A little bit about the game I'm running to add a bit of perspective. This is a game more centered around intrigue and role play, set in a sorta pre-industrial victorian type setting where the players are working with a rebellion to over throw the ruling class.

So far I've been starting each session with a bit of Q and A for each of the players characters. It doesn't take up too much of the play time and helps makes for a softer start time while getting people engaged. As for the questions they have been pretty light nothing super intense and not same (from my opinion) "Ask these 20 questions when making a character" sort of thing.

For example the sorts of questions I've been asking are: "Whats on thing that never fails to make your character laugh?" "Is your character a spicy food or mild food person" "Whats one thing (not immediately useful such as lock picks or adventuring gear) that your character keeps in their pockets?". I feel like it helps get people more into the mindset of their characters.

The advice I'm asking is should I add some harder hitting questions or keep it light?

Also what questions would you ask?

One of my players is playing a bard-chef and decided that mind flayers must be edible. So after the party killed one, he rolled to carve sashimi from the creature. It was a good roll and he has a pound or two of raw mind flayer sashimi. I want something...devious if he decides to eat it. After all, illithid are brimming with psionic energy.

I was thinking a roll on the long term madness table but looking for creative ideas.

Currently running mines of Phandalin with 4 level 3 characters and a sidekick, they are making their way to town and I have an idea to have an Illusionist sent by the Black Spider to ambush them, but im not entirely sure how to run it. My current idea is to use major image to make them think it is very hot, and a charm person to get the fighter to remove his armour so the illusionist and some goblins can get the drop on the party. Is this enough or should i do something else

One of my players has a charlatan background and he pretends to be a honest ex-merchant instead of a thief. The other players don't know that.

Yesterday his character introduced himself to a new PC, and plainly lied about his past. I asked him to roll deception against the other's insight, and the deceitful player contested my decision. He said I shouldn't impose deception rolls for this, because otherwise the other players (not the PCs) will immediately know that he's lying, even if he succeeds the roll.

That sounds strange to me, because the point is not to lie out of game. He says that it's fairer to let them meta-lie to each other because it makes their RP more realistic.

But doesn't that open the way to some possible metagaming abuse, e.g. a more eloquent player with a low charisma PC fooling a clumsier player with a high insight PC?

So, the idea is simple - 4 guys go into a dungeon, which is a lair of bad guys. The lair is gigantic and they could go on for years if they wished so, but they need to teleport back to the base after 2 long rests max. After each long rest, they can get a few new items. Of course, each encounter is more difficult then the last one Now, keeping it fresh isn't a problem, I have a myriad of ideas for encounters. Problem is, wouldn't it get boring after a few fights? Something like this might take three, four, maybe even five sessions and that's a lot of fighting. What do you think?

My party of 4 lvl 8s is headed up against a Rakshasa posing as the sheriff of a small town. This is the finale of a large arc, so the fight is pretty consequential and spans across the town in several ways, the rakshasa also has several hazards set up for the party, along with enthralled goons all along the way.

The issue is that I'd teased the Rakshasa as the enemy far before I knew that A: we'd be losing two players from the party before this fight, and B: we're kind of wrapping up the campaign sooner than I'd liked and my party likely isn't strong enough for a by-the-books Rakshasa. Both to mitigate this, and to reflavor a few things for the setting, I've rewritten the stat block, which I'll paste below. To note, I've also handed my players a guest player who is extremely buffed out and overpowered to help them with this fight. The Rakshasa also has a weak point- the knowledge of its True Name- which gives the party another edge in the fight.

TLDR: Writing a weaker Rakshasa, need feedback on my numbers and ability changes.

I'd love any and all feedback, as I've tried to tweak the numbers a bit but I'm admittedly not great with the math of 5e difficulty levels. I've looked at the Zakya Rakshasa creature, and it doesn't seem ideal for this either.

Also, apologies for the bad formatting. This sub doesn't allow images, and I have no better way of dropping in this info (suggestions on that front would be welcome too).

