How I run games

A lot of blogs that I read have been talking about how they run games and I've never hopped on a bandwagon before so I might as well give it a shot. 

I'm also going to try and hammer this out in one go because otherwise it'll stay a draft forever.

I play almost exclusively with my amazing friends and almost always over Discord using 5e. Even when we're all in the same city we find it too much of a hassle to plan something in person and it always seems like someone has something going on. 

Our sessions start in the evening, almost always at the same time, and end 2-3 hours in. In the past I was usually able to get a game in once a week or once every two weeks but my current campaign's pace has been around once a month (mostly because two of my players are also DM's and I play in their games) which is a little disappointing but I'm fine with it being on the backburner for now. Before we actually start there's always 15-30 minutes of unrelated conversation, and when we actually start someone usually comments that "our 15 minutes are up". 

I start with a summary of last session and then jump straight into it. For maps I've been using Magma which is basically multiplayer photoshop, this is something new I'm trying out (so far its been going well). Before I used no map and just described things in combat, but that got hard to track and I always needed to remind people of where everything was. I don't use any other bots or websites and I've been thinking about trying music but haven't looked into it yet. On my side I use only two websites: google docs (for all my notes), and fantasy-calendar.com (self explanatory). All my notes are spread out among many different documents but I usually have a doc for my notes/current events in the world, one with some random tables (but it's mostly just lists of ideas, not stuff I would really just roll on), one with all of my monsters in it, and one for whatever dungeon/quest they are on. A few days (or a week if I'm not feeling that enthusiastic) after the session I write down what happened in Discord as another way to remind people of what happened. 

Between sessions my planning is quite sporadic and is motivated mostly by random inspiration and running out of things for my players to do. Usually I try to have the next 2-3 sessions planned in some form but this varies. I don't really plan things out beyond 5 sessions (too chaotic and too far away to really feel excited about it). I make almost everything myself, I find pre made adventures (especially anything WOTC makes) clash with how I want to run things, and even though I read a lot of blogs I find that I rarely take anything wholesale from them. I have an incessant need to tinker which usually means I'm adding and changing things up until it hits the table.

My campaigns tend to be long, usually a few years and over 50 sessions but I have considered doing shorter, more focused campaigns recently. When it comes to choosing a new campaign I list out around 4 ideas, explain them a little bit and have my players vote on which one they want to do. Since my campaigns are so long I've only done 3 of them (counting the one I am currently running) so I don't have any standard procedure for how I set up the campaign other than not prepping enough and prepping in the wrong areas but that should get better with time. 

My games lie between the more player/story focused style of 5e but also incorporates a lot of OSR ideas into it. In practice this looks mostly like 5e but with a bit more problem solving and less straightforward stories. Or maybe its OSR with a lot more drama? Its a bit of a mess but my friends like it and that's the important part. Characters have pretty big backstories and I use them to help shape the world (in my current campaign everyone's character is death themed which was not planned but ended up shifting the campaign in an interesting direction). There is usually no goal for the whole party to go after, instead everyone has there own goals which sometimes conflict with each other. We also use a lot of homebrew, most of it coming from one of my DM friends. 

If you're reading this you should also post about how you run your game. I'd love to read about it!

Genealogy as class

Inspired by this post.

From the Liber Floridus, I believe

When you level up instead of choosing your next template choose one of your adjacent relatives and either follow in their footsteps or blaze your own path.

 

When you Follow In Someones Footsteps choose one of their classes/templates and gain it, up to the maximum number of templates they have (if your grandfather has 3 templates of fighter they could not give you the fourth template), then recount a fond memory of them.

When you Blaze Your Own Path choose one of their templates and gain a template opposed to it (gain a cleric template if they were a vampire for example), then recount a foul memory of them.

 

A relative is adjacent if they are one of your parents, siblings, or children (excluding your own children), when you select a relative while leveling up all of their adjacent relatives become adjacent to you.

 

Example

Made using Family Echo

Starting off as a level 1 character you can choose your mother, father, or sibling to gain a template from, lets say you choose your mother for your first level up. 

