I'm not sure if this counts, but I once created an NPC named Swill who looked like they were made of a floating ball of black, gelatinous goop, alongside a pair of floating black hands, two white circles for eyes and a lined mouth similar to The Boss from Just Shapes and Beats. Swill was a high-level caster, able to create incredible structures at will, and even owning his own pocket dimension with a stone floor and with blackness in all directions, which he called Lacuna. No one questioned what he was, everyone had just assumed he was a slime, until the subject came up in conversation, and he acted confused. "No, I'm an octopus. This stuff is my ink, and such a simplistic form is how I manage to use so little magic that I can keep it cast at all times." Not the biggest of twists, but it came in handy when they realised that he could probably step out of his inky body and still control it, which I hadn't even considered. Swill has become a recurring character in my group, and now a beta version of Swill is my profile picture.
The trope I got to subvert was a meta trope of the noob DM, I'd told a new player that the campaign he was joining was my first campaign, and he was expecting simple plot hooks and 1 dimensional characters. He traveled from his home world into my homebrew and met a really nice guy who showed him around and gave him a place to sleep for the night. It was only later that the player realized he'd been sold into slavery by the 'nice' guy and he was so salty that he underestimated me.
2:14 is some Uno Reverse card stuff, that's freaking brilliant. 6:13 That gives a strong vibe of that one scene in the first Spongebob movie with the "ice cream lady."
I’ve got some: A friendly and peaceful tavern in an evil Plane, kept that way by the powerful beings that enjoy drinking there. An oddball wizard that specializes in custom magic items, one that looks different often. Most figure he just enjoys using Alter Self or Polymorph, but in actuality he is a Lich that creates bodies for himself and treats them like outfits.
I ran a Halloween homebrew game last year where I flipped the "save the princess from the dragon" cliche on it's head by having my players play as whatever monsters they wanted to be, within reason, with the peremesis being that they were invited to a party being thrown by a blue dragon they knew to celebrate his recent kidnapping of the local princess. To top it all off, they fought and killed a party of NPC adventureres sent to rescue the princess.
I stood that same trope on its head with a spin... The party starts out to rescue the "beautiful princess" from the vile clutches of the dragon... BUT along the way, they quickly figure out the princess is neither beautiful, nor remotely sufferable... AND ended up rescuing the poor dragon from the heartless sorceress! ;o)
In my first campaign on 5e, the first mission of the party was: Go to a big town in a young kingdom, who the lady in command is a tiefling (ex-advanturer tired down after years of ruling) is a friend from patron of the noble monk player. The lady asked to the group to locate the city mage, after he disappeared when he go to a ancient ruin a few days away. There lives a tribe of kobolds that are being invaded by goblins. The mage was hurt, safe in the area controlled by the kobolds. They go eliminating the goblins, but they discovers, after killing almost all goblins, that they were kicked out from their forest, the plants become corrupt and animated. They kill the invaders and save the kobolds.
If I'm being honest, with how many things are made now to specifically subvert expectations regardless of how it affects a story's overall quality, I've found that I'm enjoying tropes more and more. They're safe but that's because they work. Sure it can get boring, but I'd rather have a safe and satisfying story than an experimental piece that makes no sense at all. Like my DM is doing a 40k game setting with a Dark Eldar being a delightfully evil crime boss and he's not been dull yet.
The most important thing to always remember is that tropes are tools. They're not rules, neither of things to do or not to do, (um... generally.) the use of straight and subverted (and my favorite, double subverted) tropes are all things one can and should use to tell a good story.
@@Starfloofle I'm not sure I agree with that last point...Like one of the most famous and popular pieces of English literature, Lord of the Rings, is a story of a small group of heroes going on a quest to save the world from an evil wizard and the dark lord of evil himself with his hideous monster army.
Some times, the answer is to justify a trope rather than subvert it. E.x. Tolkien handswaves the issue of what dwarves eat by simply saying that they trade for food. In my setting, this is justified as the dwarves are relatively urban, and have to trade just to get enough food. The dwarves became urban because their lives inside their mines, where not ruled by the day and night cycle, (again justified due to dwarves having dark vision.) indeed they mine and craft around the clock in a 3 shift rotation.
@@erockandroll39 In addition to that I'd say dwarves could mainly get protein from mushrooms and burrowing animals. Not that Dwarves scrabble in the dirt like a Goblin, but like have them build massive tuning forks they ring to make a hunt begin where they kill massive worm-like creatures.
Great narrative, Brian! I hope there's a Part 2! You doing ok, brother? Your last few posts have sounded...heavier than normal and I want you to know that I (and we, the community) have your back. Your readings, and especially your mindfulness extros got me me through some dark times through this year and I want to return the love!
Ah I'm doing alright. Some minor pronunciation and word errors cause my mind ain't clear, but a lot is going on lately. Past two days I've been in a state of mind akin to depression cause I might be losing my best buddy in the world - a cat, Cuddles - loveliest little girl on the planet. I hope I don't yet, but, life is how it is. I'm damn glad I can bring some love and life to the world though, ain't got room for more darkness out there, gotta bring the light back.
Had a fun campaign I ran where elves, living so long, were from overcrowded metropolises and loved nature more so because they didn't get much of it in their lives.
One of my best ones was "You all arrive at a tavern..." But do something horrible to the tavern. Maybe it's been just that morning burned to the ground by a village child playing with a torch. (This one turned into a Side Quest campaign.) Perhaps the King's men are condemning the place for unpaid taxes. No entry. Move along. It could be because of war. It could be that this King is No Fun. Tease the tavern, flip the first meetingplace to somewhere else, like the miller's windmill. The barkeep has had enough and is packing the last barrels onto a wagon to leave town. Dry town as of today. Zealous order taking over who are also No Fun. Interrupt the party's initial meeting, right at a pivotal decision, with the raucous arrival of a more famous adventuring party who are both beloved, cheered... and are somehow raging jerk murderhobos because the townspeople's standards are so low. Even the kids outside idolize these arrogant thugs. The bartender breaks down crying after a whisper into his ear. He's just heard that his wife has run off with his kids, and, blubbering through tears and anger, trying to keep it together, announces that he's closing for the night, right now. Music stops. Drinks stop midway to open mouths. Even the town drunk perks up and gingerly moves out past the players.
That Barkeep story is cool and how the rolls are handled reminds me of Prince of Perisa: The Sands of Time or Mafia III where if you die a narrator would say basically "wait a minute it didn't happen like this." Also when I heard about the Nat 1 from the cooking contest, I was about to make a Gordon Ramsey joke.
And one of my games I play a monk of the long death who wears only black and is often seen "brooding" in the corner of any tavern. The thing is he's actually a really nice guy and isn't edgy at all he's just socially inept and acts weird around other people because he was raised in a cult and left when he found out that they're all crazy. His name is "the storm that you'll block out the sky and strangle the sun" but he prefers to be called Dave.
I have a player who, in our Eberron campaign, decided to play a Warforged Gunslinger. Due to Eberron and how everyone views Warforged he wears a helmet to hide his Identity and has vowed never to remove it. "This is the way" Additionally the party has decided to derail my entire homebrew campaign in order to "rescue" a goblin child and our Psionic Monk has taken time to train it.... now the Warforged Mando has his Baby Yoda. Who would I be to NOT let that happen. TL;DR: My party Has a character inspired by The Mandalorian and has derailed my campaign to raise Baby Yoda in Goblin Child form.
