Some curated Soundcloud links for low key fantasy music

https://soundcloud.com/duskembassy/sets/desolate-ruins

https://soundcloud.com/duskembassy/sets/d-d-points-of-light

https://soundcloud.com/duskembassy/sets/d-d-hex-crawl

https://soundcloud.com/duskembassy/sets/d-d-astral-sea

https://soundcloud.com/duskembassy/sets/d-d-sacred-ground

https://soundcloud.com/duskembassy/sets/d-d-tenth-district-stories

Actions in D&D 5E explained

*"5E" is short hand for 5th edition.  The published name of the game is just Dungeons and Dragons, but the press and fans call the last few editions 3.5, 4E, and 5E.  This is useful when looking up rules explanations on Google.


The action economy in 5e is actually pretty streamlined compared to the previous two editions, but it's still complex to explain to someone who has never done this before.  When you tell people they can't do something because of the rules, it slows stuff down and it feels against the spirit of what the game is about.  As a game master, I want to encourage people to do things intuitively and err on the side of having fun.

The interesting part is that we started playing before the rules were published, and the playtest rules for 5E encouraged "the rule of cool" over a strict system.  The issue of course is that we eventually found a few ways to "cheat" the rules.  Later on when the game launched, the RAW (rules as written) for 5E indicates that most if not all of these minor cheats were addressed by specific rules, or allowed as actions if you purchased a Feat. However, they are scattered about the PHB (Player's Handbook). I'm going to try to collate the basics here and examples of the "cheats", because this gives you an idea of how to carry forward the mentality when playing the game and wondering if there's something you can or can't do.

In the end, always ask, as a DM I might let you get away with it because it's a cool idea.

Rounds/Turns

A Round is a 6 second bracket of time in which all characters (allies and foes) can take a set of actions.  When you do something, that's your Turn.

Free Actions
You can take one free action on your turn.  You can do it at any point as part of your Move or Action.  Taking more than one free action is possible, but then game says you should use your Action. Examples of a free action.

• Draw one weapon 
• Fish out a potion bottle
• Drink a beer (but not a potion*) 
• Drop to the ground 
• Hand something to another player
• Pick up something from the ground. 

You can drop any item in your hand or talk for free, these aren't counted against your Free Action, and I generally let people talk longer than 6 seconds.

Action/Move 

On your turn, you can choose to Move up your movement speed and take an Action.  You are free break up your move, taking your Action in the middle of the the move.

Examples of an Action:

• Cast a Spell 
• Use your Attack Action (note, some classes get more than one attack as their action)  
• Drink a Potion/Use a Magic Item
• Disengage (if you move away from a foe, they get a free attack on you, unless you do this)
• Use a Skill Check*
• Ready an Action*
• Improvise! 

More examples of are listed here: https://crobi.github.io/dnd5e-quickref/preview/quickref.html

*Note that Skill Checks are generally an action, but I allow for the difference between a passive Skill check (like remembering that trolls don't like fire) versus an active one (trying to convince the troll not to attack you).  Performing an Athletic action can generally be rolled into the Move action, this allows you do to cool things like swing from chandeliers without wasting an attack.

Bonus Actions: 

Bonus actions are taken on your turn and you can mix them up with your move and action as well. They are usually constrained to a feature of a class, spell or feat.  The big exception is that anyone can attack with a weapon in your off hand as your bonus action. This is a way to get a second attack in without relying on a class feature.

Some example of bonus actions.

• Bardic Inspiration is a bonus action
• The Wizard Spell "Misty Step" can be cast as a bonus action 
• The Cleric Spell "Spiritual Weapon" can be cast as a bonus action 
• The Rogue Ability "Cunning Action" is a bonus action (and lets you do a bunch of things that are usually constrained to Actions)
• The Fighter ability "Second Wind" is a bonus action 
• A Druid of the Moon can Wild Shape as a bonus action (but not any other druid)  

Reactions 

Every character has one potential reaction to spend a round.  Reactions can happen anytime during the turn, in response to something else happening (usually to you!).  Like bonus actions, they are usually constrained to a feature of a class, spell, feat.  There are two big exceptions:

Attack of Opportunity:  If you're engaged with a foe and they move 5' away from you, you can spend your reaction to attack them as they run away.

