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Game Master's Laboratory

Public • 146 • Free

7 contributions to Game Master's Laboratory
Prison Break?!?!
Anyone have any experience running a prison break? An NPC that had invented gun powder spoke up against the gov't and has been kidnapped. My players want to rescue him. Rather than a simple 'beat up the bad guys and rescue the NPC' has anyone done anything fun mechanically or story wise that would make the encounter memorable?
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New comment 16d ago
1 like • 16d
Prison break went very well! I introduced a 'flashback' rule, where the team could Oceans Eleven the break. I didn't want them to spend hours planning for everything, so I gave them each 1+ Int modifier (min 1) 'flashbacks', where they could tell me how they game planned for that specific task. One player used their flashback to have staked out the prison so they could all know what the guards wore. Another planned for how they would handle a fire trap. Another a metal file to slip to a prisoner. They all ran out of their flashbacks quickly, but managed to get the brainwashed Aasimar out of the prison without combat. They really enjoyed it being different and not another combat session.
Who is your dream table to play RPGs with?
So do you could play an RPG with any four other people, how would it be? You can be one of the players or the GM or assuming you get to play with them a few times you could even swap with one of them at a point? To start, for me it would be Brennan Lee Muligan as my fellow dm ( would love to play as a player and also experience running a game for him). For my first random celebrity it would be Alton Brown. Dude is a huge geek, and cosplays with Adam Savage occasionally and I think it would be a hoot to have him at a table. Back on the DND side, Vin Diesel would be amazing. Seeing as he based Riddick on his Drow Ranger and put up a ton of the money to get those movies made , I feel like he would buy in harder than anyone... Especially if the game was about family. Finally I would put Felicia Day at the table, if not because she seems like an incredibly pleasant person, but also because she has so much geek cred. The level of impact she has had on nerd culture really isn't talked about enough. Not only in her Media appearances like the show she started the Guild, but supernatural, Buffy, ( plus the second bring it on, which you can for sure nerd out on the 7 freaking movies that are in the series), and more. And of course she is the one that worked to get Critical Role on the air, since it had already been a home game for some time? And if you can't pick just four, who would you pick?
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New comment 21d ago
1 like • 23d
Wow, awesome question. Definitely Ginni Di, she seems so fun. Elijah Wood would be another, though we'd probably derail things as I talk to him about The Amps. And who wouldn't want to play with Frodo! Two more...Loved the idea of Debra Ann Woll, her spot on Crit Role with the magic fun ball is the only time I've seen her play, but I've been a fan of hers since True Blood and then on Dare Devil (which just got picked up!). One more...Probably Tom Morello from Rage/Audioslave. He's a D&D player I've heard and dude is so fascinating.
Session 0 update.
Hola Masters! Session 0 finally happened. The party is transported into Falkovnia, a land surrounded by mist and fog, and inside the mist thousands of living dead walk around, faces cannot be seeing, but shades are terrifying. Once a month during the full moon hordes of them move towards the last bastions of humanity to finally finish them. Why? Nobody knows. To “protect” the city there is an army, the Blood Falcons, they are in control of the land and rule as tyrants with martial law, torture and public executions what is left of the civil population of Falkovnia. Resources are scarce, hunger and decay are present everywhere and everyone is always looking for food and shelter. (In this campaign I’m using exhaustion levels as “hunger”). Eat or die is everyone’s creed. Is common knowledge that after you die you’ll join the armies of the dead want it or not. They start the game with Level 2 of hunger, My players decided their first short term goal very quickly. Find food. On the distance they can see what looks like an abandoned farm… Now I ask you Masters… what do you want to do? I read you all! Saludos…
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New comment 21d ago
3 likes • 28d
Interesting! I ran into something like that a while ago, a starving city. It was the first time I ever cast the 8 hour plant growth spell. The group had to protect me while I cast it, was a memorable session! We succeeded and my bard was so beloved for fixing the food shortage that he ended up running for office and became an NPC.
How many campaigns have you played in/run that actually finished?
That is, how many TTRPG campaigns that you were a part of reached a conclusion where you'd say the fiction of the game was finished? Story told, done, complete, etc? Instead of fizzling out (due to scheduling conflicts, loss of interest, moving on to a new game, etc). I'm trying to figure out if my experience is typical or not. I've played in or run 20+ campaigns since I got into TTRPGs about 20 years ago, but I've only ever "finished" 3 campaigns. One-shots don't count! I mean something that was meant to be episodic and take a long time to unfold. (I made this a post instead of a poll because I'm interested in specifics if you have them!)
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New comment 22d ago
3 likes • Jan 10
I might be an oddball here - I've finished a hombrew campaign that ran two years, Icewind Dale with supplements up to level 20, Out of the Abyss, and another Homebrew that went almost two years. I haven't had one peter out, but I've been quite fortunate to find a good group of players online and we've all stuck together. Found them on Startplayinggames during Covid and we all just clicked.
0 likes • 28d
@Briggs Schneider That is how I found my current group, but no, I don't GM there. My paid DM that we have all used over the past 4 years doesn't want to do Saturday sessions anymore, so I volunteered to run that time slot for our group that can only make Saturday mornings work.
Greetings!
Greetings all. I'm about to start my first DM session on Saturday (5e 2024), wish me luck. It's a homebrew campaign where magic has been outlawed and purged from the land, or so they think. Totally going for the proactive approach - they can hunt magic users, they can overthrow the regime and bring magic back, or run off and be pirates! Their goals is what I will build the campaign around. Just completed a 2 year campaign with this group of people, so I'm hoping they go easy on me! I've been playing since Covid pretty regularly, and played 3.5 back when I was in high school a million years ago... Just wanted to introduce myself - going through the posts to continue to learn the community, so apologies for any necro-commenting I might do :)
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New comment 26d ago
3 likes • 28d
My first game went very well! Yes, we did start in a tavern, but I made it one of the characters birthday and it was a surprise party sort of deal. I set the stage of this is an anti-magic gov't and let them decide if they wanted to support the ban, or overthrow it all. They can see both sides of the argument and can't decide! I figure I'll keep throwing situations at them and NPC's until they pick one or the other, or find something else to do. I ran a chase scene out of the new DMG and that went super well! They had to think about when to dash, they used ball bearings, caltrops, and oil flasks to great effect. I ended the session with the goddess of magic bestowing the 'spark' of magic to one of them, and cliffhanged (cliffhung?) those MF'ers so now they have a thousand questions in the discord!
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Jt Thomas
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44points to level up
@jt-thomas-2617
Longtime player, new to DM'ing, Excited and nervous!

Active 2d ago
Joined Jan 9, 2025
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