First time I ever DMed was just me and one of my friends. I had started him going through a goblin-infested mine, and he was gleefully killing them left and right. He thought he could pull fast ones on me by taking advantage of my lack of knowledge and our official lack of a rulebook. So I flipped the script on him a bit. A natural one at the perfect time allowed me to have his character fall into an underground lake with a surviving goblin... And it tried talking to him. He soon discovered that the goblins were city guards, sent to secure an incursion by the barbaric humans into their hidden society of "monsters", forced into hiding underground. And they weren't evil by default. The look on his face when he realized that his standard PC goblin-slaughter made him the bad guy was priceless. After that, he made friends with the goblin, and had to make a choice between doing his job for the humans (wipe them out) or have mercy on them and keep their secret.
I kinda like this. This sort of assumption at the outset by your friend is something I worry about with what WotC is doing by pushing all races to a default neutral alignment. If the player doesn't think goblins are default evil and he is default good for eradicating evil beings, then there's no meaningful twist to cause reflection.
Simple, I made characters that were likable and personable that turned out to be evil before the party ever knew their alignment, and I made rigid assholes that the party despised that ended up being beacons of good and justice. By the time my party had access to spells like Detect Evil and Good, they had already learned that it was stupid to just kill anything that turned up evil and trust anything that turned up good. And why not? Selfish people know they need to be likable to get what they want, and good people can be so self righteous that they can get in the way just because they think they can do no wrong.
Oh, I have two of these. One's a PC of mine, the other is a monster I made when DMing. Player character = neutral evil necromancer wizard who aspires to one day become a lich. Except she isn't just doing it because she's power-hungry, as most lich-aspirants are wont to do: her father was murdered by marauding drow and she wasn't powerful enough to stop them. So she blames herself for letting him die, and thus aspires to become the most powerful being in the universe to make amends. Since that can't be achieved in one human lifetime, lichdom - and the immortality it comes with - is the gateway to that goal. Monster = an extremely misanthropic celestial paragon who believes humans are too weak-willed to avoid succumbing to evil and are thus beyond redemption. Her solution is to wipe them and every one of their subraces off the face of reality, down to the last unborn child. Basically, imagine if Hitler was an archangel.
I love the frametail idea (swapping stories at the tavern)! I'll use that as a one-shot if I get the chance. It's like playing 'Pass the Story', but with character sheets.
Not sure if it’s the best example but one time I gave a character the edgiest story I could think of. Parents died before he was born, abused at the orphanage, became a field medic in a war. However despite all this he was overall a very cheerful guy. He was happy about his upbringing because it made him stronger and made his accomplishments all the better. Sure he could still be a cold hearted mercenary but that just came with the job. As long as you weren’t trying to kill him he would be quite friendly towards you.
I'm not sure if it's a clever subversion of a trope, but i have one none of my players have ever forgotten. I had a party start off not knowing each other in an adventurer's bar, in which there eventually was a bar fight (which some of the players either helped cause, or contributed to it's spread). I'd jump back and forth between the players and give then a quick description of something happening and demand an immediate answer to what they do (for example: You're trying to get out of the way of the spreading fight, suddenly you notice a big guy in plate mail flying through the air at your head, what do you do? He makes a save to duck out of the way. Cut to another player. You see a big green skinned guy grab someone in plate mail, and chuck him over your head, turning you see the flying guy almost knock off someones head before crashing into someone still sitting at a table, crushing them both through the table and splashing food and ale over someone else who was sitting there wearing robes. The robed man stares at you in fury (closest person in the direction the thrown guy came from) before starting to wave his hands and chant, what do you do?). In the end through one thing or another, all the players end up knocked out. They wake up in a cell and have a few minutes to talk to each other and try to come up with a plan before a guard comes and leads them to the court. They find out that the drunken bar fight spread badly and did a lot of damage to the area (drunken pissed off casters using magic really made it worse) so things like a burned down church, roads torn up by vines and such, a 60' tall tree through the roof of a building, library half collapsed, and so on. Since they're adventurers found at the scene, they're judged guilty of participating in the event and basically made to pay restitution through adventuring. In this case several caravans have never arrived and the PCs need to investigate and recover the caravans and as much of the goods as they can. Before you ask, no they weren't the only adventures forced to do jobs for the city, several others were as well. Basically they'd pull a few adventures out of jail at a time and give them all a job, they just all "happened" to be grouped in the same cell and thus forced into the same job.
My only real story of that was that the dm introduced our new player by introducing him as a prisoner to the vampire we were fighting, our first sight of him was the statement “you hear the sound of chains breaking in the dark, loud footsteps are approaching, suddenly what looks like a guard of the village tackles the vampire, and stabs her”
One thing I enjoy doing is inverting the dungeon crawl. Instead of entering the dungeon to find the macguffin, you start in the dungeon trying to escape. The tricky part of course is finding an excuse to get the players there to begin with. (Campaign starts with the pc as prisoners, the group fall into the dungeon through a trap door, or perhaps the actually entered the dungeon willing only to find the entrance cave in behind them forcing them to find another way.)
Hay my ppl another great video of stories gotta say I really love the one about the bar keep being told about there adventures keep up all the good work bois
5e solo campaign with a friend of mine. I like using ticking clocks, mimics, and plays on his expectations but almost every time my schemes end in combat or some other unique interaction. Then, while looking for NPC pics (we play on roll20), I found this strange twisted human crying face (like from those twin theater faces) on the body of a dog. So, I turned the whole picture grey except for the eyes which I changed red. Then put it in the middle of the woods for him to stumble upon. The statue had 3 unique things about it. 1: the red eyes faintly glow and follow around the creature closest to the statue, although the head does not move. 2: when any “detect ______” is cast the statue always registers the tiniest amount. 3: a plaque on the statues pedestal reads “you can try” Other than that it’s just a normal statue. He destroyed it after 15 MINUTES of investigating and still asks me if anything happened 5 sessions later. 😂
The first (and so far, one of only 2) character of mine to have an "Anything That Moves" attitude toward sex was not a bard--she was a _paladin._ Chella the elf was a 3.5e Forgotten Realms character I created for the sole purpose of giving the Book Of Erotic Fantasy a try. As it turned out, the chaotic good FR goddess of love and passion, Sune, explicitly did have paladins (an exception to the "Only lawful good characters can be paladins" rule that existed prior to 5e), so Chella was first a paladin, then a sacred prostitute (which is one of the prestige classes listed in the BoEF) of Sune. The campaign in which I played her, although a fun one, didn't last very long. If I were to play her again, I suppose I could make her a paladin of Venus which wouldn't be specific to Forgotten Realms, so she'd fit in 5e.
I had a Vengance Paladin that is a corpse-controlling sentient sword with a variant human soul (the second part is actually the non-important part) where her most driving force is the duty to slay any creature that others sought reasonable punishment for, just like how a lawful person summons civilization defense forces (such as town guards and police forces) or how a chaotic person hires an assassin or hitman. Her looking for her stolen physical body is actually just her sidequest. You see, most Players just make their Vengeance Paladin just hunt down that one nemesis in their Backstory. For some reason, it never occured to them that Vengeance Paladins' Main Oath is just to punish ALL wrongdoers and not just the ones that wronged them. I am aware this is what all Vengeance Paladins are by the RAW but I am yet to see some Player do this, specifically. I call this "out of common troupe" as much as how Combat Nat 1s have super punishing consequences (custom house rule) instead of just a miss (the real RAW). XD
Technically a subversion. Homebrew settimg and pantheon. One of the deities, Ortuna is your typical NG goddess of healing and mercy. Thing is her priests are some of the best poison brewers. Why? She believes in helping people with stopping or easing their pain through means that does include suicide so learning how to make poisons that can make death quick and painless was on the agenda. Using it outside of these purposes are only allowed in special circumstances and they're not allowed to sell these poisons to anyone not authorized by the church. On the other hand, you have Yrdes, Ortuna's prime enemy and the typical NE god of death and undeath. Except his church did not condone waton murder (in fact, his lore included him personally punishing fanatics of his church for going that route). No, instead, they viewed undeath as a path to immortality, and so do not think anyone should fear either that or the process to get there.
