Magic Item Creation by NPC

The difference in magic item crafting rules between the Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) and Xanathar's Guide to Everything (XGtE) lies primarily in their approach to cost, time, and the inclusion of specific crafting components. The DMG offers a framework focused on gold cost and time based on item rarity, while Xanathar's introduces a more detailed system involving exotic materials and adventure-based acquisition

 

Using DMG (Pg# 128 /129) not Xanthar due to no quest or rare ingredients by PC. Assuming we are asking someone in the city to do this for us. 

Magic Weapon’s

+1 Uncommon - 500 gp - 20 days / x2.8 Weeks

+2 Rare - 5000 gp - 200 days / 28.5 Weeks / 6.5 Months

+3 Very Rare - 50,000 gp - 2000 days / 285.7 Weeks / 131.4 Months / 5.48 Years

+4 Legendary - 500,000 gp - 20,000 days /  2857 Weeks / 1315 Months / 110 Years

NPC’s Time and Money Costs 

+1 Uncommon - +30 gp 

+2 Rare - +300 gp

+3 Very Rare - +3000 gp

+4 Legendary - +30,000 gp

Asking someone in the city to undertake this great expense of time and money will result in them charging for their work beyond what is presented in the guide. The guide assumes YOU are doing the work. 

Presented here are MY npc’s rates adjusted for the campaign.

New Books (Follow up to June 2016)

Funny, I originally posted the opening of the 2014 D&D 5E books when I got them and now there are new 5E books exactly 10 years later in 2024 that are updates of these books. 

 Original link to the post --> New Books 2016 

To be clear we are not using these 2024 books and are still running the 2014 rules at our current game due to conflicting rule sets. 

Spell Revision (House Rules)

 Some spells have been revised as they are too powerful to play as is in the current campaign. This is a small write up on how I've altered the use of these major factor's in our campaign. 

ORIGINALLY POSTED AUGUST 2015 --> https://underthepalemoonrpg2.blogspot.com/2015/08/updated-spells-for-house-rules.html

Teleport 

Here is how I address teleport. 

Imagine you find a map, to an ancient lost city in the mountain, miles to your east. It's lost to time and hasn't been touched by man in over 500 years. The city hosts a special temple where a dangerous demon now infests and he guards what you've come to find out is an powerful artifact.  

This is a campaign for level 1-20 for the PC's to enjoy as they make their way into the wilds outside the city. Here they find new friends, allies, fight monsters, find secret locations, treasure and more. With many side quests and new discoveries the PC's spend months on adventure and hardship to reach the mountains and enter the lost city. Here they they have to solve puzzles and riddles to enter the temple and face the demon with all that they've gained to best him and retrieve the artifact . . . or do they?

What if simply at level 1 the mage used the map as a known place and cast teleport? Here the part is in one nights gaming session at the temple and use a trick to get around the demon, snatch the artifact and teleport back to town. Done, over, simple right?

That is why 'teleport' as written is too powerful. I think back to the days of one of the first mmo's and reference 'Ultima online', the game's not important but the idea it presented is. In this game the wizard had a book in which he/she would 'save' locations, that (once reached) would then be used as places to teleport to. 

This lead me to the idea that the PC's have to 'attune' through a long rest to a location to be able to teleport to it. Let's look at this in practice . . . 

Eg). Jackson knows the city well and has spent many days here, so he can easily add this to his book of places to teleport to. As he set's out on adventure, he comes to a small town where he can rest up and also takes the time to 'attune' to this place so he can come back here via teleport. Later he goes underground into some drow tunnels and hides in a secret room off the main hall with his allies. Here he rest's and 'attunes' to this location, also noting that it's a great place to come back to so he can branch off into another area much later. Finally he makes it to the secret city and to the temple where he makes a final 'attunement' to this place, before proceeding into battle. Here an ally falls and they must regroup, Jackson decides to 'teleport' back to town to find a new ally and bring him in. They arrive back to the group to where they last camped and he 'attuned', gear up and battle the demon, ultimately winning. Once they claim the treasure they then 'teleport' back to the city, having already explored the wilds and have a drink at the local inn. 

I still have the 'mishap' chances and such, but this addresses the big problem with teleport IMO. 

Endure Elements

This is how I address Endure Elements and similar spells. 

You've come to the plane of cold and have to endure, blowing show, freezing temps and chilling water hazards . . . or do you?

What if all you had to do was cast a simple level 1 spell that any kid off the street in the local city can cast?

One moment your struggling for you life in a hostile place and the next, your laughing in a blizzard and prancing across a lake of ice while having nothing to penalize you for doing so. As a player you laugh at the table as the many published adventure and source books all focusing on hardships in extreme cold of the north and the heat of the desert are tossed aside and never referenced for your gaming experience, because you can cast a level 1 spell . . .

IMO these spells are removed from the game, due to them being so overpowered that you simply have defeated nature herself with one easy spell. There is no challenge, no adventure to be had, no effect of the world around you as it simple doesn't matter anymore.  

The Cosmos, man . . . what a trip

 Starting outward and going in . . . 

The Far Realm, a place stretched beyond comprehension beyond the boundaries of reality. 

The Edge of the Astral Sea, where the Outer Planes dwell, each home to realms of gods/demon lords or a god/demon lord.

The Astral Sea, which stretches it's self to the edges of it's massive sphere and in which all else resides. 

Crystal Spheres, in which Wild Space begins for each setting. Home to planets, sun's and the core material realm of a specific setting. 

Material realm, of the setting. In our case it is home to the planet Illmakaria.

Planet Illmakaria, home to the continent of Karnantha. 

Karnantha, Home to countries like Ashura.

Ashura Kingdom, home to the great walled city of the same name Ashura City. 

The Fey Realm, a copy of Karnantha remade in the fey's image.

The Shadow Realm, a copy of Karnantha reamade in the shadow fey's image. 

The Ethereal Plane, a reflection of Karnantha as seen through shadow and mists.  

The Elemental Planes (Inner Planes), a massive ring of planes made of the four elements that connect at the borders giving way to four distinct transitional planes that all converge at a central plane of absolute Elemental Chaos.

Elemental Chaos, the most central inner plane of unbalance. 

 

As for places like Sigal, the city of doors. I would have to interpret this as being in it's own Crystal Sphere without other planets, but with a sun. The only landmass more so than a planet would be Sigal and it would have the corresponding gates to the Outer Planes from the Outlands that surround the tower. 

Dnd Game 5e, March 3rd 2024 Findings

 Okay I wanted to go over TWO things in the Warlock build for Hexblade

1. First for PACT WEAPON - This is a Warlock's PACT BOON ability. If you choose PACT OF THE BLADE you get the ability to summon the FORM of a weapon to your hand. PG107

"Each PACT BOON option produces a special creature of an object that reflects your PATRONS nature." PG 108 // "If your PATRON is an Archfey, your weapon might be a slender blade wrapped in leafy vines."

