Don't you people ever die?! A DMing thread

[7days]

The book is Elder Evils. But damned if I can remember the names of the monsters right now.

[Yumil]

Originally Posted by tacticslion

Also, can anyone help me find an undead moon? It's too big to be a battle station!On a slightly more serious note: I'm looking for a book, or rather, more specifically two creatures in said book. I own the book (bought it at Barnes and Noble in Miami), but, because of the way the movers put our stuff when we moved into our house, I can't find it. Unfortunately, I can't recall the exact title, but it's something like "Perilous Foes" or "Ultimate Monsters" or somesuch over-the-top thing and bills itself as campaign and world-ending monsters/events. The specific two items I'm looking for are this kind of undead moon thing, and a living asteroid "mother" creature with poisonous positive energy. What I'm looking for, if anyone has it, are names, rough histories, and the gist of what they are, all found within its description, but none of which I have available right now. Other things that are in the book (for the purpose of jogging memory, if you guys have seen it):
~ a moon filled with negative energy causing the undead to run rampant!
~ a mad "mother" astroid, now made with real corrupt positive energy!
~ some monster or another that basically regrows from his horn (starts with a "Z", I think)
~ Kysuss, the demigod of worms
~ some other stuff I can't remember

Only because 7days mentioned the name of the bookHere is a wiki article with what you want(Sort of, it gives you a good idea about who they are and their names in the least):
Here you go.

[Meister]

On the one hand they didn't catch on to the dodge-the-charging-brute method until halfway through the fight, and not without some subtle prompting. On the other they set up a cooperative effort with an additional bull rush at the same time they'd reduced him to 0 HP anyway, which gave me the opportunity to describe the plan working perfectly and roll 10d10 for show, so I'd say overall it was a success.

[Julford Hajime]

Just started my group up Saturday, after having nobody show up for the first hour (We only have a four-hour timeslot to work with because of location), and then the second person not showing up until the end of the second hour. Ended up just having them both draw up two third level characters so we'd have a full party of four, and then kicked things off with roughly 40 minutes left in our session.

Aparently having only one other person to argue your plan with (Instead of our usual three to five) makes the group run like lightning, because they managed to break into jail, rescue the convicted party member (Set up, sham trial, etc.), knock three of the four guards unconscious, stabilize said three guards to guarantee they don't die, ransack an evidence locker for convicted members' equipment, and get the hell out of dodge. Normally this would've been a four hour affair, and they pulled it off in 30 minutes.

Shit. If they keep this kind of pace up, they'll pretty much finish everything I had planned for them by the end of the month. Oh well, I gave them an easy encounter (The guards were all basic level 2 soldiers made using the DMG, and didn't manage to call for any more help before being totally curbstomped by three third level PCs) and rushed through a lot of the descriptions, so next session will (Hopefully) take the four hours I planned for it.

[7days]

I'm setting up a halloween one-shot built around The WOD:Slasher book. Not really using much from the book itself, but it got me thinking about the whole genre of slasher movies and this year it's my turn to build something for my RPGing group. My problem is I've got two diffent concepts, and I can't decide between them. On one hand, I've got an idea where I set up the perfect college town with all the elements of a slasher genre world, assign each of the players a different type of slasher and whoever get the highest bodycount at the end of the night wins. On the other hand, I got the same world but the players are the college students trying to survive. Now the reason I'm torn is that it seems like every year we do a halloween game, it's the players trying to survive a different supernatural menace, but if I do the players as slashers I'm not sure that everyone will be interested in playing amoral serial killers murdering innocents. The third option is to have some of the players play killers and some play victims, but I kinda want to limit the number of players to 6 and that's not realy enough to split. Any input would be appreciated.

[Meister]

I'd just ask them if they're up for it - sure it spoils the surprise, but that's probably better than either playing something people are uncomfortable with or missing the opportunity to play something different.

[tacticslion]

Lady Fire Dove is not permitted to read this. All else may, so long as you also don't play in my campaigns.So, my group that had were unable to decide where they wanted to go reconviened the other day. They were exploring the night realm, and (having done a lot of my-game-specific legwork before hand) bypassed a number of issues and went directly to the control tower. Prior to this event, a large number of NPCs (of various skills and abilities, mostly adventurers/warriors) had been rescued/dragged into this realm with them. One player had even managed to use her psychic abilities combined with her shapechanging to sway an entire orc/hobgoblin mixed troup group (about fifty or so) to follow her (seeing her as the heir to an ancient local legend of theirs).

At the control tower, they carefully walked up the steps and met a powerful, dying psychic. After some conversation (and story-based reveals) a powerful effect happened, and they were all dropped unconscious. For two weeks. Now, do to the nature of time on this plane, not quite one day in any realm other than this one, but that still leaves the NPCs and nigh-fanatic orcs/hobgoblins against an entire undead army. It'll be fun to see what happens when the PCs wake up two weeks later and all the NPCs who survive who were a lower level than they were (first and second level compared to fourth and fifth) suddenly be of a higher level than they are (sixth and seventh level). Good times.

Also: neat to hear the update Meister! And yeah, 7days, I'd generally agree with big M, there - if you're worried that they'll be uncomfortable, give them the option. I think that'll work out the best.

[walkertexasdruid]

Is ok to use some elements from your favorite books, such as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, and Terry Brooks' Shanarra series, in your D&D campaign? For some reason the last player I DMed for really objected to me using some of those ideas. I do not know what his problem was, when he DMed he had Sephiroth and Sidney from Vagrant Story in his campaign. Did I do anything wrong?

[Nikose Tyris]

Originally Posted by walkertexasdruid

Is ok to use some elements from your favorite books, such as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, and Terry Brooks' Shanarra series, in your D&D campaign? For some reason the last player I DMed for really objected to me using some of those ideas. I do not know what his problem was, when he DMed he had Sephiroth and Sidney from Vagrant Story in his campaign. Did I do anything wrong?

It's bad when NPC's overshadow your heroes. Don't give them more screentime, don't let them show up and overshadow and Dues Ex your game.

If you want to offhandedly mention Elminster or Drizzt, you're welcome to it- just don't ruin things by having Eliminster show up when things are going badly and fix everything.


The campaign books Cormyr, Shadowdale and Aunoroch (Forgotten Realms 3.5 books) do this wonderfully. You hear about all these heroes and they all rely on your characters, and they're reasonably low level.

I'd advise browsing those books if you can get access to them for examples on how to effectively use legendary NPC's in your game. [Also you totally kill Scyllua Darkhope in Shadowdale. Seriously!)

[Fifthfiend]

Originally Posted by walkertexasdruid

Is ok to use some elements from your favorite books, such as Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, The Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind, The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, and Terry Brooks' Shanarra series, in your D&D campaign? For some reason the last player I DMed for really objected to me using some of those ideas. I do not know what his problem was, when he DMed he had Sephiroth and Sidney from Vagrant Story in his campaign. Did I do anything wrong?

You included a person who included Sephiroth in his game in your game.

EDIT also, Sword of Truth