Running my first campaign, characters have goals. Started on stormwreck isle a prewritten dnd starter set (2024 5.5 e) (I took over for someone else who started this) thought I could pivot us to collaborative campaign from there. I mentioned time travel here and a Fishel brother gave me some ideas of how to motivate the players to enter the time travel portal but just to summarize the goals: Couple of the players have knowledge and spell goals, a warlock wants to get some dirt on his patron because he's starting to feel misused, a wizard is feeling chased by his wizard guild because he's becoming a sword expert, the tabaxi rogue just wants to follow the will of his deity (baast I think), and the paladin wants to find his long lost grandfather. So I have the hooks to get them to continue, and to go different places from the previous advice here. I'm working on finding out the players interests and they've mentioned space and dinosaurs. So this was a long way to ask this but.... any ideas about considering space travel? I'm thinking of going into the future for some advanced spell tech or something? I have the spelljammer materials (I practically have access to everything on dnd beyond) but is there something else that might make more sense and is manageable for space travel? Also I know there are dinosaurs in dnd stuff so I could probably have them in some older setting. I think I'm imagining that some time in the future there's some greedy wizard corporate group and maybe they've been stealing and moving around magic items different time periods, maybe the paladin's grandfather was trying to investigate them? I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has general ideas about these specific locations and time periods, but I'm open to anything at all, I appreciate all the advice I got on the last post and am using all of it!

Something that has always been a part struggle as I get older is finding a group. Not just a one shot. But a real campaign group. With my schedule and living on the West Coast. And to be honest I am use to a gaming on every other Saturday. I know that might be old school. But beside when I was in grade school for a sleepover. I never played during a week. For my mind set weekdays is for school and sleep and some TV hehe. When Civid happen Before then I never thought of playing during the weekdays. And boy did I do a lot of gaming during that time. But now we are back to a similar normal life. So my weekdays is too busy or too tired to even think of gaming. So besides solo gaming I have tried. But the thrill of a group it is ok. So I have thought about play by post. But my experience with playing what will is beyond zero. I got some serious questions. How does combat and a social reaction work. I have a hard time seeing how that could work well. I feel like I want it to work but I have a hard time seeing how it works. Help me I want this to work.

Hi all, I'm looking for some input about how you great people think about magic in RPGs. I'm about to run the final session of Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (D&D introductory adventure) but the question applies in any game involving magic, I think. Basically my players need to stop a ritual being conducted by the bbeg (young dragon who wants huge power) who is drawing magic from this island steeped in arcane power, from the Dragon Star reaching its zenith, and from ancient incantations. The cap is the sacrifice of a young, good dragon the PC's are trying to rescue. The setup is great: approaching midnight on a rocky spire jutting out of the ocean, an array of dragon statues and bones are carefully arrayed in a detailed pattern around the victim hidden in a stone pit. I see it as lit by torches at first, but as the ritual starts and the bbeg gathers power into the circle, there will be glows and crackles of lightning and arcane energy bursting all around. A ritual caster has to gather and control power for some time before releasing it into their spell. The rules in d&d are lacklustre about stopping a ritual, though: "if the ritual is disrupted, the spell that is being cast fails". Hardly dramatic. Of course, now they would have a frustrated bbeg mad at them, but - - meh. My feeling is that with a bunch of power being manipulated in a big ritual, interrupting it should be dangerous for everybody involved, not just the caster but also the disruptor, victim, bystanders,.... And the danger should increase the longer the ritual goes on before it's broken. So I'm wondering if anyone has handled things like this or if you have ideas about it. I'm thinking about possible mechanics for determining outcomes, wild magic effects, damage spread - anything to make this more clutch, dramatic and fun. PS I've already laid the groundwork with a smaller ritual used to destroy a cursed object earlier in the adventure, so the players will be expecting this.

Proactive Roleplaying is "The Natural End Point of Roleplaying" - Kenneth Hite

I've been thinking about beginner - expert scaling of classes and backgrounds for role play and collaborative storytelling. The gist is I think some classes/background/backstory choices can bake in both a connection between mechanics and roleplay and/or support group play. Other choices such as the loner rogue have a tradition of being problematic. I wonder if the structure of table talk in proactive gaming is ideal for allowing the more challenging or problematic choices to work in a group game. (e.g. untrusting loner, antisocial hermit, sneaky rogue that wanders off, rogue that steals stuff, warlock that made a deal with the devil, or Sam Riegels always afraid scout Snyx in Age of Umbra).