[SUB] --> "You can transform one MAGIC weapon into your pact weapon by performing a special ritual while you hold the weapon." PG 108 PHB

2. ** OTHERWORLDY PATRONS: (Xanthars Guide To Everything PG 54  ** --> "At 1st level, a warlock gains the Otherworldy Patron feature. The following options are available to a warlock, in addition to those offered in the Player's Handbook. THE CELESTIAL and THE HEXBLADE."

After choosing to make pact with a mysterious entity from the Shadowfell PG 55. You've chosen the HEXBLADE AS your PATRON! ---> Hence you get the ability HEX WARRIOR PG 55. "The influence of your patron also allows you to mystically channel your will through A PARTICULAR WEAPON (Real weapon, not a pact weapon manifested to resemble a weapon). When you finish a long rest, you can touch one weapon that you are proficient with and that LACKS THE TWO-HANDED property. WHEN you attack with that weapon, you can use your CHARISMA modifier, instead of your Strength or Dexterity for the attack and damage rolls. 

[DM] --> You MUST have the HEXBLADE (Aka, made a pact with a creature from the Shadowfell) as your PATRON to use this ability (HEX WARRIOR) for CHARISMA on your attacks and only on a real weapon NOT a pact weapon. 

** OTHERWORLDY PATRONS: (Tasha's Cauldron of Everything PG 72 ** --> "At 1st level, a warlock gains the Otherworldy Patron feature, which offers you the choice of your subclass. The following options are available to you when making that choice: THE FATHOMLESS and THE GENIE."

[DM] --> BOTH, HEXBLADE and GENIE are otherworldy patrons and cannot be BOTH chosen. You are stacking abilities from BOTH. 

The island of dawn

At a time when mass adventure in our campaign world is overshadowed by pre-published adventures and mass story lines, we shift off to basic old school adventure on an isle somewhere in the far south of the western ocean. An island of simple times and simple people, who still live in small towns far removed from the demonic hordes that overrun the main lands.

The sun shines high above in blue skies full of thick white clouds down onto grassy fields of wildflowers and tall multicolored white barked birch trees. This is the island of dawn, an island with quiet towns, a mass forest at it's centre, mountains on it's eastern shores and meadows on it's western cliffs. The people deal more with the wild than with monsters as wolves seem to be a major problem here, though some gnolls have been spotted in the hills near town. Ancient ruins of places built here seem to pre-date the populace that inhabits the island now and still hold their secrets, as well as being a known location for accessing portals to the elemental plains.

Other than that, the island see's almost no outside visitors as it has no major merchants, no exports and no imports. The lumber, fishing, farming and mining done here are on a small scale and enough to make an honest living within it's communities. Ships rarely visit the port unless it's to purchase supplies and outsiders are rarely seen within town or stay for long. The quiet little island basically see's little change and that is where the adventure begins. . .

You are going to venture here to uncover the secrets hidden on this island and to places beyond that can only be reached from here. Along the way you will meet interesting people who can be allies or enemies. You will be a solver or problems, a hero where no one else rises to accept challenge. You will change the lives of everyone who lives here for better or worse and start your path into a larger world by taking on the title of adventurer.

Places of interest:

• The town of Slumberhaven
• The mages tower (ruins)
• The whitewood (forest)
• Copper Hills (hills)
• Eastwind Peaks (mountains)
• Breezefield (meadows)
• Echo Dens (caves)
• The Thicket (fields)

People of interest:
• Genevieve Gwendallen (Fighter/rogue) - Human mercenary
• Luc Girard (Barbarian) - Human lumberjack
• Anthond Waygrove (Ranger) Halfling scout

DM Guidance

As a DM of 16 years this fall (2018) I have uncovered many things about running a game that may help others in learning to DM. There are too many tips and tricks blogs, web sites and famous people now on the band wagon giving advice and I did not want to do the same thing, so mine will have more of a twist on it. This will be more realistic guidance on how to run a successful game without the same generic quote answers.

Designing your game/encounter for the night

Your game is coming up and know full well that you won't be able to spend hours writing some extravagant story line for three to four hours of a game on Sunday night. So what's the best approach and what is the downside of spending hours writing for one game session?

Too much effort: In the beginning I used to write every detail, every outcome and how that one game will feed into the next and into the over all plot and plan way down the road. Here is why this is a bad idea. When you overwrite or over-plan you are basically writing a finished story. You have most likely read it over a few times and have been satisfied with the way you've now first experienced it and experienced it a second or third time. It is the same as reading a book or watching a movie, you've experienced the events and seen the outcome and it's time to move on. 

Too vague: You also do not want to under plan by using just a concept of how the game will go. (Example) The PC's will go to town to do their town stuff then meet someone who wants something back at a cave and we'll throw cave monsters at them. Being too vague will show as your struggling to come up with places, people and plausible reasons for the adventure during the game. The cave will be a series of monsters and traps with no outstanding or memorable point. You will need to flip around the book to randomly generate things on the fly and have no answers to any questions.

Mid ground: The best approach IMO is to start with a set of points of where you think the PC's will go, who they will talk to, where the action will take place, and so forth and then spend what time you have putting effort into the parts that make up the highest feelings of immersion. (Example) Write out a tavern concept (this can be vague such as dive bar and high end merchant trade bar), the details need to be based around who they will interact with to create a memorable RPG encounter. How the staff look (details on uniforms and attitude), a three item menu with a unique item that only this place has and what makes the place unique (again a small quick detail, this requires no big backstory, in fact keep this vague to allow the PC's to speculate as to the significance of an item, a saying, or such in a bar). Also list one NPC by full name, race, and a basic background detail as somehow, someway (don't over plan) the PC's will come into contact with this person.


For the encounter part have general concepts of the site or what most rooms are like but work on one major even taking place there that they can experience, but don't write any outcomes. Let them determine the outcome by interacting with the environment you've created. (Example) If the encounter concept for the night is that in this cave there is a large wall holding back a mass amount of water for some unknown reason, you've made an intriguing point and someone will want to know why it's there. Come up with some ideas behind why it's there but nothing permanent, let the PC's discussion and their ideas on why its there be the actual answer. If someone breaks it, have a basic idea of how the flooding will add fun to the encounter such as by sweeping the PC's into a new area or pose a threat of being pushed off a cliff. Either way don't go overboard writing all details on the encounter, who built it and why, what happens 100% and don't go to vague as in just writing a wall holding water, but go in the middle and have some specific thing that happen if the wall is broken and if the PC's want to figure out more information on the glass wall such as putting a wizard in who can dispel it to flood the cave in care of emergency or maybe an old journal by a skeleton of the wizard who's plan this was years ago.

