I'm running an online game with some friends that's going on 2 years now, and could use some advice for how to handle a player who's been very unreliable.

I run a small game of only 3 players (that's how many I could get, sadly). Two are very reliable (unless they suddenly fall sick, they rarely miss a game without at least a week's notice), and one player who I knew going in would be a bit unreliable because of his work. He very often tells me last minute "Sorry, they need me for overtime a lot this week" with maybe a day's warning at best or has to duck out mid-game to answer an after-hours work call, or there's so much traffic that he's over half an hour late, etc.

I figured I could make it work regardless, have him sometimes off doing his own thing away from the other characters, unless it was a majorly important session. And for a while it worked, and I had lots of patience, and even was cool with a few sudden cancellations because it let me get more last minute prep in.

But as we start getting into the part of the story where major plot stuff is happening, his absences are gumming things up more and more as they keep happening on critical sessions, and we have to keep doing last minute rescheduling, which plays havoc with the other players who often have busy schedules.

And this week things just came to a head in way that really frustrated me.

After like 3 separate "Oop, sorry, someone can't make it, major unforeseen real life issue"s, I got to run a critical dungeon, full of puzzles and lore and stuff that I spent ages prepping. It went super well, and as we planned the boss for next session, we realized that people had major stuff coming up in a few weeks and would need a hiatus. So next week was critical, and we all seemed to agree we'd make it.

And then, when I put out a vibe check for game this week, in case my unreliable player had some last minute OT or something... He goes "Wait, I thought I told you I had this other thing planned since a while ago!".

He had not told us. At least, not within the last few weeks, DEFINITELY not when I said "Hopefully next session we can wrap the boss before y'all head out! Think y'all can make it?" last session.

So now we're on at least a 3 week hiatus, the characters suspended before a climactic point, all momentum lost, after multiple weeks of "Someone's sick, or something major's in the way", and it's very frustrating.

I like the player a lot as a friend, and he's decent enough to have in-game (although he almost never engages with any of the content made FOR his character, and is mostly a comic relief goober)... But this last incident made me start to re-evaluate his invitation, because it's starting to really frustrate me, and at least one other player.

I've made a dedicated scheduling channel in our discord and told everyone to post any availability changes there so we can all see it, and I'm thinking of telling the player that if this kind of "woops, sorry, forgot to tell you" incident happens again I may need to disinvite him, and that we may just forge ahead without his character for major sessions if he can't make it.

Am I being reasonable with that? Too reasonable? Any other advice you can yeet my way?

So my mother is turning 60 this year. For it she wants a clue themed party with an actual murder mystery game. I've designed all the characters, weapons and motives, but I'm stuck on how to probably go about the discovery.

So right now the suspects are all females as she wanted a ladies only party. The suspects are all being blackmailed by a Lady Black (my mother's character). The suspects and their reasons for blackmail are:

Admiral Peacock: Weapons dealing.

Miss Peach: Selling government secrets.

Dr. White: Affair with a patient.

Madame Poppy: Three husband's who mysteriously died.

Mademoiselle Orchid: Posing as a fact medium.

Professor Scarlett: Art fraud.

The butler of Lady black, Butler Grey, is also a suspect as Lady black used the butler to get information to blackmail everyone with.

Every suspect is some how tied with another. Lady black and the bultet, the Admiral is working with Peach, the doctor's lover is Poppy's latest husband, and Orchid is a friend to the Professor.

I've written a series of letters showing what each person is being blackmailed for, and letters from one part to the other in order to show their bonds.

Now the weapons are: Candle stick, dagger, hammer, poison, revolver and rope.

Because of the venue, I'm unfortunately forgoing the place the murder happened and replacing it with a motive. Each person is being black mailed, but the reason for the murder isn't directly tied to the blackmail.

So by random pick, the murderer is Professor Scarlett with the hammer because of Orchid. The Professor's friend can't afford the black mail fee and has sold all that they own save a painting the Professor gave them. The Professor doesn't want their friend to know their a fraud, so they kill Lady black to cover up their own crime and to stop the blackmailing outright.