Readied Actions:  As an action, you set up a trigger condition. (I'll run over and attack the first person who comes through the door in the north wall).  If that trigger condition happens, you interrupt the ongoing action and take your full action right then.  This doesn't reset your initiative count.  If the trigger doesn't happen, you don't spend your reaction.
Reactions reset at the start of your characters turn, not at the start of round.

Other examples of a Reaction

• The Fighter "Protection" ability lets you use your shield to interfere with an attack on an ally
• The Wizard apell "Shield" creates a +5 AC bonus in response to a hit
• The Bardic ability "Cutting Words"  lets you roll your inspiration die to minus out an attack 
• The Rogue ability "Uncanny Dodge" lets you half the damage in response to a hit you can see
• The Feat "Defensive Duelist"  is like the spell "Shield" but you use your proficiency bonus for the AC boost 

Errata 

Stuff implied or specifically covered by the weird bits in the rules

Armor requires a "donning or doffing" (There is actually a fucking chart for this called Donning and Doffing Armor, pg. 146 PHB)  and takes a not insignificant amount of time to do so.  The relevant bit is that Shields take an action to "Don" or "Doff" so switching out from Shield and melee to a two handed ranged weapon, or shield to two handed weapon, is a significant.

This fucks with casters that don't use holy symbols.  If you are a shield/weapon spell caster, (bard, eldritch knight, druid) you have a problem, since you need a component pouch or a spell focus to cast most of your spells.  This means you'd get stuck putting away your sword and then drawing out a holy symbol in the same turn, as an action.  We were straight ignoring this until we saw the War Caster Feat, which specifically calls out this constraint by giving you the ability to ignore it. So keep that in mind (or start your turn with your main hand free and draw a weapon only when needed).  

If you fight with two weapons, you can't draw both weapons in a turn for free.  There's actually a Feat called Dual Weapon fighting that lets you draw both weapons at once.

Drinking a potion takes an action, which puts it in direct contradiction to the "drink a beer" free action.  But it's consistent with "use an item".

Taking things out of a Bag of Holding takes an action. (which makes sense)


That's all I've got, I think I covered most of the crazy, let me know if you have feedback.

Illusionism as a game master tool

http://hackslashmaster.blogspot.com/2013/09/on-theory-defined-what-is-illusionism.html

This relates to:

"Flexible Progression: This technique is when you present options to the player and if they do not pick the option you need, you simply continue with an alternate result. You activate the event or choice you want to occur when they do finally make the selection you desire. "
So one of my groups had an overland journey through several different areas.  I created a short random encounter list with "seeds" of ideas (not fully fleshed out).  (I redacted information that could be relevant later) 


The core thing with monster/npc encounters is motivation/mood - I didn't put anything for the desert giants or defilers since I assumed they were hostile.   For the frost giants I did decide they were cautious up front. Sometimes I will decide in the moment what their position is, once you "become" that character it usually feels pretty natural.


Random encounter (Desert)

1. Desert Giants
2. Accursed Defilers
3. Orc Rebels fighting against the drow (ettin leader)
4. An orc camp that’s been set on fire (loot, bodies of orcs and drow)
5. A old, evil  tree -  knows of (Redacted)
6. A dwarven shrine (necromantic energy - possessed by spirits (mallaqui)

Random encounters (Drow Occupied Orc Fortress)

1. (Redacted) researchers are enslaved, ask for help
2. Drunken orcs in furs are arguing over moonshine, want an opinion on the flavor
3. An orc slave escaped from the experiment pits, has a slaad in him  (drow want him back)
4. Myconids being escorted (they’re going to be sold as slaves) - one know a secret
5. Shrine maiden carrying (Redacted) to a shrine of lloth
6. Couple traders, stuck in lowfort, hoping they can travel soon - gambling.  