The idea is to have details your familiar with that are seamless when questioned about the people, places and things in the world but not have a completely written out story on how your encounter or event is going to go.

For more on UPM Gaming check out our Facebook Page, Twitter (https://twitter.com/upm_gaming) and YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/dean8880).

Pathfinder Playtest - Character Creation

Building Penelope

*For the origins of Penelope and her party see The Cast

So I decided to build a character to see how the process goes for Pathfinder Playtest and what an exercise it is! It is no easy feat to build your character, the most cumbersome part of the process is what they call (or their version) of a proficiency bonus. In 5E it is a fixed number that goes up every few levels but stays the same throughout the game. However in Pathfinder Playtest it is not a fixed number, but based on how proficient you are, your level and changes for its interaction with each skill, ability, armor, weapon, etc, etc.

I have always loved the customization of Pathfinder and the Playtest has no shortage of that. I will try to give feedback about the parts I found to be very annoying such as the outrageous calculation for perception. Officially listed as this:

Perception modifier = wisdom modifier + perception proficiency modifier + circumstance bonus + conditional bonus + item bonus + circumstance penalty + conditional penalty + item penalty + untyped penalties. 

You have to be out of your mind if that has to be calculated on the fly each time the PC needs to perceive something.

TAC makes no sense, as the paragraph is written word for word the same as AC. This must be typo. Why would the same score needed to hit you in armor vs needed to just touch you be the exact same formula with the same bonuses, etc?

Also skills are going to be horrible to change as your proficiency bonus goes up and down based on your level and other factors. You really need to pay attention to how much that bonus effects everything. When you level many things are going to change in numbers, which would be an amazing things on an excel sheet as it auto calculates, but by hand . . . oh my.

Okay the build

1 - Name (Penelope)
2 - Ancestry: For this I chose "Human" but further I chose the "Ulfen" Ethnicity. Although this is a core Pathfinder Ethnicity, I am familiar with the Ulfen who are basically a race of nord, northmen, classic vikings or light skinned, fur wearing warriors. Upon choosing this I wrote down the following. HP8, Size Medium, Speed 25ft. Ability Boosts Free/Free, Languages common + one. Traits human / humanoid and it grants an extra feat so I chose Unconventional Weaponry, which fits Penelope's unusual weapons she carries.
3 - Background: I chose warrior as it fits her best. Being the member of a tribe of warriors from the north at one point and now independent. Choosing warriors grants her the following. Ability boosts strength or con and free. Quick repair feat, and the warfare lore skill.
4 - Class: Here I choose barbarian as that is what she is. This comes with "Rage" which is very detailed as there are two pages of rage types and things to do with rage. For her "Totem" I chose "Fury" as I did not like the animal, dragon, giant, etc. The fury grants her an additional 1st level barbarian feat as well. Her physical damage resistance while raging through fury applies to "All" physical types of damage. For her barbarian feats at 1st (since I get two now) I chose "Sudden Charge" and "Raging Intimidation". Her barbarian key abilities are strength, and hp 12 + con. Proficiencies are in perception  (expert). Saving throws - Fortitude (expert), Reflex (trained), and Will (expert). Weapons (trained) in all simple and martial weapons. Armor (trained) in all light and medium armor. Signature skills are Acrobatics, Athletics and Intimidation.
5 - Add ability scores: Str 18, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 10, Wiz 12, Cha 10. *How I got these are: All scores start at 10, then add in your proficiency bonus to your Ancestry Ability Boosts and Flaws (+2 str & +2 con), then add in your background ability boosts (+2 str, & +2 con), then add in your four free ability boosts (+2 str, +2 dex, +2 con, +2 wis), finally add in your One Class ability boost (+2 str).
6 - Apply your class: Basically at this point you total your hp from your Ancestry 8hp and your class 12 + con bonus (3) = 23 HP
7- Determine skill modifiers: This is where I had the hardest time and its very complex. Basically I added in Warfare lore (trained) skill from my background. My three skills + int mod (0) = 3 from my class (I choose as the book suggests my signature skills of Acrobatics, Athletics and Intimidation (trained). Also you would go through every skill and decide if its untrained (your level -2), trained (your level) or beyond. This I did not do, also keep in mind for example that these skills are categories of skills example. "Athletics" is the category name for the actual individual skills of: Break Grapple, Break Open, Climb, Grapple, High Jump, Long Jump, Shove, Swim, and Trip. These are all skills with actions associated to them.
8 - Buy Equipment: They start you with 150sp and the sp is the common currency. I like this much better than gold as its more realistic in what we've been told about the commoner and common goods all trading in silver. I picked up Penelope's Hide armor (20sp) as she wears hides (but I did not like it's -3 skill check penalty!), her trademark weapons Katana sword (20sp) and Battle Axe (12sp). Remember I took the feat Unconventional Weaponry which lets me take the Katana which is a Uncommon Martial weapon of which I am (trained) in.
9 -  Details: Age 19, Alignment CN, AC 15 (10 + dex (1) + 1 (trained) +3 armor bonus, TAC 15 *There is no difference in AC and TAC as the paragraph is identical in the book, this must be a typo. Bulk (didn't bother to fill in her carried gear weight yet), Deity (nor choose her god), Gender is female, Hero Points 1 (which everyone gets at start of game to a max 3), Melee strikes +5 (Proficiency +1 trained, +4 str). Damage - Katana - 1d8+4 and Battle Axe - 1d8+4 (weapon damage + str). Perception +3 (Proficiency +2 expert, +1 wis bonus). Resonace Points 1 (which is how many magic items you can have?). Saving throws Fort +5, Will +2, Ref +3 (+2 expert in fort +3 con, +1 trained in will +1 wis, and +2 expert in reflex +1 dex).

I will show this all on a filled in character sheet where is looks a lot nicer and is not as confusing. The sheets (3 pages) do make it more clear. This is just a quick build (did take me approx hour to hour and a half to do my first time).

Starfinder

So where do we even start? This game is huge because it's about PC's in a space ship that can go to worlds. Think of all the years it took Ed Greenwood to make one world . . . one. All the places, all the kingdoms, all the history. Think of the drow below, adventures in the far east, adventures in the south, it's huge! Now take all that and do it like ten or so times for just worlds in like one solar system, right?

In Development May 2018

It's something no one could ever do. This is why many times people create "planets" or "worlds" that have a gimmick or theme that is only one city or one area and they say it's the world. Think of the real world, all the races, all the places that are so different from each other that even though they do exist on one world together you would expect them in fantasy to just define one world. Even in Mass Effect Andromeda a "world" is gimmick-ed as ice or desert, when in reality it would have both.

