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  1. TheSword

    D&D General Roasting the Realms

    Guy, Ryan, Pedro and Matt stop reading now. The forgotten Realms are great. They have history, high magic, fantastical locations and great organizations. I love DMing in the Realms. However it is fair to say it comes under some criticism. Chief of which is the presence of all Ed Greenwood’s...
  2. TheSword

    D&D General Adventurers a distasteful necessity

    One of the things I like about the gritty, grimdark world of the Witcher is how the local people fear and dislike Witchers. It keeps them on the road, keeps them moving and provides a reason for them to stay adventurers instead of settling down with the fortune they acquired in that trolls...
  3. TheSword

    D&D General Mechanics of starting a combat & ending a combat

    I’ve been teaching myself the rules for Imperium Maladictum a 40k RPG and one mechanic in the game I found quite interesting and worth sharing - Superiority and Resolve. It got me thinking about whether this would work in D&D and wouldn’t encourage the kind of player behaviors I like to see in...
  4. TheSword

    Dark Heresy gets the Owlcat Treatment

    https://darkheresy.owlcat.games/?fbclid=IwdGRleAPBTR9leHRuA2FlbQEwAGFkaWQBqzA0nKKu5nNydGMGYXBwX2lkCjY2Mjg1NjgzNzkAAR7M0zVtlEbNmYYq34LRopuB6frNQ0wjk73Qk1NwAZGFR5EkQur004YDNrySKA_aem_PKL2Uy50kxBS2OL6XHKVXw&utm_campaign=120240366688080054&utm_content=Hero_become%2520founder%2520%E2%80%94%2520%D0%9A%...
  5. TheSword

    Monsters alongside humanity

    As part of my ongoing re-read of the Witcher series (finished the first book and onto the number two) I was struck by how much I liked the weaving of monstrous creatures with ordinary people. Very few monster stories stood on their own… there was always a curse, human failing or attempt to use...
  6. TheSword

    How do you like to start a campaign

    I recently re-read Blood of Elves from the Witcher series and was struck by how it started. A dozen travelers sharing a campfire on the roadside for security, warmth and company. Sharing stories of what was going on in the land. Various tensions and themes that were going to crop up in the book...
  7. TheSword

    First foray into paid DMing - 16 session in.

    Hey. So as some will know back in August I took my first steps into paid DMing. It wasn’t something I did lightly but I’ve been DMing for 30+ years, have a theatrical character and believe that if you’re good at something you shouldn’t do it for free. I thought a side hustle might not be a bad...
  8. TheSword

    D&D General Converting Bg3 to Tabletop

    So this thread may have come up already. I haven’t noticed if it did and I didn’t spot it on Google. There is something unique about Bg3 that is very different to other CRPGs. They normally account for the fact that a single player can point and click through combat very quickly so there are...
  9. TheSword

    D&D 5E (2024) Diseases no longer curable with lesser restoration

    So interesting spin off from my medicine thread. Magical diseases, despite very much being a thing in the game are no longer curable with lesser restoration. Only greater restoration will cure the exhaustion which most of the seem to key off, which makes curing diseases much harder than before...
  10. TheSword

    D&D 5E (2024) Improving Medicine - one of the least loved skills.

    My previous thread D&D 5E (2024) - Rank 5e skills from most useful (1) to least useful (18) generated a some discussion and a bit of disagreement but one thing that was almost unanimous was the feeling that Medicine and Performance were the two least used/useful skills in D&D 5E (2024). I find...
  11. TheSword

    D&D 5E (2024) Foundry Support

    Hey folks. I’m going to run my next D&D campaign on Foundry instead of Roll20 after many happy sessions running WFRP on foundry in the last 3 years. I can see that all the 2024 onwards content has been released as premium modules including Keep on the Borderlands. Which surprises me given how...
  12. TheSword

    D&D 5E (2024) Rank 5e skills from most useful (1) to least useful (18)

    10 years on with a new edition update how would you rank the 5e skills 1-18 from most useful to least useful in a typical campaign. Let’s assume it’s running levels 1-10. Don’t worry about individual classes it’s less about what your character has and more what the party has access to. I’ve left...
  13. TheSword

    Pathfinder 1E I’ve Forgotten How to Play Pathfinder

    So I decided this weekend to give the Kingmaker CRPG another go. I had previously finished the game but that was before the dungeon add on was a thing. I’d love to have a group strong enough to tackle that. I reckon I had pretty good system mastery. I must have put hundreds of hours into that...
  14. TheSword

    D&D General Reasons I Love the Dalelands as a Campaign Location

    With 5.5e Adventures in the Forgotten Realms set to release in just a few months, I was thrilled to learn that the Dalelands will be one of the five featured regions. It feels like coming full circle—one of the first D&D products I ever bought was the AD&D Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and...
  15. TheSword

    Approaching writing adventures for home games?

    Hey folks so I’ve been thinking a lot about adventure writing. It’s not something I do a lot of. I tend to just adapt stuff that has already been published. But if I did want to come up with my own adventures how do people approach it?
  16. TheSword

    Really good structure for Factions (system agnostic)

    So all @pemerton ’s talk of ‘Best Interests’ and using them to provide alternative spurs to story than maps and events, reminded me of the Faction write ups in Dungeons of Drakkenheim sand box adventure. I’ve seen similar attempts to do this in other products like Lords of Darkness (The...
  17. TheSword

    D&D 5E (2024) Representing afflictions in D&D 5e - which do you think work best/least dislike.

    Back in 3e and Pathfinder 1 the many varied afflictions: poisons, diseases, curses, life draining, aging etc were generally handled though ability score damage either temporary or permanent. Purple worm poison will reduce your Constitution score, filth fever reduces your Dex and so on. 5e has...
  18. TheSword

    D&D 5E (2024) Tomb of Annihilation: likes and Dislikes

    So Foundry has released Tomb of Annihilation as a module for D&D a couple of weeks back and I am seriously considering running the campaign again online. I love Foundry and the tools it gives me as a DM. I ran it Face to Face when it first came out and felt it was definitely a cracking...
  19. TheSword

    What’s going on at Gen Con this year?

    Last year we had the first physical copies of the 2024 PHB. This year appears to be silent. What’s going on folks at GenCon? Any announcements? Any surprises? Here’s hoping it’s so good and engrossing that no-one who is there has time to tell us about it!
  20. TheSword

    Can Rincewind be a viable TTRPG character - He can in WFRP 4e!

    I've just re-read the original Discworld books - Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic - two classics of fantasy literature that I first read as a teen. I don't think I appreciated it at the time but Rincewind is probably the bravest character I have seen in fantasy. Not because he is...
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