What I need help with is how do I make it seem like one person did it, but it was actually another. Professor Scarlett will be the killer, but I want to make them think it was actually Butler Grey who did it. Lady black confessed that she used her loyal butler to get the information and the butler is highly displeased by that. I want it to be a "is it one or the other?" but I'm struggle on how. I don't want to rely on letters alone, but how do I physically make it seem like its either of them.

All you beautiful minds on reddit! I need help please!

In your campaign what drives the bbeg to do what they do? Is it a philosophical framework/necessity/psychological framework, have they gone mad ect.? For me personally the main engine driving my bbeg The desire for change and This desire is fulfilled through erasing the old to make room for the new.

I had an idea of a start to Call of Cthulhu campaign where one of the players is a mafia boss and other is an assasin that has a contract on killing him. It sounds cool in my head but I don't have any idea how to pull this off. Maybe they are family but they don't know about it?

Im kind of struggling coming up with the starter, i am excited but i just dont know how to make things easy for players while also less scary for me if that makes sense.

So, what kind of quests do you think is most engaging as a player or dm?

I am planning to gm my first own little tiny adventure and asked my friends what they want to play as and one wants to play as a loxodon and another as a tabaxi and… I don’t like that idea, like in general. I think it would be very strange to have a tabaxi and a normal cat next to each other and one of the main NPCs does have a cat in theory. They don’t seem distinct enough from each other, especially since the tabaxi is supposed to look like a (her own) house cat. And that might be a general problem I have with anthropomorphic species.
Sure, elves are “just” slender magical humans with long ears, and dwarfs are “just” sturdy short ones, but that doesn’t feel like an issue, like nothing someone would actually call out and have a point on. Maybe it’s just their long history, but most anthropomorphic species really just look (and feel) like the animal but well anthropomorphic.
Kobolds for example have way more distinctive features even tho they are very close to just lizard people.
And humans are of cause close to apes but it’s not like we are just apes but walking on 2 legs.
And I really think species like tabaxi need something similar (but they wouldn’t look this catlike anymore either)
Imagine a tabaxi would have a cat as a pet, this would be like you owning a little human as a pet, one which cannot speak or walk on just 2 legs. This would be absolutely crazy.

So far I might not allow tabaxi and other “normal” anthropomorphs. The loxodon is by far not as much of a problem, because they won’t meet (or know of) anything even close to an elephant. But to just ban one player choice doesn’t seem fair.

Another idea was to work on a backstory on her and a spell that didn’t work, either because a spell that would have turned her into a cat didn’t work as intended, or someone tried to turn a regular cat into a human and got this result (but she wants to play a rogue, someone else would have had hexed her)

Or I just might remove cats entirely…

Some other ideas?

And to be honest, I am much more interested about how others deal with this “problem” in general

So my campaign is nearly in its third year and the PCs have met many NPCs. We're using a loose version of the Planescape model so they are world/plane hopping. It adds up!

It gets tough for players to keep track of all the groups/factions/NPCs/allies/enemies they've met. So I have been doing "relationship diagrams" where I stick the picture of the NPC or group, add a name, then connect them with a line to other relationships. It works really well for small clusters, like < 30 NPCs. But I want to map ALL of them throughout their adventures so they can see the wider impact they are having.

My question is, does anyone else do this? And what SW do you use? I've been using Google Slides but it cannot hold enough images without them being hard to see. I want some simple "infinite whiteboard" software where I can quickly slap down hundreds of images over time and connect them all up then zoom in on certain areas and snapshot images as needed. I also don't want a large monthly fee, and I want to be able to "export" the work in case I need to take it elsewhere or recreate it.

Thanks!

I am in kind of a weird spot and trying to make the tough call.

I've been gming both in person and online for pretty much the last decade, deciding to take a step back for a year after a big move for work. Recently, I have gotten back into gming again.