It's this thinking that blows my mind and makes me unable to even consider Starfinder. Do we do adventures on a space station like in the published adventures? What about on a ship like in Alien? If we go to a world is it just like fantasy dungeons and dragons versus space adventure? Reading the core book I got taken right out of sc-fi fantasy and space when I saw an image of a dwarf on page 9, YUK! This is horrible, because it's saying "Hey were still playing Pathfinder or D&D with classic fantasy races in space."

If we were just playing pathfinder in space, I would just have played the "Lords of Rust" adventure where the PC's as fantasy characters explore tech stuff. My home-brew had them (at one time) on spaceships via Spelljammer. But this is not what I am looking for in Starfinder, I am looking for Sc-fi adventures in space. With so many styles like Star Trek, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Alien, Dark Matter, EVE, the list goes on, so where do we start?

I was hoping to use the rules loose in a home-brew campaign that has nothing to do with the published adventures because I have seen the same game streamed a hundred times and I don't feel one published adv can cover all genres of space and sc-fi. As well why do we want to re-run the same published adventure we've seen run because no one knows where to start in Starfinder.

Thinking about what type of game I would want to run, what the plot would be, where we would go, and how the setting needs to feel (Star Fleet uniforms with regulations, or a mercenary feel with space jockey's in crappy ships evading an empire, etc) and what would be our goal. There is sooooooooo much that can happen that I have to start to nail down what I want to build.



Using the Starfinder book I wanted to roll up a character for fun, so here it is:

Step 1: Concept - A ship captain of  a small ship that is kind of junky and has seen battle a few too many times. I want her tough and able to negotiate with the locals while avoiding getting ripped off. She has a background of a maybe spoiled life left behind to find freedom and independence. She's a loner but has contacts at many ports who she can look up for information and such.

Step 2: Race - I guess human would be best as Android, while cool is not a real person. However human covers so much ground. She could be a sub race of a type of humans who have used technology to modify their bodies.

Step 3: Theme - Spacefarer seems to fit most, as a nice mix of Ace Pilot/Mercenary/Bounty Hunter would be fun, but the Spacefarer has the intuition and the exploration aspects. Ace Pilot is too much about being almost a car person but for ships, Mercenary seems to be only combat and bounty hunter is a tracker.

Step 4: Class - Operative is maybe a rogue, but she would not be a magic user and is there magic in space? Not a warrior, and so forth.

Step 5: Roll ability scores and add in extras. Str -10, Dex-10, Con-10, Cha10, Int-10, Wiz-10. Race ability points = +2 Any. Theme ability points = +1 Con. Plus 10 points for customization. Final scores Str-12, Dex-16, Con-11, Cha-12, Int-12, Wiz-10.

Step 6: Add in class features. 6+1 (7) Stamina Points, 6HP, Dex - Key ability score. Class skills - 8+2 (10) Acrobatics +2, Athletics, Bluff, Computers+1, Culture, Disguise, Engineering+1, Intimidate, Medicine, Perception, Piloting +4, Profession, Sense Motive +2, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Survival. Proficient in Light Armor and Basic melee weapons, small arms and sniper weapons. BAB = 0, Fort = 0, Ref = 2, Will = 2. Operatives Edge +1 (Initiative and Skill Checks), Specialization (Thief - Perception +3 and Sleight of Hand +3. Specialization Exploit - Holographic distraction), Trick attack 1d4. 

Step 7: Skills (added above) / Feats - x2 Human. Dive for Cover and Minor Psychic Power.

Step 8: Equipment with 1000 credits to buy. Semi Auto Pistol Tactical, level 1, -260 credits, 1d6 P (dam), 30ft (range), No crit, x9 rounds, 1 usage, Bulk L, Special Analog. Second Skin, level 1, -250 credits, EAC +1, KAC +2, Max Dex +5, Upgrade slot x1, Bulk L.     

Step 9: Details
Alignment - chaotic neutral
AC - EAC+14, KAC+15. Vs combat maneuvers +23
Attack Bonuses - +2 Melee, ranged, thrown. +3 Other ranged attacks
Carrying Capacity - NA
Deity - I don't think applies, too much like fantasy
Description - Black haired, young, athletic, smart mouthed, captain of her ship. Loves to explore and trade as well as break in and take things . . . from time to time.
Home World - Unknown
Initiative - +4
Language - Common, +2 other.
Resolve Points - +4
Saving Throws - Fort = 1, Ref = 5, Will = 2
Size - Medium
Speed - 30ft.
Starship - Pale Maiden

From "World of Alessia" Building the Universe.

That is making a character using the Starfinder rules, but let's do more creating on this game world. First what rule set do we even use? Do we go in using Starfinder as it is? I have too many issues with space elves and dwarves so I can't use it like this. I could homebrew tons of it, but that is a lot of work. Another thought is to use a custom rule set like "Fate" and have the adventure about story with the PC's using skills to overcome situations. Or just use old familiar the d20 system and a 5E rule set tweaked for space PC's? I don't overall want the game to feel like were playing our normal d&d in space, but I don't want it too complex that it's no fun so we are not creating a custom new rule set.

Next after we pick a rule set I want to focus on who lives in this universe. Are their empires? What are the factions? The cultures? Who are the villains? In EVE there are four empires who each have a region of space and in each there are three classes or races of people. There are no aliens, just humans, however the humans do have powers such as cybernetics, pisonics, etc. Some could even add Star Wars like magic (Force) which is limited spell casting. Androids would be needed. Chemists who can alter their state of size, skill level, make drugs that effect powers, etc. Geology could have people who produce heat, fire, or lava, which could also flip to people of ice and cold, or that can phase into void. Once we set this feel for who lives there we have to work on how things work.

How are physics involved? Geology of the universe and the planets, how does chemistry and magic work in this universe? More to come as I am in the early stages of developing "Stardelver A guide to beyond the pale moon". 

Rethinking running a public bi-weekly game

I thought it might be neat to try to run a game in the city at one of the hobby stores where they are boasting 10 player tables (meaning lot's of people are looking to play). However controlling 10 players is insane as well as only getting two hours to play is bad when combat runs with ten people. I thought I would have to go every week, but I recently seen a post where someone is running a table bi-weekly and got to thinking.

Things I would want to bring or do:
Have campaign guides (paper copies) available for $2.00 or so
Have the logo displayed on my steel book holder
Have business cards with the campaign info on them available
Be able to video record, audio record or live stream the game would be nice

If the table was large I could try splitting the players into two parties who are going for the same dungeon, at least to start off and have them competing to see who can get the treasure first. After this they can meet up and see what evolves.

Now as for the game where to start? I could run dungeons to keep things moving for two hour games, since that is the easiest solution. I don't mind the role playing, but with a group over ten it would not be possible. One person would hog the spotlight and more timid players would not get one word out all game with ten people talking (if the table is that high).