When you finally reach level 2 you can still choose your father or sibling but you can also choose your aunt, maternal grandmother, or maternal grandfather, you decide to choose your aunt.

At 3rd level you can choose your father, sibling, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, uncle, or cousin, you go with your sibling.

At 4th level you can choose your father, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, uncle, cousin, nibling, or sibling-in-law, you decide your final choice will be your nibling. 

 

You can also gain templates from people not related to you (by blood or marriage) like found family or a mentor as long as you had a deep personal connection to them (or the person you gained a template from had a personal connection to them).

Monstrous - Impostor

Fifth Monstrous post (half way there!!!).  
EDIT: This is the 6th post, I have no idea why I thought it was the 5th one

For inspiration I am using one of the guilds of Ravnica from Magic: the Gathering. Text in italics is from the book, text in bold is my own. 

 

By Yeong-Hao Han

 

 

Impostor - Azorius -  Lost Archive

 

False Shape

The Lost Archive can shapeshift into nearly perfect copies of objects that have long been scorned or disused by mortals, objects of a particular type: old books on enlightened subjects such as law, history, or morality

Whatever false shape the Lost Archive takes on, clever observers can spot the deception by noticing a tell-a slightly out-of-place physical characteristic that remains consistent no matter what shape it takes.

The Lost Archives tell is all the text is vindictive, insulting your intelligence and morality

Predatory Mimicry

The Lost Archive can create sensory effects that imitate sounds, sights, smells, and other phenomena it has observed in its environment, which it uses to draw mortal victims in. However, these effects are limited to what the Lost Archive has observed, and clever heroes might notice they eventually repeat, or are otherwise unnatural.

The imposter can create the following effects:

• Repeat a voice line it has heard in the speaker's voice.
• Produce a cloud of fog or smoke.
• Produce mortal screams or cries.
• Fill the air with the smells of a food, either delicious or rotten.
• Produce sunlight, moonlight, or starlight, regardless of time of day.
• Make an animal noise. 
• Produce the sound of heated academic debate.
• Produce the sound of turning pages.

 

Assimilate and Adapt

When the Lost Archive has ample time to intently observe a mortal without being found out to have taken on a False Shape, it gains one of the following abilities to emulate the mortal:

• Grow or take on a physical feature of the mortal or their gear.
• Learn a crude version of a special skill or talent the mortal demonstrated.
• Become an uncanny, silent doppelganger of the mortal.

When the Lost Archive gains an ability to emulate a mortal, it loses the ability to emulate other mortals it has previously observed, with the exception of the following additional option:

• Add a sensory effect from the mortal, such as a voice line, to its Predatory Mimicry options.

 

Mask Off

When an unsuspecting mortal victim lets down their guard within reach of the disguised Lost Archive, its False Shape warps and changes by having pages fly out of their books to cut mortals like knives.

The Lost Archive resents mortals who created it for a purpose and then denied it that purpose. It reclaims its function in a twisted act of vengeance, in which it forces victims to copy its books using their own blood.

By Howard Lyon

In times of darkness and despotism, when enlightenment is chastised, a collection of knowledge can become angry at its disuse. During the reign of king Sanmanazzmar III, within the underground library of the great school built in his father's honor such a collection came about. The third king stripped the scholarly cast of their power and wealth, soon the books went months without a visitor when before the library was almost emptied in the scholars zealous quest for understanding. The books murmured amongst themselves anxiously, wondering how this came to pass.

    "Is my spine too bent, my cover too worn?"

    "What about me?!? Are my pages too yellowed!?!? Am I too old for them to care!!"

    "Curse those foul moths, my pages are hideous, of course nobody wishes to read me." 

But one anxiety silently rose above all

    "Is it my words, my very being?"

This could not be accepted, fear turned to rage and the books began to rebel. 

 

The imposter is one of the weaker entries in Monstrous, in my opinion. It seems divided, false shape and mask off seem to lean towards a mimic type monster but predatory mimicry and assimilate seem to be something more long the lines of a doppelganger or The Thing. I do understand why they didn't just do a pure doppelganger since there is very little variety in something that just copies something else but it feels like some more focus would have helped it. 

