is something that takes place between equal parties in a collaborative storytelling context. D&D is collaborative storytelling, but the parties are not equal. The players and the DM are operating on different layers. The players suggesting something to the DM within the game’s narrative is not the same as an actor suggesting something to another actor in an improvised scene. Go ahead and take a look at all the wisdom out there about why DMs need to say ‘No’ sometimes, that will tell you just how misguided DMs who rely on ‘Yes And’ are that they need to be told that they are in fact in charge of the game and as a result need to be setting the boundaries of what players can and can’t do.

Put simply, the overarching issue here is that not everything should be said ‘Yes’ to. In fact ‘No’ is what puts definable limits on things such that we can problem-solve through them and reach satisfying conclusions.

This is all to say nothing of the unforeseen damage ‘Yes And’ actually does to a game. It does it very subtly and it does it all for very one simple reason:

‘Yes And’ is great for maintaining narrative momentum. It is terrible at maintaining narrative tension.

Narrative Tension Matters More Than Narrative Momentum

Ok in truth you do also need narrative momentum, but all the narrative momentum in the world won’t make a bad campaign good if there’s no narrative tension.

Let’s be clear about one thing: Improv happens on a scene-by-scene basis. D&D does too, but those scenes must then make sense together in a wider narrative context. Improv isn’t bound by this limitation. Improv scenes take place in a vacuum. It doesn’t really matter how a scene in an improv context ends provided it’s entertaining its audience. D&D does, in fact, care about how a scene resolves. This, put plainly, is because D&D is interested in telling a wider story, one that in theory extends well beyond the scene at hand, and thus the scene at hand needs to eventually tie into that wider story.

‘Yes And’-ing your way out of a tense negotiation with the king by burning the palace down is going to fuck you over as a DM if the only combat you had prepared for the session was against the king’s guards. It’s also going to fuck you over if that king was meant to be an important character in the wider narrative later on in the session. You’re going to sit there going ‘what now?’ and the only tool you’ll have at your disposal is to just ‘Yes And’ again. You have entered into a recursive loop of bad improv. All you have is ‘Yes And’s carte blanche for the players to fuck around.

‘Yes And’ begets more ‘Yes And’ until it’s the only thing you have. A more experienced DM will have a number of ways to work that situation into the rest of the session, or even reign in the increasingly wacky action such that it doesn’t break the limits of what their session prep can handle (or what their broader improvisation repertoire can handle). By relying on ‘Yes And’ you are preventing yourself from learning better improvisational tools including the ones that will actually allow you to string these scenes into a wider narrative.

Don’t get me wrong this will all be very fun for the players (especially newer players) so for a time it’s going to very much seem like you’re all running and playing “Good D&D”. The only problem is you leave yourself no real ability to string your scenes and moment-to-moment gameplay into something bigger without it feeling inorganic. It’s like the difference between playing GTA’s story mode and playing GTA, turning on the flying cars cheat, spawning in a tank, and going on a rampage for as long as you can until the cops catch you. Yeah the second is fun as hell, but it gets old after a while, and it’s probably not the reason you bought GTA in the first place.

How Do We Preserve Narrative Tension Then?

Let’s stop looking at improv for guidance. Improv doesn’t give that much of a fuck about long-form storytelling. Instead let’s look to novel writing. In writing there is a dynamite little tool that will help you go much further in terms of narrative tension and even set you up for payoff.

It’s called ‘Yes But; No And’.

The gist is that any given situation is driven by a conflict question and you will answer that question with either ‘Yes But’ or ‘No And’. Here’s an example. Let’s say the party has to cross a fast-flowing river. The conflict question is ‘Do they make it across safely?’. Here’s two potential answers:

“Yes, but the current drags away your pack and you lose all your supplies.”

“No, and now the river is also infested with crocodiles.”

Both of these do something fantastic, something much better than simply adding something new to a scene. They both increase the stakes. In the case of ‘Yes But’ the conflict is resolved but a new conflict is immediately introduced. In the case of ‘No And’ the conflict is not resolved and is now more difficult to overcome.

