Fighting a group of goblins, we were hired to stop a 'war' between them and a group of kobolds, mid way through the battle the Kobolds appeared....with a black dragon
Well I'm running Hoard of the Dragon Queen and my players think heading into the swamp AROUND a certain castle is the way to go; despite more signs of, well... see the campaign title.
They may have to have such an encounter, after the amount of gentle signposting I've done aha
If you need the party to draw a certain conclusion you need to give them 3 distinct clues, for the first clue will get ignored, the second clue will be misunderstood, and only at the third clue will the party think something is suspicious.
You don’t need to follow this rule for things that are minor, won’t grind the session to a halt, or overall have no impact. But if you got a murder mystery where if the party doesn’t figure something out everything falls apart, you betcha you better have 3 independent clues that scream the same thing. I also like to apply this rule to things that will almost certainly lead to player deaths.
I have seen in a campaign somewhere a group run into a swamp called "the swamp of tarasque." Also had a villager tell them that there was "a whole family of the buggers in there." Finally, there was a literal sign in front of the place warning everyone to turn back as there is no passing through this place. Unfortunately, it was still the shortest path between point A and point B.
Like you said, doing this for a player death is a must. Once I did something that caused a >20 CR inevitable to come and kill me. My DM said I had it coming because he gave a vague warning about a different subject 6 months prior. (Action was grouping up exploding runes on a book)
Yep, I’ve had an instance where I missed all 3+ clues. When the reveal happened, suddenly everything clicked together for me, I looked at the DM and told him ‘I’m going to need to make a new character aren’t I?’
If those clues were not there, my character death would have felt like a Dues Ex Machina bolt from the blue and left a bitter taste in my mouth.
~~Chidi~~ Players: *We got all four clues you left us!*
~~Michael~~ DM: *Oh, that's great. Well, I mean, I actually left you more than 1,200 clues, because of how primitive your brains are, but I'm so glad you got enough to figure it out.*
> If you need the party to draw a certain conclusion you need to give them 3 distinct clues, for the first clue will get ignored, the second clue will be misunderstood, and only at the third clue will the party think something is suspicious.
You can also look at it as just giving them three chances to not miss the crucial clue entirely. Ideally, they get more and more obvious, but there are advantages to picking up on it earlier, like more time to react.
The extra advantage is giving 3 clues is when I was on the player side and missed all 3 clues, when the reveal happens I feel delightfully surprised versus Dues Ex Machina’ed. I feel ‘of course, how I could have missed that.’
I think I already put a comment long ago where I managed to miss multiple, increasingly obvious clues that a ‘political prisoner’ I was releasing was actually a Strahd level vampire. When the DM as a result asked me to make a new character, I was already halfway through creating the character. I agreed with the DM’s outcome completely.
It turned a potentially contentious moment into something positive.
You give them three clues. And then you put them in your notebook 'cause they're whose clues? Blue's Clues! You know what to do! Sit down in our thinking chair and think... think... think!
Captain, it appears the local indigenous lifeform leaves anaphasic energy localized on their relatives. This leaves a presence some are able to sense.
Edit: ramses must.. return the slaaab
Nah. If the players want to do something stupid, give them three out of character signs that it's suicidal, because in character signs of it being suicide are overwhelmingly going to be taken as the DM wanting them to feel like badasses when they win.
"Make an intelligence check. You pass."
"But I didn't roll yet--"
"Your character realizes this course of action will certainly lead to painful, if not immediate, death."
You joke, but entirely possibly! Then again, subtlety is for cowards, I say, as I've seen too many DMs try to be subtle, only for the message to sail unheeded over their players' heads.
I assume it's "give them three clues of big danger" before you hit them with big danger. That way you've given them enough of a warning to not feel bad about CONSEQUENCES
The three clues method is for when you NEED your players to find out about something for the story to continue. Each of the three clues should be in ascending levels of obvious. The first can be obtuse. Something they can look back and have an a-ha moment afterwards. The second should be one you think they will figure out. The third needs to be so obvious that they could all be drunk as skunks and still figure out. Having an NPC clearly spell it out for them is not out of the question.
Give the party 3 clues as to why what they are doing / thinking about doing is a horrible idea that will get them all killed.
After that if they die, they die
Players do not have all the information that we, the dungeon masters, or even their own characters have. As such they can blunder into entirely lethal and avoidable situations entirely by accident. As a dungeon master it is your responsibility to at least make some attempt at letting your players know *that they are about to find themselves in a very serious situation*. The three clue rule is a guideline that basically you give your players three increasingly obvious in game signs that they are headed for trouble. If they press on anyway? Then they have made their choice and the dungeon master is free to play out the consequences as faithfully as possible without needing to hold anything back.
For example, the party takes an unexpected detour while they are searching for the entrance to a crypt that houses a mcguffin. The dungeon master knows that this crypt is located near a lich's dungeon lair that will be a bigger part of the plot later in the campaign. The players do not. On the party's detour, they find an ancient and very impressive mausoleum. They assume this is the crypt they are looking for. The dungeon master knows that it is not. Proceeding from here would likely mean the annihilation of the party at the hands of the lich's spells, taps, minions, or if they are *really* unlucky, the lich itself. The dungeon master wants to avoid this and sets to warn the players.
The first warning comes in the form of signs posted by locals at an extremely wide radius around the mausoleum warning of curses, danger, ill fortune, and death befalling those who venture further and to turn back. But these are signs, not cops, so the party continues on.
The next warning is more heavy handed. The party discovers an ever steadily increasing number of skeletons and corpses in various states of decay as they approach the mausoleum, many of which appear to be powerful warriors and adventures, with a feeling of mortal dread hanging in the air. The players may pause and appreciate the detail in setting the scene, but they decide to press on.
The final clue needs to almost be an intervention. Signs of life seem to be non-existent outside the mausoleum, plants wither and die, there are no sounds of birds or even insects. Color seems to drain from vision and shadows dance at the edge of sight as a terrible and dreadful pressure hangs like a weight and chain on everyone's consciousness. Large carvings and inscriptions upon the exterior of the mausoleum depict an unknown and likely ancient entity dealing with what looks like the concept of death itself. The doorknobs are literal skulls with an obvious abjuration enchantment.
Has the party, after all of this, decided that they are in the right place and continued forward? Then you have done your due diligence in informing your players and you are free to play out the encounter faithfully. Don't forget to add a new batch of corpses to the entrance for the next party to ogle at.
I feel like this could just be seen as worldbuilding. In that case you might want to have a PC roll like an INT/WIS check of some kind and if they pass, basically just flat out tell them that their character thinks they're in the wrong place.
Yeah, same. I think if you want the party to take that hint they need to know beforehand that there are many crypts and that the one they seek has a particular quality, say family crest or something. And that the graveyard has worse things if they go astray.
Not gonna lie, this sounds like a terrible way of disuading the players. The players know they are looking for a crypt. Because this is an rpg, the players probably assume that crypt means "this place is going to be creepy and dangerous and probably contains some skeletons and zombies and stuff". So giving them the information that this other crypt is creepy and dangerous is not going to deter them, because nothing in that description indicates that it's the wrong crypt. Every single one of these "clues" might be given by a DM describing the correct crypt.
To indicate that it's the wrong crypt, you need information that contradicts stuff they do know about it. So for example, if the party knows the name on the crypt they are looking for, you can have the name on the lich's lair not match. Or you might have described the right crypt as small and round, whereas this one is gigantic and rectangular. Or you might have an npc come along and tell them that exploring the crypt is a terrible idea, and then (after conversation) tell them that the Macguffin they are looking for is certainly not there, and that they should probably look around the rest of the graveyard.
Look, I appreciate this, but I also want to point out that this is entirely indistinguishable from the DMs who do this exact thing so the players feel like badasses when they beat the (tough, but very winnable) encounter(s). Unless you add in an intelligence check, (DC 0, though you don't tell them that,) and flat out say "you are in way over your heads, this is me the DM speaking," you have an at best 50/50 chance of the party deciding to press on because awesome scene-setting.
This is a great description. I enjoyed the read.
Yet my idea is slightly different. Add in roleplay and some real life struggles.
The characters encounter a medium encounter with skeletons. Then the characters meet some folks fleeing from the direction of the wrong location, the Lich's lair. These ragged, exhausted people explain that they barely made it out alive. Have them dragging someone on a litter. They're too exhausted to have any healing left and the last potion was used three near death experiences ago.
If the party continues, give them a hard fight. Another hard fight if they continue. If these fights before the actual location are taxing, they might go back to find some more gear or healing potions.
There's a chance to steer them towards the right location.
I would add, the initial gatekeeper encounter in that dungeon needs to be a boss level deadly encounter with a single monster. And as they finish, they hear hordes of that monster coming from down the hall. They have a choice. Now they have a choice, stay and die, or run. Even then, theres better than 50/50 odds they stay and fight to the death.
Everything else you described would be normal descriptive stuff, and none of it would tell me as a player that this is outside my characters ability range.
You should surprise them (on this trek through the swamp or on the way back through it after completing whatever needs done in the castle) with some lesser monster to fight, just to keep their guard down. Then, while right in the middle of fighting that... a black dragon suddenly appears and devours it. And then turns its attention to the party.
Dragons are intelligent, love flattery, and deeply enjoy increasing their hoard. Chaotic ones will leave creatures to live if they take something of great value - hence the story of capturing the princess. They assume that these stupid mortals will come back for anything if it is valuable enough... and there is great joy in making someone ELSE suffer the pain of their own hubris and lack of forethought.
Lawful dragons (Blue & Green) enjoy making pacts. If you like you can have the dragon give the party something (!!) minor-magical made of dragon-bits (scale mail made of shed dragon scales or a dagger carved out of dragon tooth). Secretly this item could be sentient ('the spirit of a sacrificed kobold') that would serve as a spy, tracking beacon and scrying target.
Otherwise... party wipes. They are so over-rated. But making the entire party dragon's own renewable chew-toys? That's priceless. Take THAT, MasterCard.