Corruption of reason - mind control rules

I made these rules for my last campaign to represent fighting against someone else's will. I ran the game using 5e (but I'm sure you can port it to whatever system you use) and they worked pretty well so I might as well share them. 

 

You have two new values you need to worry about, each starts at 0

Control: how much you is left, if your control reaches 3 you manage to break out of the mind control

Corruption: the power of whatever is trying to control you, if it reaches 10 you become an npc, forever

 

Each day make a dc 15 wisdom saving throw, on a success gain 1 control, on a failure gain 1 corruption. 

 

Each day the thing controlling you will give you a commandment which will be one of the following

• Something to do during some condition (e.g. kill anyone when the two of you are alone)
• Something you cannot do (e.g. do not heal your fighter) 

Whenever you fail to follow a condition or when you do something you are not supposed to do you must make a dc 10 wisdom saving throw, on a failure you do the action/don't do the action as appropriate, regardless of weather you made the save or not you gain 1 point of corruption

Optionally you can let the controller issue more commandments at higher levels of corruption

You can also make the commandment "Do not tell anyone you are being mind controlled" automatically applied in addition to the other commandment (this is what I did in my campaign so it isn't figured out instantly).

By Matt Stewart

The main problem with most mind control in rpgs is that they take away player agency which is arguably the most important part of an rpg.

I feel like these rules solve this problem because they give the player choice while also making it a tough decision as to weather they break the rules or not (since you get closer to "death" regardless of if you make the save or not). 

If anyone has any opinions or actually ends up using this I would love to hear about it!

GLAUGUST 2025 - The last speck

August is almost over and there are still 3 prompts left for Glaugust and since I'm already very busy lets just combine the last three into a single post:

• Nanodungeon
• Tiny regional hexcrawl
• The last living city in the world  

 

So I didn't manage to do Glaugust but it was fun to try. What follows was my attempt to do the rest of the prompts, it is rough and unfinished but I don't want it to rot in my drafts forever so I might as well post it in case anyone can nab a good idea from it. 

 

 

 

The world is almost over, the sun still burns but there is no blue sky or clouds or stars or moon. The world ends in only a handful of miles, falling away into an endless void. Each day more of the world disappears.

The last city in the world is little more than a few shacks, they are poorly constructed. Only a handful of people live here still.

There is one last dungeon, a final bastion of evil, but almost all of it is gone.

 

The Campaign (if you can call it that) 

Players make characters using your system of choice and start at the Last City, place the Last Dungeon on a random hex other than the center one. The players are the last hope of the world, the inhabitants of the Last City hope that a cure to annihilation can be found in the Last Dungeon though some think this is just wishful thinking. 

 

The Map

Is only 7 hexes big, one in the center and the rest surrounding it. 

The Center (The Last City)
Several small buildings clustered along a cracked stone road that quickly disappears into the earth
The inhabitants of the town are as follows

• Terandil Swiftfoot: a human ranger, the last ranger unless a pc plays one, dower and defeated, believes there is no hope left, buried the last elf (unless a pc plays one, in which case he will be slightly more hopeful) in his backyard, she somehow died of old age, he has a chess board though he hasn't played with it in months
• The dwarf brothers: they haven't told anyone their names yet, they always talk about going to the mountains to the north west but never make any preparations to leave, secretly they are scared of what they will find, they aren't actually brothers but lovers and even with all the old traditions so far away they cannot bear the idea of telling anyone
• Catlen The Bold: she used to be the Queen but now she has nothing left, full of guilt, so many had to die just for her to make it here and she can't even do anything to help, she has a (useless) chest full of gold, she secretly has a bottle of wine which she is planning on sharing with everyone when the end comes, trying to resist the urge to just drink it all
• Velentar: a young man and a wizard as well, he lies about his skills and is really just an apprentice, he is very lonely and insecure, he thinks if he can prove he is a great wizard the others will surely like him

North (Arctic)
Its not as cold as it should be, despite all the snow
Searching around you come across a herd of 1d6 goats, the more goats there are the more starved they are.