I have been wanting to do it paid for a long time, and have a part time opportunity revealed to me with the intention of starting in the new year. I am however having difficulty to push myself to commit.

I guess what I am looking for is advice. Paid GM's, what are the pros and cons of this? From my view point it is a great way for me to get paid to tell stories which is a dream and be my own boss, but I am afraid it will ruin my love of the game.

I run a weekly virtual campaign that's been going a while now. I have five players. They're mostly passive, aside from Red (the player who spoke up).

Red said that they feel like they've been sidelined a lot the last several sessions and haven't been able to play their character the way they want to. When they said that, I was mortified - I completely agree with them, in hindsight, that I've been shoving them to the side in favor of Orange's character, who was having their spotlight session.

I think what may have happened is that I was so focused on getting the other players to be less passive and do more that I think I may have zoned out Red, who is the most active player and also happens to play the most capable character, for far longer than would be appropriate when focusing on a specific character for a session.

This problem has come up before, and Red and I discussed it. This isn't the first time they've felt I've snubbed them, and it looks like I've fallen back in to old habits. I believe I genuinely lack the self-awareness to notice when this is happening in the moment, and I wonder if anyone here has strategies or advice for identifying when this is happening, before it gets to the point that feelings get hurt?

Red and I are going to hash this out tomorrow and I want to bring potential solutions and have something more than just platitudes.

On of the characters in my party is a knight, on a quest to become worthy or whatever. We've defined 5 knightly virtues (bravery, honesty, compassion, wisdom, and honour), and 5 historical knights who exemplified those virtues.

The party went to visit a shrine, and the Students of Virtue recommended that they go on a pilgrimage along The Path of Virtue, to visit the graves of the historical knights and discover virtue within themselves. I've talked this over with the player, and I really don't want it to be a bunch of boring pass/fail tests. I hate video-gamey points-based morality, and tests with one right answer encourage meta-gaming. The point of the quest is that it's a journey of self-discovery, with no one right answer. But also, the party still needs things to do along the way. I might offer more open-ended "tests," or thematic quests at each location, but I would love some ideas on options.

The first shrine the party is visiting is a monastery in the mountains to the east. The dead knight was known for her wisdom, aloofness, and for killing evil dragons. The party actually has to go by the knight's hometown to get there. They were just there, and their relationship with their family (the family rules the town) is strained, so they're not going into town. I was thinking, as they're passing by, some peasants might recognize the knight and ask for help with a dispute. Solomon's dilemma comes to mind, but I think it's too obvious. My brother suggested they're arguing over sheep, or land (land doesn't work based on the way the world works). What other open-ended arguments might the peasants need the player's wisdom to solve?

Then, at the monastery, there has to be another quest of some kind. Maybe something mundane, like climb a cliff for rare herbs, or make stew, but I still want it to fill at least one session, and the party is level 12 (D&D 5e), so a lot of things are trivial. Maybe the cliff is windy and flying won't work. Maybe they need to find a way to avoid the cliff. Thoughts?

The other graves, if anyone has suggestions, are:

• Compassion: a knight was granted a noble title on the northern edge of the empire as thanks for his service. Perhaps bandits or monsters are threatening the town.
• Honesty: the first oath of the crown paladin served the first queen of the country, and rooted out traitorous secrets. His grave is in the capital.
  
• Bravery: a sort of knight protected a forest, it's denizens, and all respectful travellers. It's said she still guards the forest, from the grove where the soil claimed her.
• Honor: This one has to be last. The knight was a mythical paragon, and his grave is lost to time. But, of course, during the quest, the party will discover it's location, on a high mountaintop. There will be a magic sword in a stone, and the knight's ghost will appear, congratulate the character on her journey, and tell her to take the sword and use it as she sees fit.
  