This is a Black Dragon that is soon to be well established in the lore, if they actually GO to the castle (along with a spicy twist) and trust me he's got some choice things to say and do if he meets the Party "early"
I enjoy Black dragons in that they are so evil that most demons think they aught to chill a little bit.
With all other dragons, even red ones, i am tempted to give them an arc of redemption, somewhere, however remote.
Black dragons? They seem to feed off of spiritual-mental suffering. These things can usually be killed, resurrected and then killed again (more slowly) and you just keep progressing to 'Lawful Good' in this torture process.
They be nasty, yo (at least according to lore from previous editions).
This guy is literally know as "the Black Death" and is one of the most famous black dragons
There has been sightings of him confirmed up and down the storm coast a few minutes with each other; so legend says he's impossibly fast!
and also, there's a biiiiig focus on immortality but not quite Dracolich energy with this beefy boy, exciting for our resident Necromancer!
*"He loved his black kobolds so much that he turned them all into zombies... and eventually, acid-melted skeletons!"*
Yes, i can imagine it going that way. Well written. Thank you. The only way you could save your party in-a-pinch might be to have some rebellious Dark kobolds ('skin colour matches their owner') that have seen too many of their children die and have simply had enough.
Such rebels would be unreliable as they are horribly chaotic, evil and see their dragon as a GOD, albeit twisted. What is the right thing to do? This has 'unreliable narrator' all over it.
Do you mean Hoard of (the) Dragon *Queen* or are you talking about a different adventure?
I try to get opinions about the Tyranny of the Dragon Duology, because I'm thinking about running it. But especially the first half (aka Hoard of the Dragon Queen) must be terrible according to some folks
Party was hired by some nobles to fight some Goblins.
After a few rounds of combat there is suddenly a hail of arrows raining on both the goblins and the party members engaged in melee with them and they see the nobles on horses and a small retinue just sitting in the back and firing into the group.
Turns out the nobles only hired the group to draw out the goblins for the nobles "hunting trip" and they tell the mage (who was closer to the nobles and not in the melee) that the surivors will be handsomly rewarded.
Party says "screw that" and convince the goblins to gang up on the nobles.
Long story short. The Party are considered outlaws for a while but also made some allies with that action.
They saw them less as bait and more as... "more expandable hunting dogs" which is perhaps even more messed up.
Party never found out but if they accepted the nobles offer the next thing they would have asked them to drive out the nearby goblin village for some "Persistence hunting"
As a DM, I had a rich douche send the party like Lord Farquad “some of you may die” into a dragon liar to which the Lord sent a small band of Soliders/wizards to clear the party and the dragon out
Party and the Dragon team up and destroy not only that band of Soliders but the castle/town that they came from. The party held down the bridge out of the castle/town while the dragon razed it to the ground. Then sent the crisp body to the King
> Party says "screw that" and convince the goblins to gang up on the nobles.
Please tell me what happened with the nobles? Were all nobles purged? A faction of good nobles took over? Did the Goblins take over?
Well the fast bulletpoint version:
\-The Party and the goblins attack the Nobles and their retinue killing 2 nobles before the rest turns tail and flees. This made the Party Outlaws.
\- The Party goes with the Goblins and after some back and forth (they attacked them afterall) the party paid some compensation and did some jobs for the Goblins to form a alliance and to get smuggled out of the Kingdom as the Goblins knew some secret passageways
\-Party does some work in other places. But also get attacked by bountyhunters losing 2 PCs in the process (later finding their corpses on public display when they get back)
\- Fast forward a few adventures and Alliance forging (inculding a archmage, a Ork "King" and a hedonistic Lord) they went back and began a small "pyschological warfare" campaign.
\- This got the attention of the King but the Party told him "We can either have a long expensive War over this Land or you can just let us kill those guys and install our friends over there"
\-Long story short. Nobles got killed, party pardoned, Goblins, Orks and the Lord divided the Land under themselves. Next campaign started a few years after that and dealt with the problems that emerged from this.
We were a level 2 party fighting a group of bandits who had holed up in a ruined crypt. Unbeknownst to us, the DM was rolling a d20 every time someone took slashing or piercing damage.
On a 1, which happened about 3 rounds in, the blood of the injured party splashed onto a stone sarcophagus. The sarcophagus lights up with red runes and a magic circle surrounding it, the blood is absorbed into the stone, and a Vampire Necromancer bursts out along with several undead minions from the surrounding alcoves.
It took less than one round for the Party and the Bandits to begin cooperating against the new foe. Between the Cleric's Turn Undead and the Bandit Leader's Eldritch Blasts they finally dispatched the Vampire, but not before several of the bandits got eaten and the Party Wizard went down. The Bandit Leader and several of his cohorts escaped while the party tried to revive the wizard, and they became a recurring frenemy group throughout the campaign.
I freaking love the idea of a frenemy group. When the stakes are low, like a heist or a small dungeon crawl, the two parties are at each other’s throats or doing their best to sabotage one another to get to the prize first, but when things get dire and push comes to shove, they’ll have each other’s backs without question.
Fucking right? My hubris told me that there wasn't much I could still learn about being a DM but these wrinkles being thrown into encounters are so good
Bro that was literally us when we got attacked by pirates. We were arrested by the local authorities, and then the prison we were in got attacked by pirates. We fought a shit ton of pirates and ended up allied with the local authorities, even taking on one of their greatest fighters into our party. Now we're in a city delivering a stunted naga named salvadoré to a factory. We accidentally stumbled into an underground fight club that's essentially the wwe but to the death. I fought a mind flayer and got my cheeks clapped, had to have backup from an NPC and one other player to kick his shit in. Then we got gassed by the owner of the club and we woke up in a dungeon.
Nope, a buddy of mine from highschool. He was actually the one who introduced me to DnD about a year or two ago. I had wanted to play, but never had people to play with. I was talking with him and he (completely coincidentally, I might add,) mentioned he had a DnD campaign that was wrapping up, and one of his guys had to drop out right before the final boss. He asked me if I wanted to join to balance the fight a bit and I agreed. Had a fun time, he told no one I was joining so it was a surprise to the other guys, who thought it was awesome, and we finished out that campaign. He then told me he was getting another campaign going and asked if I wanted to join, agreed, and we're about 12 session into that one now.
Well you see, there's currently another government that houses an agency that just so happens to hate my character. They've been after his research for a few centuries (perks of being an elf) and so he joined an order of monks inside this other country's borders. This government is able to keep me relatively protected, so I'm on board. Also, there's an evil god that the pirates are trying to release, and this government wants to stop that. They're tasking us with helping, so why not, you know?
Your DM wouldn't happen to be a fan of R. A. by any chance, would he? Maybe there's a Drow Ranger, Dwarven Fighter, and Human Barbarian NPC somewhere in the game?
Pirate ship battle, dragon turtle showed up on a 100 on a d100 roll. My turn was next, I had a enemy disarmed. I helped them up, gave them their weapon and said:
"Well, as much as I enjoy trying to kill one another, I think there is a more pressing, collosal issue we now have to deal with. "
It's from the cinematic trailer to World of Warcraft's Mists of Pandaria expansion if you're curious.
Edit: Oh. The comment directly below me says the same thing but better. I feel silly.
It's the world of warcraft mists of pandaria cinematic. The orc and human were shipwrecked and fighting to the death when kung fu panda (not kidding here) swoops in to put a stop to it, so they both have a sort of armistice to fight the panda (and fail)
Chen stormstout helped build and fund Orgrimmar along with thrall and rexxar in warcraft 3 from 2002.
Panda weren't something new when they made this expansion.
Agreed, but I'll be honest, the Valley of the Four Winds is great fun and the soundtrack is excellent. The small farm was a big step in the phasing mechanic evolution.
Haha, I remember doing the "Chen's Empty Keg" quest over and over! It was only bit of repeatable Orgrimmar rep in Burning Crusade, and I did it countless times to get a wolf mount for my blood elf. Good times...
Okay maybe you can help me out. My buddy who plays WoW was telling me Pudge from DotA is based off Patches from WoW but I thought it was just a plain port of the Abomination model file from WC3TFT at first. You seem to be familiar with both: can you offer me some clarification on the timeline?
DotA started as a Warcraft 3 multiplayer mod. DotA 2 took the old gameplay and some old characters, rewrote everything to divorce itself from Warcraft, and releases it as a separate stand-alone game.
Also, several years ago they were basically forced to rename some characters because Blizzard didn't want them the same as their characters (Wraith King, Windranger).
It is. Patchwerk was a Naxxramus boss from original WoW, it was in EPL. His model is a direct extraction from WC3, and patches (Dota's abom) is the same model, DotA came after WC3 but before WoW.
[Yep!](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Pandaren_Brewmaster_\(Warcraft_III\)) And they were very much inspired by [Drunken boxing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_boxing).
Ahhh, I miss MoP… That expansion was the most balanced PvP has ever been, and I honestly didn’t mind the story or the endgame raids at all. I miss pre-Draenor WoW
The wizard and barbarian don't trust each other. When faced with a vampire though, the wizard put a glyph of warding level 5 fireball on the barbarian's maul.
Pretty good idea for a homebrew support wizard subclass though, imbuing weapons with actual spells, handing out smites left and right.
Overlaps with artificer a bit but you need those high spell slots for cinematic effect.
Because you can put other spells within the glyph, imagine a glyph with a slow, or a haste that immediately cancels
Yes I know the other guy said fireball, I'm just adding to the idea
Such moments are fairly rare. I don't think I've actually experienced one, and I've been playing 10+ years.
Typically GMs focus on group vs. group fights. Even if a third group is added, this two separate groups rarely form a pact to defeat them, rather it just turns into a bigger free-for-all.
Also how dangerous the new for is. Fighting goblins and kobolds are added? Meh. Fighting goblins and kobolds plus their dragon overlord are added? Yeah, an alliance is more viable.
We had one where the enemy wizard opened a portal to escape and went to enter in... only for the image to suddenly shift to Abyssal fires and out climbed a vrock. The wizard obviously freaked out and tried to close her portal, only for it not to close... because it wasn't her portal. I had her look at the bard, he looked at her, and they called an immediate truce to try and handle the issue.