I like the thoughtfulness of permitting a quick and painless death. Sometimes that's the greatest mercy you can give someone and a lot of people overlook it.
@@robinthrush9672 D&D being both cinematic and high magic, players and their characters tend to believe that the sick and dying can be saved. Where in a realistic medieval setting, one would likely die from their wounds.
One of my favorite characters that I created was an Elf barbarian. He can't read, hates being clean, can't do magic, and loves honey mustard on everything. He gets hives when he's clean. He got cursed to be clean for one random hour every day, and no matter what he does, or what he rolls in, no dirt or muck will stick to him. Once it started at 11 PM, ended at midnight, then started again from midnight to one AM.
I have a character (They are meant to be for a skyrim dnd campaign) they are a sorcerer who is pretending to be a warlock who is pretending to be a cleric
It isn't a particularly bold subversion, but in my world I really want the orcs to have a society that values philosophy, and any orcs that don't enjoy argumentation and debate are seen as social outcasts. However, not to take it too far, elves will still attack orcs on sight.
My first campaign had me as a changeling female bard who got teleported from Eberron to Faerun. Her backstory included a past as an exotic dancer, but her standard personality was kind of shy and uncertain in this new world (that would be my personality taking over) . She didn't try to seduce anyone, but the DM kept having men come up to her and generally be creepy, either because the character was baseline creepy and working for a demon or being "propositioned" to work at "taverns" in the bed chambers. By the end of the campaign, the only characters who got lucky were the tiefling paladin of Torm and halfling cleric of Tymora. Also got yelled at by the DM for not assuming the family cowering under the toilet long after an invasion of wererats and cultists in an now seemingly abandoned town were survivors instead of wererat scouts or stragglers. Careful with your subversions.
I just thought of another tavern trope tweak. Half the players are given fancy physical notes by the beginning quest giver to meet at the Millers' Grill. The other half of the party is given equally fancy notes to meet at the Griller's Mill. The two taverns are directly across the street from each other and in vicious competition. The players all meet in the street *between* the two taverns, and both barkeeps are glaring at each other. The barkeeps are twins. Or they look nothing alike. Maybe the initial quest giver is kindly, but going senile as a lovable aging old lord who just couldn't remember which tavern was which. More sinister, maybe a quite sane main quest giver's scribe is gaslighting him with stunts like this. Maybe there are TWO main quests, and the party finds out only later that a different party took the other job.
...I have this Pathfinder character I’ve made, see. He’s a Rogue. Somewhat. Monk//Ninja gestalt, but let’s not pick nits, Ninja are an alternate Rogue. He’s also Evil. “Oh, great, another guy who thinks his Rogue taking a dungeon dive, Sneak Attacking the enemies into oblivion, and stealing all the loot is a unique idea.” I hear you say. But you see... You’re wrong. He’s a contract killer. Assassin, if he gets to be played to the level he can take the Prestige class. “So, a murderhobo.”, you say? Why? They’re not part of his contract, nor are they getting in his way. Not going around picking pockets, or poisoning everyone, and as far as looting dungeons, well... That’s considered payment for uncontracted work, which he can’t accept. No payment for uncontracted work, and no contracts that haven’t been accepted by “the Boss”. So if he is sent by the party as a scout and happens across some unguarded loot... It belongs to the party, not to him. ...If they find something that he’d like, though, they’re welcome to gift it to him. He doesn’t get a cut of loot, but he can accept gifts, and the loot is theirs to give.
Not sure if this a subversion but I’ve not seen it done before. A deaf tabaxi beast master ranger with a sprite companion/ interpreter who uses drow sign language to communicate. As a result, my character knows common, undercommon, and sylvan. I know that a sprite is not a usual ‘animal’ companion but it was vital that the companion had human shaped hands. I am disabled as well as hard of hearing myself so I like to bring disability into my gameplay occasionally because it helps me relate to my characters. In dnd 5e the drow already have a signed language but their race and culture didn’t seem conducive to accessibility and any disabled drow would likely just be sacrificed to the spider queen. Further, due to my personality I could never see myself playing any character with an evil alignment. (Though Dritz from the dark elf trilogy is more of a chaotic neutral or chaotic good than chaotic evil.) Her name sign is the Japanese sign language for cat. A fist brought up to the mouth like a cat is likening it’s paws. (This is also my name sign as I am ½ Japanese lived there in elementary school and my autistic obsession is cats) For simplicity's sake I just named her Neko( 猫 (ねこ) ) which is Japanese for cat. Raised in a remote corner of the forgotten realms her family assumed her lack of responsiveness to being called or spoken to was a result of feline aloofness, rather than being deaf, so for most of her childhood her deafness was never discovered. She is though very inquisitive and fairly intelligent. Her deafness would be discovered but not by any of her family. A group of escaped drow elf bandits snuck into the tabaxi encampment intending to steal supplies and valuables not knowing that the encampment was occupied by tabaxi with finely tuned senses and a preference for a nocturnal wake cycle. The drow bandits were easily defeated and their items taken as spoils. Part of those spoils was a sprite in a large jar which the drow kept as a sort of pet. This unfamiliar small creature peaked the ever inquisitive interest of the clan and was the object of everyone's fixation for a while. The sprite though her new captors were kinder than her previous still resented being held captive. She had been with the drow bandits for long enough that she was able to learn their signed language and would use it to basically cuss out or insult the tabaxi clan without their knowledge. My character found particular interest in this small creature who’s hand gesturing didn’t seem to be as random as her family and clan seemed to believe. Eventually when the clan grew bored of the sprite, they gifted her to my character because she seemed to be fascinated by her. Over time my character bean to recognize some signs and imitate them. The sprite took notice and began to sign at my character “do you understand me?” of corse my character doesn’t but the sprite figures out that I may be deaf and appreciating the kinder and gentler way my character treated her began trying to teach my character the drow sign language. Within just a few months my tabaxi character was able to fully master the language and a deep friendship was kindled. The sprite was kidnapped by the drow as a child and grew up their captive but wanted to find and reunite with her family though she had no idea where even to begin to look for them. My character wanted to go out into the world to learn new things chase new fleeting fancies and perhaps find other deaf folk of any race. Being tabaxi my clan was trained mainly in rouge or ranger. Using her keen feline eyesight my character studied to be a ranger who could take out foes with a bow and arrow like a sniper from great range also using her catlike agility to climb up trees and other things to get the best vantage point. So, they set out to seek excitement, companionship, and a way home for the sprite. Everywhere the go they search for clues on the sprite’s home and search for other deaf Indvidual's with the overarching mission to end language deprivation of the deaf in all of the forgotten realms.
Demi-liches have stopped absorbing souls so they can't maintain a full torso and limbs, they're just a jeweled skull. Acererak is the demi-lich in control of the Tomb of Horrors. I DM him as the Big Bad Good Guy who is a tenured professor at the adventurer's trade school.