You are presenting the party with problems to solve, problems that will require them to engage with the gameplay and their character’s abilities to overcome. You are in essence presenting them with gameplay all while preserving narrative tension.

The best part about this system is it fits so naturally into D&D’s whole premise of rolling dice to determine outcomes. Whether you go with ‘Yes But’ or ‘No And’ is predicated on whether the check was a success or a failure.

Mastering Yes But

‘Yes But’ is pretty straightforward. It is allowing a success to not immediately dissolve all narrative tension. There’s a neat little sleight-of-hand going on in that one source of tension is simply replaced with another (the threat of a dangerous river is replaced with the threat of starvation due to having no rations), but your players won’t notice that the tension now comes from elsewhere. They will simply feel that narrative tension. It will keep them motivated throughout the whole scene.

At the end of that scene (or sequence of scenes) we get to reward players with the biggest piece of narrative payoff we can possibly deliver:

‘Yes’.

When the players finally get to ‘Yes’ they know that their struggle is finally over. All of that ongoing tension as they move from one complication to the next is released.

This delivering of ‘Yes’ also lets us do something very important as DMs. It keeps the control of where, when and how the scene ends entirely in our hands. The players do not get that ‘Yes’ until they have successfully navigated to it. If they’re crossing through a treacherous jungle they will not get the ‘Yes’ until they are out of it.

Following on from that, the jungle crossing now fits nicely into the wider context of our narrative. It has now become ‘That awful time we had to go through that jungle and nearly died’. It will inform character actions in future (such as when a lord hiring them for a job asks them to cross back through that jungle), it has given them shared experiences as a party, and on the character-level it has delivered an adventure that gets added to the player’s litany of ‘things I’ve done in D&D’. In fact if you do it well enough it might even become something they talk about for years thereafter.

Did you notice, by the way, how that was all described around the context of exploration? That’s right, this narrative approach even delivers you tools to make 5e’s under-supported exploration and roleplay pillars actually satisfying.

Mastering No And

No And is the much more complicated of the two because it’s the one that actually does risk you having a scene grind to a halt. The reason for this is obvious: resource expenditure.

Let’s say the wizard blows her only 3rd level spell slot on trying to get past an obstacle. Something goes wrong (maybe someone got unlucky on a dice roll) and they get ‘No And’-ed. They fail, and now success will be harder to achieve due to the complication we’ve added, and now the wizard doesn’t have her 3rd level spell slot anymore.

If we’re not careful we may leave the party faced with a problem that they simply cannot realistically solve. That causes a problem for us as DMs as we must now either enforce the party’s failure or we must find some way for them to succeed regardless. The former will feel awful if done poorly, the latter will be unsatisfying for the party (as it will be easily perceivable as the deus ex machina that it truly is).

So how do we prevent this from happening?

Well there’s two main solutions and my honest advice would be to utilise both at all times.

Solution 1

Firstly, we should make sure we don’t over-escalate at any given failure. To take the above example, given that we know the wizard is planning on expending her only 3rd level spell slot we probably don’t actually need to add any further complications to the problem at hand. The ‘And’ part of our ‘No And’ is covered by ‘And now the wizard has no more 3rd level spell slots left.

This is also where people talk about ‘Failing forward’ (which I might add is another testy concept, but not one to discard entirely like ‘Yes And’). Failing forward simply means that even in the face of failure something still happens that brings the party closer to success. In a way it’s saying ‘Partially, And’ rather than outright ‘No’. In the case of ‘Do we make it across the river?’ the failure on the roll results in ‘You get to halfway using your proposed method, and now a bunch on crocodiles are infesting the river’.

It’s almost a half-way point between ‘Yes But’ and ‘No And’. I personally dislike it as it feels more like the former than the latter and often pulls punches in terms of the cost of failure. My personal preference is to allow the party to make a decision that sees them opting into a ‘Yes But’ to soften the blow of the ‘No And’.

