Brickroad

Here's all the spells banned from my 5e table:

1) detect magic

That's it. Adventurers stop to ritual cast detect magic over and over, just to be told, "Nothing important is magical around here."

I folded everything the spell does into a standard arcana check, and now life's better.
#dnd #dnd5e

Oh wait, I do use these death save rules from the Beyond the Qoods quickstart pdf. I absolutely love them. They make death saves both more dangerous AND less punishing.
#dnd #dnd5e #dying #beyondthewoods

And honestly, some of these aren't even house rules; they're alternate rules from sources like the DMG or Tasha's. But yeah, other than this tiny list, my homebrew blips system, and general setting notes? I run and rule as-is.
#dnd #dnd5e

I mostly scratch my head at D&D 5e critics who claim the game is unplayable unless you kludge in a bunch of weird house rules. Not really sure where the criticism even comes from. I've been running 5e for ten years and my list of house rules amounts to a half-page text document.
#dnd #dnd5e

"You can't have an opinion on a game you didn't play!"

Games cost a lot of money, and take a lot of time to play. I am a human man with finite amounts of both. Definitionally, I have to form opinions about games I don't play, in order to decide whether I should play them.

This is normal, and fine.

My least favorite experience in games is spending a few minutes taking in my environment, and the game gets impatient. Like, the helper NPC points out that there's a ladder I should climb. I feel like I should just hand them the controller and leave.

Anyway, have fun with Metroid Prime 4, guys.

I just typed "every waifu's crazy 'bout a sharp dressed man" and I meant it.

YouTube video by Brickroad's Ridiculous Nonsense DEMON BLUFF • #2 • Detangling the Druids

Druids never brush their hair, which fills up with twigs and bird's nests and stuff. So they require detangling from time to time:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNHH...
#demonbluff #youtube #druids #socialdeduction #logicpuzzle

YouTube video by Brickroad's Ridiculous Nonsense DEMON BLUFF • #1 • Logic Train to Pound Town

In an hour, I'll be premiering a new YouTube series of a game I'm absolutely obsessed with these days:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=n54c...
#youtube #demonbluff #premiere

Phew, this is a relief. Posting to social media is actually a non-trivial source of stress in my life, so having one less thing to worry about would be a load off. Bye everyone!
#scam

Option #3:
"Thanks for inviting me, but I don't think I'm a good fit for this table right now." Be honest, but be gracious. Next time that DM runs a table that is more your speed, you'll be invited back.
#dnd #dnd5e #ttrpg 🧵3/3

Option #2:
Turn to Daggerheart for this excellent advice: "Hold On Gently." Use your character concept, but be prepared to change, adapt, or pivot so they flow along with the fiction. (This is what I'm doing in our current Blades in the Dark game.)
#dnd #dnd5e #ttrpg 🧵2/3

Option #1:
Accept the character concept won't work here. They go back on the shelf, and you roll up a new character that *will* work. That other concept will still be there later, when another game comes along, where they can shine appropriately.
#dnd #dnd5e #ttrpg 🧵1/3

Building off yesterday's post about player buy-in:

"What if I have a character concept I really like, but the DM won't change their game to allow it?"

Well, you've got three options.
#dnd #dnd5e #ttrpg 🧵0/3

Some days, you eat Spaghettios for breakfast like you're an eight-year-old. For me, that day is "Tuesday."

Happy Tuesday, everyone.

#happytuesday

If you're a D&D player, your job is to create a character who is willing to run the presented content. Don't roll up a character who looks at the DM's prepared dungeon and goes, "Nah."

This isn't railroading. This is respecting your friend's time and energy. Plus, you'll have fun!
#dnd #dnd5e

What do I do when my players completely ignore everything I prepped?

The correct answer here is: close the books, thank them for coming, and ask what they'd like to do instead.

If players ignore *everything* you've prepped, they're not interested in playing the game you're offering. DMs burn out every day trying to appeal to players who won't buy in.
#dnd #dnd5e

Blades in the Dark: Session 1 YouTube video by SaluteTheFlumph

Blades in the Dark! This is a game about goofy criminals who live in a Lovecraftian nightmare.
youtube.com/live/BVD_qc_...
#bladesinthedark #ttrpg #youtube #stream

I don't know what "retro" means, but I know it doesn't mean "old". We don't call Shakespeare retro, or Groucho Marx, or the Beatles. Most old media is not retro.

Anyway, I've made my peace with the Wii and Xbox 360 being old. But that doesn't make them "retro". We can talk about the PS2, maybe.

Demon Bluff is a game about saving villages from the bat lady YouTube video by Brickroad's Ridiculous Nonsense

This bat lady keeps showing up in my villages and I'm SICK OF IT.
youtube.com/live/80KJTro...
#demonbluff #youtube #stream #batlady

5e isn't a screwdriver that people are stubbornly trying to hammer nails with. It's a pocket tool with a little hammer, screwdriver, knife, wrench, and magnifying glass inside. For me, a system that does everything well is preferable to a system that does one or two things perfectly.
#ttrpgs 🧵3/3

I want a system that can go into any tone, any setting, any situation. I don't just want combat/exploration/roleplay. I want to be able to blend these things seamlessly. And I want it all to work with a single group of characters in an unbroken narrative that potentially spans years.
#ttrpgs 🧵2/3

"Why play 5e when another system does [thing] better?"

Because while [thing] is great, I don't want it exclusively. I want to run a jewel heist this week, a jungle hexcrawl next week, a tense political banquet the week after. And then maybe go after a dragon in a gods-honest dungeon.
#ttrpgs 🧵1/3

Demon Bluff is a game about being mad at drunks YouTube video by Brickroad's Ridiculous Nonsense

Enough of this. There are drunks in this game, and I must yell at them:
youtube.com/live/cALAZDe...
#youtube #stream #demonbluff #socialdeduction #drunks

Here's a short list of rad things from our D&D table in the past few years:

- pop-up book of the PCs' travels
- gay pirate wedding
- fought a gazebo
- Amish wickerball
- mapped the planet from orbit
- nice picnic with Strahd
- entire dungeon in a guy's butt
- stick bug robot

#dnd #dnd5e #ttrpgs

I'm very lucky to have the game I want to play, and the people I want to play it with. I'm *absurdly* lucky that to have two separate groups. My heart goes out to y'all who don't have that. I hope you find each other, I hope you get a table set up, and I hope you get to roll some dice.
#ttrpgs

I love trying new systems both with my softbelly casual group and my shtanky grognard group. But no matter how far afield I travel, I always want to come home to 5e. It's my favorite, and I don't see that changing. It does what I want and it does it better than anything else.
#ttrpgs

My online group takes our gaming much more seriously. These are the games I stream each Sunday. Primarily 5e, but we did Household a while back, and are currently trying Blades in the Dark. We dabbled in Daggerheart character creation but haven't gotten to play yet.
#ttrpgs

My meatspace group is pretty casual. This past year we've played Lancer, Broken Compass, Vampire, Darkest House, and of course 5e. We're pretty excited to play whatever someone feels like running. I go back 20+ years with one of these guys, and we've tried out dozens of systems in that time.
#ttrpgs

There's a lot of this on Bluesky. Some days it feels like half of the D&D feed is just this sort of awful negativity. It'd be nicer for everyone if these folks spent their energy championing the games they do like, rather than tearing down people for playing the one they don't.