So, I had this idea for a one-shot where every player has a secret they need to keep hidden while trying to uncover the secret of a specific other player. The concept is that they have to interact with the rest of the group to gather information about their "target's" secret, but they have to be careful because they might—or might not—be speaking to or revealing information to the very person trying to expose or silence them.
The mechanic I have in mind involves making it clear at the start of the session—both in-game and out-game—that someone possesses a key piece of information regarding another person's secret, though not the full picture. Each player is assigned a single target, creating a "cycle of accusations" within the group. I plan to give each player a card containing this crucial clue about someone else's secret and then instruct them to begin investigating. Additionally, throughout the game, I intend to use dice rolls to randomly reveal details about the secrets (for instance, if Player 1 is trying to uncover Player 2's secret, Player 3 might receive a clue useful to Player 1, forcing them to interact to obtain it). In this way, I plan for the session to unfold and progress entirely through player interactions, the way they filter the information they share, and how they roleplay their characters' paranoia about being exposed.

Do you have any suggestions, ideas, or observations regarding what I have in mind? Do you think it might work? Any new ideas, suggestions, or feedback are welcome.

Hi to everyone, i want to make a one shot for a group of friends, do you have any suggestions to give to a " first time master"? I'm already a player in another table with other peaple. I wish to introduce friends to this world. Thank you for any advices!

Ps: not a native english speaker, i'm sorry if I will make any mistakes!

I recently discovered the Lazy DM method made by Sly Flourish and it really helps me to prep my games efficiently. One gripe that i have with it though is that it kind of forces you to prep for only one sequence of events. Lazy Dm encourages you to prep less and only focus on those things that matter in the next session. 3 scenes, 3 locations, 3 npcs, 8 secrets, some creatures and some loot. Preparing like this gives a lot of flexibilty with how certain scenes will play out. However, i feel that it does not account for the story veering of in a different direction. Because i won't have prepared for that. To give an example from my campaign (dragonlance: shadow of the dragonqueen)
My party was ambushed by kobolds on the road. The kobolds fled in the end, but the party chased them down and killed them. Before that though they managed to get the location of their home base out of one of the survivors. This is where the last session ended. Now for the next session i could prepare for them to raid the Kobold homebase, which i'd like to be a small dungeon and therefor a whole session. However it feels kind of railroady to steer them on this path. They were heading to a village before they got ambushed. The Kobold homebase was improvised from my part and not necessary for the main story. So it feels understandable for them to just ignore any hooks i throw at them and continue on their way to the village. Should i prepare a whole second session in case this happens, thereby ignoring Lazy DM's adivce, or only prepare for one choice?

EDIT: Thanks for all the replies. Thanks to you i think i found a 3rd way. Instead of only preparing one story thread (kobolds) or two rather unrelated ones (kobolds and far away village), i create a 3rd thread that is closely related to the kobolds. A village of centaurs is having difficulty with the kobolds and is willing to reward the party for their help. The party can: go for the kobold base directly or, if they decide not to, encounter the centaur village (which will then be attacked by draconians and kobolds). This way i still stay within the Lazy DM framework, but also offer the party a choice.

Im working on a short form campaign for a group of 4/5 and been sitting on an idea for a while im finally gonna implement and im hoping for some ideas on how to make it run as smoothly as possible.

Elevator pitch for the concept: Players dont pick their characters, the story does.

Actual implementation:

Each player will start off in control of 4 sets of 3 randomly generated Commoners. Ive already generated the blocks (they include Race, Sex, Occupation, HP and a random attribute +/-, think +1 dex, -1 str)

The campaign begins with a raid on their village that forces a massive escape effort. Inevitably many of their Commoners will die in the effort and whoever is left is their character.

Their class will be determined by the nature of their escape. 5 of the 12 commoners have been randomly assigned a magical affinity that can make itself known during the escape and can help dictate magic classes. Others will be determined by the means of their survival. Did they manage to tank a hit? A point towards martial and likely barbarian. Did they inspire those around them? Edge towards bard. Did they sneak their way through, or leap over a barrier? Rogue or monk direction. I have a basic spreadsheet created with a martial or caster path and shorthand for style.