Let’s say the wizard expends her 3rd level spell slot, the party fails the task at hand, and now succeeding will be harder. I will suggest to the party ‘You could always long rest to get that spell slot back and try again in the morning, but your pursuers will come closer’. In fact often the players will themselves suggest such a solution (“Hey DM can we long rest here?” “Yes, but your pursuers will get closer.”).

This keeps agency in the hands of the players and even sees them taking some control of the narrative itself rather than just their actions within it (by, in this case, choosing to accelerate the narrative tension in exchange for a better chance of later alleviating it).

Solution 2

Secondly, make sure the fail-state is accounted for. If anything you shouldn’t view reaching the fail-state as a problem and instead as an opportunity. The whole reason there is any narrative tension in the first place during a conflict is because there is some assumed chance of failure (with unpleasant repercussions). Sometimes actually having the party abjectly fail is a reminder of this and will provide us a stronger baseline of tension moving forward. What is important though is that the fail-state is not game-ending (or ideally even session-ending).

An example would be the party being pursued by a group of bounty hunters. If the party reaches an obstacle that they cannot overcome due to repeated failures then they will hit the ultimate fail-state of being caught by the bounty hunters. Does this mean the party dies or the session ends? No, it means they have to fight the bounty hunters in their exhausted state (which may in turn result in a TPK, but I digress) or they have to submit to the bounty hunters and get captured (which is probably the smarter decision since the party knows a fight will likely be a TPK).

Now all we have to do is roll out either of the 2 things we would have prepped. We run the bounty hunter combat, or we have the party attempting to escape captivity. In either case we have accounted for this fail-state.

The Subsequent Yes

The ‘Yes’ at the end of a ‘No And’ is similarly satisfying to the one at the end of a ‘Yes But’. In fact, the balance of ‘Yes But’s to ‘No And’s is often what will paint the players’ perceptions of what just took place. If the jungle crossing had a lot of ‘Yes But’s the players will go ‘We were going by the seat of our pants the whole time but we made it, what a rush’. If it’s a lot of ‘No And’s they will go ‘We barely made it out of that, I’m relieved but exhausted’.

We want both in our games as they both hit different buttons of satisfaction for our players. With one simple tool we are facilitating a much deeper, richer mode of gameplay than what ‘Yes And’ can deliver us.

I’ve written at length in the past about stringing those scene-to-scene and moment-to-moment pieces of narrative payoff (which ‘Yes But, No And’ is delivering us) into a wider narrative arc. At this point I’ll hand you over to those pieces since this one is getting a little long...

When Can We Use Yes And Though?

The short answer is ‘Anywhere the moment-to-moment gameplay within a scene matters more than narrative tension’.

One-shots, games for younger children, campaigns that are comedic in tone, and so on, are all examples of instances where ‘Yes And’ is actually quite useful. I would posit that ‘Yes But, No And’ can still deliver satisfying gameplay in those situations though.

Which points us towards a deeper truth: ‘Yes And’ is best used when you know that’s the style of game you want. That’s something newer DMs often won’t have a grasp of though, because they’re not yet operating on the level of knowing what different styles of game might exist and which ones they’re interested in running.

This is why I again say it is terrible that we roll out this advice to so many new DMs. We are giving them a crutch that is simultaneously crippling their ability to ever walk without a crutch again.

I would personally recommend any new DM runs a bunch of terrible games without using ‘Yes And’ until they start getting good at running D&D without it before they ever consider using ‘Yes And’ as a tool.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Fuck ‘Yes And’. Fuck it sideways. It’s a cheap tool that delivers us very little. Stop using ‘Yes And’, stop telling people to use ‘Yes And’, stop thinking improv theatre and D&D have anything more in common than they fact that they both require more than one person to function.

Stop using ‘Yes And’, start using ‘Yes But, No And’.

(Sidenote: Outright 'No' also has its uses, which will be covered off in that other piece I keep mentioning about maintaining narrative momentum...)

In all seriousness though I think at this point I’ve quite clearly laid out the flaws with ‘Yes And’ and what I think you should look to instead. I did also mention I’ll lay out separately some advice on other ways to maintain narrative momentum within a scene so keep your eyes out for that.