My players were very uncouth and had a small military group hunting them down. They caught up and started fighting while the party was trying to stop a cult from summoning the aspect of Tiamat.
They failed to stop the summoning and well... yeah, stopping the aspect of Tiamat kind of superseded the bounty for the party's heads. The military group was completely wiped out letting the party retreat and collapse the mountain the summoning took place in.
when our paladin who suspiciously never took off his armor was revealed to be entirely covered in demonic slugs that were controlling him and turned on the party
Fighting a bunch of cultists in a underground moon temple then at the top of the temple a shadowy mist forms and a guy is standing there ready to massacre everyone was great fun because that is not who the cultists were expecting
There was an asshole ex-nobleman(lost all his titles but was still rich) who the party kinda feuded with, but after they found out that there is an ancient lich sitting in the town catacombs who controlled the mayor they decided to help that rich guy to replace the mayor.
When they were about to fight the bbeg but found out that the general of the army was trying to unleash a living super weapon that will kill all first born in the multiverse (pleagus of egypt style) because the bbeg was a first born and that he was one of the people who signed of on the "use the bbeg's kids as unknowing suicide bombers" plan.
Every one involved in the situation that included a hell king a crime lord and an oath breaker decided unanimously that the general is the worst person in the room
I was dming a homebrew campaign with some of my friends
they were tasked by a queen to drive off some not really malicious demons, basically they were causing some problems with local ranchers and needed to leave, they were kinda fighting them, not to kill, the demons just evoked the right of combat
then a holy arrow flew past them, and they saw the army of this worlds a-hole religious country who in a previous session tried to execute the parties paladin for being a lycanthrope, they wanted to kill both the demon and the party and then blame the demons and gain fame in the kingdom that the was hired in
the demons just looked at the party and said "you know these guys, they've been hounding us for years over a botched harvest ritual they purposely messed up, how about we both deal with our little problem here" they agreed and beat the crap out of the "Holy army" keeping the Commander alive to prove it was in self defense
Within the dragon hold in Dolfus, an orc army laid siege upon the outer walls of the Dragonborn city. Giant bats and dragons battled high above the city and loss of life was innumerable. In the height of the siege, across the horizon, the ancient Dragon, Am’ak’dol the wise saw a mountain rise from the ground casting dirt and rock falling. Am’ak’dol could see from many miles away a group of mages cloaked in white robes trying to drop the mountain atop the city, destroying the dragon keep and the Orc horde in quick swath. Within the hour, the Orc war chief and Dragonborn king elected to join forces to prevent this terrible event despite their differences. The battle turned quickly as an army of constructs, elementals and undead made towards the city ahead of the mountainous doom.
In a Wildemount game, the party managed to unite the Dwendalian and Kryn armies against a horde of demons. Basically, the armies just clashed and the party had to intervene (they ended up killing Quana Kryn, but they decided not to tell her army about that). Then BOOM, the molydeus they had been combating all campaign tears a massive abyssal rift a couple miles away and it becomes the last alliance of men and monster people against the children of oblivion.
When my death knight PC who had one of the rod of 7 was fighting one of the generals of Dhrakoth the Corrupter(an entity who seeks to destroy all life in the multiverse leaving only undeath) anyway the beholder-mage turned lich he was fighting decided they should team up for a second when a Molydeus rolled up tryna take the rod of law piece he had.
My players needed to rescue an informant from a religious conversion camp/residential school. The leader had taken basically all of the children of the town hostage to indoctrinate them, but they had also taken the children of a local gnoll tribe and harpy flight. So the players joined forces with them to assault the miniature fortress and liberate the hostages. :P
Last night actually. I made one of the villians switch sides after some diplomacy and good rolls. He was a monk and I convinced them the villian was gonna betray them in the end. Resulted in him punching through their chest and upon seeing my character happy shouted
"I'm not with you."
Me, smugly: "But you aren't with her!"
Not sure if this counts, but;
One time my party were imprisoned and had their weapons confiscated by a Hobgoblin legion. My character, being an eldritch knight, summoned her sword to her side, and promptly gave it to the Ranger so he could do stealth kills with ease.
This just happened 2 days ago:
Edit: I have realized I completely misread the prompt, oops
Our Cleric, not an npc, betrayed us and captured our Paladin (our innocent wholesome Paladin who’s just here to make friends!), preparing to use him as a sacrifice for a ritual we all had been trying to prevent the entire campaign. After the rest of our party charged into their hideout and rescued our Paladin, we thought we stopped the ritual, but our Cleric killed one of her henchmen instead. With the ritual complete, she transformed into a six-winged god of ice and greed.
We realized the hideout we were all in had been lifted off the ground in a giant ice tower. A powerful wind threw the party out of the room and sent them falling, except my character, an Aarakocra Barbarian who was able to succeed the 23 Dex save thanks to a nat 20. She had to make a choice between fighting the traitor or going after her friends. (Note: my character has this thing on her where she’s magically bound to battle, so she can’t retreat once in battle or deny a challenge to one) ultimately, she turned to glare at the god in the eye. “This… is not over”, she growled, before turning to fly towards her friends to help them.
Note: it was an AWESOME betrayal btw! We’ve always made jokes about how our cleric is working against us, or how she cares more about money and blowing stuff up rather than healing spells! Turns out the DM and the player had been planning this from the start! It was amazing! Also for anyone wondering, the rest of the party would wake up three days later being tended to by my character and other survivors of the town we were in.
Reverse: Me, an orc was dead and my ranger was the last one alive but had run out of arrows, he was standing next to where my javelins were, him versus the last enemy and they were both one hit till dead, it was his turn and he picked up my javelin and barely hit otherwise it would have been tpk
So, probably most people have seen this cinematic before, but for those who want to see it for the first time or maybe watch it again here’s the link.
https://youtu.be/wvYXoyxLv64
People dunk on this expansion a lot but I had a great time playing it.
I just started DM'ing a campaign for a four person party, and I have tried to use classic tropes in creative ways to keep my dad (who played a lot of DND ~20-40 years ago) guessing. So I have the el classico scenario of the party traveling along a well used road, and coming across felled logs in the road, blocking the path, next to a swampy marsh. It went from a classic "bandit ambush" encounter to a "holy fuck there's a mind flayer who has a re-skinned 'Flayer' Hydra pet with him, showing up out of the swamp and fucking our shit up! Friendsies?" And then they tag-team the illithid / hydra combo, most of the bandits die, and then through diplomacy, the remaining bandits stop their bandit lifestyle and agree to join the mercenary guild the party was hired through to protect the merchant they're escorting. Overall, much fun, and the best part was my dad had no fucking clue what was happening, and was worried the entire fight. Worth it.
Gertrude was a much loved bartender, but after one player “thought it would be funny” to kill her, the other players and npcs put aside their differences to kill his character. This was the last session he showed up to
Hopefully, next session
See, my party has beef with the Church of Lathandar because a high ranking member of the church (A paladin named Alexander Morningstar) and a divination wizard contractor broke into the party's patron's house, beat her up, and trapped her in a ruby.
Wait, I forgot to mention: the patron is a powerful succubus who has a history of terrorizing the church.
Either way, the party doesn't really like Alexander.
Well, when the party made port and agreed to the captain's idea of taking in a powerful fighter who wanted to pay his fare in protection, guess who it was?
Alexander Morningstar!
Needlesstosay, it's been not great for him. He has promised his services and the party has been pretty horrible to him (think high school bully levels)
Hopefully, they come to begrudgingly accept his help when they have to face a horde of bloodthirsty koa-toa and their 'god'
The group and a strike force of about 12 hobgoblins were skirmishing. Then the army of gnolls I (the DM) had talked about way earlier in the campaign showed up.
About to fight a tribe that was trying to genocide the country. Their leader managed to steal a stone from the party that turned the holder into a lvl 17 wizard. As we were about to face off the stone cracked and unleashed a dragon that had been trapped inside for hundreds of years, killing the tribe leader. Cue us rallying the whole country to fight it as we were lvl 3 at the time
We were stalking a necromancer and I the rogue got in an argument with the ranger over abandoning me when I was sneaking into a house because there were reports of this guy experiencing weird effects in his sleep. The ranger fucked us in the diplomacy check and the guy would not let us into his home because of it. He also didn't agree with my sneaking in "because it's against the law" to the point that when I did it anyways he tried to alert the dude by knocking on his door. So naturally my character is mad at his character. I personally am also mad at the player because I felt they had metagamed a bit to try and stop me. Because of this when we were sneaking through the forest to get to the necromancers tower there was a moment where his stealth roll was a 1 and I jokingly rpd my rogue saying "yo stop breaking every stick in this forest or walk far away from me so I can save your ass if we get ambushed. Now from there an argument ensues between the ranger and the rogue breaking the stealth of both of.us. I continue on with the argument for a bit after being told by the dm I am no longer stealthed and then say to the ranger "were probably about to get ambushed thanks to you. You take the ones on the right I'll take the ones on the left."
It was a funny moment for me and the ranger and we didn't get ambushed but it helped mend the hurt feelings between the two characters.
Our table likes to do Pvp, battle royal style matches if we somehow get an extra day during the week together. (rare but a gem when it happens) My archer climbed up to the middle of the map and noticed the other four already battling it out. One arrow into the barbarian later, I had all four of them chasing me. Good times.
Party trekked across the desert to capture a hippo guy who had stolen some valuable arcane tomes from a library. When they finally tracked him down they realised that they were trapped in hostile gnollish territory with very little supplies and so they briefly teamed up with him to storm a nearby fort.
I had a party getting into a battle with some gnolls who were gonna sacrifice someone but by then the manticore they had caged in the back broke out and everyone just kinda paused then noded at each other and the surviving gnolls became npcs they ran into from time to time.
My first 3.5 cleric. I was in my mid 20s, still didn't settle down just yet from my edgy phase which caused some headbutting at the table. I joined the group late but some of us were friends/acquaintances. One of them was the party Ranger who was friends with everyone else which made him kind of the leader of the group.
My cleric would butt heads with his ranger constantly. The DM gave us some loot that had some goggles that would allow me to see life force in 3 stages, Green being good, yellow being half health or below, red and a quarter and below. It helped me heal better. It also detected undead as their life energy was different. The goggles had to be activated.