That first one Is pretty great but I'm wondering, what would happen if a character died? Suddenly "Oh... Well Actually Cas is dead." "But wasn't he just right there?" "No I'm pretty sure he's dead"
Like the barkeep, i am currently planning to DM a campagin where world has been infested with summoned dragons, who cause a wave of lethargy and loss of motivation And only way to restore it is to bring dragonscales to a friendly witch who brews potions for milestone leveling.... and is BBEG
Hey Brian, thanks for keeping things upbeat. Shout out to my fellows in Utah who are dealing with the record-breaking COVID-19 caseload. As with all things, this too shall pass. Perhaps like a kidney stone, but it will pass! Stay positive. We’ve got this!
Oh yeah it'll pass like a god damn kidney stone I feel that, but it's good on you for staying positive about it. Thing's are rough, but it'll get better!
Dm here. My party was sent on a rescue mission for the guild. One of our top tier rogue/spy ( lv 20/20) went missing whilst infiltrating. We happen to find the place where he was being held, only to find an auction going on. The winner of the auction got to privately interrogate the rogue/spy. We pulled our gold, and won the bid. The rogue/spy said something, and without apparent thought, our rogue punched him so hard in the ribs, she broke 4 of them. She then pulled him into a room interrogate him. She rolled a nat 20 for interrogation. She walked out covered in blood, and gave fake information, and asked to keep the man as her play thing. They agreed, and we got him out. In the next town, we pay to have him healed, and headed back to the guild. Now he frequently makes appearances in our campaigns.
I was once in a party, and when we got to the 3rd boss we did, Instead of it being a large monster as we expected (the city had large foot holes the size of houses from the boss) instead. It was a dog with a magical amethyst on its head. And it had so strong wind magic it can make a big monster out of leafes and wood, stone and shit. And it made the monster to terrorize the city cuz the amethyst had the spirit of 55 evil wisards which gave the dog powers. This fucking puppy. Was also a companion until the 1st boss. Then we lost it. Then it finally appeard in the village which terrorized the city. And the boss battle was hard as hell. It had strong spells which made the battle hard. We barely won with only the human warrior-thief standing alive. Moral of the story: never trust dogs in DnD
Not really dnd more of just generic story book idea but its a subversion of the chosen one prophecy trope. So prophecy comes in depicting a hero or the like. The hitch is that there are actually +2 candidates for such a description. Furthermore everyone believes it to be wrong person, the only people to realize the truth is the mistaken hero and the actual hero who are acquainted with each other. What gets better is the fact that they are unable to convince everyone else of this fact. So this results in the mistaken hero receiving resources and training that he must them pass onto the true hero
I have an NPC who is named Simon Laughingsteel who is your typical he-man type who is very handsome, heroic, loud, and a huge hit with the ladies. The thing my group didn't realize till several sessions in... he has no concept sexuality. None. He is the embodiment of what women want and even men, but he has no libido, no comprehension, no social awareness of being flirted with... It wasn't just the DM living vicariously through an NPC to get laid ;)
Kobolds are communal and socialistic. They're independant, smart and loathe/are scared of coming under the sway of a dragon because they know they're susceptible, and are afraid of losing their autonomy. Because of their social leanings, they can easily fit into most societies and work in and aroud them neatly.
My party found an abandoned town next to a mine and cemitary at night fall the town was over run with undead the party barricaded themselves in the tavern but forgot to seal the back door and a skeleton walked through the back and started serving drinks like a bartender would and other than the undead trying to breakdown the door the undead where just going about their day to day lives in the town
My DM is strongly against the idea of "evil" races, herself being Jewish and having dealt with a lot of antisemitism. Whenever a pre-written campaign portrays all members of a certain race or tribe as Chaotic Evil Monsters, she always goes out of her way to rework the lore so her players don't feel like they're partaking in racism. She's currently working on a homebrew campaign, where all the major towns are ruled and protected by dragons, and since the top dragon god has gone missing, there's nobody to keep the evil dragons in check. Most of the dragons wreaking havoc on the towns are chromatic dragons, the traditionally evil dragons, but she's discussed a town that's a peaceful seaside resort run by a pair of blue dragons and staffed by orcs. I think that something like that is a good way of asserting that being evil isn't inherently part of one's nature, and is instead a result of what one does with the circumstances.
I do the same thing. I once wrote up a campaign around the premise of metallic dragons versus giants and the giants were displaced, lived in isolation and just wanted to survive while the metallic dragons were committing a genocide and the players choose which side to join for themselves (with no real understanding of the situation).
The "always evil/good/whatever trope I usually reserved for outsiders. I find the 9 alignment system to work better if good/evil/law/chaos act as a force of nature. That force may have their minions, but mundane people on the material plane need not to follow those generalities.
My BBEG is lord of light follower and uses for evil and the players shall be saved then sent to stop the BBEG to bring back balance and set things right by night mother dark forces shadow spawns moon children etc just cause most confuse and cant understand dark and light are not holy or evil they simply energies it is use and intent which has good or evil
That "past tense" game has quite a few problems; wouldnt the players know all the plot relevant details if they are the ones telling the story? And if they are bragging in a bar, why would they tell their tale in chronological order, not structuring it around the cool stuff and branching to tangents from there? Also, the same problem with the prince of persia game that sed this gimmick; "and then i died. No wait i died there. No no no, NOW i remember, this is the bossfight where i died." Sounds like that gm scammed bunch of players to make a game to his bartender dmpc.
I just like to make the PCs much more fragile and realistic than they seem to be. Whenever they encounter something simple that could possibly be an issue in real life, I make them roll a save just to see if they roll a nat 1 to have a condition that makes them vulnerable to it. In my first Pathfinder game, a human ranger on a hunt came across an adorable, friendly rabbit, which then exploded in his face. He rolled a 1 on a Willpower save and now gets PTSD flashbacks whenever he sees rabbits. In a more recent 5e game, one of the PCs is a stoner Minotaur cleric. He offered a blunt to the earth Genasi warlock, who had never tried it before, and she rolled a 1 on the Con save. She is now severely allergic to Mary Jane.
Haven't played him yet, but one of those douchey 18th century explorers who pushes around a manservant with a stereotypical name and calls everything "primitive" and "quaint," except that he's a Zulu prince who thinks Fantasy!European civilization is hilariously backwards
LMAO. Nah dude it's not "mongoloid" that's an old (and currently deemed unacceptable) term for the mentally handicapped. Mongoliad is part of a book series. Sorry, but that was too damn funny
I love that one about the Barkeep! I think i'll take that idea!
I'm not sure if this counts, but I once created an NPC named Swill who looked like they were made of a floating ball of black, gelatinous goop, alongside a pair of floating black hands, two white circles for eyes and a lined mouth similar to The Boss from Just Shapes and Beats. Swill was a high-level caster, able to create incredible structures at will, and even owning his own pocket dimension with a stone floor and with blackness in all directions, which he called Lacuna. No one questioned what he was, everyone had just assumed he was a slime, until the subject came up in conversation, and he acted confused. "No, I'm an octopus. This stuff is my ink, and such a simplistic form is how I manage to use so little magic that I can keep it cast at all times." Not the biggest of twists, but it came in handy when they realised that he could probably step out of his inky body and still control it, which I hadn't even considered. Swill has become a recurring character in my group, and now a beta version of Swill is my profile picture.
Sounds fun. And cute pic.
not exactly a trope subversion (just an unusual character) but that's cool! Must be fun to play an octopus.