Also setting, we know it will be a UPM game and I always start in Ashura. Lately though I have been running a game north of Ashura along the west oceans coast in the Untamed North. I could all together also go to my most beloved place and just straight up run a Ravenloft game. So many ideas, but the one I pick has to be easy for many players in a short time span, so it can't be heavy investigation role playing for sure.

As I was saying earlier combat is an issue. Combat helps with large groups by getting everyone to have a turn and get into the fight, it also helps with a straight forward adventure of kill the things and find the loot, but it can also be the only thing that happens if the number of enemies needed to balance the large party takes all night to defeat. In that case we are having two hour combat games and getting nowhere. The fights would have to be easy and quick with maybe a long boss fight when called for.

As for dungeon exploration, with a large number of people they would surely have the skills to avoid things like pits, chasms and the like, any NPC they met would be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the party and how many people are tying to talk to them that, that would fizzle out as well.

One of the dungeons I have been planning is a large dark souls, darkest dungeon type setting however again if we have a lot of players and one dies, the party will not go back to town they still have nine more party members and will go forward. This could leave someone dead all night as the dungeon picks off PC's who are non-essential for the groups success. This gives more opportunity to kill a PC in a large group instead of the classic four heroes surviving all encounters with one death which is immediately treated.

This all depends on the group size as well, the table might be smaller and then we can just run a game of our choosing, however I am looking forward to a large group and finding ways to run it that everyone can participate and have an interesting game going on as well.

Getting to the video

Took a good couple hours a night over a couple nights and then two hours and thirty minuets to render followed by a good two hours to upload, wow!

I decided to go back to the idea of posting the entire four hour game (edited down) in one video for a few reasons. I found that most of the footage was actually usable, it wasn't taken up by hours of arguing over Pathfinder rules like in the Pathfinder Mini's Videos and I like the feeling of settling in to watch an entire game (as long at the game can be entertaining). 

While we may get zero hits on the videos that are sitting at one hour and forty three minuets long (after editing and trimming), vs the good twenty or so hits on our mini's vids that sit around twenty minuets. I still think in the end it will be a better idea for this game in particular. 

Some of the old footage is best off as mini's, only showing the good parts, but this new series I wanted to show all I could of the entire game. I did cut a lot of combat since you can't see the map with the initiative board in the way and I've cut a lot of the parts where everyone is eating loudly at the table or crushing chip bags and the like (for your benefit), but the core of the game is there.

If you still can't sit through the entire length of the video, we just ask that you visit the page once or twice to give us hits as YouTube has taken monetization away for channels under 10,000 page views. We are asking for help (We can return help) in getting our page back to monetization status. You can watch the video here:

 

Along with the video, I have begun work on a map of the west coast area of the north known as the Untamed North. This is still in progress, but has the parts from the starter set that we need mixed into our world. These maps help to give more visuals to our world broken down as parts with more detail than our major over world map.

 

More videos and work on the Untamed North are on there way, it is just going to take time as these are very time consuming.

Stay tuned for more updates to come!

Back to a weekly game!

It's been months, but this autumn marks 15 years of D&D for me and I can't be happier to have the group finally rebuilding. After playing every other week with a group of three, we now gain two new players to build us to a group of five and get us back on track. This mixed with the ability to now once again play every Sunday night brings back our weekly gaming night.

 The new players are just getting into d&d so adding them in during the "Lost Mines of Phandelver" is a great way to welcome them to the game. As we've been playing the starter adventure, it's turned out to be a terrific journey so far and I can't wait to incorporate it into what comes next. The adventure has brought us all over the northern countryside and had us fight a good number of foes, we've lost party members and they have used their skills to uncover secrets.

One of the memorable moments was having a large ogre in the road walk off with the corpse of a PC wizard and eat him as the other PC's clinging to life ran for their lives after the creature fed. 

I like starting way up north where the lands are just below the snow covered elven lands and far enough above the metropolis of Ashura. It gives a unique perspective for the PC's as more of wilderness explorers and being able to survive in the wild vs. having grown up in the comfort of the large city. This mountainous, land full of thick evergreen forests, cold rivers, rain and mud adds challenge as the PC's battle nature it's self on a daily basis.

I have planned a series of adventures out in the wild until we either go into a linked published adventure such as "Storm King's Thunder" or some "Tales from the Yawning Portal". Either way, with all the books I have amassed now for 5E will give us a good couple years of material to play through.

In time I will have video of the games from the start posted up on the YouTube channel for watching. Still debating if it would be better as a podcast since the video is just of us playing around the table. More info to come as games go forward. 

Campaign Guide Update

I am still working on our campaign guide and pulling inspiration from various sources where I can. The thing I hate about campaign guides is that many of them are full of nothing of value. They have a nice opening page that tells you about the world then drops off to a normal players guide with the same write up for all the races and classes with a few stat differences and some names of new gods as well as geography or things that happened but not how to incorporate that into a game.

That is all well and good for telling you a bit about the world, but does nothing for being a book you can use. I want mine to be full of stories that bring you into the mindset of the world though descriptive writing so you get a feeling of immersion of the world and to have actual usable content as in some small adventures and how to run them, tactical skirmishes and write ups on ideas for longer campaigns and how they should flow.

If I was to talk about races I would want them to be only focused on being unique and not  just a difference from the core books. I would want to again write up a story of how the race lives in most cases and what they go though daily to see how they fit the story. Maybe some fun way's to play them or how you should see them in our world. One thing I do not want to do is linger on for pages and pages about each race that has no difference or such from core.

I had a neat idea about new spells that are super fun for the first time ever. I came up with some new spells after reading a third party resource that values fun and description over coping the original spells and trying to make attacking spells that may be overpowered. These fun new options have to be tweaked, but are so easy with the new 5th format and focus on role playing and interpretation versus stats on a page.

Gods and deities are so boring and have ever been. I get a symbol of the god and a boring basis stat saying which domain they reign over, if your lucky you get a description of the god as to what they look like, believe or how their followers act. This has been ever hard for me to deal with because it is so boring. I can make my deities all have domains, etc, but how do the gods fit into the gaming world? Why do the PC's follow these gods besides just picking their domains or such? I was thinking about some boons to the players, how to pray or what is involved and how the deity will talk to the player during the game.

Until next time.

Assuming new players are dumb

Not long ago someone posted this on Facebook in the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition forum. Needless to say everyone went off about it. Many of the people thought that OP was saying his girlfriend would not be able to game on the level of anyone else because she was a girl. Some people implied that everyone should be given an easy class to start, others argued that you should start with a difficult class. Others thought he was calling his girlfriend dumb, while others assumed she was dumb and posted for him to make her play a simple class and to stand at the back out of the way.