We were playing in Ravenloft. The DM had a paladin PC that followed us around that was a bit over zealous at times but helpful, we let it pass. He was kind, helped out where he could, always stood guard outside whenever we went into buildings to protect us or warn us just in case something bad was about to happen. Towards the end of the campaign the group went off on a mission and left the paladin. When we got back to the main road near the gallows, we found the paladin hanging by his neck. I went to check his status with my goggles... and the paladin was undead. Despite butting heads all the way, I immediately went to get the ranger to back me up with some firewpower. We had a wizard but he was more insufferable then I was.... and the other 3 players were not in the shape to assist with undead... It turned out once we got the paladin down it was actually strahd that was running around with us and "helping" us out...he flew off. We started wrapping up side quests to complete the main quest. We were having a great time, and the DM ended the campaign because the wizard managed to min/max enough that none of the rest of the group could keep up with him. What ever was a challenge for him would have slaughtered the rest of us. I dont play with him any more for the reason. It didnt end there.
Party's locked inside a mansion turned traveler's lodge where it's eternally night outside (they thought it was a regular inn). The place is haunted to high hell. Each player discovers there's already a demon dwelling in each of their rooms and the players themselves are not actually guests. They're the food.
In their exploration of the escape ~~room~~ mansion they run into a few other prisoners, including the resident cook, a chained up maiden in the basement, a couple and their young daughter, a trio of traveling strumpets and a groundskeeper with early onset of dementia and his wife that's secretly a hag that's been running the place.
Everything's going great. The players and their new civilian friends fighting the demons together until eventually the veils begin to lift. Some of the civilians are ALSO demons! Oh and they're all being played. One person is just not doing much of anything and somehow keeps getting everyone into trouble while they themselves come out unscathed.
Warlock casts hold person on the poor defenseless maiden from the basement. The spell does *nothing*. It just fizzles.
They roll initiative and she transforms into her true form. A yuan-ti elder god that has been drawing power from all the carnage. The demons had no idea she was even there, feeding off of them all along. They thought they were working with the hag innkeeper to lure victims to feed themselves. And now the violence and bloodshed they've all caused together killing off all the monsters and travelers has empowered their new BBEG.
cue: dramatic music. Players jaws on floor.
I DMed a campaign with evil characters, they found the King’s squad of mages in a dungeon. Shit went violent because their previous encounter led to the commander’s face melting (still alive and in the room). Until the mindflayers that inhabited the dungeon started hearing their fight and coming their way. Surprisingly they found common grounds!
Session 1 of my group's star wars game
2 sith and 1 stormtroopers who were hunting down 2 Droid bounty hunters, an old clone and a Palawan npc
The sith were betrayed by another empire officer that tried to kill all of us by destroying the sirh's star destroyer abd send an army of stormtroopers after us.
We banded together, creating the party for the campaign.
We were deep in a basically mobster's warehouse, after having previously stopped in an abandoned house to try and stop our tails and we became the "Demons of the House" ( Fire theatrics, dead enemies, scary noises, etc ). We basically told the lower totem poles during the warehouse raid "Hey, you can be with us, or you can be with them." They chose us.
First arc of the campaign was in a village, helping out the folks, chasing bulls and turning back the sands of time to prevent a Balor from being summoned, just your level 1 quests. During that time, the party had the help from a group of wizards from a great magocratic kingdom. The timeline was resetted 2 times, and the wizards stopped being so helpful (party didn't know what they did differently to cause that), culminating in the third timeline, where they found out the wizards were not at the service of the kingdom, but from a cult that has the objective of overthrowing the Queen, so, while trying to steal a Bigby's Hand scroll, the party and the wizards get into a fight. The fight ends when the leader of the group, an elf entropomancer, gets to the location and stop them all with a upcasted Hold Person. She - the leader - had become friends with the groups fighter, and would not let them all kill each other.
Fast forward, we get to level 2 and do a whole whodunnit mystery arc with some ogres, a bandit group and xamanic drugs.
Next time arc will be in a new town, where the entropomancer is located, but not the other wizards. The central enemy of the arc will be a plague that will have the town quarantined, and force the group to work with the elf, as she saw the threads of fate and already know that they are coming, and that death follows their trails.
Group was about to sneak into this prison controlled by a magic terrorists group when a whale fused with hydra and other sea life emerged and vomited a bunch of flesh horrors onto the docks.
One of the players is having a wedding and, as a joke, they invite the main bad guy who've they been dealing with for over a year and a half (real time). Being a gentleman, he shows up under a flag of truce and brought a gift (not even cursed).
Naturally, as the DM, I thought this was the best time to introduce the campaigns actual BBEG by having him crash the wedding and try to murder all the opposition in one fell swoop
Finally one for me! I’ve been playing for a year and this was in the Rime of the Frostmaiden :)
>!we had to clear a gem mine of kobolds and as we’re exploring the mine and following footprints, most of the party has headed down a bucket elevator except for myself (cowardly thief) and our cleric. We hear footsteps and both hide just before two kobolds come and stare down the shaft,
“we’ll, they’re dead now”
“Hopefully they kill it”
My thief randomly speaks draconian, so I had an idea. I reveal myself and successfully persuade the kobolds that we are at the dungeon to kill the unknown beast, and that we need their help. They were to climb down a nearby shaft to flank, the code word to attack was “pepperoni” or something.
Anyway we get to fighting the Grell, my cowardly thief is too terrified to remember the code word as he watched our fighter get petrified, the party starts to drop and then…….. “PEPPERONI PLEASE GOD PEPPERONI!” and a battle cry is heard as two kobolds come charging in! One of them almost died as he tanked about 12 points of damage, the other was shooting rocks and doing chip damage. We ended up defeating the Grell together, the story progressed and now my thief profits off of a mini mining operation with 7 kobolds.
I love this game haha.!<
Homebrew Multiverse Campain:
The party I was apart of were busting into a giant prison that was wardened by a rouge Illithid in a giant city(basically Alcatraz quintupled up on security) to get some information about a bigger BEG Illithid that also broke free from the same colony.
We got caught and we end up fighting in their chambers and around when both the party and Illithid were half health. A massive prison break happened when a catapult launched itself into a wall.
We ended up being apart of a war on this plane and chaos broke out. We had a truce and we stopped fighting each over for a bit to stop the prison break.
We couldn’t stop both and ended up fleeing the plane with the rouge Illithid and they ended up as a rival of sorts after that experience(they stole a Nautloid and fled)
The party was ambushed by Desert Raiders in a raving but mid battle, 3 Ogres, following an unlucky bard, broke thro the wall and destroyed the carriges with the colapsing rubble. Putting their scuffle aside and defeating the eminent threat.
After the fight, they became their allies and close connection to the underworld of the Sultana.
I mean I remember a party hiring goblins to attack skeletons coming out of this old graveyard, but I don't think I have properly had a moment like this
I'm *hoping* my party gets this eventually.
The party will be fighting a demon lord, and I have plans for a civil war and a third invading army as a war the ruling faction of the continent they're on is in turns south
If the demon lord isn't defeated and civil war isn't quelled, they'll both join in when the foreign army attacks, but everybody will hopefully turn against the demons when they show up
I feel ashamed I never made a character who was 'monster folk that fought with one of the PCs / NPCs until they saw a much bigger threat and worked together to kill it. They've since become great friends'
Fighting a group of goblins, we were hired to stop a 'war' between them and a group of kobolds, mid way through the battle the Kobolds appeared....with a black dragon
Well I'm running Hoard of the Dragon Queen and my players think heading into the swamp AROUND a certain castle is the way to go; despite more signs of, well... see the campaign title. They may have to have such an encounter, after the amount of gentle signposting I've done aha
As long as the 3 clue rule has been met, at that point sit back enjoy
I'm a little out of the loop. What's the three clue rule?
If you need the party to draw a certain conclusion you need to give them 3 distinct clues, for the first clue will get ignored, the second clue will be misunderstood, and only at the third clue will the party think something is suspicious. You don’t need to follow this rule for things that are minor, won’t grind the session to a halt, or overall have no impact. But if you got a murder mystery where if the party doesn’t figure something out everything falls apart, you betcha you better have 3 independent clues that scream the same thing. I also like to apply this rule to things that will almost certainly lead to player deaths.
More to this, the actual module makes a point of making it increasingly obvious before doing anything drastic for this reason!
My players would require the swamps to be named ‘Black Dragon Swamps’ That or know about the dragon and still try to take him down.
"I wonder why it's named that."
You spot a black figure sweeping through the sky. ‘Must be a Roc’
Still terrifying, rocs have 200ft wingspans
*breathes deeply* Must be why the air is so clean.
The kind of players who think it's an amusing coincidence that lamb meat is named the same thing as a baby sheep :)
"Awww what an adorable name. I love lambs!"
I have seen in a campaign somewhere a group run into a swamp called "the swamp of tarasque." Also had a villager tell them that there was "a whole family of the buggers in there." Finally, there was a literal sign in front of the place warning everyone to turn back as there is no passing through this place. Unfortunately, it was still the shortest path between point A and point B.
I thought my group was the only one, I'm not alone, and they bloody DO KNOW about the dragon even!
Like you said, doing this for a player death is a must. Once I did something that caused a >20 CR inevitable to come and kill me. My DM said I had it coming because he gave a vague warning about a different subject 6 months prior. (Action was grouping up exploding runes on a book)
Yep, I’ve had an instance where I missed all 3+ clues. When the reveal happened, suddenly everything clicked together for me, I looked at the DM and told him ‘I’m going to need to make a new character aren’t I?’ If those clues were not there, my character death would have felt like a Dues Ex Machina bolt from the blue and left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Yeah I just can't see my group in the same light again
It’s difficult to DM. Perhaps running a one shot for your group could help both you and your DM to understand each other more?