The trope I got to subvert was a meta trope of the noob DM, I'd told a new player that the campaign he was joining was my first campaign, and he was expecting simple plot hooks and 1 dimensional characters. He traveled from his home world into my homebrew and met a really nice guy who showed him around and gave him a place to sleep for the night. It was only later that the player realized he'd been sold into slavery by the 'nice' guy and he was so salty that he underestimated me.
2:14 is some Uno Reverse card stuff, that's freaking brilliant.
6:13 That gives a strong vibe of that one scene in the first Spongebob movie with the "ice cream lady."
I'll let you pet Mr. Whiskers!
I’ve got some:
A friendly and peaceful tavern in an evil Plane, kept that way by the powerful beings that enjoy drinking there.
An oddball wizard that specializes in custom magic items, one that looks different often. Most figure he just enjoys using Alter Self or Polymorph, but in actuality he is a Lich that creates bodies for himself and treats them like outfits.
I ran a Halloween homebrew game last year where I flipped the "save the princess from the dragon" cliche on it's head by having my players play as whatever monsters they wanted to be, within reason, with the peremesis being that they were invited to a party being thrown by a blue dragon they knew to celebrate his recent kidnapping of the local princess. To top it all off, they fought and killed a party of NPC adventureres sent to rescue the princess.
Awesome.
Can I just say I'd be more surprised if anyone ever used a dragon guarding a princess.
I stood that same trope on its head with a spin... The party starts out to rescue the "beautiful princess" from the vile clutches of the dragon... BUT along the way, they quickly figure out the princess is neither beautiful, nor remotely sufferable... AND ended up rescuing the poor dragon from the heartless sorceress! ;o)
In my first campaign on 5e, the first mission of the party was:
Go to a big town in a young kingdom, who the lady in command is a tiefling (ex-advanturer tired down after years of ruling) is a friend from patron of the noble monk player.
The lady asked to the group to locate the city mage, after he disappeared when he go to a ancient ruin a few days away.
There lives a tribe of kobolds that are being invaded by goblins. The mage was hurt, safe in the area controlled by the kobolds. They go eliminating the goblins, but they discovers, after killing almost all goblins, that they were kicked out from their forest, the plants become corrupt and animated.
They kill the invaders and save the kobolds.
A playable drider looking for his dad, who is described as being the stereotypical rogue brooding in the corner.
If I'm being honest, with how many things are made now to specifically subvert expectations regardless of how it affects a story's overall quality, I've found that I'm enjoying tropes more and more. They're safe but that's because they work. Sure it can get boring, but I'd rather have a safe and satisfying story than an experimental piece that makes no sense at all. Like my DM is doing a 40k game setting with a Dark Eldar being a delightfully evil crime boss and he's not been dull yet.
The most important thing to always remember is that tropes are tools. They're not rules, neither of things to do or not to do, (um... generally.) the use of straight and subverted (and my favorite, double subverted) tropes are all things one can and should use to tell a good story.
@@Starfloofle I'm not sure I agree with that last point...Like one of the most famous and popular pieces of English literature, Lord of the Rings, is a story of a small group of heroes going on a quest to save the world from an evil wizard and the dark lord of evil himself with his hideous monster army.
Some times, the answer is to justify a trope rather than subvert it.
E.x. Tolkien handswaves the issue of what dwarves eat by simply saying that they trade for food. In my setting, this is justified as the dwarves are relatively urban, and have to trade just to get enough food.
The dwarves became urban because their lives inside their mines, where not ruled by the day and night cycle, (again justified due to dwarves having dark vision.) indeed they mine and craft around the clock in a 3 shift rotation.
@@erockandroll39 In addition to that I'd say dwarves could mainly get protein from mushrooms and burrowing animals. Not that Dwarves scrabble in the dirt like a Goblin, but like have them build massive tuning forks they ring to make a hunt begin where they kill massive worm-like creatures.
Great narrative, Brian! I hope there's a Part 2!
You doing ok, brother? Your last few posts have sounded...heavier than normal and I want you to know that I (and we, the community) have your back. Your readings, and especially your mindfulness extros got me me through some dark times through this year and I want to return the love!
Ah I'm doing alright.
Some minor pronunciation and word errors cause my mind ain't clear, but a lot is going on lately.
Past two days I've been in a state of mind akin to depression cause I might be losing my best buddy in the world - a cat, Cuddles - loveliest little girl on the planet. I hope I don't yet, but, life is how it is.
I'm damn glad I can bring some love and life to the world though, ain't got room for more darkness out there, gotta bring the light back.
Had a fun campaign I ran where elves, living so long, were from overcrowded metropolises and loved nature more so because they didn't get much of it in their lives.
One of my best ones was "You all arrive at a tavern..." But do something horrible to the tavern. Maybe it's been just that morning burned to the ground by a village child playing with a torch. (This one turned into a Side Quest campaign.)
Perhaps the King's men are condemning the place for unpaid taxes. No entry. Move along. It could be because of war. It could be that this King is No Fun. Tease the tavern, flip the first meetingplace to somewhere else, like the miller's windmill.
The barkeep has had enough and is packing the last barrels onto a wagon to leave town. Dry town as of today. Zealous order taking over who are also No Fun.
Interrupt the party's initial meeting, right at a pivotal decision, with the raucous arrival of a more famous adventuring party who are both beloved, cheered... and are somehow raging jerk murderhobos because the townspeople's standards are so low. Even the kids outside idolize these arrogant thugs.
The bartender breaks down crying after a whisper into his ear. He's just heard that his wife has run off with his kids, and, blubbering through tears and anger, trying to keep it together, announces that he's closing for the night, right now. Music stops. Drinks stop midway to open mouths. Even the town drunk perks up and gingerly moves out past the players.
That Barkeep story is cool and how the rolls are handled reminds me of Prince of Perisa: The Sands of Time or Mafia III where if you die a narrator would say basically "wait a minute it didn't happen like this." Also when I heard about the Nat 1 from the cooking contest, I was about to make a Gordon Ramsey joke.
And one of my games I play a monk of the long death who wears only black and is often seen "brooding" in the corner of any tavern. The thing is he's actually a really nice guy and isn't edgy at all he's just socially inept and acts weird around other people because he was raised in a cult and left when he found out that they're all crazy. His name is "the storm that you'll block out the sky and strangle the sun" but he prefers to be called Dave.
I really like the Barkeep being the BBEG and the party not figuring it out.
I have a player who, in our Eberron campaign, decided to play a Warforged Gunslinger. Due to Eberron and how everyone views Warforged he wears a helmet to hide his Identity and has vowed never to remove it. "This is the way" Additionally the party has decided to derail my entire homebrew campaign in order to "rescue" a goblin child and our Psionic Monk has taken time to train it.... now the Warforged Mando has his Baby Yoda. Who would I be to NOT let that happen.
TL;DR: My party Has a character inspired by The Mandalorian and has derailed my campaign to raise Baby Yoda in Goblin Child form.
First time I ever DMed was just me and one of my friends. I had started him going through a goblin-infested mine, and he was gleefully killing them left and right. He thought he could pull fast ones on me by taking advantage of my lack of knowledge and our official lack of a rulebook.
So I flipped the script on him a bit. A natural one at the perfect time allowed me to have his character fall into an underground lake with a surviving goblin... And it tried talking to him. He soon discovered that the goblins were city guards, sent to secure an incursion by the barbaric humans into their hidden society of "monsters", forced into hiding underground. And they weren't evil by default.
The look on his face when he realized that his standard PC goblin-slaughter made him the bad guy was priceless. After that, he made friends with the goblin, and had to make a choice between doing his job for the humans (wipe them out) or have mercy on them and keep their secret.