It was funny to see how many people read this a different way and why OP even posted it this way to start. He could have worded this completely differently saying that she wasn't understanding the game and wanted something easy to learn from or if he thought she would be overwhelmed and never gave her books to see if she would surprise him by coming to the game prepared and fully understanding. 

Reguardless of what he actually meant, if someone wants to learn a game it depends on the way they learn. If the person wants to come to a game and learn while playing, they may quickly find that playing a simple class was a terrible choice as the game unfolds and they pick it up quick, they may want to change not having known how quickly they would grasp everything and realize they could be doing so much more. If the person is the type to learn from the books, they may have read everything and come to the game completely prepared and blow your mind at how much they have latched together to create a top notch character, not needing to start easy at all.

I would shy away from finding something easy and giving it to someone to play if they truly want to start playing D&D. The best way is to find out how they learn and teach from there, that person you thought you needed to dumb the game down for might just surprise you with how fast they take to it after all.

The revision is in progress

With the upcoming new games and possibility of running two games in our world I have combined things I wanted changed for a while now and written a full (almost complete) campaign guide as well as a second document that is a house rules book.

The first part was to fix the world after the cataclysm. I wanted to include the cataclysm, but fix the problems with breaking the world the first time that took away from the campaign and lost part of the original feel. Once quick way to do this was on the world map. I started with fixing the Cloud-Tower Mountains and maintaining that there is no way to cross them easily without going on an extended voyage to the far south, or navigating the ice in the north. This made the Everstorm still a very valid and dangerous crossing path that would separate the east from the west.

With this new map we still have areas of destruction from the cataclysm but have a more reunited old world that worked very well in the long running campaigns of past.

The next part I wanted to work on was the city. The city never had and still does not have a grand map due to it's sheer size. However I wanted to fix the broken city as well and keep it to a simple sketch. The city post cataclysm has been flooded into the bay below and that worked well for one storyline, but as time went on I missed the old northern gate and kept referring to it, even thought it was long gone. This time around I kept some of the features of the cataclysm such as the grand bridge to the royal quarter which is off and into the bay and but have re attached the city to land to function as the southern end of the country and the top of the grand bay.

Here I have re-added the ability to have the northern gates, kept the magic university off on it's island and gave prestige to the royal quarter by the awe inspiring bridge that is a marvel of engineering. This makes the city over all more solid and easier to navigate.

So for the maps I have amended two major outlooks going forward that the new players will see as their first look into the world of Under the Pale Moon. It should give back that old school feeling and still show signs that something has happened to the world since it's creation.

As for the house rule book, I have a small sample of some rules on the "House Rules 5E" page on this blog as well as the full document in a Facebook Group. I may openly post it here soon, but for now that is in a PDF format.

The campaign guide is still in the works, as there are stories and such to be added to it the newest of which spans five typed pages and is a guided tour of the city of Ashura as told from a visitors point of view. This should greatly immerse anyone who truly wants to know about the world and get a feel for how things are in this homebrew campaign world.

I hope to roll out these two major documents and the two new maps in the coming months and might want to charge $1.00 or such for printed copies at the gaming table for anyone who is interested in the world beyond playing each week at the store. All things considered, UPM Gaming is going forward nicely, I would just like to get more players for our weekly game of course of if that dose not pan out, to then do the traveling DM thing and bring the game to new players out there.
 

DM's Workshop - Building the adventure

With the start of a new game upcoming I was wondering just what we would play. I have purchased many of the new 5E adventures and will want to play them, but we need a first adventure that sets the tone of our campaign world.

After seeing so many of my adventures and campaigns trashed (not even getting through some openings) I have decided to resurrect one in particular that I really had high hopes for. The first game I wrote for our first venture into 5E was called "Below the Mansion" and featured a Lovecraftian dungeon for the players to explore. This dungeon had a mystery to it's opening tale and a general feeling of woe. The fact that it was the end of a dying winter with snow and mud clinging to the earth beneath a deep overcast sky that constantly drizzled on the PC's who had to bundle up in cloaks for the trek to this ominous cliff side seeking this dark, abandoned mansion half fallen into ruin really set the mood for me.

The slight presence of the gnomes barely viable to greet and quietly leading the PC's into the mansion and down into the well, still made the place feel creepy and desolate. The dungeon itself was one of the best I think I have ever described, with it's cthulhu like decor of stone tentacles wrapping the walls and ceiling and the entire thing lit by a braziers red glow.

In the original adventure the PC's got only a few rooms in so not much was ever uncovered. This time around it's riddles, secrets and treasures can finally be flushed out by new players and their PC's. The story of course will have to change a bit, as the old story relied upon a PC's tale to get the party into the depths, but this time I have an even more tempting hook to get the PC's into this dark dungeon.

As we play d&d over the years we get to try things out and see what works and what dose not. One of the biggest success I have had is in finding a world that works perfectly for PC's to play in. All the failed attempts of populated worlds where the PC's would just hire guards or other NPC's to do the quest for them have been fixed by the world I now run (as that is not possible).

The main thing I liked about starting 5E was the idea that the PC's were friends before hand. Most times the PC's just meet up at a tavern, introduce themselves and move on, either not liking each other or not having bonds or ties to anyone in case they die or get in trouble. The attitude was always "who cares I don't know them". Now with the friendship idea, the PC's have a bond between them which in turn leads to looking out for each other, healing each other, helping each other with quests, story lines and such.

It is a great idea and mixing that with the start of a book I have just starting reading again "Dragons of Autumn's Twilight" you can see how a group of friends coming together one night to celebrate something is the perfect way to start off a quest line. As the PC's come to meet up with old friends, celebrate good times, they are met by someone who has a story they cannot refuse which leads to the mansion and the beginning of our first adventure.

Now that I have the adventure we are going to be playing and working on flushing out the dungeon once more. And I have the starting point for the PC's who will be friends and meeting up to celebrate good times with their friends. And I have the hook for the adventure along with an NPC I am thinking of who will start things off in the right way, I need to work on the tavern. I am pretty sure I have just the place to begin as well, with the release of the newest book "The Yawning Portal" we may return to our old friend at his tavern in our city where we did the original "Undermountain" Campaign as it seems a best fit all things considered.

As more develops, I will post more about our upcoming 5E game and be sure to set things up on YouTube when I can so you can watch along. Other projects I am working on are reliving our other unfinished campaigns with an all new group of PC's who've I rolled up on "Jade Dice" and have started writing as a full length story so we can finally see the end of both "The Wizard of Talisky" and finish "The Invasion" campaign with Gen the pathfinder.

The characters are terrific and flushing them out has give me many new ideas for the adventure. I will post more as I develop more and am also looking into just how Pateron works . . .  hmmmmm.

