Recent content by mestewart3

Hey folks, I often find myself starting new 1st level campaigns for new players and groups. I'm not a big fan of running the same thing over and over again so I try to create as much variety as possible. I thought I would make a thread where we could share ideas for interesting 1st level...

Goseph's Observatory: Adventure for 4-5 level 1 PC's Expected to run for 1-2 sessions. Locked Door which casts Confusion on the party when they meddle with it. Rug of Smothering (it won't kill the party only knock them out and roll them out the door). Endless Staircase trap with an astral...

Sorry, my tone there was dickish. The problem I have with your examples is they seem less like compromises based on an understanding of what the player wants and more like rationals to sweep player desires under the rug.

Wow, both of those rationals are terrible. How does a Goliath with a lizard pet in any way resemble Dragonborn flavor (proud charismatic warrior race with a long and storied history). And 20 years is more than enough time to start pioneering a field of research. If I got either of these...

Ah good old straw man. I have seen very few people argue against a DM running a game where he crafts his own world with its own set of rules about theme/tone/character archetypes. What people do argue against is the DM who always runs the exact same world (often tolkienesque in nature)...

Sorry Lanefan I disagree. How you want to play your character doesn't give you the right to be a dick. Playing a character that disrupts the game and tears down the efforts the rest of the table are making to create a story is never alright in m book. I don't know whether or not you do this...

I despise this sort of thing. "Oh sure, you can play it but I will F with you relentlessly so long as you do. Why? You ask. Because I have arbitrarially decided that the race is super rare and people don't know anything about them." It is almost worse than an outright ban. Why on earth would...

Good for you, changing things up for a campaign world can make them way more interesting. But please leave my lovely proud-warrior-race guys out of it. I love me some Dragonborn. But I still have to ask, why are your personal opinions on the races in general so much more important than the...

Sorry ad_hoc but you seem to be having a different conversation than the rest of us. The stance that seems most common is that banning races is only okay if it serves the narrative needs of a specific world or story you intend to play. If you are banning content because you personally dislike...

"He just doesn't like it" is not the same thing as "Stronger narrative themes". I have run a few games where the options are limited to Dragonborn (the Drakoides in my setting, fun bit of ancient Greek wordplay), Tiefling, Humans, and Elves. I do this because I have created a specific world...

I really don't like the separation of core and optional races. I agree with Ezikial. Such a separation stifles creativity. Do we really want to play the same world with the same 4 races filling the same 4 archetypes forever?

I do ban races if I have a strong theme I am going for (that I have discussed with my players before starting the game). One of my favorite homebrew settings is a Mediterranean game with (Greek) dragonborn, (Persian & Egyptian) tiefling, distant and scary (Roman) elves, and (sea people) humans.

I have a few rules for trap design that I like to use. 1) Clues: I always make sure that there are hints that a trap is present in my ordinary checkless description of a location. This doesn't mean I just tell players there is a trap of course. I try to have just as many red herrings and...

I disagree, choosing +5 to attack can be every bit as much a role playing choice as +5 to chatting it up with Dwarves. Your character trains obsessively, every moment of every day is dedicated to mastering their chosen weapon. The character throws themselves into fights with powerful...

Pro: backgrounds and inspiration lend some mechanical weight to RP. Cons: rocket tag and certain classes lacking fundamental features at levels 1 & 2 male those levels a botcj to play