Random Encounter  (mountains)

• Frost Giants - wandering raiding party - cautious
• Ravenous Rhemorazzes (fight through crevaces
• An Pillar, shaped like a Cabiri, that's oracular and will answer three questions
• A destroyed ley line place.. Leaky magic - wild magic effect.
• A ruin - Mallaqui, trying to summon (redacted) (good terrain, stop the ritual)
• Tracks leading to old, broken dam - armored warrior body

In the desert travel, I rolled for weather affecting travel (this was already in DMG) and managed two encounters (10% chance per roll, 5 rolls per day)  

Team hit the orc camp, but didn't waste time, and then found the orc rebels on the following day, incidentally they weren't the same group as the camp.
The team didn't want to engage, but I decided to push the encounter since they weren't necessarily hostile.
From there, the encounter evolved:

The paladin misinterpreted what one NPC said about their leader, thinking that the leader was her sworn enemy (a two headed dragon) when it was just an Ettin.  The Ettin as an orc leader had been established two years back but it was a piece of trivia I didn't expect anyone to remember.  I could have done some Illusionism there, and suddenly made the orc encounter much more  dangerous.

Where things got interesting was when I remembered a plot point of one of the characters carrying seared orc flesh (for cooking).  One of the Ogres in the orc camp noticed and got the Ettin leader.

That's when I went for the Illusionism and moved an encounter I had in mind from later, to the present.

One of the PC's had a plot point where they were trying to get an orc village to surrender to their enemies (to lower casualities on both sides) and was unable to convince the NPC orc leader, and wound up thrown in jail.

I decided to bring in that orc leader.  In my mind, that encounter was likely to happen, but I had placed the orc leader in the Orc Fortress.  Note that it actually wasn't on the random encounter list for the orc fortress. The Illusionism was moving the encounter.  Same time, the PC having to own up to failure they had in the past was cited as a good character building experience.

I also accidentally moved an encounter from the desert list to the mountains list, but it worked out fine.

Normally, this is why I leave the details open ended, and don't worry about revealing possible encounters that didn't happen - the core ideas can get recycled later.

I do feel a little odd about pushing the NPC encounter in the way I did, but end of the day it worked out.  I generally wouldn't do it though.

Making Combat Interesting

Q: "I've asked a lot of questions recently, for two main reasons: I'm doubting my quality as a new DM (five games in), and I'm not really having fun anymore (and kind of dreading the game every week).
But one of my biggest struggles is: How do I make combat more interesting? The way I'm doing combat now, there's nothing interesting or fun about it. Your turn comes up, you roll a d20, more often than not you miss, and if you do happen to hit you make a small dent in an otherwise bulletsponge of an enemy. Lather, rinse, repeat. There's no strategy. There's no excitement. There's no real feeling of tension, or fear. If I do a large group of enemies the players get bored of the monotony. If I do one large enemy, they get bored fo the monotony. I don't know how to design encounters so that they're not just a game of Worms."


A: This is a fantastic question.

1) 4th edition had a similar issue with the "sacks of hit points" problem, and the hack was cool - lower monster hp by half, and have them all hit harder.

2) 4e also used a "minions" mechanic where lots of little dudes would show up and take only one hit to go down.

3) 13th age has an "escalation die" mechanic where you start with 0 during the first then "tick it up" each subsequent round from 1 to 6. Mechanically the die gives it's bonus to all attack rolls given by either side in the fight.

4) good fight descriptions can be awesome, but it's not a requirement. Personally, I save it for epic or game changing hits. Recently one of my player missed w a flame attack in a fight w a bunch of goblins, and I told him he hit the door frame and knocked it onto the ground. Little descriptive moments like that are good.