Ultimately only one will be left and they will gain their level 1 benefits. If more than 1 remains they will have control over that group but they will all face a high threat boss in session 2 that will further thin the herd.

The challenge right now is getting action economy working for the initial raid. Im thinking the groups of 3 each get their own initiative and there is a single collective move (a group move) and then a single action for each individual (limited to dash, dodge, attack and hide). All abilities are at 0 unless otherwise modified.

If anyone has any ideas on how to further streamline this or other fun twists to add please let me know, id love to hear em

Okay folks, i am searching for some creative people here, that could maybe help writing a DND 5e story line.

I'm not quite a newbie DM and i have written my own stuff but my players an I seem to be stuck in a writters-/playersblock. We play an already written campaign and it seems to be not going forward or backward and i feel the motivation sinking... we haven't played in months and tbh I don't like the campaign either. So my thougth was to write them a small DnD campaign myself (about 3 sessions) to get us out of our missery.

But i seem to be in a writers block. I have an idea but no way to connect the dots in my brain and my hopes are up that some creative people here will help me figure it out.

Plothook:

So i want to give my players a chance to play high-level characters, because they have wished that for a while. I'm thinking about like 15ish level. This makes me slightly uncomfortable because i am not good in balancing combat. (Any tipps and tricks?)

I read somewhere that some sailors did not like woman on their boat 'cause of bad luck or some thoughts. I took a liking on the idea, that those woman who were thrown overboard because of that thinking, were rescued by seafolk and turned into sirens to take revenge on the sailors that drowned them.

My players get send there to investigate the missing ships/ghost ships or wracks that have occured way to often in that area. Sailors tell them wild storys about monsters, gods and other folkore things. They don't have a clue what actually happend.

The ending is meant to present players with a moral dilemma. Do they want to kill the sirens, find the cause of the “transformation,” and eliminate it, or can they convince the sirens to leave the sailors alone, in exchange for the sailors accepting women aboard their ships?

But I'm still a bit lost on the middle part.

What's the reason behind the transformation? An angry sea goddess who's furious at the men who sail her seas and treat them as if they were their own. One who hides a magical artifact that the players might find?

How do they find out about all this? How can I send them out to discover even more things? Investigate the ships? What clues might be there? Are there caves where surviving sailors have left messages?

I love puzzles and would like to include at least one that they have to solve. But of course, there should also be smaller battles in between—what options do I have?

I know it's not much, that I have right now, but maybe some people take a liking to the idea and and maybe help me continue and complete the story.

So I just recently brought the Core Set and have been itching to run a one shot, so I ordered Gradient Descent and decided to run it for my players, who are completely new to the game, this session planned to be their first introductory session to see if they would like to run a more session playing Mothership.

I've decided on having the first one or three hours explaining the rules and letting them make their characters, the rest of the session being playing out the scenario. I was just wondering if anyone could give me any advice or ideas to help make the session smooth and stress free (Ironic that I said that, right?) or just some general ideas to fit a atmosphere or help immerse myself in roleplay (I generally think my roleplay comes off as really bad and unprofessional, so if anyone has any tips on how to avoid this, please tell me), and optionally the players. I'd be so grateful even if you just gave a pinch of advice.

Hi!

I've been a DM for a few years now, but it hasn't been much other than DMing for school clubs so typically my campaigns are just one shots.

My friends know I do DND, really it's kind of how I got connected to them in the first place through one of my original party members introducing me to the "leader" of his large friend group.

Over the year of me knowing these guys many of them have expressed intrest in doing a campaign with me, of which I've always excitedly said yes and let them pick from my very big list of ideas I've had. I'm a creative writer as well so the full story is always floating in my head so it never takes me long to make it a campaign. However I always run into an issue with my players: They dont try. For example, 4-5 of my friends have asked to do a campaign. I told them yes, hosted a session 0 to tell them the plot and asked them to make character sheets in one on one meetings with me (they're not very good at making sheets as they're inexperienced). However, whenever we make the sheet I tell them I'd like for them to create a story for their character so I can make them feel involved in the world. It has been a month, one person never gave me a time for his character sheet but is almost always on roblox or overwatch, another said she'd make hers but I don't know if it ever got done. The rest have their sheets but only one ever sent me their character lore.