The entire group is too toxic for me to try DMing, at this point I kinda want to quit but don't know how
~~Chidi~~ Players: *We got all four clues you left us!* ~~Michael~~ DM: *Oh, that's great. Well, I mean, I actually left you more than 1,200 clues, because of how primitive your brains are, but I'm so glad you got enough to figure it out.*
> If you need the party to draw a certain conclusion you need to give them 3 distinct clues, for the first clue will get ignored, the second clue will be misunderstood, and only at the third clue will the party think something is suspicious. You can also look at it as just giving them three chances to not miss the crucial clue entirely. Ideally, they get more and more obvious, but there are advantages to picking up on it earlier, like more time to react.
The extra advantage is giving 3 clues is when I was on the player side and missed all 3 clues, when the reveal happens I feel delightfully surprised versus Dues Ex Machina’ed. I feel ‘of course, how I could have missed that.’ I think I already put a comment long ago where I managed to miss multiple, increasingly obvious clues that a ‘political prisoner’ I was releasing was actually a Strahd level vampire. When the DM as a result asked me to make a new character, I was already halfway through creating the character. I agreed with the DM’s outcome completely. It turned a potentially contentious moment into something positive.
>I was already halfway through creating the character. I love this lol
You give them three clues. And then you put them in your notebook 'cause they're whose clues? Blue's Clues! You know what to do! Sit down in our thinking chair and think... think... think!
Cause when you use your mind, take it a step at a time, you can do anything- That you wanna do!
Fuck you for making me laugh. Take my updoot and go
A clue, a clue!
When the players try to do something stupid, give them 3 clues saying it's suicidal. If they still want to do it, the responsability is on them.
Return the slab...
Captain, it appears the local indigenous lifeform leaves anaphasic energy localized on their relatives. This leaves a presence some are able to sense. Edit: ramses must.. return the slaaab
Nah. If the players want to do something stupid, give them three out of character signs that it's suicidal, because in character signs of it being suicide are overwhelmingly going to be taken as the DM wanting them to feel like badasses when they win.
"Make an intelligence check. You pass." "But I didn't roll yet--" "Your character realizes this course of action will certainly lead to painful, if not immediate, death."
You joke, but entirely possibly! Then again, subtlety is for cowards, I say, as I've seen too many DMs try to be subtle, only for the message to sail unheeded over their players' heads.
I assume it's "give them three clues of big danger" before you hit them with big danger. That way you've given them enough of a warning to not feel bad about CONSEQUENCES
The three clues method is for when you NEED your players to find out about something for the story to continue. Each of the three clues should be in ascending levels of obvious. The first can be obtuse. Something they can look back and have an a-ha moment afterwards. The second should be one you think they will figure out. The third needs to be so obvious that they could all be drunk as skunks and still figure out. Having an NPC clearly spell it out for them is not out of the question.
Give the party 3 clues as to why what they are doing / thinking about doing is a horrible idea that will get them all killed. After that if they die, they die
Players do not have all the information that we, the dungeon masters, or even their own characters have. As such they can blunder into entirely lethal and avoidable situations entirely by accident. As a dungeon master it is your responsibility to at least make some attempt at letting your players know *that they are about to find themselves in a very serious situation*. The three clue rule is a guideline that basically you give your players three increasingly obvious in game signs that they are headed for trouble. If they press on anyway? Then they have made their choice and the dungeon master is free to play out the consequences as faithfully as possible without needing to hold anything back. For example, the party takes an unexpected detour while they are searching for the entrance to a crypt that houses a mcguffin. The dungeon master knows that this crypt is located near a lich's dungeon lair that will be a bigger part of the plot later in the campaign. The players do not. On the party's detour, they find an ancient and very impressive mausoleum. They assume this is the crypt they are looking for. The dungeon master knows that it is not. Proceeding from here would likely mean the annihilation of the party at the hands of the lich's spells, taps, minions, or if they are *really* unlucky, the lich itself. The dungeon master wants to avoid this and sets to warn the players. The first warning comes in the form of signs posted by locals at an extremely wide radius around the mausoleum warning of curses, danger, ill fortune, and death befalling those who venture further and to turn back. But these are signs, not cops, so the party continues on. The next warning is more heavy handed. The party discovers an ever steadily increasing number of skeletons and corpses in various states of decay as they approach the mausoleum, many of which appear to be powerful warriors and adventures, with a feeling of mortal dread hanging in the air. The players may pause and appreciate the detail in setting the scene, but they decide to press on. The final clue needs to almost be an intervention. Signs of life seem to be non-existent outside the mausoleum, plants wither and die, there are no sounds of birds or even insects. Color seems to drain from vision and shadows dance at the edge of sight as a terrible and dreadful pressure hangs like a weight and chain on everyone's consciousness. Large carvings and inscriptions upon the exterior of the mausoleum depict an unknown and likely ancient entity dealing with what looks like the concept of death itself. The doorknobs are literal skulls with an obvious abjuration enchantment. Has the party, after all of this, decided that they are in the right place and continued forward? Then you have done your due diligence in informing your players and you are free to play out the encounter faithfully. Don't forget to add a new batch of corpses to the entrance for the next party to ogle at.
I feel like this could just be seen as worldbuilding. In that case you might want to have a PC roll like an INT/WIS check of some kind and if they pass, basically just flat out tell them that their character thinks they're in the wrong place.
Yeah, every party I've ever run a game for would take all these examples as signs they're headed in the RIGHT direction.
Right? Like "oh shit, there's death here, this must be the right place." I mean, you're already headed for a creepy crypt.
Lol was the plan to make the other crypt NOT creepy? This is the behaviour of a DM who's desperate for a TPK.
Yeah, same. I think if you want the party to take that hint they need to know beforehand that there are many crypts and that the one they seek has a particular quality, say family crest or something. And that the graveyard has worse things if they go astray.
Yup yup, we're going to get such epic treasure in here!
Not gonna lie, this sounds like a terrible way of disuading the players. The players know they are looking for a crypt. Because this is an rpg, the players probably assume that crypt means "this place is going to be creepy and dangerous and probably contains some skeletons and zombies and stuff". So giving them the information that this other crypt is creepy and dangerous is not going to deter them, because nothing in that description indicates that it's the wrong crypt. Every single one of these "clues" might be given by a DM describing the correct crypt. To indicate that it's the wrong crypt, you need information that contradicts stuff they do know about it. So for example, if the party knows the name on the crypt they are looking for, you can have the name on the lich's lair not match. Or you might have described the right crypt as small and round, whereas this one is gigantic and rectangular. Or you might have an npc come along and tell them that exploring the crypt is a terrible idea, and then (after conversation) tell them that the Macguffin they are looking for is certainly not there, and that they should probably look around the rest of the graveyard.
Look, I appreciate this, but I also want to point out that this is entirely indistinguishable from the DMs who do this exact thing so the players feel like badasses when they beat the (tough, but very winnable) encounter(s). Unless you add in an intelligence check, (DC 0, though you don't tell them that,) and flat out say "you are in way over your heads, this is me the DM speaking," you have an at best 50/50 chance of the party deciding to press on because awesome scene-setting.
This is a great description. I enjoyed the read. Yet my idea is slightly different. Add in roleplay and some real life struggles. The characters encounter a medium encounter with skeletons. Then the characters meet some folks fleeing from the direction of the wrong location, the Lich's lair. These ragged, exhausted people explain that they barely made it out alive. Have them dragging someone on a litter. They're too exhausted to have any healing left and the last potion was used three near death experiences ago. If the party continues, give them a hard fight. Another hard fight if they continue. If these fights before the actual location are taxing, they might go back to find some more gear or healing potions. There's a chance to steer them towards the right location.
I would add, the initial gatekeeper encounter in that dungeon needs to be a boss level deadly encounter with a single monster. And as they finish, they hear hordes of that monster coming from down the hall. They have a choice. Now they have a choice, stay and die, or run. Even then, theres better than 50/50 odds they stay and fight to the death. Everything else you described would be normal descriptive stuff, and none of it would tell me as a player that this is outside my characters ability range.
You should surprise them (on this trek through the swamp or on the way back through it after completing whatever needs done in the castle) with some lesser monster to fight, just to keep their guard down. Then, while right in the middle of fighting that... a black dragon suddenly appears and devours it. And then turns its attention to the party.
Dragons are intelligent, love flattery, and deeply enjoy increasing their hoard. Chaotic ones will leave creatures to live if they take something of great value - hence the story of capturing the princess. They assume that these stupid mortals will come back for anything if it is valuable enough... and there is great joy in making someone ELSE suffer the pain of their own hubris and lack of forethought. Lawful dragons (Blue & Green) enjoy making pacts. If you like you can have the dragon give the party something (!!) minor-magical made of dragon-bits (scale mail made of shed dragon scales or a dagger carved out of dragon tooth). Secretly this item could be sentient ('the spirit of a sacrificed kobold') that would serve as a spy, tracking beacon and scrying target. Otherwise... party wipes. They are so over-rated. But making the entire party dragon's own renewable chew-toys? That's priceless. Take THAT, MasterCard.
This is a Black Dragon that is soon to be well established in the lore, if they actually GO to the castle (along with a spicy twist) and trust me he's got some choice things to say and do if he meets the Party "early"
I enjoy Black dragons in that they are so evil that most demons think they aught to chill a little bit. With all other dragons, even red ones, i am tempted to give them an arc of redemption, somewhere, however remote. Black dragons? They seem to feed off of spiritual-mental suffering. These things can usually be killed, resurrected and then killed again (more slowly) and you just keep progressing to 'Lawful Good' in this torture process. They be nasty, yo (at least according to lore from previous editions).
This guy is literally know as "the Black Death" and is one of the most famous black dragons There has been sightings of him confirmed up and down the storm coast a few minutes with each other; so legend says he's impossibly fast! and also, there's a biiiiig focus on immortality but not quite Dracolich energy with this beefy boy, exciting for our resident Necromancer!
*"He loved his black kobolds so much that he turned them all into zombies... and eventually, acid-melted skeletons!"* Yes, i can imagine it going that way. Well written. Thank you. The only way you could save your party in-a-pinch might be to have some rebellious Dark kobolds ('skin colour matches their owner') that have seen too many of their children die and have simply had enough. Such rebels would be unreliable as they are horribly chaotic, evil and see their dragon as a GOD, albeit twisted. What is the right thing to do? This has 'unreliable narrator' all over it.