Sheriff Redmond/Bwganod the Rakshasa

>*Medium Fiend, lawful evil*

>- **Armor Class** 16 (natural armor)

>- **Hit Points** 110 (13d8 + 52)

>- **Speed** 30 ft

>|STR|DEX|CON|INT|WIS|CHA|

>|16 (+3)|17 (+3)|18 (+4)|13 (+1)|16 (+3)|20 (+5)|>___

>- **Skills** Deception +10, Insight +6, Perception +6

>- **Damage Vulnerabilities** piercing from magic weapons wielded by good creatures

>- **Damage Resistances** bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks

>- **Senses** darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16

>- **Languages** Common, Infernal

>- **Challenge** 7 (2,900 XP)

>- **Proficiency Bonus** +3>___

>***Innate Spellcasting.*** The rakshasa's innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 16, +8 to hit with spell attacks). The rakshasa can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components:

>>At will: *detect thoughts*, *disguise self*, *mage hand*, *minor illusion*

>3/day each: *charm person*, *detect magic*, *invisibility*, *major image*, *suggestion*

>1/day each: *dominate person*, *fly*, *plane shift*, *shield*, *true seeing*

>>***Limited Magic Immunity.*** The rakshasa can't be affected or detected by spells of 1st level or lower unless it wishes to be. It has advantage on saving throws against all other spells and magical effects.

> >***Shriveled Hand Amulet.*** Bwganod keeps on his person the key to his psychic control; a magic amulet made from the desiccated hand of a child kidnapped from the orc tribe shortly before his arrival as a visitor. The amulet is hidden on his person or stored in his lair.>The spell can be removed from a single creature by casting *dispel magic* and succeeding on a DC 20 spellcasting ability check, or from the tribe as a whole by casting the spell on Bwganod while he holds the amulet. Alternately, the spell is broken by removing the amulet from him and destroying it or laying the child's spirit to rest. (SEE AMULET RULES SHEET)

>>***True Name.*** A creature that the rakshasa can hear may use an action to utter its True Name if it knows it. If the creature succeeds on a DC 17 Charisma check, the rakshasa must immediately roll a DC 10 Constitution saving throw to keep concentration on any spell it is currently casting. Additionally, for one round the rakshasa loses its Limited Magic Immunity and damage resistance, and has disadvantage on all skill checks and attack rolls.

>>### Actions

>***Multiattack.*** The rakshasa makes two claw attacks or two pistol attacks.

>>***Claw.*** *Melee Weapon Attack:* +6 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. *Hit:* 9 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage, and the target is cursed if it is a creature. The magical curse takes effect whenever the target is healed or takes a short or long rest, filling the target's thoughts with horrible images and dreams. The cursed target reduces the effect of any magical healing cast on them by half (rounded down) and gains no benefit from finishing a short rest or their first long rest. The curse lasts until after one long rest or it is lifted by a *remove curse* spell or similar magic.

>>Pistol. Ranged Weapon Attack: +6 to hit, range 50/150 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6 + 3) piercing damage.| |:-| ||

​

Hello! I am currently getting ready to start a new Dnd game where lore is really important. I am currently looking for any and all sources on the idea of books the players can find in game to 1. help the story move along. 2 make my job a little bit easier on information giving so both the players and I are on the same page. Do you guys have any suggestions of where I can things similar to this query? Even just some titles and general idea about what a book could be about would be great. I could use anything of any and all genres.

Players will be able to read these books and either gain a better understanding of something like lore, or gain adv on certain checks. Ex: Player reads a book on how to play the lute and will gain adv on performance when playing the lute.

Thank you so much in advanced for any help. I am a little bit on a crunch so i thought I would go ahead and say that.

Hello, lovely people:

This is my first post here, but I have already benefited so much from lurking and reading existing posts that I thought I would bring my conundrum to you all.

The situation is that I have two PCs who have been nominated by VIPs in the Winter/Unseelie Court to vie for the mantle of the Winter Knight. It's pretty clear at this stage in the campaign that PC1 should end up with it rather than PC2 (for plot/mechanic reasons). I've had some chats with the players in question, and they're on board with the outcome—it's the middle bit I need help with.