(4.5) critical misses are a great opportunity to do something cool or funny

5) Fate has this mechanic (Situation Aspects) where you prep little "props" in your combat spaces for players to take advantage of. For example if players get into a fight in church, the props might be "giant stained glass window" and "pews" and "the lectern". Getting your players to think about interactables is key "you can attack, or you could pick up the lectern and use it as a shield". "You could push the bad guy through the glass window as a bonus action here roll.STR"

6) D&D is not designed for grid combat. Take advantage of this by running swift combat with note cards. A simple rule of thumb is that each notecard is an interaction space, so like if the NPC's and players are on one space, they can fight melee. If they are in two adjacent spaces, they can fight ranged. Don't worry about stated "ranges" for spells or arrows, just be fair and reasonable. This lets you do all sorts of crazy stuff, like pirate ships in a massive sea battle, or moving from city block to city block in an enemy invasion.

7) multi-goal combat and "beat the clock"

For showcase fights you can ramp the tension up with timers - the castle is wired to explode if the players can't disarm the magical trap, (series of skill checks) while the rest of the players deal with the wizard and his magic golem

Appendix:
Faster and Deadlier 4e Combat
Transporting 13th age escalation die 
On Narrative Combat - Sly Flourish
d100 Fumble Chart 
Fate Core SRD Situation Aspects

Good game masters are the killer app of table top RPGs.

Notes from GM Panel at Gaymerx

(Paraphrasing some answers from my mess of mobile phone notes)

Q: How do you teach new GMs?

A:

• Feel it's about scheduling and creating time to create and play.

• Writers block can be an issue as well

• One shots are a great way to set yourself up as the GM of a game.  

• I would teach that you are the director, and you can let the players write the script with their own paranoia

Q: Tips for creating a good campaign?

"Good game masters are the killer app of table top RPGs. The only thing that publishers provide are tools and advice."

• The #1 thing is providing something that players want. My trick is playing close attention to character builds. The Characters that the players build will inform the world you build.

• Set expectations and boundaries.

• Let them build their own Paranoia.

• Learning from Improv. The power of "Yes, and then this happens." 

• Oh! There's also "Yes, but..." and "No, but..."  

• Allow players to contribute their own content, to create the answers to questions that they ask.  

• Do the players have skills in storytelling or art or organization or writing that you can utilize?

• When you  pass the story to the player, Player investment grow

• Learn how to do "texture swaps"  (using monster stats for one monster but saying it's something else) 

• The Rule of cool 

• Fail forward -  See failure rolls as interesting and as an opportunity to add to the story.  Raise the stakes:  When either result (failure or success) starts to become interesting 

Q: How do you provide a safe space for gamers?

A: 

• If there is one thing I want players to take away from this panel it's the X Card by John Stavropoulos. The X Card is a way to navigate when things make me feel weird
• It allows people to get more intense or emotional because the safety valve is there
• Also the O card - this a way for players to support each other - to tell each other "More please!"

Q: How do you deal with people who are causing trouble at the gaming table? 

• Never tolerate a malcontent.  You have no obligation to game with people who make the game not fun.
• Read Geek social fallacies 
• You can walk away whenever you want.

Q:How does the gm have fun when they have to give up to the players?

A: 

• Run stuff you enjoy
• DM prepration - Set the mood, freeform 
• I always start by building a music playlist
• Don't be attached to an outcome 
• Build an Outline.

Q:How do you handle all the Names and characters , and stats/numbers 

A: So Publishing is different than running an actual game.   Don't prep stuff players won't see 

Q: How do you go about World building -

A: 

• I usually maintain a Wiki 
• World building as post game prep 
• Helps maintain continuity. 

Q:How do you get people back on track? 

A: Escalate potential consequences - before they are about to do something really off the beaten path, ask, "Are you sure?" 

Random Things in a Forgotten Magic Museum

From top left, then clockwise:

1. Mask - Sits alone on a floor while passing through a room. It's made of stone.  If worn on the face for 7 minutes, it takes on the facial features of whoever last wore  it for 7 hours, then it reverts back to stone. A useful disguise. (The last wearer stored could give you a clue about the previous inhabitants of the museum)

2. Mimic Jar - A NPC intelligent mimic that wandered in here ages ago and got lost.  Is super helpful and happy to see strangers. Offers to hold things, explore rooms, etc. Just don't let it get too hungry...

