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Let's say you sit down to play D&D, and the DM has introduced a house rule... There are no mechanical differences between the species. Whether you choose to play an Elf, a Human, or a Tortle, you gain no mechanical benefits. (Let's ignore flying races for right now and say this DM has come up...

Way back in 3rd Edition, my group and I played for a while misinterpreting the Flanking rules. I forget exactly how it went, but we thought that being Flanked meant you lost your Dex bonus to AC. It made flanking extremely advantageous. Eventually we realized Flanking just gave a +2 to attacks...

I'm running a new campaign for brand new players, and last night the Barbarian showed some boredom with using the same weapon over and over again. She started to switch to her rapier, her daggers, etc. And of course, the only effect of this was that she did less damage. Now to be perfectly...

I've been playing a lot of Ironsworn, and one thing I like about it is that "failed" rolls make the world more interesting. For example, if you fail a Gather Information roll, you do learn information... just information that makes your quest more difficult! Let's say you're asking around the...

I'm thinking of trying out something strange as a DM regarding Passive Perception. As it is, I use Passive Perception in two ways: 1) When a character enters a setting, they perceived everything their Passive Perception would allow: hidden creatures, treasures, etc. Usually for secret doors...

As a DM I've never been a stickler for encumbrance or inventory management; I've never found that players actually enjoy it. However, I was fiddling around with an idea and I'd love some feedback on it! Here is a link to the Google Doc I created. The basic idea is that each character has a...

Note: This thread is an offshoot of one I started here, a thread which focused on preparing for Session 0 for my new campaign. In this thread, I want to focus more on the setting the players made, and start brainstorming ideas for it. Last week I had a fantastic Session 0 with four...

I'm considering changing some cantrips before I start my new campaign. I'd like to combine Guidance and Resistance into a single spell: Divine Inspiration Divination Cantrip Casting Time: 10 minutes Range: 100 ft Components: V, S Duration: Instantaneous You perform a divine prayer...

Well I've finally done it. After moving to Atlanta 18 months ago, I've finally found some folks who want to play D&D! I am very excited and wanted to post some initial thoughts here. I'll also be posting some house rules I'm considering. The players are all brand new to TTRPGs. Two of the...

Group pets are really fun. I'm not talking about official familiars or beast master companions, but the stray dog adopted by the party, or the faerie dragon following you for spare magic items. Once I ran a game in which some grateful goblins gave the characters a gobdog, a green-furred mix of...

I'm going to be starting a new campaign with players who are new to D&D (and table top roleplaying games in general), and after a few introductory one-shots, they are interested in building up a custom campaign world with me! This is something I love to do, and I've always wanted a group that...

Well, I have successfully convinced some coworkers to start a D&D campaign! We've done a few introductory one-shot adventures, and now everyone is chomping at the bit to start a longer campaign. I introduced the idea of creating a campaign map together, choosing monsters they might fight...

I was really inspired by one of the links in the 100 Cool D&D Links thread by @M.T. Black called Pointcrawling Character Creation It's worth a read! The short version of it is that you can replace character creation with a short pointcrawl. The players decide where they traveled on the...

This weekend I'm running a D&D game for some coworkers who have never played D&D! I'm very excited. I have a lot of experience in teaching new players, and I thought I would collect some of my thoughts here: The Characters I'm going to pregenerate six or so characters, except for race. I'll...

We are entering the twilight years of original 5e. It's made me reflect on what it was like at the beginning, the excitement of trying out these new classes, finding interesting combinations, recognizing great or poor designs... Over time more options have been added, and older options have...

I've been thinking a lot lately about how different everyone's experiences with D&D are. I feel like in the same thread we have folks who enjoy dungeons, who only use dungeons, who never use dungeons... Folks who play fighters as magic-powered beings and folks who play fighters as purely...

Hey all! About a million years ago I ran just one or two little sessions using Dogs in the Vineyard, and the experience really stuck with me. If you haven't heard of the game, in it you roam around pre-state Utah, helping folks and fighting the influence of demons. You have a position of...

I came up with an idea for a house rule I wanted to throw out there. I'm terrible at giving out Inspiration as a DM. I just don't think about it often, and when I do it sometimes feels like favoritism! So I'm always looking for ways to offload that responsibility. In the past I've just done...

I'm a big fan of D&D, but I've got to admit the magic system leaves me wanting. Even though I usually play spellcasters, I find the spells to be overall a little too regimented and boring. I've played some FATE and a small smattering of PBtA games, and though the magic systems are different...

I'm reading a really fascinating book (for me, at least) on the brain and culture, and this book argues that "culture" doesn't have just one definition- there are, in fact, three levels of culture. The first level is Surface Culture. This is the culture that we present to others: dress...