Goodnight sweet Pathfinder

As I close the Pathfinder game down and look to what I want to run next, I think about the three systems I can choose from to run next. As well I bid farewell the nightmare box of rules that was Pathfinder, the endless charts, graphs, cross references, perplexing systems, and god builds that made the game the hateful thing it became.

(3.5) Still itching to get back into the days of 3.5, so many books, so many unfinished adventures and we can even go back to the "lost years". The 16 years that the PC's were in the floating fortress and play with all new PC's in the old world with our old NPC friends. The old map was so much more fun, so much more balanced and made sense, the NPC's we grew to know and enjoy seeing them. The skip to the future just didn't feel like we were in the same world, with all our friends gone.

(3.5) The books, the endless books between 3.0 and 3.5 and all the information, games, items, spells, feats and stuff. We never go to explore as much of it over 15 years as I would have liked and when I think back to 3.5 I think "old school d&d" to me.

(Pathfinder) While fun and had soooo many options to do things and cleaned up a lot of 3.5 became too overbearing with rules in the end. Though I do look forward to Starfinder the space book coming out this summer and at times loved the stats that were in that game. So many options and so many abilities that it could be endless fun, but when the PC's abused the rules, it became the worst game I ever played.

(Pathfinder) The art was 100 times better than the shit art of 3.5 and you had a better feel for the game, immersion and tools of every make and use down to firewood. But them rules, oh man, them rules. Even the designers flip flopped over years on the forums about what each ability did or didn't do. While I love the look, layout and style of these books, there is just no RPG to be found.

(5E) Is the future, it's what is hot now, it is what people looking to play are trying to get into. Since the book is so light on rules, cut's back on combat and relies on RPG to enjoy it, it fit's well with me. More about the story the fun and less about the "rules" so to speak.

(5E) I can take any old book, any old adventure and affix it to 5E just like I did in 3.5 and Pathfinder, but this time I don't have to spend hours revamping the stats, the rules the DC's. It's so much easier to just say 5 easy, 10 hard, etc or strength check vs strength check to determine a winner and move on. The lack of insane rules give the PC's more strength to flex their RPG muscles and tell me what they want to do and how with out the charts, graphs, pausing to look up a rule or endless debate over them. Yes a rules lawyer could exist in 5E, but he/she would not have much to stand on in the few pages about rules that are in the core books.

 

Well that is about that. While I really get excited thinking about trying a 3.5 game, I am ordering the "Curse of Strad" DM's screen on Amazon and picking up the Yawning Portal guide. This time around I am going to get the stuff I want, no matter the cost as it's available and not let it slip by like 3.5 when I was young, broke and things were harder to come by.

The only thing I will do different this time is not allow anything past core (unless it's an option in a published adventure) because that spells disaster for all the games I have played. So far though 5th has many options in core that I am sure no one will feel restricted to the same core classes of a 3.5 or Pathfinder. Unless we are doing a sword coast adventure as well we will not be allowing anything from there either, but with Forgotten Realms in 5E and Ravenloft in 5E, if my 2nd all time favorite campaign comes along "Dark Sun" I will be getting that for sure.

The Cast

The new heroes who are taking over our latest epic quest I rolled randomly and before I started thinking about features, tone, characteristics and the like I came up with a party of five.

• A female, chaotic good, halfling, fighter
• A male, neutral, elven, bard
• A male, neutral evil, human, sorcerer
• A female, neutral good, tiefling, oracle
• A female, chaotic neutral, human, barbarian

The dice gave me a start and using another random set of features I added some details.

• Curvy body type, brown hair
• Athletic body type, blonde hair
• Thin body type, blonde hair
• Athletic body type, brown hair
• Thin body type, orange hair

 The characters then needed some weapons and outfits, so I came up with some random and some suitable ones for them to use and wear.

• Brass knuckles and short sword. Silver breast plate
• Rapier. Long dark coat and noble clothing
• Dagger and spells. Cloak over sorcerers robes
• Staff and spells. Long layered skirts and cloth top
• Katana sword and One hand battle axe. Silver chain mail bikini with leather boots

 Starting to get the characters physically flushed out for the adventure. I then switched to a few traits to help flush them out a bit.

• Leader type, commanding yet insecure
• Educated, well spoken, fair, confident
• Mean spirited, expects too much from the party
• Proper in public, relaxed, caring but vengeful, social
• Dependent, weak willed, shy or awkward type with an alcohol problem

Adding in some basic starting trait ideas I start to build the characters in my mind. At this point I know the halfling is going to be a leader of the group but always worried about letting them down. I have a well educated bard who can help aid the halfling when she is making mistakes by using his confidence in knowledge to guide her in the right direction. I have a powerful sorcerer who is very beneficial with his abilities, but his terrible attitude towards the others makes him seem overly mean when he is not understanding their faults. A likeable, proper type social tiefling who is everyone's friend as well as lends an ear to listen and takes care of the group. And a barbarian who is thin, dependent on others to care for her, not good at standing up for herself type, who escapes reality with drink when the occasion presents it's self.     

Right now I am starting to love this group. I am seeing some parings and some conflicts during the adventure and have my favorite picked out already for who were going to be following as the main character. I find the barbarian the most interesting already to write about as I can picture her easily in my mind and want to see how she manages throughout the adventure.

As for the adventure, we have already played part of it in our d&d game and the rest I had a good outline written and an ending so all I have to do is lets this new group of characters play though it their way and give us a twist on the ending we might not see coming. 

As for the start, I have the tavern trope set up as they learn about the adventure, introduce themselves and decide how they are going to go about setting out for the northlands. I don't want to bog the story down right away with long chapters on travel so they will need some friends who are able to get them their quicker and let us dive right into the start of the adventure, I think these should be siblings.

More to continue.

Infanite Material

Well what could possibly be better to write about than D&D? When I started this blog it was focused just on our game. It was meant to be a tool for recapping and updating the players in our game about what was to come and some of what has passed, but things evolved.

Writing this blog came after my old blog The Slayers Inquest which was a blog back from 2014 that I posted in about the state of online gaming to go along with Andrew, Scott and my discussions on the forums at MMO Slayers . These forums were our life for a long time and were fueled rage discussions about online games, mainly MMO's which were in their heyday. In the end, MMO's died off and the forums went quiet. I stopped doing The Slayers Inquest and started doing up a second blog for my D&D game.

The D&D blog, changed though, it became more of a way for me to post my point of view on a subject that came up at our gaming table, without being interrupted and by posing examples and stories. I see that by looking through the stats, other people have found the blog (be it a small audience) and have read some of the posts. I got one or two +1's on a post and no comments, but it got me thinking about posting more stuff. I mean what better subject to write about than D&D!