3. Canopic Jars - ensorcelled jars that hold the remains of former librarians. The heads can speak, and were designed to hold all the memories of their owners, but the magic has decayed over time...

4. Serpent Sigil. Ancient statue to a potent cult figure.  Showing it any sort of deference results it animating and trying to bite you. If you let it bite you,  you lose 1d4 hp permanently but you're affected as if by a periapt of proof against poison.

5. Armillary Sphere. This room sized sphere radiates palpable magic. Anyone who studies it for more than a few seconds must save or be hypnotized. The viewer must then obsessively study the sphere from all angles for at least 36 hours, after which they fall into a coma for 12 hours and can't be woken up. When they wake up, the affected now has perfect direction sense over land or sea for the next 36 months. After that, they won't be able to find the bathroom on their own for 12 months. They also learn a secret (as per the hermit background) The Sphere has no effect on elves.

6. Rock Collection. A vaguely magical collection of polished rocks. Removing a single rock seems to lessen the enchantment somehow.  These rocks were once a complete collection of depleted Ioun Stones  - the original enchantments have worn away over time. Probably valuable to a church of Ioun or a Collector.

7. Song Book. Contains various hymns, prayers, as well as popular ditties from another age.  Gives a bonus to performance checks.

8. Skull reliquary - the skull of the founding librarian was preserved in this reliquary.  Unlike the canopic Jars it has infallible memory. However the spirit in the reliquary doesn't trust the party at all and will treat them as grave robbers, giving them useless information or sending them into traps. If the reliquary is damaged or opened it summons the ghost of the librarian who is itching for a fight.

Properties for a Broken Family Heirloom Sword

1d12 unusual properties for a broken family heirloom weapon:

1. Itchy Finger - When around an individual who a) intends the user harm and b) tells the user a lie, the weapon extends from its scabbard.  Bonus to next roll on initiative. Downside - impossible to sheath the weapon for the next 1d4 days

2. Magic Mirror/Twin - When you stare into the blade, you can occasionally glimpse visions of where the other pieces are. Alternatively, the blade has a twin and you can what the other blade "sees".

3. Secret - When placed in its scabbard, the blade and scabbard transform into a walking stick. The stick has a distinctive sigil carved into it that is shared by the blade

4. Famous - While the blade may be broken, its renown is similar to the folk hero background feature. It will open doors, lift skirts, and leave children and simpletons agog.

5. Evil Countenance - aka Infamous - the blade makes people feel extremely uncomfortable. No one else can hold it more than a few seconds other than you, and it gives you a bonus to intimidation checks. Babies cry around you and dogs raise their hackles and bark at you.

6. Flame  - a carved, flame colored jewel is imbedded in the pommel of the blade. You never feel the effects of heat or cold, and gain a bonus on exhaustion checks

7. Pensieve - Any person who willingly places the blade to their forehead may place one memory into the blade. In the past the blade was used to transmit secret messages. Maybe there's only part of a memory in there now and you need to find the pieces to put the memory back together.  

8. Wizard Locked - Only you can draw the blade or pick it up.  Great for drunken bar wagers. Also, with concentration you can sheath the sword in an actual stone.

9. Life Bound - Any place that you sleep in the outdoors blooms with strange edible flowers, even in the dead of winter. Gives bonuses on forage rolls.

10. Bring the Lightning - At will, you can summon a crack of thunder and a visible bolt of lightning, even on a clear day, but only when drawing or sheathing the blade. Your father told you if the blade is ever restored, it will do far more than that.

11. Pactblade - Your blade was once used to sanctify ceremonies and rituals. Even with a broken blade, people still seek you out to consecrate their marriages, bless their sheep, and pass judgment on lawbreakers.

12. Sheath of Hands - At will, the ground cracks open and an arm extends out holding the original sheath to the sword- demonic, skeletal, tentacle, fey, or angelic.  If you hand the sword over, the arm returns to the earth with the sword. You can will the hand anywhere on bare earth and unsheath the sword as a free action. Again, your father told you repairing the sword will win you the service of the creatures bound to the sword.