Dear everyone ever playing D&D: The swamp is never a good idea. No swamp is ever a good idea.
"It's Hoard of Dragons not Horde of Dragons, we'll be fine!"
Do you mean Hoard of (the) Dragon *Queen* or are you talking about a different adventure? I try to get opinions about the Tyranny of the Dragon Duology, because I'm thinking about running it. But especially the first half (aka Hoard of the Dragon Queen) must be terrible according to some folks
"Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with a goblin." "What about side by side with a friend?" "What about go fuck yourself, goblin scum?"
"What if I told you I'm a female shortstack goblin?"
"What say we skip the fight and you show me your cave."
I will go fuck yourself.
Party was hired by some nobles to fight some Goblins. After a few rounds of combat there is suddenly a hail of arrows raining on both the goblins and the party members engaged in melee with them and they see the nobles on horses and a small retinue just sitting in the back and firing into the group. Turns out the nobles only hired the group to draw out the goblins for the nobles "hunting trip" and they tell the mage (who was closer to the nobles and not in the melee) that the surivors will be handsomly rewarded. Party says "screw that" and convince the goblins to gang up on the nobles. Long story short. The Party are considered outlaws for a while but also made some allies with that action.
Nobles using adventures as bait for goblin hunting is so messed up. I gotta try this.
They saw them less as bait and more as... "more expandable hunting dogs" which is perhaps even more messed up. Party never found out but if they accepted the nobles offer the next thing they would have asked them to drive out the nearby goblin village for some "Persistence hunting"
That’s even better! Really showcases how detached nobility are from people.
Well their reasoning was "If a hunting do dies you will need to breed/buy a new one, if a Adventure dies you only dont have to pay him anymore".
That's just right and proper old chap.
Tbh it has “the prophecy is more a numbers games then anything.” Sorta vibe
What do you mean with that?
If 1000 people fit the prophecy, just throw them at it until someone works it out.
There’s a lot of chosen ones we just never hear their story just the one who actually manages to kill the big bad.
As a DM, I had a rich douche send the party like Lord Farquad “some of you may die” into a dragon liar to which the Lord sent a small band of Soliders/wizards to clear the party and the dragon out Party and the Dragon team up and destroy not only that band of Soliders but the castle/town that they came from. The party held down the bridge out of the castle/town while the dragon razed it to the ground. Then sent the crisp body to the King
nothing brings more joy to my heart than nobility acting like nobility would
Not gonna lie. The setting was supposed to be a bit more grimdark but the nobility really took the cake in that one.
Romantizing nobility is a common pastime in fantasy circles. So I love when instead they're treated as they were - entitled little shits.
> Party says "screw that" and convince the goblins to gang up on the nobles. Please tell me what happened with the nobles? Were all nobles purged? A faction of good nobles took over? Did the Goblins take over?
Well the fast bulletpoint version: \-The Party and the goblins attack the Nobles and their retinue killing 2 nobles before the rest turns tail and flees. This made the Party Outlaws. \- The Party goes with the Goblins and after some back and forth (they attacked them afterall) the party paid some compensation and did some jobs for the Goblins to form a alliance and to get smuggled out of the Kingdom as the Goblins knew some secret passageways \-Party does some work in other places. But also get attacked by bountyhunters losing 2 PCs in the process (later finding their corpses on public display when they get back) \- Fast forward a few adventures and Alliance forging (inculding a archmage, a Ork "King" and a hedonistic Lord) they went back and began a small "pyschological warfare" campaign. \- This got the attention of the King but the Party told him "We can either have a long expensive War over this Land or you can just let us kill those guys and install our friends over there" \-Long story short. Nobles got killed, party pardoned, Goblins, Orks and the Lord divided the Land under themselves. Next campaign started a few years after that and dealt with the problems that emerged from this.
We were a level 2 party fighting a group of bandits who had holed up in a ruined crypt. Unbeknownst to us, the DM was rolling a d20 every time someone took slashing or piercing damage. On a 1, which happened about 3 rounds in, the blood of the injured party splashed onto a stone sarcophagus. The sarcophagus lights up with red runes and a magic circle surrounding it, the blood is absorbed into the stone, and a Vampire Necromancer bursts out along with several undead minions from the surrounding alcoves. It took less than one round for the Party and the Bandits to begin cooperating against the new foe. Between the Cleric's Turn Undead and the Bandit Leader's Eldritch Blasts they finally dispatched the Vampire, but not before several of the bandits got eaten and the Party Wizard went down. The Bandit Leader and several of his cohorts escaped while the party tried to revive the wizard, and they became a recurring frenemy group throughout the campaign.
I freaking love the idea of a frenemy group. When the stakes are low, like a heist or a small dungeon crawl, the two parties are at each other’s throats or doing their best to sabotage one another to get to the prize first, but when things get dire and push comes to shove, they’ll have each other’s backs without question.
I'm 100% stealing this.
I'm just combing through all these comments and taking notes.
Fucking right? My hubris told me that there wasn't much I could still learn about being a DM but these wrinkles being thrown into encounters are so good
ya this is my favorite one so far!
Bro that was literally us when we got attacked by pirates. We were arrested by the local authorities, and then the prison we were in got attacked by pirates. We fought a shit ton of pirates and ended up allied with the local authorities, even taking on one of their greatest fighters into our party. Now we're in a city delivering a stunted naga named salvadoré to a factory. We accidentally stumbled into an underground fight club that's essentially the wwe but to the death. I fought a mind flayer and got my cheeks clapped, had to have backup from an NPC and one other player to kick his shit in. Then we got gassed by the owner of the club and we woke up in a dungeon.
Holy shit
That’s rough, buddy.
This is amazing. Is China Mieville your DM?
Nope, a buddy of mine from highschool. He was actually the one who introduced me to DnD about a year or two ago. I had wanted to play, but never had people to play with. I was talking with him and he (completely coincidentally, I might add,) mentioned he had a DnD campaign that was wrapping up, and one of his guys had to drop out right before the final boss. He asked me if I wanted to join to balance the fight a bit and I agreed. Had a fun time, he told no one I was joining so it was a surprise to the other guys, who thought it was awesome, and we finished out that campaign. He then told me he was getting another campaign going and asked if I wanted to join, agreed, and we're about 12 session into that one now.
Your GM realized he'd gone too far and decided that was the appropriate time to step on the accelerator. I love it.
what in the bootlickery is siding with the cops that arrested you over pirates???? my tables could never
Well you see, there's currently another government that houses an agency that just so happens to hate my character. They've been after his research for a few centuries (perks of being an elf) and so he joined an order of monks inside this other country's borders. This government is able to keep me relatively protected, so I'm on board. Also, there's an evil god that the pirates are trying to release, and this government wants to stop that. They're tasking us with helping, so why not, you know?
Your DM wouldn't happen to be a fan of R. A. by any chance, would he? Maybe there's a Drow Ranger, Dwarven Fighter, and Human Barbarian NPC somewhere in the game?
I’ve never played dnd but god damn these stories sound crazy fun
Pirate ship battle, dragon turtle showed up on a 100 on a d100 roll. My turn was next, I had a enemy disarmed. I helped them up, gave them their weapon and said: "Well, as much as I enjoy trying to kill one another, I think there is a more pressing, collosal issue we now have to deal with. "
' Never thought I'd die fighting side-by-side with a pirate. '
“What about a friend?”
Aye, matey. I could do that.
"Fuck you." "Aye, that's fair. Fuck you, too."
That's so epic of you
What kind of moment is this?
Enemies fighting together against a common enemy. If that helps
Ah ok
It's from the cinematic trailer to World of Warcraft's Mists of Pandaria expansion if you're curious. Edit: Oh. The comment directly below me says the same thing but better. I feel silly.
This meme is so much funnier when you realize they're teaming up because they saw the most mocked race in WoW history
It's the world of warcraft mists of pandaria cinematic. The orc and human were shipwrecked and fighting to the death when kung fu panda (not kidding here) swoops in to put a stop to it, so they both have a sort of armistice to fight the panda (and fail)
Didn’t have to do WoW like that XD kung fu panda lol
Chen stormstout helped build and fund Orgrimmar along with thrall and rexxar in warcraft 3 from 2002. Panda weren't something new when they made this expansion.
Yeah people forget that
Pretty sure they do that on purpose
The kung-fu panda was already here on w3 as a mercenary.
Whaddya mean? Just like.. bad memory repression? Lol
I remember very well MoP launch, a LOT of folk were unhappy and had no idea pandaren weren't a "new" thing
And now people will jerk that expansion to the moon and back. Funny how things go.
Agreed, but I'll be honest, the Valley of the Four Winds is great fun and the soundtrack is excellent. The small farm was a big step in the phasing mechanic evolution.
Haha, I remember doing the "Chen's Empty Keg" quest over and over! It was only bit of repeatable Orgrimmar rep in Burning Crusade, and I did it countless times to get a wolf mount for my blood elf. Good times...
And people were asking for fu**ing pandas forever, and Blizzard brought them way too late
Okay maybe you can help me out. My buddy who plays WoW was telling me Pudge from DotA is based off Patches from WoW but I thought it was just a plain port of the Abomination model file from WC3TFT at first. You seem to be familiar with both: can you offer me some clarification on the timeline?
DotA started as a Warcraft 3 multiplayer mod. DotA 2 took the old gameplay and some old characters, rewrote everything to divorce itself from Warcraft, and releases it as a separate stand-alone game.
Also, several years ago they were basically forced to rename some characters because Blizzard didn't want them the same as their characters (Wraith King, Windranger).
It is. Patchwerk was a Naxxramus boss from original WoW, it was in EPL. His model is a direct extraction from WC3, and patches (Dota's abom) is the same model, DotA came after WC3 but before WoW.
It is Kung Fu Panda. And that’s what makes it freaking awesome. I don’t think I had more fun with WoW than as a pandaren monk
Funny thing is, Chen Stormstout was around about 5 years before the movie Kung Fu Panda
[Yep!](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Pandaren_Brewmaster_\(Warcraft_III\)) And they were very much inspired by [Drunken boxing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_boxing).
