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Finally got a chance to read/watch a bit about the 2024 Monster Manual fey video. I’ll start by saying something positive – Jeremy Crawford & Wesley Schneider’s enthusiasm for the new MM really shines through the talk, and I’m appreciative of the obvious passion they’ve poured into the book. The...

I want to share my "bounded complexity" principles to making monsters for 5th edition / 5e-adjacent games, not because I think it's a perfect 1:1 translation for your gaming, but because there might be bits that you can adopt or that might inspire your own creations. What this is not: I'm...

Need help making a monster for your D&D game? Concepts, stat blocks, philosophy, resources, review and critique? This is the thread for you! Suggested etiquette: Put any stat blocks behind SPOILERS (click the triple dots above, then the eye with a slash through it). And, in the words of Bill &...

You are probably accustomed to the typical D&D random encounters approach - day by day, checking, rolling, playing it out, etc. These encounters can serve to build suspense, foreshadow things at the destination, expend resources, dispense clues/treasures relevant to the destination, or simply...

Since the monster changes we saw about a year ago, I've noticed that Legendary Reactions (i.e. 3 reactions per round) pose a specific additional vulnerability to monsters more so than Legendary Actions. Monsters with Legendary Actions are especially susceptible to being being Incapacitated –...

EDIT: For a meatier example, I started tackling the Ancient Green Dragon on page 5 of this thread. On the left is the 2024 5e skeleton, marked up with my notes, and on the right is the stat block as I've rewritten it, reducing the size by at least one-third...and hopefully making it easier to...

I'm curious about ENWorlders who are currently not interested in purchasing 2024 D&D, and your reasons for that. We previously had a poll with 172 respondents (as of today, 8-11-2024) which revealed that about half of the survey-responding ENWorlders plan to purchase 2024 D&D (48.2%), about...

I'm interested in adapting a 2d6 skill system to my OSR games. Many OSR games eschew skills completely or limit them to specific classes. I'm not interested in rules-ifying "I roll to bribe the guard" or "I roll perception", but there are situations when a skill check would be valuable. 2d6...

I was curious if in any of the RPGs you've played you came across great or interesting approaches to Tracking scenes, like the scene where Aragorn tracks the goblins/orcs and Merry & Pippin in LotR: The Two Towers. I'm looking for something deeper or more engaging for the group than"one player...

I've developed an interest in what have been dubbed "old school baroque" RPGs (article about it from the Traverse Fantasy blog) - basically idiosyncratic takes on D&D that tend to be rules light but procedure heavy. "The focus is on abstracting the minutiae of the game in order to focus on...

For me, one of the least satisfying areas of modern D&D and adjacent games are the treatment of Social skills, Lore skills, and Perception-type skills using the same mechanics as other action-oriented skills. I've found these approaches can open a door to lazy player habits that might not...

I dusted off my old Witching Grounds setting – I ran 2-and-a-half D&D campaigns with it, wrote a short story for it, and have a bunch of messy notes – and finally decided to decouple it from the modern D&D rules that I'd been trying to mash it into like a round peg into a square hole. The...

I'll be running a 1e one-shot for some friends who've never played the edition before, and I'm trying to reacquaint myself with rules I haven't used in a long time. What does "having the initiative" mean? The context is the Acrobat-Thief's Evasion ability which reads: Is this describing a...

I thought this was interesting in light of Chris Cocks' recent comments about AI on Dicebreaker and VentureBeat, and WotC's Generative AI Art FAQ. I certainly am no expert, and recognize there are valuable ways to use AI, but the sections about "intelligent generation of text dialog, audio, art...

I've been hacking the fighter class for a...uh...a while, and have a rough draft I'm starting to playtest. I welcome specific feedback on my take – but, knowing that can feel a bit tedious – I also invite general thoughts about goals/reasons for hacking the fighter, criticisms, or your own...

Next campaign, I'd like to run something high level (9th-16th maybe) both for narrative reasons and because I want to learn how to GM high-level play better. Seems like a timely moment (what with Vecna) to ask: What are your best tips for starting a campaign at higher levels? No limits on the...

I have finally coalesced my ideas on character complexity for my next campaign into a madcap chart. I look forward to your scathing retorts, sharing how another game does this better, telling me to wait until 2024OneDND5.5ButNot5.5AndAlso2025It'sTheSameGame, and suggesting I attend RPG...

I know that they're interwoven into 5th edition, but I'd like to do away with bonus actions – or significantly reduce their restrictions – to allow for more creative play & intermixing of class features, spells, feats, etc. I have a rough draft house rule I'm considering, and was wondering if...

I found one hole (well at least one) in my 5e house rules, and that is I'd like to offer dual-classing as an option in some way. Brief context: Dual-classing comes from AD&D iirc, in which you would be able to switch back and forth between two classes as you leveled, with some limitations on...

I've come to believe that treating skills as operating in the same way with the same rules is not the best design because it creates a mismatch between the mechanics and actual flow at the table. This is a strong belief and my question is coming from this premise. If you prefer to question the...