I want to play this game, but I don't want to micromanage these grown ass people. I can't help but not gaf anymore because they can't do one thing I've asked: write a story. I didn't give them a word count or anything, it could be a single paragraph but somehow they can't even manage that. To more seasoned DMs and GMs, wtf should I do??? should I drop it? should I pester them even though that makes them annoyed/mad at me?? I feel bad for myself and the one guy who did what I asked him to do. They have great concepts we've discussed but they just can't put it into words so I remember it for later. I want to start this campaign, but I feel defeated.

Any advice?

edit: should have added this before but most of them (but one he doesn't care about most things with much enthusiasm I don't know why) have the beginning of a story, they have talked to each other about having connected backstorys. One of them is a film major, and he's working with two others to make multiple comic books and a planet system with entire world building. they are capable and they're not combat oriented players. if they were I'd move on but they aren't with all but that one they're very creative people!

Edit 2: Thank you everyone for your advice! once I finish moving into my apartment I'll try to start it back up at least for maybe a session or to make sure everyone's sheets are completed.

to the grognards being assholes stfu this game is a game and a story for fun, don't tell me how to run my games. it's my games and my table hush it.(I learned that word today. it's my new favorite word)

I've been DMing for my table for about 6 years. We were in-person for about 2 years, then remote for 4 after folks moved away and life happened. We play every weekend, typically Saturdays, for 3 - 4 hours. Discord for voice/video, Foundry for the VTT.

One of the players, a longtime childhood friend, has really withdrawn the last year or so. Camera off, has no clue what's going on during the session, couldn't say what happened a session ago, etc. Clearly just on his phone doomscrolling throughout the whole session. Things came to a head last week when he made some poor combat choices and two players died. In the post mortem, it was clear he had no idea what was going on - he didn't realize other players were down, he didn't realize the enemies were strong, he didn't realize he was the only healer still alive, etc. We had raise dead spells, so the players came back without too much issue, but everyone was annoyed that his lack of engagement was affecting them directly.

I've spoken to him about his lack of engagement. He throws everything including the kitchen sink at me. Dude says he's busy and overwhelmed with life. His job doesn't fulfill him, he suspects he has untreated ADHD, he's going back to college to try and get a degree to pivot his career, his wifi is bad, when people talk at the same time he can't keep track of what's going on, when he gets home from work he wants to get stoned and unwind, having a TTRPG session scheduled means he can't do other things (doomscrolling) and that stresses him out, etc. It is very clear that he is depressed.

At the end of this conversation, he apologized for his lack of engagement and acknowledged that it was unfair to the other players and to me. He asked to decrease his attendance to biweekly or once a month. I have no interest in him remaining at my table and no enjoyment from playing with him as-is, but I don't want to give him the boot or even encourage him to scale back when he's clearly in such a bad spot.

My wife, also a player in the campaign, believes strongly that he should increase his engagement. She wants him to attend the sessions weekly with his camera on and to be engaged, as a tether to socialization and his friends.

The Actual Question: How should I handle a player at my table who is depressed and bringing everyone else, myself included, down?

Hi I started playing DnD around one or two months ago. Till now i was playing as a PC, but now a few friends of mine and myself want to start a campaign.

I almost immediately said i want to be the GM. So i started researching a bit and noticed a oneshot is a great way to get a feeling of how the group will work together.

I watched a few YT videos on how to make a oneshot, but as soon as i try to make a "small adventure" it exceeds to the level of homebrewing an entire "bigger" world.

I would appreciate any help, tips or even stories from your first campaign!