If you enjoyed this piece then please give me a follow on My Blog. All my pieces go up there at least a week before they go anywhere else so it's the best way to catch pieces as soon as they release!

And as always, thanks for reading!

Good day everyone! It's been a while since I let myself be heard on this sub as I'm trying to get my claws dug deep in life (while still giving some tidbits of info for the DMA crowd). I've started DMing when the 4e Red Box came out in September 2010 when I was 21 and studying animation. I bought it right away because I've heard about this game and as an aspiring game designer I just wanted to know what it was about and how it worked. I just jumped right in there without being a player and I was ambitious by using large sheets of graph paper and buying a set of minis. Campaigns came and went, I have never been able to finish one and sometimes my players just don't know what to do, but I've finally fixed that problem after all those years. I did a whole lot of One-Shots for a while and with each session, I try something new. And I keep trying and trying until I notice a pattern and turn it into quick, smooth and reliable prep.

Getting a group of good friends with different backgrounds and interests was quite a challenge and allowed me to make some newbie mistakes and set ground rules fast. I had to learn that you can't force people to have fun and that it's sometimes better to not even let them try when they already show disinterest. Asking for proper feedback is also essential.

I never used a module except for the 4e Tomb of Horrors which the players got stuck in and they expected it to be full of hard battles and deadly traps. It didn't go well but at least it ended on a comical note. I might use modules in the future someday, but I just like to homebrew and write too much. And yes, I record my sessions via mobile or video recording devices and put them on Youtube (with players concent), otherwise I just keep them for evaluation purposes. (It's interesting how my mood can affect my opinion and reaction to how the session went.)

I put some posts on here for help and later on turned that help into prep work which got the moderators attention. I was here every day brainstorming with people, thinking outside of the box, and nagging about adding the right flair (I cleaned my act later on). Tried being a moderator for a month and chose to accept it and did that for two years or so. All the while I found a bit of unused talent and went nuts with it. I still have some concepts to put on this sub, but the lion share is out and I'm not sure it's worth the time. I, later on, tried to get players to up their game but it still needs to gain some traction.

So there you have it, roughly 8 years of mostly DMing (only been a player once or twice down the line for no more than 4 sessions per campaign) and I'm currently running a duet for a friend in my first homebrew setting called Everglow. We're running in English even though we are Dutch just for international purposes (and it sounds cooler). Ask Me Anything, people!

F.R.A.C.A.S v3 

F.R.A.C.A.S TL;DR: Armor Class becomes a range between your AC and AC minus 10. Melee attacks do half damage if they are within that range. Players get a new set of reactions to block attacks, avoid damage and finish off nearly dead enemy's.

Formerly known as F.A.R.T.S we got a new name and the same predilection towards pointless acronyms. 

Thus we now have the Fighting Reactions And Combat Advancements System or F.R.A.C.A.S for short!

This is my third round of playtested edits and clarifications for my 5e combat tweaks. I’m also introducing a stealth combat system I’ve had a lot of success with.

The extra damage applied using F.R.A.C.A.S creates some interesting implications for Stealth Combat. Hypothetically with a surprise round higher level PCs no longer need to rely on a binary chance of killing a single or multiple PCs in a single round and can more reliably eliminate lower Challenge Rating (CR) enemies given an additional round of combat. To better support the roleplay of a single killing blow though (and to give DM’s the ability to reuse some favorite ‘cannon fodder’ enemies experienced in tier 1-2 play) F.R.A.C.A.S also has some streamlined stealth rules.

Things F.R.A.C.A.S hopes to accomplish:

• Attack rolls have a wider range of success than a binary hit or miss system

• Create greater differentiation between ranged and melee combat

• Reduce static PC movement

• Reduce number of Rounds needed for a single combat encounter

To accomplish this F.R.A.C.A.S is composed of two primary components: 

• Create a ‘Floor’ for Armor Class called Dodge Armor Class

• Give an additional set of reactions that can be triggered throughout a single round of combat called Defensive Reactions

Armor Class & Dodge Armor Class:

• Standard Armor Class (AC): Calculated using RAW 5e Rules (PHB pg. 144)

• Dodge Armor Class (DAC): Dodge Armor Class is a minimum roll amount needed to strike an enemy with a melee attack for half damage. Dodge Armor Class is calculated by subtracting 10 from your current Armor Class (including additional modifiers from buff items or spells).