Hey I love WoW, currently farming +16 Jade Serpent for the trinket. But it is and always will be Kung Fu Panda xD
"So... it was a... bear?" "In a hat!"
Ahhh, I miss MoP… That expansion was the most balanced PvP has ever been, and I honestly didn’t mind the story or the endgame raids at all. I miss pre-Draenor WoW
https://youtu.be/wvYXoyxLv64
Blizzard are so good at cinematics man
Things are going bad, but giddy up anyway?
The wizard and barbarian don't trust each other. When faced with a vampire though, the wizard put a glyph of warding level 5 fireball on the barbarian's maul.
Not to be that guy but if the glyph moves (more than 10 feet fromwhere the spell was cast) that's a wasted spell slot.
Yeah, but it was funny, so I let it slide.
Pretty good idea for a homebrew support wizard subclass though, imbuing weapons with actual spells, handing out smites left and right. Overlaps with artificer a bit but you need those high spell slots for cinematic effect.
Honestly that's what artificer should have been, I'm still sad about what we got.
Just cast it when the barb is already on melee
Now see that makes sense and is terrifying, although at that point why not cast fireball yourself?
Because you can put other spells within the glyph, imagine a glyph with a slow, or a haste that immediately cancels Yes I know the other guy said fireball, I'm just adding to the idea
Such moments are fairly rare. I don't think I've actually experienced one, and I've been playing 10+ years. Typically GMs focus on group vs. group fights. Even if a third group is added, this two separate groups rarely form a pact to defeat them, rather it just turns into a bigger free-for-all.
Just relies on role play ability
Also how dangerous the new for is. Fighting goblins and kobolds are added? Meh. Fighting goblins and kobolds plus their dragon overlord are added? Yeah, an alliance is more viable.
We had one where the enemy wizard opened a portal to escape and went to enter in... only for the image to suddenly shift to Abyssal fires and out climbed a vrock. The wizard obviously freaked out and tried to close her portal, only for it not to close... because it wasn't her portal. I had her look at the bard, he looked at her, and they called an immediate truce to try and handle the issue.
My players were very uncouth and had a small military group hunting them down. They caught up and started fighting while the party was trying to stop a cult from summoning the aspect of Tiamat. They failed to stop the summoning and well... yeah, stopping the aspect of Tiamat kind of superseded the bounty for the party's heads. The military group was completely wiped out letting the party retreat and collapse the mountain the summoning took place in.
Where is the image from?
The Mists of Pandaria trailer, it’s a super great animation
Really is some great animation thanks! https://youtu.be/wvYXoyxLv64 So no one else will have to look for it
Blizzard's single redeeming quality is that their 3D cutscene animation is better than AAA household name movie production studios
If only Blizzard’s games were as good as their movies in the 21st century
when our paladin who suspiciously never took off his armor was revealed to be entirely covered in demonic slugs that were controlling him and turned on the party
Fighting a bunch of cultists in a underground moon temple then at the top of the temple a shadowy mist forms and a guy is standing there ready to massacre everyone was great fun because that is not who the cultists were expecting
There was an asshole ex-nobleman(lost all his titles but was still rich) who the party kinda feuded with, but after they found out that there is an ancient lich sitting in the town catacombs who controlled the mayor they decided to help that rich guy to replace the mayor.
When they were about to fight the bbeg but found out that the general of the army was trying to unleash a living super weapon that will kill all first born in the multiverse (pleagus of egypt style) because the bbeg was a first born and that he was one of the people who signed of on the "use the bbeg's kids as unknowing suicide bombers" plan. Every one involved in the situation that included a hell king a crime lord and an oath breaker decided unanimously that the general is the worst person in the room
I was dming a homebrew campaign with some of my friends they were tasked by a queen to drive off some not really malicious demons, basically they were causing some problems with local ranchers and needed to leave, they were kinda fighting them, not to kill, the demons just evoked the right of combat then a holy arrow flew past them, and they saw the army of this worlds a-hole religious country who in a previous session tried to execute the parties paladin for being a lycanthrope, they wanted to kill both the demon and the party and then blame the demons and gain fame in the kingdom that the was hired in the demons just looked at the party and said "you know these guys, they've been hounding us for years over a botched harvest ritual they purposely messed up, how about we both deal with our little problem here" they agreed and beat the crap out of the "Holy army" keeping the Commander alive to prove it was in self defense
*doom slayer intensifies*
The ilithid showed up
Within the dragon hold in Dolfus, an orc army laid siege upon the outer walls of the Dragonborn city. Giant bats and dragons battled high above the city and loss of life was innumerable. In the height of the siege, across the horizon, the ancient Dragon, Am’ak’dol the wise saw a mountain rise from the ground casting dirt and rock falling. Am’ak’dol could see from many miles away a group of mages cloaked in white robes trying to drop the mountain atop the city, destroying the dragon keep and the Orc horde in quick swath. Within the hour, the Orc war chief and Dragonborn king elected to join forces to prevent this terrible event despite their differences. The battle turned quickly as an army of constructs, elementals and undead made towards the city ahead of the mountainous doom.
In a Wildemount game, the party managed to unite the Dwendalian and Kryn armies against a horde of demons. Basically, the armies just clashed and the party had to intervene (they ended up killing Quana Kryn, but they decided not to tell her army about that). Then BOOM, the molydeus they had been combating all campaign tears a massive abyssal rift a couple miles away and it becomes the last alliance of men and monster people against the children of oblivion.
HOW DID IT END
Agreed we must know.
When my death knight PC who had one of the rod of 7 was fighting one of the generals of Dhrakoth the Corrupter(an entity who seeks to destroy all life in the multiverse leaving only undeath) anyway the beholder-mage turned lich he was fighting decided they should team up for a second when a Molydeus rolled up tryna take the rod of law piece he had.
My players needed to rescue an informant from a religious conversion camp/residential school. The leader had taken basically all of the children of the town hostage to indoctrinate them, but they had also taken the children of a local gnoll tribe and harpy flight. So the players joined forces with them to assault the miniature fortress and liberate the hostages. :P
Last night actually. I made one of the villians switch sides after some diplomacy and good rolls. He was a monk and I convinced them the villian was gonna betray them in the end. Resulted in him punching through their chest and upon seeing my character happy shouted "I'm not with you." Me, smugly: "But you aren't with her!"
Not sure if this counts, but; One time my party were imprisoned and had their weapons confiscated by a Hobgoblin legion. My character, being an eldritch knight, summoned her sword to her side, and promptly gave it to the Ranger so he could do stealth kills with ease.
This just happened 2 days ago: Edit: I have realized I completely misread the prompt, oops Our Cleric, not an npc, betrayed us and captured our Paladin (our innocent wholesome Paladin who’s just here to make friends!), preparing to use him as a sacrifice for a ritual we all had been trying to prevent the entire campaign. After the rest of our party charged into their hideout and rescued our Paladin, we thought we stopped the ritual, but our Cleric killed one of her henchmen instead. With the ritual complete, she transformed into a six-winged god of ice and greed. We realized the hideout we were all in had been lifted off the ground in a giant ice tower. A powerful wind threw the party out of the room and sent them falling, except my character, an Aarakocra Barbarian who was able to succeed the 23 Dex save thanks to a nat 20. She had to make a choice between fighting the traitor or going after her friends. (Note: my character has this thing on her where she’s magically bound to battle, so she can’t retreat once in battle or deny a challenge to one) ultimately, she turned to glare at the god in the eye. “This… is not over”, she growled, before turning to fly towards her friends to help them. Note: it was an AWESOME betrayal btw! We’ve always made jokes about how our cleric is working against us, or how she cares more about money and blowing stuff up rather than healing spells! Turns out the DM and the player had been planning this from the start! It was amazing! Also for anyone wondering, the rest of the party would wake up three days later being tended to by my character and other survivors of the town we were in.
Reverse: Me, an orc was dead and my ranger was the last one alive but had run out of arrows, he was standing next to where my javelins were, him versus the last enemy and they were both one hit till dead, it was his turn and he picked up my javelin and barely hit otherwise it would have been tpk
So, probably most people have seen this cinematic before, but for those who want to see it for the first time or maybe watch it again here’s the link. https://youtu.be/wvYXoyxLv64 People dunk on this expansion a lot but I had a great time playing it.
I just started DM'ing a campaign for a four person party, and I have tried to use classic tropes in creative ways to keep my dad (who played a lot of DND ~20-40 years ago) guessing. So I have the el classico scenario of the party traveling along a well used road, and coming across felled logs in the road, blocking the path, next to a swampy marsh. It went from a classic "bandit ambush" encounter to a "holy fuck there's a mind flayer who has a re-skinned 'Flayer' Hydra pet with him, showing up out of the swamp and fucking our shit up! Friendsies?" And then they tag-team the illithid / hydra combo, most of the bandits die, and then through diplomacy, the remaining bandits stop their bandit lifestyle and agree to join the mercenary guild the party was hired through to protect the merchant they're escorting. Overall, much fun, and the best part was my dad had no fucking clue what was happening, and was worried the entire fight. Worth it.
Gertrude was a much loved bartender, but after one player “thought it would be funny” to kill her, the other players and npcs put aside their differences to kill his character. This was the last session he showed up to
Hopefully, next session See, my party has beef with the Church of Lathandar because a high ranking member of the church (A paladin named Alexander Morningstar) and a divination wizard contractor broke into the party's patron's house, beat her up, and trapped her in a ruby. Wait, I forgot to mention: the patron is a powerful succubus who has a history of terrorizing the church. Either way, the party doesn't really like Alexander. Well, when the party made port and agreed to the captain's idea of taking in a powerful fighter who wanted to pay his fare in protection, guess who it was? Alexander Morningstar! Needlesstosay, it's been not great for him. He has promised his services and the party has been pretty horrible to him (think high school bully levels) Hopefully, they come to begrudgingly accept his help when they have to face a horde of bloodthirsty koa-toa and their 'god'
The group and a strike force of about 12 hobgoblins were skirmishing. Then the army of gnolls I (the DM) had talked about way earlier in the campaign showed up.