Hi everyone, I’m writing because I’d really like some feedback on a situation that has been causing me quite a bit of anxiety.

We’re a group that, after years of playing together (several relatively short campaigns in various TTRPGs), went from having five players (two couples + a friend) to six players (three couples). Ever since this addition, we haven’t been able to meet regularly anymore, mainly because of excuses made by the friend and his girlfriend, the new player. Sometimes the excuses we’re given are honestly ridiculous (“I can’t leave the dog alone, he’s not used to it”), even though they both work full-time outside the house and, until the day before yesterday, the dog was left alone all day. There have also been genuine emergencies and unavoidable circumstances, but especially because of this friend, over the past twelve months we’ve only actually played for a total of six months — and we’ve also gone two or three months in a row without playing.

With that in mind, and considering that the DM has been complaining privately to the rest of us for months without ever addressing the issue directly, yesterday, after yet another “I don’t know,” “maybe,” “I’ll let you know” (which usually turns into a cancellation on Friday evening), I was the one who asked whether we could perhaps pick a fixed day to play, so that we could eliminate all the uncertainty. I also pointed out that taking breaks lasting several months makes me lose enthusiasm, and, more importantly, I forget what happened in previous sessions.

At that point, the DM responded by taking the blame upon himself and saying that having a fixed day would actually mean we’d play less, that it was pointless, and that we should just leave things as they were.
I contacted him privately and asked why he was now saying things that were completely different from what he had been telling us privately for months, whenever the other player wasn’t around. He replied that he had only been venting, that there was no point in confronting the player directly, and that “diplomacy” was necessary in life, because without it you wouldn’t get anywhere.
Eventually, he snapped and said, “Then you fight with him!”

I tried talking to the player, but him ignored me and only responded to the DM.

Over the course of these months, I had also suggested to the DM that we could run a parallel campaign and play with just four people (three players and the DM), even without the two players who keep cancelling on us, but he didn’t want to do that. He also refused to continue the campaign without the player and his girlfriend who keep cancelling, saying that it was impossible to play with so few people and that pre-written campaigns couldn’t be adapted. He shut everyone down by saying that he was a very experienced DM and that he “knew” what he was talking about.
His counterproposal was to expand the group by adding two more players and simply play regardless of how many people showed up. The problem is that the person he suggested to essentially replace the two unreliable players is a girl I’ve repeatedly said I cannot stand (she flirted with my boyfriend).

So, AITA, or should the DM have said something to the player?

Hey guys! New DM here with a kind of odd question. I'm building my first campaign (so far I've only ever run a single one-shot), so I've been looking into some settings. In particular, Mystara from D&D Basic has caught my eye. The original version, from 1987.

The thing is, I'm probably not gonna use actual D&D for this game. While the system isn't set in stone yet, I'm gravitating towards a couple ones that my players enjoy more. That's when I thought "why not use just the setting, and slap it on top of another system?"

I don't see anything wrong with the idea, but figured I should still ask someone with more experience, just in case. So is this a good idea? Could it cause problems for my players or I? Have any of you done something similar? Any and all answers are appreciated, thank you in advance.

I'm trying to find apps or websites I can use to create building interiors for a session of Rivers Of London RPG I'm setting up. Any advice from anyone would be much appreciated.

Just for informations sake, the session is set during the modern day and the main location I'm working on is a stereotypical nightclub.

Thanks in advance.

My friend group usually have campaigns for the one who like RPG to play, we had this when i was in high school and we still do it until today.

Currently, i'm finishing a Pokerole short campaign, my plan now is to GM a Warrior cats campaign, i had already done these systems before, but it weren't my best GM times(the first Pokerole campaign i had to cancel due to one of the players being a creep).

The old Warriors one was badly written but one of the players, let call him Joe here, was enamoured by it, i dont know if it was because of the universe or if it was because i let his character be morally ambiguous due to his cat having a crush on the villian.

He even expressed on how much he wanted another Warriors Rpg to participate in, if it was a continuation of that campaign or not.