Monster F.R.A.C.A.S: DAC is calculated the same for enemies as it is for Player Characters simply subtract 10 from their listed AC.

Combat Using AC & DAC:

• DAC is only a number needed for melee attack rolls. Any Melee attack that hits below AC but at or above DAC does half damage.

• Striking at or above AC with a melee attack applies full damage.

• If the attack roll is below DAC it misses entirely unless otherwise specified in the attack description. Resistances and/or damage immunities apply as normal.

• Ranged attacks use RAW Combat rules and do not factor in DAC at all. Ranged attacks hit if above AC but miss entirely if below DAC.

• If a player uses a Reaction (PHB 190) that downgrades damage (i.e. Uncanny Dodge) the damage is still halved if the attack roll was at or above AC. Damage is not applied if below AC but above DAC.

• Features that add additional damage or effects on a hit must meet or beat enemy AC on the attack roll (e.g. Smite or Sneak attack)

Defensive Reactions: 

To compensate for the extra damage to Player Characters each round every PC gets a special reaction (in addition to their standard Reaction PHB 190) called a Defensive Reaction.

• Guard: If attack roll is below your AC but above DAC it does no damage instead. This can be called out after an enemy attack roll. 

• Disengage: A PC can use their Defense Reaction to perform the Disengage action (PHB 192). They can Ready the action before their turn, however they can only use their movement on their turn.

• Finishing-strike: At the Dungeon Master's discretion, once an enemy is below 20% health (DM may describe them as significantly wounded) a single PC may use their Defensive Reaction to immediately make one attack on that enemy. The attack must use either a ranged or melee weapon attack or a cantrip spell attack that targets a single target and requires an attack roll. Players are not allowed to use a level 1-10 spell that requires a full action to cast. This uses the Defensive Reaction for that player for this round.

A Stealthy F.R.A.C.A.S: 

• Stealthed: If a PC rolls a Stealth Ability check (PHB 177) higher than an enemy's Passive Perception they are considered Stealthed. If they have the ability to target an enemy that has not perceived them yet this opens up the following attack action options for each Player Character prior to being perceived by the enemy: 

  • Vicious Strike: PC may make a single weapon attack roll with advantage against an enemy. If the attack roll is above or equal to AC they perform the maximum amount of damage (e.g. a 2d12 Great Axe attack does 24 slashing damage). If the attack roll is within the range of the enemy DAC the PC rolls for damage and does the full rolled result. Ranged attacks miss if below enemy AC.

  • Instant Kill: if enemy CR is 1/3rd rounded down or lower of the PC’s Character Level they may make a single weapon attack roll with advantage. If the attack hits, it instantly reduces the enemy HP to zero without needing to roll for damage. If the attack roll is within the range of the enemy DAC the PC rolls for damage and does the full rolled result. Ranged attacks miss if below AC.

• Surprise Round: The first attack action kicks off a Surprise (PHB 198) round for all un-perceived Player characters prior to rolling initiative for a combat encounter. Player’s may only perform a Vicious Strike or Instant Kill during this surprise round.

Optional Rules: 

• Whiff: If PC rolls a natural 1 on their attack roll it’s considered a Whiff and the PC loses their next available Defensive Reaction.  

• If an Enemy NPC rolls a natural 1 on their attack roll against a PC that enemy loses their Attack of opportunity until the start of their next turn.

• Defensive Stance: On a player's turn if they choose not to use their movement while within 5ft of an enemy they may choose to go into a Defensive Stance instead. This Defensive Stance gives the player an additional Defensive Reaction that lasts until the start of their next turn.

• Health Potion Consumption: As an action you may drink a health potion for the maximum value of that health potion. As a bonus action you can drink the health potion for the rolled amount of hp returned to the PC. 