I kinda like this. This sort of assumption at the outset by your friend is something I worry about with what WotC is doing by pushing all races to a default neutral alignment. If the player doesn't think goblins are default evil and he is default good for eradicating evil beings, then there's no meaningful twist to cause reflection.
Simple, I made characters that were likable and personable that turned out to be evil before the party ever knew their alignment, and I made rigid assholes that the party despised that ended up being beacons of good and justice. By the time my party had access to spells like Detect Evil and Good, they had already learned that it was stupid to just kill anything that turned up evil and trust anything that turned up good. And why not? Selfish people know they need to be likable to get what they want, and good people can be so self righteous that they can get in the way just because they think they can do no wrong.
I once played a rogue who allowed the rest of the party to sneak by using charisma-based skills to draw all the attention to himself.
Oh, I have two of these. One's a PC of mine, the other is a monster I made when DMing.
Player character = neutral evil necromancer wizard who aspires to one day become a lich. Except she isn't just doing it because she's power-hungry, as most lich-aspirants are wont to do: her father was murdered by marauding drow and she wasn't powerful enough to stop them. So she blames herself for letting him die, and thus aspires to become the most powerful being in the universe to make amends. Since that can't be achieved in one human lifetime, lichdom - and the immortality it comes with - is the gateway to that goal.
Monster = an extremely misanthropic celestial paragon who believes humans are too weak-willed to avoid succumbing to evil and are thus beyond redemption. Her solution is to wipe them and every one of their subraces off the face of reality, down to the last unborn child. Basically, imagine if Hitler was an archangel.
I love the frametail idea (swapping stories at the tavern)! I'll use that as a one-shot if I get the chance. It's like playing 'Pass the Story', but with character sheets.
Not sure if it’s the best example but one time I gave a character the edgiest story I could think of. Parents died before he was born, abused at the orphanage, became a field medic in a war. However despite all this he was overall a very cheerful guy. He was happy about his upbringing because it made him stronger and made his accomplishments all the better. Sure he could still be a cold hearted mercenary but that just came with the job. As long as you weren’t trying to kill him he would be quite friendly towards you.
I'm not sure if it's a clever subversion of a trope, but i have one none of my players have ever forgotten.
I had a party start off not knowing each other in an adventurer's bar, in which there eventually was a bar fight (which some of the players either helped cause, or contributed to it's spread). I'd jump back and forth between the players and give then a quick description of something happening and demand an immediate answer to what they do (for example: You're trying to get out of the way of the spreading fight, suddenly you notice a big guy in plate mail flying through the air at your head, what do you do? He makes a save to duck out of the way. Cut to another player. You see a big green skinned guy grab someone in plate mail, and chuck him over your head, turning you see the flying guy almost knock off someones head before crashing into someone still sitting at a table, crushing them both through the table and splashing food and ale over someone else who was sitting there wearing robes. The robed man stares at you in fury (closest person in the direction the thrown guy came from) before starting to wave his hands and chant, what do you do?).
In the end through one thing or another, all the players end up knocked out. They wake up in a cell and have a few minutes to talk to each other and try to come up with a plan before a guard comes and leads them to the court. They find out that the drunken bar fight spread badly and did a lot of damage to the area (drunken pissed off casters using magic really made it worse) so things like a burned down church, roads torn up by vines and such, a 60' tall tree through the roof of a building, library half collapsed, and so on. Since they're adventurers found at the scene, they're judged guilty of participating in the event and basically made to pay restitution through adventuring. In this case several caravans have never arrived and the PCs need to investigate and recover the caravans and as much of the goods as they can. Before you ask, no they weren't the only adventures forced to do jobs for the city, several others were as well. Basically they'd pull a few adventures out of jail at a time and give them all a job, they just all "happened" to be grouped in the same cell and thus forced into the same job.
Guy at 8:30 basically described most elven societies in fiction, but a bit more violent. I don't see the subversion.
Poor demoralised Paladin though...
My only real story of that was that the dm introduced our new player by introducing him as a prisoner to the vampire we were fighting, our first sight of him was the statement “you hear the sound of chains breaking in the dark, loud footsteps are approaching, suddenly what looks like a guard of the village tackles the vampire, and stabs her”
I came here from a Liminal Spaces video at 2am. Thanks for the calming voice, it helped.
One thing I enjoy doing is inverting the dungeon crawl. Instead of entering the dungeon to find the macguffin, you start in the dungeon trying to escape.
The tricky part of course is finding an excuse to get the players there to begin with. (Campaign starts with the pc as prisoners, the group fall into the dungeon through a trap door, or perhaps the actually entered the dungeon willing only to find the entrance cave in behind them forcing them to find another way.)
Hay my ppl another great video of stories gotta say I really love the one about the bar keep being told about there adventures keep up all the good work bois
5e solo campaign with a friend of mine.
I like using ticking clocks, mimics, and plays on his expectations but almost every time my schemes end in combat or some other unique interaction. Then, while looking for NPC pics (we play on roll20), I found this strange twisted human crying face (like from those twin theater faces) on the body of a dog. So, I turned the whole picture grey except for the eyes which I changed red. Then put it in the middle of the woods for him to stumble upon. The statue had 3 unique things about it.
1: the red eyes faintly glow and follow around the creature closest to the statue, although the head does not move.
2: when any “detect ______” is cast the statue always registers the tiniest amount.
3: a plaque on the statues pedestal reads “you can try”
Other than that it’s just a normal statue. He destroyed it after 15 MINUTES of investigating and still asks me if anything happened 5 sessions later. 😂
The first (and so far, one of only 2) character of mine to have an "Anything That Moves" attitude toward sex was not a bard--she was a _paladin._
Chella the elf was a 3.5e Forgotten Realms character I created for the sole purpose of giving the Book Of Erotic Fantasy a try. As it turned out, the chaotic good FR goddess of love and passion, Sune, explicitly did have paladins (an exception to the "Only lawful good characters can be paladins" rule that existed prior to 5e), so Chella was first a paladin, then a sacred prostitute (which is one of the prestige classes listed in the BoEF) of Sune. The campaign in which I played her, although a fun one, didn't last very long. If I were to play her again, I suppose I could make her a paladin of Venus which wouldn't be specific to Forgotten Realms, so she'd fit in 5e.
I had a Vengance Paladin that is a corpse-controlling sentient sword with a variant human soul (the second part is actually the non-important part) where her most driving force is the duty to slay any creature that others sought reasonable punishment for, just like how a lawful person summons civilization defense forces (such as town guards and police forces) or how a chaotic person hires an assassin or hitman. Her looking for her stolen physical body is actually just her sidequest.
You see, most Players just make their Vengeance Paladin just hunt down that one nemesis in their Backstory. For some reason, it never occured to them that Vengeance Paladins' Main Oath is just to punish ALL wrongdoers and not just the ones that wronged them. I am aware this is what all Vengeance Paladins are by the RAW but I am yet to see some Player do this, specifically.
I call this "out of common troupe" as much as how Combat Nat 1s have super punishing consequences (custom house rule) instead of just a miss (the real RAW). XD
Technically a subversion. Homebrew settimg and pantheon. One of the deities, Ortuna is your typical NG goddess of healing and mercy. Thing is her priests are some of the best poison brewers. Why? She believes in helping people with stopping or easing their pain through means that does include suicide so learning how to make poisons that can make death quick and painless was on the agenda. Using it outside of these purposes are only allowed in special circumstances and they're not allowed to sell these poisons to anyone not authorized by the church.