There are hundreds of articles on rules, on opinions, on things happening in today's game. I am in three facebook groups alone, which daily get flooded with questions from new DM's, trolls, and players wanting to discuss a situation, a rule or an opinion. These facebook posts get hundreds of reply's daily and can get pretty heated. This blog is a nice place to chill out and post what I want with out some facebook poster getting butt hurt and flaming me, thought that may come with time and in comments below.

Now it would be nice if I could set up ad sense here to get some nickles, but sadly I cannot. I am thinking about Pateron but I will have to figure out quite how that works and if I can I will be porting these over there so I can get a donation and have more fuel to write with. For now here though, I can do whatever I want. I can write a story about some d&d characters in our world and give you some backstory from an NPC's point of view. I was thinking of writing what would have happened in many games that we just ended abruptly on, that might be fun to see how the story was laid out and how it would have ended pending PC changes and what not. I can talk about how taping our games for YouTube over at UPM Gaming YouTube started off calming everyone down and stopped rule bitching before the we got used to having the camera on us. We can talk about how I think D&D should be played and how players in my group think it should be played. We can discuss Pathfinder, 3.5 and 5E D&D and see which is more fun in each area and why. The material is infinite really.

Right now I have again stopped playing due to differences at the table and an inability to resolve the conflict that would be long term and make the game fun again. I just wrote an article about how to get role playing back to great again, but it blew up into a demand of player wants that was too unrealistic for me to manage and I ended up having to stop our Pathfinder game for now. The time needed to craft five or so fights a game that needed to be in depth high level battles that suited each players goals and backgrounds, allowed each to shine, award XP of a high amount and still fit the complex story line I was running it, just wasn't there. If I was twenty years old again and living at home with a part time job, sure. Sadly time has come and gone and I have too little free time anymore. I can still write an amazingly fun adventure for Sunday night, but my players demand Lord of the Rings and I just can't out write Tolkien so I have had to call it game.




What I am excited for is a new adventure in my favorite hobby that revolves around blogging, producing gaming videos (ones that features D&D games or RPG games) and trying to get an audience built to read and view my stuff (not to mention interact). You can always read my updates and small thoughts on Twitter UPM Gaming if your not the type to read long blogs and just tune right out at the first paragraph. I find Twitter a great way to get across small information quickly for those who don't like long posts. You can also read updates on our Google Plus if you have a google account.

Either way I hope you find something of interest or use in the upcoming posts, links to information, videos and such.

Thanks for reading, leave comments!

Make Role Playing Great Again

I don't know how, but we have to get back to great role playing. . . 

Is it the system? Would playing 5E or AD&D change a damn thing? Is it Pathfinder is just too complex in it's rules? Is it the players fault who power builds, optimizes and or uses the rules as written to abuse the situation and always win, ending fights before they begin? If they had spells and abilities to do so, why would they hold them back just to let other players get a hit in, have a share of the spotlight or role play a situation? Is it that after all, we've only got to level 11 in Pathfinder once for the first time and didn't expect what we found?

I can't very well house rule "You have to not play as unstoppable, when your actually unstoppable". It just don't work that way. I can't tell a player to tone it down when they have abilities on their sheet that fit the situation to guarantee a win or quick end to a battle. I can make them re-roll and avoid mistakes of allowing everything from almost every book but the core. I can limit things and house rule the game to death if I had the time and energy.

I do blame a bit on Pathfinder itself, I have to. Their monster manual says CR 11, but it's killed in one hit. That's Pathfinder rules making the error there. If there are poisons to kill boss creatures in one hit, or spells to make demons bow to your will, that is a problem with the rules, plain and simple. There are hundreds of examples of the game being broken and things linked that allow this kinds of OP play within the rules of the game, but that is what players strive for, the edge to win and if it's there they will take it.

So do we go back to one book? Just core? Is that not even broken as well? Maybe yes, maybe no. Or just change editions all together? 5E so far works, but that is because we are only core, no other books, no "Sword Coast Legends" rules or such. Is that what is helping us stay balanced?

I should be able to open the monster manual, choose a monster of appropriate CR and be good. I should never have to spend all night making one guy to balance the party, which only gets stomped out in one hit anyways. I just don't have the time for this. I don't have all day to sit around and hand draw up every enemy, spending my day doing this to give a challenge when it's not about that anymore, but about an arms race to out play the players and that is not fun.

So were back to the "I'm out" where players drop off because the game is no fun. Do we let the happen until there is no game, then try to win back the players who left to make a group to play what is fun? Or do we stop out right now since it is no fun and re-tool the whole damn thing? So far nothing is working and I am thinking of once again calling it. Now some of it I will say is just out right complaining. I heard "No challenge".  This is complete shit to me, for when I put in a challenge it was "To hard" to the dungeon under the mansion.

Again if it were up to just me, I would have the game be just running dungeons non-stop, no epic story line of betrayal, revenge, redemption, etc. Because it's easy, go in kill, loot, win or die. That is easy old school d&d and no one can complain . . . well yes they can, but you get a bit less when your focused on just slaying all the things in a dungeon and looting the place.

However that is not the way I or anyone else likes to play. We need epic story lines, and tie in's and such to tell a great story and have the PC's take control and twist it into a glorious adventure. We've run AD&D games woven in (which are number one in the world, but sometimes not a hit), we've tried space, we've tried everything. I can't seem to get anyone to have fun anymore, it seems to be just like playing Magic the Gathering, were out for each player and were intent on winning.

So what can be done to get back to good role playing? I have searched the piazo forums, I am in two to three D&D groups on Facebook with new DM's coming up daily, looking for advice. I just can't seem to get a good answer from the players as to what they want and why they think they are not getting it. If you are the player sculpting the story, why is the story not going the way you wish it to? If you have a problem with a player, why are you not speaking to him or her in game and if you are and they are not listening, why are we not telling them to explain themselves or find a new party to adventure with?

 I think I may take the game down and focus on either just playing our 5E game for now OR even run a second 5E game, leaving Pathfinder behind and send out some polls to get players to respond to what they like and do not like.

I have ton's of adventures and ideas, but we keep starting and stopping and each adventure gets nixed and nixed over and over and story lines die and paragraphs and books get tossed. Waste of my time, and their time and good freaking stories along the way. I can't begin to tell the stories lost to quitting a game, long running epic idea tie in's that get scrapped when we quit or restart, stuff I want to explore and that takes weeks of thought and prep to create only to have to start with nothing and generate ideas on the spot.

Just thinking out loud here on our D&D blog, cause I want the game to go till the end of time for me. I love going each Sunday night and playing no matter what game it is or how it goes and I don't want to stop doing that. So if things become bogged, I guess it is best to try to stop it now before everyone leaves and fix it. I think it best to stop when trouble is about and here we will stop I think until we can get the excitement back into the game, why play if your miserable?