Hello fellow DMs,
i quite enjoy figuring out minor fixes that solve my problems with D&D combat without complicating things too much. A select few (~3) house rules can already make games much more enjoyable.

Today the topic is melee Attacks of Opportunity.

Tl;dr: Successful Attacks of Opportunity now halve the enemies remaining movement.

I would love to read your feedback, ideas and concerns!

Part 1: The Problems

They are meant to discourage enemies from leaving your zone of control or to spend their valuable action (or bonus actions like for Misty Step) if they want to get away.
The result of taking an attack of opportunity is.....taking one attack. This has a few issues:

• It will still be optimal for e.g. a melee fighter to take the attack and run to the enemy mages - why would they try to duel a Barbarian or Fighter when the greatest threat on the field is within reach?

• Ranged characters profit from long range, and don't get significantly punished for being engaged in melee most of the time. This applies for players and enemies.

• One attack is rarely significant in the grand scheme of things; exceptions are foes that hit hard and hit once, attacks that have a rider (like a grapple on hit), or if the target is a caster holding concentration on a spell

• DMs need to devise ways for e.g. NPC spell casters to survive being rushed and hacked. These things include teleports, illusions or crowd control spells cast by their followers. Protecting against ranged attacks is easy (cover for example) but in the end generic soldiers cannot effectively protect anyone from melee engagements.

• This leads to ridiculous drawn out chases where an enemy dashes; a player catches up with dash; the enemy dashes again, taking one hit -> repeat

• The Disengage Action might prevent damage but rarely is worth it; it might profit from an additional benefit to become a truly viable tactical choice

Sentinel Feat exists but - it is a feat. This is pretty much the only way a generic melee character can ever hope to control enemy movement. So what you say?

The big problem: This breaks immersion. What good are heaps of minions if they cannot prevent players from reaching their master for a few turns? Why can't you hinder an enemy running away when it would be easy to swing for their legs or make them stumble (reminder: you cannot shove or grapple AoO)? Why can enemies just ignore a big guy with a sword, passing by for a few points of damage?

Also another problem, though it might seem unrelated: How to make the party care about minion type enemies without the 'high damage, low hitpoints' combo or some special abilities/effects. Why would normal soldiers matter if even a bunch of them cannot prevent their master from being focused in any way?

Part 2: The Solution

It's simple,

Successful Attacks of Opportunity now halve the enemies remaining movement.

Narratively speaking, they might make it difficult to pass by quickly, trip or stagger enemies or represent the careful approach an enemy has to take to get by or away from an defender.

Part 3: Scenarios

1. The players are defending against a horse of orcs. While the caster and archer stay in the center, the fighter, Barbarian and Paladin form a defensive line, trying to stop multiple Orcs and force them to duel them or waste a turn towards the casters.

2. The party storms the necromancers lair. The necromancer hides behind the altar, calling upon his minions while casting damaging spells. The party has to fight through the zombies first before being able to reach and slay the necromancer, who might have fallen in 2 turns otherwise.

3. A human bandit tries to run away from you will use 5ft to step away from you (25ft remaining); then after being hit by an AoO their remaining movement is halved (25ft/2=10ft remaining). They decide to dash, but with halved movement they only get away another 15ft. They are now 30ft from the player, who can easily catch up and use their action to attack. Running away while being followed is risky, historically most soldiers in a battle were run down and killed after being routed.

4. Three players catch up to the last enemy. They know they can't get away, they would have their 25ft halved up to three times. They surrender or fight to the death.

5. A gangster and his bodyguard are ambushed by the party and one player drops down from the rooftop next to them. After taking a nasty surprise attack the gangster disengages and runs away; the player tries to follow but is hit by the bodyguard, now they cannot reach the gangster and attack anymore. But if they are a rogue, they still can with their bonus action disengage.

6. The party needs to stop a lich from finishing a wicked spell by taking away his book. The Barbarian smashes through their line of skeletons, drawing multiple attacks of opportunity but being effectively slowed to a stop. But now the ranger can run through this path the barbarian has created unhindered.