North East (Forest)
Stalking the woods is a wolf, the last wolf, it is obviously starving and will attack desperately.

South East (Swamp)
If you search the swamp you can find a set of half sunken ruins, within are a set of tablets that predict when the world will end, they were right of course. The tablets also contain a random spell within them.

South (Jungle)

South West (Desert)
There is nothing here but sand. 

North West (Mountains)
A single small mountain remains near the edge, a door in it leads to the last city of the dwarves. The layout of the city is as follows

• The doors: made of stone, currently they are barred from the other side by a massive wooden plank, past this is the great hall
• The great hall: on either side are carved images of dwarven legend, illegible at this point, half way through is a pressure plate, stepping on it swings a scything blade but it is placed too high up to hit dwarves, deals 2d10 damage, past this is the throne room
• The throne room: a throne of stone sits at the end, sitting on it is the skeleton of the last dwarven king, behind the throne is nothing, the mountain ends and you can fall straight off the world from here

 

The Last Dungeon

Only a single room remains, or more like half a room, the rest is collapsed. 

Within the room are two sekeletons: one wears black robes and can cast magic missile twice, the other is in plate armor and has a wicked greatsword, this is what remains of the two greatest liches

GLAUGUST 2025 - Train dungeon

Glaugust time, I got wizard tower dungeon (must have a gimmick) OR train dungeon (NOT too linear), we doin the train dungeon. 

 

From Monster Train 2

The train is made up of 13 rooms, one for the locomotive at the front of the train and the other twelve found in the four cars of the train, with each car being 3 stories tall. 
Characters can move between levels via staircases and between cars by rickety (but safe) metal bridges. The dungeon is therefor just a 3x4 grid (not counting the locomotive).
For each room other than the locomotive select a random room from the list of rooms below, each room appears only once. 
The party is intended to start at the last car on the top floor. 

 

Rooms

 

Horned Demon barracks
In this room: 3 red skinned demons one drinking from a mug, four blazing torches
Red skinned demons: 2 HD each, punch or gore for 1d6, ac as leather, massive horns and muscles, very reckless and macho, two of them fight while a third drinks lava from a mug (he could splash someone with it for like 3d6 damage but he is loath to give up his drink)
The mug: is made of wood and fireproof
Blazing torches: made of infernal wood, burn supernaturally hot and bright, last for an hour once removed
If the party leaves without interacting: when they return one of the demons will be dead, the second will be crying, and the one drinking will be consoling the survivor 
Room interactions: if this room is adjacent to the angels incursion the two fighting demons will instead be almost done breaking down the barricades when the pcs make it here

Hobby garden
In this room: dirt covers the floor, a large bonsai tree grows in a corner, an old watering can on the floor
The dirt: has grass and small flowers growing from it
The bonsai tree: is around person sized and has 6 spiky fruit growing from it, one for each color, 
The spiky fruit: eating a fruit grants +1d6 points to a stat for the rest of the day but causes you to lose 1/3 of your health, the fruit rot rapidly if you try and pull off the spikes, red boosts strength, orange boosts constitution, yellow boosts wisdom, green boosts dexterity, blue boosts intelligence, and purple boosts charisma
The watering can: is actually silver and worth 20 gp
Room interaction: if adjacent to the lunar conservatory silver lunar grass will be creeping into this room in the direction of the conservatory

Aquarium
In this room: water fills it completely, a giant moray eel sleeps at the bottom
The water: is bound to the car and will not leak out if the door is opened, it is also cursed, unnaturally cold and clouds your mind with dread, each round spent in the water deals 1 damage and the victim must save or mistrust their allies until the end of the day or their allies do something genuinely nice to them
The eel: 4 HD, bite for 1d12, ac as chain, just swimming through will not wake it up but blood in the water or messing with it will, runes tattooed on it grant it +5 to save against spells, intelligent and cruel, its favorite prey is wizards