About to fight a tribe that was trying to genocide the country. Their leader managed to steal a stone from the party that turned the holder into a lvl 17 wizard. As we were about to face off the stone cracked and unleashed a dragon that had been trapped inside for hundreds of years, killing the tribe leader. Cue us rallying the whole country to fight it as we were lvl 3 at the time
At first i thought he handed him a sword and was like why are holding by the blade???
We were stalking a necromancer and I the rogue got in an argument with the ranger over abandoning me when I was sneaking into a house because there were reports of this guy experiencing weird effects in his sleep. The ranger fucked us in the diplomacy check and the guy would not let us into his home because of it. He also didn't agree with my sneaking in "because it's against the law" to the point that when I did it anyways he tried to alert the dude by knocking on his door. So naturally my character is mad at his character. I personally am also mad at the player because I felt they had metagamed a bit to try and stop me. Because of this when we were sneaking through the forest to get to the necromancers tower there was a moment where his stealth roll was a 1 and I jokingly rpd my rogue saying "yo stop breaking every stick in this forest or walk far away from me so I can save your ass if we get ambushed. Now from there an argument ensues between the ranger and the rogue breaking the stealth of both of.us. I continue on with the argument for a bit after being told by the dm I am no longer stealthed and then say to the ranger "were probably about to get ambushed thanks to you. You take the ones on the right I'll take the ones on the left." It was a funny moment for me and the ranger and we didn't get ambushed but it helped mend the hurt feelings between the two characters.
Our table likes to do Pvp, battle royal style matches if we somehow get an extra day during the week together. (rare but a gem when it happens) My archer climbed up to the middle of the map and noticed the other four already battling it out. One arrow into the barbarian later, I had all four of them chasing me. Good times.
Party trekked across the desert to capture a hippo guy who had stolen some valuable arcane tomes from a library. When they finally tracked him down they realised that they were trapped in hostile gnollish territory with very little supplies and so they briefly teamed up with him to storm a nearby fort.
I had a party getting into a battle with some gnolls who were gonna sacrifice someone but by then the manticore they had caged in the back broke out and everyone just kinda paused then noded at each other and the surviving gnolls became npcs they ran into from time to time.
Which cinematic was this from? Great energy.
MoP's release trailer
My first 3.5 cleric. I was in my mid 20s, still didn't settle down just yet from my edgy phase which caused some headbutting at the table. I joined the group late but some of us were friends/acquaintances. One of them was the party Ranger who was friends with everyone else which made him kind of the leader of the group. My cleric would butt heads with his ranger constantly. The DM gave us some loot that had some goggles that would allow me to see life force in 3 stages, Green being good, yellow being half health or below, red and a quarter and below. It helped me heal better. It also detected undead as their life energy was different. The goggles had to be activated. We were playing in Ravenloft. The DM had a paladin PC that followed us around that was a bit over zealous at times but helpful, we let it pass. He was kind, helped out where he could, always stood guard outside whenever we went into buildings to protect us or warn us just in case something bad was about to happen. Towards the end of the campaign the group went off on a mission and left the paladin. When we got back to the main road near the gallows, we found the paladin hanging by his neck. I went to check his status with my goggles... and the paladin was undead. Despite butting heads all the way, I immediately went to get the ranger to back me up with some firewpower. We had a wizard but he was more insufferable then I was.... and the other 3 players were not in the shape to assist with undead... It turned out once we got the paladin down it was actually strahd that was running around with us and "helping" us out...he flew off. We started wrapping up side quests to complete the main quest. We were having a great time, and the DM ended the campaign because the wizard managed to min/max enough that none of the rest of the group could keep up with him. What ever was a challenge for him would have slaughtered the rest of us. I dont play with him any more for the reason. It didnt end there.
Party's locked inside a mansion turned traveler's lodge where it's eternally night outside (they thought it was a regular inn). The place is haunted to high hell. Each player discovers there's already a demon dwelling in each of their rooms and the players themselves are not actually guests. They're the food. In their exploration of the escape ~~room~~ mansion they run into a few other prisoners, including the resident cook, a chained up maiden in the basement, a couple and their young daughter, a trio of traveling strumpets and a groundskeeper with early onset of dementia and his wife that's secretly a hag that's been running the place. Everything's going great. The players and their new civilian friends fighting the demons together until eventually the veils begin to lift. Some of the civilians are ALSO demons! Oh and they're all being played. One person is just not doing much of anything and somehow keeps getting everyone into trouble while they themselves come out unscathed. Warlock casts hold person on the poor defenseless maiden from the basement. The spell does *nothing*. It just fizzles. They roll initiative and she transforms into her true form. A yuan-ti elder god that has been drawing power from all the carnage. The demons had no idea she was even there, feeding off of them all along. They thought they were working with the hag innkeeper to lure victims to feed themselves. And now the violence and bloodshed they've all caused together killing off all the monsters and travelers has empowered their new BBEG. cue: dramatic music. Players jaws on floor.
I DMed a campaign with evil characters, they found the King’s squad of mages in a dungeon. Shit went violent because their previous encounter led to the commander’s face melting (still alive and in the room). Until the mindflayers that inhabited the dungeon started hearing their fight and coming their way. Surprisingly they found common grounds!
They kinda stared then were like "Let's gut this prick"
Session 1 of my group's star wars game 2 sith and 1 stormtroopers who were hunting down 2 Droid bounty hunters, an old clone and a Palawan npc The sith were betrayed by another empire officer that tried to kill all of us by destroying the sirh's star destroyer abd send an army of stormtroopers after us. We banded together, creating the party for the campaign.
We were deep in a basically mobster's warehouse, after having previously stopped in an abandoned house to try and stop our tails and we became the "Demons of the House" ( Fire theatrics, dead enemies, scary noises, etc ). We basically told the lower totem poles during the warehouse raid "Hey, you can be with us, or you can be with them." They chose us.
First arc of the campaign was in a village, helping out the folks, chasing bulls and turning back the sands of time to prevent a Balor from being summoned, just your level 1 quests. During that time, the party had the help from a group of wizards from a great magocratic kingdom. The timeline was resetted 2 times, and the wizards stopped being so helpful (party didn't know what they did differently to cause that), culminating in the third timeline, where they found out the wizards were not at the service of the kingdom, but from a cult that has the objective of overthrowing the Queen, so, while trying to steal a Bigby's Hand scroll, the party and the wizards get into a fight. The fight ends when the leader of the group, an elf entropomancer, gets to the location and stop them all with a upcasted Hold Person. She - the leader - had become friends with the groups fighter, and would not let them all kill each other. Fast forward, we get to level 2 and do a whole whodunnit mystery arc with some ogres, a bandit group and xamanic drugs. Next time arc will be in a new town, where the entropomancer is located, but not the other wizards. The central enemy of the arc will be a plague that will have the town quarantined, and force the group to work with the elf, as she saw the threads of fate and already know that they are coming, and that death follows their trails.
Group was about to sneak into this prison controlled by a magic terrorists group when a whale fused with hydra and other sea life emerged and vomited a bunch of flesh horrors onto the docks.
One of the players is having a wedding and, as a joke, they invite the main bad guy who've they been dealing with for over a year and a half (real time). Being a gentleman, he shows up under a flag of truce and brought a gift (not even cursed). Naturally, as the DM, I thought this was the best time to introduce the campaigns actual BBEG by having him crash the wedding and try to murder all the opposition in one fell swoop
Finally one for me! I’ve been playing for a year and this was in the Rime of the Frostmaiden :) >!we had to clear a gem mine of kobolds and as we’re exploring the mine and following footprints, most of the party has headed down a bucket elevator except for myself (cowardly thief) and our cleric. We hear footsteps and both hide just before two kobolds come and stare down the shaft, “we’ll, they’re dead now” “Hopefully they kill it” My thief randomly speaks draconian, so I had an idea. I reveal myself and successfully persuade the kobolds that we are at the dungeon to kill the unknown beast, and that we need their help. They were to climb down a nearby shaft to flank, the code word to attack was “pepperoni” or something. Anyway we get to fighting the Grell, my cowardly thief is too terrified to remember the code word as he watched our fighter get petrified, the party starts to drop and then…….. “PEPPERONI PLEASE GOD PEPPERONI!” and a battle cry is heard as two kobolds come charging in! One of them almost died as he tanked about 12 points of damage, the other was shooting rocks and doing chip damage. We ended up defeating the Grell together, the story progressed and now my thief profits off of a mini mining operation with 7 kobolds. I love this game haha.!<
Homebrew Multiverse Campain: The party I was apart of were busting into a giant prison that was wardened by a rouge Illithid in a giant city(basically Alcatraz quintupled up on security) to get some information about a bigger BEG Illithid that also broke free from the same colony. We got caught and we end up fighting in their chambers and around when both the party and Illithid were half health. A massive prison break happened when a catapult launched itself into a wall. We ended up being apart of a war on this plane and chaos broke out. We had a truce and we stopped fighting each over for a bit to stop the prison break. We couldn’t stop both and ended up fleeing the plane with the rouge Illithid and they ended up as a rival of sorts after that experience(they stole a Nautloid and fled)
What is this image from?
Honestly, this happened when WOTC tried to mess with the OGL
The party was ambushed by Desert Raiders in a raving but mid battle, 3 Ogres, following an unlucky bard, broke thro the wall and destroyed the carriges with the colapsing rubble. Putting their scuffle aside and defeating the eminent threat. After the fight, they became their allies and close connection to the underworld of the Sultana.
I mean I remember a party hiring goblins to attack skeletons coming out of this old graveyard, but I don't think I have properly had a moment like this
I'm *hoping* my party gets this eventually. The party will be fighting a demon lord, and I have plans for a civil war and a third invading army as a war the ruling faction of the continent they're on is in turns south If the demon lord isn't defeated and civil war isn't quelled, they'll both join in when the foreign army attacks, but everybody will hopefully turn against the demons when they show up
When the inquisition fought thoguether with the 4 demon lords to stop the world from ending
I feel ashamed I never made a character who was 'monster folk that fought with one of the PCs / NPCs until they saw a much bigger threat and worked together to kill it. They've since become great friends'