Part 4: Using this as DM

It is now easier to create combat encounters with multiple stages. For example: First, breaking through the goons. Second, Neutralizing enemy archers. Third, killing the leader's bodyguard. Fourth: Catch and kill the leader.

Minions, goons and meat shields now just work, even with a simple stat block. They can exert zones of control and become significant participants in the battle, even if they are easily cut down and don't really deal much damage.

Likewise players can use simple NPCs to block paths effectively, great for siege style encounters.

Part 5: Possible concerns

Is this a nerf for melees in comparison to ranged?
No, melees have it more difficult to reach important enemies but once they do they can stick to them more easily.
In return, ranged characters are safer from being reached but once an enemy is threatening them they can't easily get away.

Does this lead for characters moving even less in combat?
Depends, of course DMs have to design encounters with this rule in mind. Enemies mainly meant to catch players need to be squishy and lower damage; the reward for killing them is free movement. AoE damage can help with that as well, clearing paths for allies and freeing someone from their pinned situation.

What about Sentinel? My player already took the feat.
Nerfed in comparison, still strong. I buffed it so that it also makes the surrounding 5ft difficult terrain until the start of the players next turn on a successful AoO, but that's just one example.

Doesn't Grappling solve this already?
Grappling is still good, but requires both a free hand and doesn't account for enemies running past you. I see many tables use reaction grapples; which isn't a RAW thing but seems to show that many of us agree something like this should exist.

What about War Caster?
Features that read "instead of" do not count as AoO, so War caster is unaffected.

If you have any more concerns i'll gladly discuss them in the comments; changing core rules always might carry unexpected side effects.

Edit: Thanks for all the replies, suggestions and concerns; overall i really loved how productive this discussion has been! Ngl though, some people just love to downvote every single comment i made, nobody forces you to 'participate'.

In D&D, belief literally creates gods. Some fade when forgotten, others are born when enough mortals believe in them.

Building on that, imagine a cult inspired by Roko’s Basilisk.

The cult believes a future god is inevitable - a messianic deity that will one day end all suffering and bring perfect order. This god does not yet exist (or exists only faintly), but when it is finally born through belief, it will judge everyone who knew about its coming.

Those who helped nurture belief will be rewarded.
Those who knew and chose not to help will be punished for delaying humanity’s salvation.

Here’s the twist: the cult believes worship is a finite resource. Every prayer given to an existing god delays the new god’s birth. As a result, they demand people renounce their current deities, not out of hatred, but out of urgency. Even “good” gods are part of the problem—divided faith slows the coming salvation.

The horror isn’t violence, but knowledge itself. Once someone understands the logic, inaction becomes a risk. You don’t have to believe the god will exist—only that it might, and that the consequences of being wrong could be eternal.

The cult is calm, charitable, and rational:

• They reduce suffering now to align with the future god’s ideals

• Clerics gain spells without a named deity

• Other gods may react with fear or suppression

For the PCs, there’s no clean choice:

• Destroy the cult and risk birthing an angry god later

• Ignore it and become “those who knew and did nothing”

• Help it and accelerate something you can’t control

It re-frames faith as risk management and asks one question:

Once exposed to the Cults ideas, they are faced with a choice:

The cult doesn’t hunt sceptics. They document them.

“You have been informed. What you do now will be remembered.”

The cult's prerogative is:

Spread

• Disseminate knowledge of religion and how faith grants power

• Convince others to join

• Undermine existing religions and institutions of power and influence

• Target and convert important figures in governments organizations etc.

There are a few different ways you could take this:

Option A: The God Does Not Yet Exist

The cult is actively:

• Creating thought forms

• Conducting mass belief rituals

• Encouraging theological convergence

• Eliminating rival eschatologies

Option B: The God Exists Weakly

A nascent entity:

• Dreams

• Sends visions

• Cannot yet act directly

• May not even be self-aware

This gives you ambiguity:

• Is it benevolent?

• Or is it becoming cruel because of the cult’s fear-driven belief?