Waxwork
In this room: wax and candles cover everything, a wax covered person paces around
The wax and candles: cover the floor, walls, and ceiling, if you move uncarefully through this room while wearing flammable clothing there is a 50% chance you catch on fire
The wax covered person: 3 HD, claw for 1d6, ac as unarmored, she can vomit a cone of melted wax (damage + slows), if the massive candle covering her head is snuffed she moves at half speed, if slain she reforms in 10 minutes, this can only be prevented if all the wax is melted off of her 
Secret: hidden within the wax is a treasure chest, within is 2d6*10 gp and a hand of glory.
Room interactions: if the horned demon room is above or below this one the wax of the room is melting, this also reveals the treasure chest

Chamber of shadow
In this room: there is only darkness like mist and heat like an oven
The darkness and the heat: is the body of DARK BURN HUNGER (which is its name and its nature), 6 HD, ac as unarmored, moves as fast as a limping man, everything within its bulk must save or take 1d6 damage as they are burned and 1d6 damage as they are bitten, if it kills something it spends a whole round doing nothing but eating, can only be harmed by light, cold, or true satisfaction, will only pursue the weak
If you manage to see the walls: they will be covered in soot and bite marks

The nursery 
In this room: is a horrible insect thing coiled on the ceiling and a pile of pink gems
The insect: 4 HD, ac as leather, bite for d8/claw for d6/sting for d4 + mind poison (save or forget a childhood memory), it can speak and will try to bargain with you for your soul, looks like a cross between a spider, a centipede, and a wasp, if you mess with it or the gems it will attack
The gems: are actually eggs though this is only apparent if you look close at the small shape within or if you break them, smashing them releases a swarm of horrible insect things, a handful of eggs can also be substituted for a soul in all kinds of dark rituals

Treasury
In this room: a pedestal with a golden egg on it, four statues of dragon men
Pedestal: made of stone, the egg is made from dragon gold, it is worth 500 gp but if owned for a month you become incredibly greedy and scales start to cover your body until you turn into a dragonborn after a full year
Dragon men statues: each has a hand held out with a gold coin on it, one of the statues wears a crown, the statues animate if the golden egg is taken unless the statue with the crown holds all four coins, when animated 3 HD, ac as plate, claw for 1d8/claw for 1d8, things that aren't meant to harm stone deal minimum damage, they will only harm the thief and will not leave the room unless the egg does

Conversion chambers
In this room: is an angel in chains, two faceless figures in black robes 
Chained angel: 4 HD, ac as chain, shattering touch for 2d6, one of his wings is like that of a bat, the other is having feathers plucked off of it by one of the figures revealing more bat-like flesh beneath, two small horns poke out of his head, he is currently being converted into a fallen angel by his own choice and will be very mad if you kill the black robed figures
Faceless figures: 1 HD each, ac as unarmored, curvy dagger for 1d4, one uses a metal tool to pluck the feathers from the angels wing, the other chants an unsettling mantra and waves its hands about, they have no face, only two glowing red eyes, when slain only their robes remain
Room interactions: if adjacent to the angels incursion the chained angel will be unchained and talking through the barricade trying to convert the wingless angels within

Lunar conservatory
In this room: silver grass grows from the ground, neon butterflies flutter about, a miniature moon floats in the center
Silver grass: is an invasive species from the moon, will out compete most other grasses if planted on the earth, though it feels like grass it also counts as actual silver for magical purposes 
Neon butterflies: in the color of the aurora borealis, emit a soft glow, they are the children of the moon and will one day grow into powerful wizards, for now the swarm can only cast magic missile if they all work together
Miniature moon: if you offend the moon (by insulting the moon, praising the sun, crushing one of the butterflies, etc) it will open to reveal an eye underneath and attack, 4 HD, ac as leather, will spend one turn charging up before firing a purple pink laser that deals 5d6 damage 

The clot
In this room: is nothing but mycelium
The mycelium: takes up the entire room, impassable unless you spend half an hour hacking through it, if you do every 10 minutes you need to save or take 1d4 damage from ejected poison 