The problem is that Joe is not in our friend group anymore, due to many problems since last year, he joined the army(in my country you are obligated to a inspection, and if you qualifie, you are forced to join if you are 18), Joe and other friend did join, and Joe had suffered a bunch there that i will not go in details here.

He and other friend left army, but Joe changed drastically, he was ruder and tried to provoke the others in the group, we were already not a huge fan of him due to him being previously a friend with a dude that tried to hit someone in the group, but we enjoyed spending time with him, i had my fair share of fun moments with him, and even i had become more annoyed with him recently.

That and other discussions that occured between him and the others.

One weekend, without me and other 3 friends consent, the others removed him from the group, when one of the friends started explaining why they did remove him, he said we were his only friends that he had, and the friend replied that he need to made other friends them.

Every now and them he joined some calls, talked a bit but mostly he just disapears.

The thing is, i had already planned to do a rpg of Warriors including him as one of the players, but the rest of the players are part of the same friend group that arent fond of him, some said if i wanted, i could remove him and bring another one of the group to the campaign.

I feel torn, should i remove him? Even if he wanted this for 2 years.

Idk if it makes sense or not, it is 2 am where i live and i want to sleep but this is bugging me for so long.

We are playing the Kingmaker campaign about every two months and do the Kingdom turn via chat. I'm thinking about cool things to do as a Player for the group. Do you have cool ideas? It's not about what are characters can do, it's about how to create some immersion for the campaign and maybe be helpful for the dm.

Right now I'm just creating AI images of kingdom things we did. We just did are first kingdom turn.

Looking forward to cool ideas.

Party Info:

We play with Savage Pathfinder rules.

Members

Irrisian Sword Mage. /Ceromonial Ruler

Bard/Rouge who pretends to be a noble. / Emissary aka Lord if Whispers

(Me)Wizard/Artificer who thinks magic should be implemented to help the common folk. Dreams of building Golems. /Viceroy

Group NPC's

Amiri the Barberian /Warden

Valeria the Warrior /General

The female halfling bard, who's name I always forget /Counselor

And the Ranger with the dog we just met/ treasure till we find someone better.

We managed to kill the bandit king quickly, so now we are absorbing his bandits as first citizens in to are kingdom.😅

I mean certain stances just made them do make bad decisions.. 😂

I'm not sure if this is an okay place to ask this, but here's my question.

I'm going to be leading a mental health support group as part of my Peer Support internship. One of the ideas that I had was to do a very chill ttrpg group where players use roleplay to face fears, confront hard feelings and build community.

Question #1: Is there an existing ttrpg or module that would fit well with that premise?

Question #2: I'm going to list some of the realities of my set up below. Given these conditions, am I setting myself up for failure? (Even if you think I'm nuts, I'd still be interested in your game recommendations.

Setting: - The group will meet once weekly for 2-3 months. Sessions are generally one hour. - The group will take place in a community center. There is no sign up and players will come and go as they wish. - Iwould expect a wide range of players but likely many absolute beginners.

Solutions: - My first thought is to pre-make character sheets. Simple templates with class and stats already chosen.The player would choose their race (no race bonuses, just for flavor), gender, name, etc. and be ready to start playing immediately. - If players come back for more than one session, they can start to personalize their character with bonus stats. I'm thinking this instead of a traditional xp/levels. You get rewarded for consistency but not punished for joining late. - Sessions would be one-shots with a loot table at the end of the session. A sense of accomplishment and mostly cosmetic shinys for a job well done.

GM stats: - Level 40+ neurodivergent human. - Social Justice Bard - Working on my Peer Support Specialist Certification (Using lived experience to provide support for others who are struggling) - First time DM. Player experience with Dnd, Pathfinder, Shadowrun. Also familiar with Powered by the Apocalypse and Fantasy AGE.

Thank you for reading this absolute novel and for any help you can provide. If this would be more suitable for a different sub, please let me know.

-edit to fix formatting