Bay 12 Games Forum

So, I've been introducing a friend to spicy food, and she's shown a remarkable tolerance for it (for a Norwegian), and decided to be pretty tough one day when she was out with some other friends, so she ordered the "spicy" curry option at the place they went to.

Turns out this place was one of only a handful in this country that makes actually spicy food if you ask for it, and she ended up with a dish that was not only far beyond her level, but that had a whole-ass Carolina Reaper pepper on it as garnish.

And, to try and "get back" at me for encouraging her to do all this, she got the dish to go and brought it to me... On a whim, I decided to try and extract the seeds to see if I could get anything to sprout. They're probably terminator/irradiated, but there was nothing to lose so why not? But after planting, all the pots were empty, barren... For weeks, nothing happened.

...until something did start sprouting in the one pot, which I figured might've been some other random seed/sprig/whatever that'd gotten in there.


Yeah, nah. Funny thing about Reaper plants; you can smell the capsaicin on the damn leaves.

Most of the game has been improvisational; to the extent where I've unfortunately gotten into the mental routine of "Meh, I probably don't need to prep [X], I can bullshit something workable anyway" even when there are things I would've benefitted greatly from prepping for (such as quips/banter). This was one instance wherein the way the story was playing out ended up lending itself to something that would've tied a lot of ends together neatly, so I decided to lean on that potential.

Normally I would just fluff/bullshit/tweak the stats (and indeed, he grew an extra 40hp in increments during the course of the fight), but unfortunately during what I thought was the "he's getting away and vanishing into the distance" segment I let slip that he had managed to get away with a single hitpoint left to his name, as a means to put some more gravitas on how narrow the escape was. Hopefully this is one of the lessons I've learned: Never tell the players anything.

Additionally they'd already managed to mostly suss out his AC during the fight, so him suddenly becoming harder to hit than before or pulling out a heretofore unused defensive capability that magically would've saved his bacon would've seemed like DM cheating for the sake of railroading, and I definitely didn't want to give the impression of that. I'd rather take the L and figure out something else while maintaining the internal consistency than have them think their actions don't have meaning.

And that kinda leads into the other point regarding death saves/combat as a whole. Only a couple of the players are particularly familiar with the 5e ruleset and would be aware of and comfortable with minor deviations on the fly. It's still mostly a newbie group, and as such I feel the need to clearly and openly communicate how combat works and how its rules are handled, so that they can plan their actions and their choices accordingly. So in the event of fiddling with some of the core precepts of combat, I feel like I need to come up with a consistent rule first that I can then announce/communicate and then maintain.

...but on the flip side of that, I still have to remind the rogue of how I rule stealth, and that was a public and detailed announcement with a fixed post so everyone can reference it, plus a TL;DR... So maybe nobody actually notices what the rules are at any given time and I really should just be making it up as I go

So the party got a hot tip and ended up confronting the killer, thereby confirming it was indeed him when his eyes turned black and large obsidian claws sprouted from his fingers.

He was built primarily using a PC multiclass, one I'd always wanted to try out as a player, and figured that with a couple tweaks it'd probably be tuned enough to be pretty dangerous, but I could pull some punches and have him run away so they could track him for the big exposition later.

...yeah, of course that didn't happen. He managed to almost knock the tank over, absolutely no one else took damage. Then as he was fleeing, the sorceress managed to zip around the other corner of the building and pop him mid-air with a light crossbow at disadvantage due to long range, with her +0 to DEX, and hit exactly his 17 AC to deal his final HP of damage.

I felt kinda awful, not gonna lie... The whole fight was sort of a shitshow with everyone wondering about when we got into and out of initiative, I massively choked on the banter/taunts/threats I wanted him to give during the fight, and of course for the first fight we've had in several sessions he was a pushover who definitely never would've been able to take on the party.

Not only that, but he was also supposed to be the key to unlocking an important piece of story! They were supposed to catch him in the final ritual where they could meet the BBEG that he was using the rituals, and the sacrifices, to contact. How would I fix that?

...well at least that part is covered. The players found his ritual book and decided "Hey, this sacrificial rite looks neat, we should try that out and see what happens", so I guess they're gonna be the ones summoning the BBEG instead


But yeah, definitely feeling a bit demoralized... Everyone says they're having a good time and that it was a fun session, but you know how it is. I can't help but feel like I've failed them.

Hopefully I've learned some things from all this. This is also the first part of tying off this particular arc, and while I'm glad I did make the attempt to try out a murder mystery type thing, I do feel like it has been a bit of a clusterfuck from start to end. Next arc I'm planning to focus much more on active, regular combat, and just hop that I can start refining my battle skills. Maybe even do a proper OSR-esque dungeon delve a little further along.


EDIT: Completely forgot half the reason I wrote a post here... Being on this side of the screen, I'm developing more and more concerns with how 5e handles... Well, a lot of things in general, but combat in particular. For being the "It's impossible to die" edition, I'm still feeling like I need to hold back a bit if I don't want the battle to accidentally swing just a bit too hard and suddenly someone's down and will have to hope someone spends their turn reviving them or else they've gotta write up a whole new character.

For all the business of death saves and such, there's still surprisingly little distance between "100% combat capability" and "dead and gone forever"... Not really much in the way of downed/injured/out-of-the-running states, so you have to either risk permanently annihilating a character, or you leave them up to leverage the entirety of their arsenal at you. ...unless you're a spellcaster, I guess.

That said, I did give them a medic NPC for precisely the purpose of keeping them from just randomly dying thanks to no one being able or willing to do a thing that picks them back up again that turn, but... Yeah. I've of course forgotten to actually involve her half the time. Which has led to one of the players griping about how she's "not getting her money's worth" out of the medic

So why is google trying to punish people for trying to watch Youtube in their own app?

Because you're not currently also paying them for the privilege of watching. The worse of an experience they can make watching the free version, the more people will be incentivized to pay! A perfect business plan with absolutely no shortcomings!

Friend of mine is getting kicked out of her apartment for being several months behind on rent.

It's awful. Another massive upset just as she was beginning to claw her way to some stability and progress in her life, and I'm certain that this is going to start another spiral into a dark chaos.

...and I don't feel the sympathy I should feel. That I want to feel.


This has been a long time coming. Yes, she's been getting royally fucked by the system and some truly just bad luck and timing. ...she's also been refusing to ask for or accept help from anyone around her to solve the rent issue. Meanwhile she's still been going out to spend however much down at the pubs (which are horridly expensive here) or picking up alcohol for home sessions of "oops, this glass turned into a bottle tee hee". This is after she'd finally gotten started on ADHD meds, the meds she had previously claimed would cut out her usage of booze because "she wouldn't need it to deal with her ADHD issues anymore". And also buying new game releases hot off the shelf, and new equipment to play them better.

And, y'know, I get it... There's a lot of sickness expression in that. But god damn if it doesn't also feel like it's just her own damn decisions at times, especially given how she acted and what she said when we were all down in Mexico.



I'm still obviously going to be helping out with what I can, taking over some of her obligations to others, providing a sofa to crash on for a little bit... But I don't feel like I'm ready to be the comforting, supporting shoulder just yet because of how irritated I've been feeling with her. And that frankly kinda pisses me off about myself.

Oh hey, it's Delicious in Dungeon

someone should make a jewish mysticism themed restaurant

they'd bring out kabbalah nuggies arranged in a sefirot, it'd be great

...considering how critically endangered they are as a species Africa-wide, I'm curious how they're planning on even managing to assemble 20,000 of them at once.