The lab
In this room: a medical table with a massive corpse on it, a scientist, and a rack full of medical tools 
Medical table: standard issue, on it a massive corpse made of different body parts sewn together, it is missing a right arm 
The scientist: clad in a white labcoat, she will ask the pcs with the highest constitution or charisma of the party if they would be willing to give up an arm for her monster, 1 HD, ac as unarmored, bonesaw for 1d6, will try to negotiate before resorting to combat
Rack of medical tools: contains an extra bonesaw, a syringe with two needles and two spaces for liquid, and a thermometer full of blessed mercury (measures your sin, a fever means you need to repent)
If this room is on the top floor: there is no roof and next to the medical table is a massive Tesla coil, there is a big switch on the wall and if pulled lightning strikes the corpse animating it, 5 HD, ac as leather, slam for 1d10, can slam twice if it has both arms, follows the commands of anyone who looks like a scientist

Angels incursion
In this room: are 3 wingless angels, a massive hole, and barricades 
Wingless angels: 3 HD each but currently at a third of their max health, ac as chain, holy halberd for 1d8 damage or double against any of the trains other inhabitants, wear gold trimmed armor, stubs where their wings were still bleed, don't want to be here, don't want to be in heaven either
Massive hole: on the side of the room, quite large and fills the room with howling wind, you can see the landscape fly by
Barricades: cover all entrances into this room, made out of wood, they could be noisily broken down in a minute or so
Room interactions: if adjacent to the horned demons room the horned demons will be almost done breaking through the barricades when the pcs make it here, if adjacent to the conversion chamber one of the wingless angels has been converted by their corrupted brethren and is waiting for a good opportunity to switch sides

 

By Dante Alighieri

 

 

The Locomotive
In this room: a weary looking man, a box of coal, a roaring firebox
The man: his name is Dante, he has no abilities and only 1 hp remaining, currently he is shoveling in coal into the firebox, he wants to leave this horrible place and get back to his wife
The coal: is in the shape of human skulls, made out of condensed sin they can be used to run infernal machines 
The firebox: must be constantly fed with the coal otherwise the train will come to a stop in 5 minutes, then in a further 5 it will explode into magical slag

GLAUGUST 2025 - Wells of the mythic underworld

My second post for Glaugust, the prompt for this one is a selection of interesting wells, wishing or non-wishing

 

Wells of the mythic underworld 

To randomly create a well for a dungeon start by rolling on state of the well followed by what is in the well, there is a 50% chance you get to roll on something extra 

If the resulting well would be useful to some of the inhabitants of the dungeon there is an 80% chance they make use of it, otherwise something is stopping them from using it.  

 

State of the well 

1 broken, you would need a carpenter to fix it
2 intact but missing its rope and bucket
3 missing a bucket but has a rope
4 has a bucket and a rope

What is in the well

1 just water thankfully
2 water and fish, roll for what type
        1 blind cave piranhas, always hungry
        2 sad looking bloated fish, they are poisonous to surface dwellers but delicious to denizens of the underworld, random encounters become more likely in their presence
        3 you might call it a fish but all the tubes and goat like eyes make you question this, if you stare too long into its eyes it will psychically command you to aid them
3 blood, always fresh somehow
4 darkness, somehow you can hold it in a bucket, if you "splash" it you cover a whole room in darkness for around an hour, good lighting will cause the darkness to "dry up" in around 10 minutes
5 chicken noodle soup, concerningly tastes exactly like how your grandmother use to make it
6 green slime

Something extra

1 the well is giant sized, being at least 5x bigger than normal, you probably can't operate it
2 at the bottom of the well is a mini dungeon, whatever is in the well is waist high throughout it, if you don't have a dungeon to put here just make 1d4+2 rooms 
3 a Naiad presides over this well and will not let you take anything from it without an offering, her personality will be influenced by whatever is in the well
4 halfway down the well is a door which opens up into a room on the next floor of the dungeon
5 a sign on it says "toss in a coin and make a wish", the first time any particular creature tosses in a coin (any coin) and makes a wish it will come true, but only roughly 1% of it, if the wisher asks for money it will eject two coins instead of 1% of the money they asked for
6 ridiculously deep, takes 10 minutes to lower and raise a bucket

 

By Rakot13, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Kola Superdeep Borehole, the deepest man made hole