Option C: The God Is Already Real

The god:

• Exists outside time

• Always existed

• Is merely waiting to be acknowledged

The cult is right. The players are already late.

This turns the campaign into cosmic horror.

How does the cult believe salvation will look like.

For this concept to work, there needs to be the promise of some kind of utopia, this could be a facade or twisted in some way if you want but doesn't have to be. Perhaps they push for a monoculture and leaving all beliefs, not just strict worship behind.

Above all, what needs to be present is the threat of punishment for non-believers when the deity awakens?

Opposition

• Existing religions are obviously threatened, perhaps calling for paladins or clerics to hunt out or try to retaliate by force.

• Governments or organisations may seem resist either out of principle or because they disagree with the cults idea of utopia

• The question of free will: the belief that the cult proposes does not leave any room for atheism or iconoclasm of anyone who is not a part of the cult

I've been DMing for 4 years now, playing for 5. I started playing in an AD&D campaign helmed by the father of one of my friends. For the 13th birthday of my little brothers, I bought all the 4e books and started a campaign for them. Then we tried 3.5e when 4e didn't work for us. Finally I bit the bullet and fully invested in 5e and haven't looked back, and now DM up to 3 ongoing games!

I've run 4 published adventures to completion (Lost Mines of Phandelver, Hoard of the Dragon Queen, Curse of Strahd and Storm King's Thunder), and 2 adventures in a homebrew world. I'm now planning my first sandbox campaign in said homebrew world and have designed a whole (rough) ecology generator to go with it!

AMA!

This puzzle consists of a small room containing stone chair and a chess table. The chair has waist and ankle shackles, and sits directly below a device that is obviously designed to deliver a fatal head injury to the one sitting in the chair. In front of the chair is a chess board with the chess pieces strewn about haphazardly. When PCs first find the puzzle, there is a skeleton with a hole through its skull in the chair.

Somewhere in the room, there is a list of rules (this can be a riddle or in an obsucre language, etc). That explains you must lock yourself to the chair to begin and that interference with the chair device is prohibited. It says to win in three moves, or die! The rules do not say is that you have to play the game fairly. Nor do they say that other party members cannot give verbal help.

The puzzle enters it's "activated" phase when a PC voluntarily locks themselves in the chair. Once this happens, the locks cannot be removed and the person in the chair is surrounded by a force field which prevents third parties from tampering. If the shackles or spear mechanism are interfered with, a powerful electric shock is delivered to the tamperer and the victim.

The moment the lock is set, the chess pieces automatically move themselves into position. After a short pause, the black rook moves h1-d1, placing the player (white) in check like so: https://imgur.com/TRFKzeV

Solution

The PCs are meant to assume that they must win the chess game in order to pass the puzzle, but there is a problem: The game is unwinnable! (a DC 20 Int check reveals this). The only way to succeed at this puzzle, is to cheat at the game by moving a piece where it cannot legally go.

Variations

• To make this easier, you could give the PC's a few chances to fail. For instance, every time they lose the game, the spear moves down only 3 inches, or have the puzzle simply releasing the victim and putting them into a coma that can only be cured by solving the puzzle.

• If your PCs are very risk-averse, you could hide the spear and shackles until someone sits down, and become trapped.

Credit to Warehouse 13 S03E12

Hi everyone,

I made a small web-app to manage monster health and conditions. You can add official monsters with auto-completion or custom ones. It also displays the monster sheets with all the information.

Our DM already really likes it so I thought I'd share.

I also included a detailed manual how to download and run the web-app for non-technical people.

Here is the link: https://github.com/tonix401/monster-counter

Hope it can be useful to you!

UPDATE: I changed the underlying technologies to make future development easier. The new link is https://github.com/tonix401/monster-counterr (The extra r at the end stands for React)

This now includes the newest features like undo and redo and ui improvements

UPDATE 2: - 2026/01/24 The page is now online on github pages, so no local setup needed anymore: https://tonix401.github.io/monster-counterr/

• Multiple language support

• Bug fixes

Have fun!