On the other hand, you have Yrdes, Ortuna's prime enemy and the typical NE god of death and undeath. Except his church did not condone waton murder (in fact, his lore included him personally punishing fanatics of his church for going that route). No, instead, they viewed undeath as a path to immortality, and so do not think anyone should fear either that or the process to get there.
I like the thoughtfulness of permitting a quick and painless death. Sometimes that's the greatest mercy you can give someone and a lot of people overlook it.
@@robinthrush9672 D&D being both cinematic and high magic, players and their characters tend to believe that the sick and dying can be saved.
Where in a realistic medieval setting, one would likely die from their wounds.
One of my favorite characters that I created was an Elf barbarian. He can't read, hates being clean, can't do magic, and loves honey mustard on everything. He gets hives when he's clean. He got cursed to be clean for one random hour every day, and no matter what he does, or what he rolls in, no dirt or muck will stick to him. Once it started at 11 PM, ended at midnight, then started again from midnight to one AM.
I have a character (They are meant to be for a skyrim dnd campaign) they are a sorcerer who is pretending to be a warlock who is pretending to be a cleric
Brian with the badass Baritone.
I do my very best!
It isn't a particularly bold subversion, but in my world I really want the orcs to have a society that values philosophy, and any orcs that don't enjoy argumentation and debate are seen as social outcasts.
However, not to take it too far, elves will still attack orcs on sight.
My first campaign had me as a changeling female bard who got teleported from Eberron to Faerun. Her backstory included a past as an exotic dancer, but her standard personality was kind of shy and uncertain in this new world (that would be my personality taking over) . She didn't try to seduce anyone, but the DM kept having men come up to her and generally be creepy, either because the character was baseline creepy and working for a demon or being "propositioned" to work at "taverns" in the bed chambers. By the end of the campaign, the only characters who got lucky were the tiefling paladin of Torm and halfling cleric of Tymora.
Also got yelled at by the DM for not assuming the family cowering under the toilet long after an invasion of wererats and cultists in an now seemingly abandoned town were survivors instead of wererat scouts or stragglers. Careful with your subversions.
I have a cleric who is a smut novelist. The rogue is actually the moral compass of that party, lol.
I just thought of another tavern trope tweak.
Half the players are given fancy physical notes by the beginning quest giver to meet at the Millers' Grill. The other half of the party is given equally fancy notes to meet at the Griller's Mill.
The two taverns are directly across the street from each other and in vicious competition. The players all meet in the street *between* the two taverns, and both barkeeps are glaring at each other.
The barkeeps are twins. Or they look nothing alike.
Maybe the initial quest giver is kindly, but going senile as a lovable aging old lord who just couldn't remember which tavern was which.
More sinister, maybe a quite sane main quest giver's scribe is gaslighting him with stunts like this.
Maybe there are TWO main quests, and the party finds out only later that a different party took the other job.
...I have this Pathfinder character I’ve made, see. He’s a Rogue. Somewhat. Monk//Ninja gestalt, but let’s not pick nits, Ninja are an alternate Rogue. He’s also Evil. “Oh, great, another guy who thinks his Rogue taking a dungeon dive, Sneak Attacking the enemies into oblivion, and stealing all the loot is a unique idea.” I hear you say. But you see... You’re wrong.
He’s a contract killer. Assassin, if he gets to be played to the level he can take the Prestige class. “So, a murderhobo.”, you say? Why? They’re not part of his contract, nor are they getting in his way. Not going around picking pockets, or poisoning everyone, and as far as looting dungeons, well... That’s considered payment for uncontracted work, which he can’t accept. No payment for uncontracted work, and no contracts that haven’t been accepted by “the Boss”. So if he is sent by the party as a scout and happens across some unguarded loot... It belongs to the party, not to him.
...If they find something that he’d like, though, they’re welcome to gift it to him. He doesn’t get a cut of loot, but he can accept gifts, and the loot is theirs to give.
Wouldn't dwarves' hierarchy always be short? I mean, they are dwarves. Couldn't resist. XD
I prefer the term, stocky.
Not sure if this a subversion but I’ve not seen it done before.
A deaf tabaxi beast master ranger with a sprite companion/ interpreter who uses drow sign language to communicate. As a result, my character knows common, undercommon, and sylvan. I know that a sprite is not a usual ‘animal’ companion but it was vital that the companion had human shaped hands. I am disabled as well as hard of hearing myself so I like to bring disability into my gameplay occasionally because it helps me relate to my characters.
In dnd 5e the drow already have a signed language but their race and culture didn’t seem conducive to accessibility and any disabled drow would likely just be sacrificed to the spider queen. Further, due to my personality I could never see myself playing any character with an evil alignment. (Though Dritz from the dark elf trilogy is more of a chaotic neutral or chaotic good than chaotic evil.)
Her name sign is the Japanese sign language for cat. A fist brought up to the mouth like a cat is likening it’s paws. (This is also my name sign as I am ½ Japanese lived there in elementary school and my autistic obsession is cats) For simplicity's sake I just named her Neko( 猫 (ねこ) ) which is Japanese for cat.
Raised in a remote corner of the forgotten realms her family assumed her lack of responsiveness to being called or spoken to was a result of feline aloofness, rather than being deaf, so for most of her childhood her deafness was never discovered. She is though very inquisitive and fairly intelligent. Her deafness would be discovered but not by any of her family. A group of escaped drow elf bandits snuck into the tabaxi encampment intending to steal supplies and valuables not knowing that the encampment was occupied by tabaxi with finely tuned senses and a preference for a nocturnal wake cycle. The drow bandits were easily defeated and their items taken as spoils. Part of those spoils was a sprite in a large jar which the drow kept as a sort of pet. This unfamiliar small creature peaked the ever inquisitive interest of the clan and was the object of everyone's fixation for a while. The sprite though her new captors were kinder than her previous still resented being held captive. She had been with the drow bandits for long enough that she was able to learn their signed language and would use it to basically cuss out or insult the tabaxi clan without their knowledge. My character found particular interest in this small creature who’s hand gesturing didn’t seem to be as random as her family and clan seemed to believe. Eventually when the clan grew bored of the sprite, they gifted her to my character because she seemed to be fascinated by her. Over time my character bean to recognize some signs and imitate them. The sprite took notice and began to sign at my character “do you understand me?” of corse my character doesn’t but the sprite figures out that I may be deaf and appreciating the kinder and gentler way my character treated her began trying to teach my character the drow sign language. Within just a few months my tabaxi character was able to fully master the language and a deep friendship was kindled. The sprite was kidnapped by the drow as a child and grew up their captive but wanted to find and reunite with her family though she had no idea where even to begin to look for them. My character wanted to go out into the world to learn new things chase new fleeting fancies and perhaps find other deaf folk of any race. Being tabaxi my clan was trained mainly in rouge or ranger. Using her keen feline eyesight my character studied to be a ranger who could take out foes with a bow and arrow like a sniper from great range also using her catlike agility to climb up trees and other things to get the best vantage point. So, they set out to seek excitement, companionship, and a way home for the sprite. Everywhere the go they search for clues on the sprite’s home and search for other deaf Indvidual's with the overarching mission to end language deprivation of the deaf in all of the forgotten realms.
Demi-liches have stopped absorbing souls so they can't maintain a full torso and limbs, they're just a jeweled skull. Acererak is the demi-lich in control of the Tomb of Horrors. I DM him as the Big Bad Good Guy who is a tenured professor at the adventurer's trade school.
That first one Is pretty great but I'm wondering, what would happen if a character died? Suddenly "Oh... Well Actually Cas is dead."
"But wasn't he just right there?"
"No I'm pretty sure he's dead"
Like the barkeep, i am currently planning to DM a campagin where world has been infested with summoned dragons, who cause a wave of lethargy and loss of motivation
And only way to restore it is to bring dragonscales to a friendly witch who brews potions for milestone leveling.... and is BBEG
4:45 - now that's just a low-down, dirty thing to do to your group...
Hey Brian, thanks for keeping things upbeat. Shout out to my fellows in Utah who are dealing with the record-breaking COVID-19 caseload. As with all things, this too shall pass. Perhaps like a kidney stone, but it will pass! Stay positive. We’ve got this!
Oh yeah it'll pass like a god damn kidney stone I feel that, but it's good on you for staying positive about it.
Thing's are rough, but it'll get better!
PANR has tuned in.
Halflings with a ring and revenants? That sounds familiar.
Dm here. My party was sent on a rescue mission for the guild. One of our top tier rogue/spy ( lv 20/20) went missing whilst infiltrating. We happen to find the place where he was being held, only to find an auction going on. The winner of the auction got to privately interrogate the rogue/spy. We pulled our gold, and won the bid. The rogue/spy said something, and without apparent thought, our rogue punched him so hard in the ribs, she broke 4 of them. She then pulled him into a room interrogate him. She rolled a nat 20 for interrogation. She walked out covered in blood, and gave fake information, and asked to keep the man as her play thing. They agreed, and we got him out. In the next town, we pay to have him healed, and headed back to the guild. Now he frequently makes appearances in our campaigns.
The first one only works if they don't die ......
Or ........
........
........
.......
.......
All die and at a bar in the after life .
I was once in a party, and when we got to the 3rd boss we did, Instead of it being a large monster as we expected (the city had large foot holes the size of houses from the boss) instead. It was a dog with a magical amethyst on its head. And it had so strong wind magic it can make a big monster out of leafes and wood, stone and shit. And it made the monster to terrorize the city cuz the amethyst had the spirit of 55 evil wisards which gave the dog powers. This fucking puppy. Was also a companion until the 1st boss. Then we lost it. Then it finally appeard in the village which terrorized the city. And the boss battle was hard as hell. It had strong spells which made the battle hard. We barely won with only the human warrior-thief standing alive.
Moral of the story: never trust dogs in DnD
Not really dnd more of just generic story book idea but its a subversion of the chosen one prophecy trope. So prophecy comes in depicting a hero or the like. The hitch is that there are actually +2 candidates for such a description. Furthermore everyone believes it to be wrong person, the only people to realize the truth is the mistaken hero and the actual hero who are acquainted with each other. What gets better is the fact that they are unable to convince everyone else of this fact. So this results in the mistaken hero receiving resources and training that he must them pass onto the true hero
I have an NPC who is named Simon Laughingsteel who is your typical he-man type who is very handsome, heroic, loud, and a huge hit with the ladies. The thing my group didn't realize till several sessions in... he has no concept sexuality. None. He is the embodiment of what women want and even men, but he has no libido, no comprehension, no social awareness of being flirted with... It wasn't just the DM living vicariously through an NPC to get laid ;)
Kobolds are communal and socialistic. They're independant, smart and loathe/are scared of coming under the sway of a dragon because they know they're susceptible, and are afraid of losing their autonomy. Because of their social leanings, they can easily fit into most societies and work in and aroud them neatly.
My party found an abandoned town next to a mine and cemitary at night fall the town was over run with undead the party barricaded themselves in the tavern but forgot to seal the back door and a skeleton walked through the back and started serving drinks like a bartender would and other than the undead trying to breakdown the door the undead where just going about their day to day lives in the town
The revenants did they dress all black and was the ring
gold per chance
Anything with good Necromancers and Liches.
My DM is strongly against the idea of "evil" races, herself being Jewish and having dealt with a lot of antisemitism. Whenever a pre-written campaign portrays all members of a certain race or tribe as Chaotic Evil Monsters, she always goes out of her way to rework the lore so her players don't feel like they're partaking in racism. She's currently working on a homebrew campaign, where all the major towns are ruled and protected by dragons, and since the top dragon god has gone missing, there's nobody to keep the evil dragons in check. Most of the dragons wreaking havoc on the towns are chromatic dragons, the traditionally evil dragons, but she's discussed a town that's a peaceful seaside resort run by a pair of blue dragons and staffed by orcs. I think that something like that is a good way of asserting that being evil isn't inherently part of one's nature, and is instead a result of what one does with the circumstances.
I do the same thing. I once wrote up a campaign around the premise of metallic dragons versus giants and the giants were displaced, lived in isolation and just wanted to survive while the metallic dragons were committing a genocide and the players choose which side to join for themselves (with no real understanding of the situation).
The "always evil/good/whatever trope I usually reserved for outsiders.
I find the 9 alignment system to work better if good/evil/law/chaos act as a force of nature. That force may have their minions, but mundane people on the material plane need not to follow those generalities.
A kindly old lady old lady who serves the party funny tasting food and has all the red flags of hag from Curse of Straud.
12:13 uuuuuuuuhhhh
Socialist Dwarves isn't really a "tropes subversion", we already have Duergar for that.
My BBEG is lord of light follower and uses for evil and the players shall be saved then sent to stop the BBEG to bring back balance and set things right by night mother dark forces shadow spawns moon children etc just cause most confuse and cant understand dark and light are not holy or evil they simply energies it is use and intent which has good or evil
I mean, half of these would make me dislike the DM.
That "past tense" game has quite a few problems; wouldnt the players know all the plot relevant details if they are the ones telling the story? And if they are bragging in a bar, why would they tell their tale in chronological order, not structuring it around the cool stuff and branching to tangents from there? Also, the same problem with the prince of persia game that sed this gimmick; "and then i died. No wait i died there. No no no, NOW i remember, this is the bossfight where i died."
Sounds like that gm scammed bunch of players to make a game to his bartender dmpc.
Asexual bard
I'm just in it for the music... That's great.
I just like to make the PCs much more fragile and realistic than they seem to be. Whenever they encounter something simple that could possibly be an issue in real life, I make them roll a save just to see if they roll a nat 1 to have a condition that makes them vulnerable to it. In my first Pathfinder game, a human ranger on a hunt came across an adorable, friendly rabbit, which then exploded in his face. He rolled a 1 on a Willpower save and now gets PTSD flashbacks whenever he sees rabbits. In a more recent 5e game, one of the PCs is a stoner Minotaur cleric. He offered a blunt to the earth Genasi warlock, who had never tried it before, and she rolled a 1 on the Con save. She is now severely allergic to Mary Jane.
helo there
Ah... General Kenobi...
@@BrianVaughnVA lol
@@BrianVaughnVA thankyou for fulfilling your civic duty.
771st!
I can't believe he said "Mongoloid" instead of "Mongolian". That sure is a funny mistake you sure aren't supposed to make.
Haven't played him yet, but one of those douchey 18th century explorers who pushes around a manservant with a stereotypical name and calls everything "primitive" and "quaint," except that he's a Zulu prince who thinks Fantasy!European civilization is hilariously backwards
LMAO. Nah dude it's not "mongoloid" that's an old (and currently deemed unacceptable) term for the mentally handicapped. Mongoliad is part of a book series. Sorry, but that was too damn funny
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