Initially, I thought about having the Winter Queen set the candidates against each other in an arena-type scenario, they'll refuse to kill each other, display non-fey values/emotions, etc. . . . but then I realised this is basically just The Hunger Games (and tropes work well in D&D, so I'm open to it, but I'm attempting something unexpected). So, I'm trying to come with alternatives while being mindful of the following issues:

• I need a resolution that doesn't require one of them to end up dead (i.e. executed for not playing along)
• PC1 taking on the 'burden' is supposed to be something of a sacrifice, so I need an opportunity for 'a choice' to occur rather than PC2 just saying 'nah' and bailing on the challenge.
• I also need to keep the rest of the party engaged in some way. I thought about having them running around schmoozing and trying to get boons from members of the audience but, again, it smacks of a THG rip-off.

Any insights or ideas greatly appreciated <3

So i want to host a oneshot i made in a group of four since the majority never played it. The only player (who lets call him doodle) played the oneshot back then with another party.

So doodle knows everything about this dungeon, i offered him to be the final boss.

İ want to implement a system where doodle can do several things in the dungeon.

Like he can teleport as the boss in the middle of combat for 2 turns. Can spawn enemies and other stuff like that, but i dont want him to abuse these. So i wanted to add something to limit him like a certain point that increase based around stuff

The game will play in a tomb of a religious figure. (The players are tomb raiders)

Tl-dr: i want to give my player a boss to control and a point system where he can redeem stuff to hinder the players. And i need help on stuff he can do and how to make him gain points.

Hi there, I'm new here so I'm so sorry if I mess anything up. I also realise this may not be the right place. But this is the best place I could find for this question.

So I'm running a roleplay group and we use lite DnD mechanics. I'm really new to boss fights. One on one fights I got down pack.

To preface, we don't do the whole stat sheets. Everyone has a set amount of HP (50). The players are allowed to decide what abilities they have since we have it set up for certain things having set damage:

• Punches and kicks do 1 HP base damage
• Weapons do 2 HP base damage
• Special Weapons do 3 HP base damage
• Abilities do 2 HP base damage
• Special One Time Abilities do 3 HP base damage

Anyways, on to the question. I've done one boss battle this way and it went okay the way we did it. But I'm wondering what can be done to do better or if it's fine this way. For boss battles they are given 250 HP and after the player attacks they'll attack the person who attacked them (or a random if the attack missed). This worked the first time, but I'm not so sure if I can do anything better. So any tips or tricks to improve this would be greatly appreciated.

The players were camping out in the woods when when of their goats carrying gear went off the trail. They followed the bleating to a vampire spawn feeding on it. The players, not being very sneaky walked up on it with a very bright lantern. Two of the players returned to guard camp and the remaining beasts. Before this I asked them to delegate how far from camp it was, they said "20 feet" and I told them realistically it'd have to be much farther than that. At least 40 yards so we settled on that.

The vampire spawn quickly climbed the trees and followed them back to camp ambushing the two others at the camp. The players spent two rounds dashing back to camp while the monk and druid battled the vampire. When they finally got back the monk was got downed the first turn they did damage to the vampire, the vampire moved to finish and reduced his hit point maximum to zero, killing him. Much the same happened to the druid before the vampire tried to flee and died.

A funny thing happened then, the warlock was excited to use his mold earth and buried them both, causing them each to rise as vampire spawn (the druid digging them up). I then gave them a chance to continue as spawn and they refused, choosing one to leave the party as a character and the other to commit suicide.

It was 6 level 2 characters one of them who died having an 86 rolled stat total

My players have been in a dungeon for a while to get an item they need for the main quest, and this is their last challenge. I'm having trouble with brainstorming ideas and hoped that the minds of Reddit could help me.

Hello! I'm start in a new campaign, and one of my pc's has a altered version of misty step where he opens a portal and go to wherever, the part I need help with is I want to do something where on a failed DC something happens. What're some ideas? It's Eldritch horror esk, like a creature follows him out and the party will have to deal with it. Thank you!

I'm a pretty new DM, just started a year ago running LMoP and only run a game maybe once or twice a month. I'm just curious how people handle the passing of time in game during a scene where it's important. For example, right now my players are in Cragmaw Castle. Before entering, the druid cast Pass without Trace, they caused a distraction at the main, western entrance and then snuck in through the door to the south. Now I don't believe that clearing the castle is going to take them an hour, but it did get me thinking about some of the shorter duration stuff like Speak with Animals as well as how to judge things like how long they've been standing around in the hallway. My group will sit there and discuss things and remind each other of what they have and can do (we're all new, so I have no issues with how long it takes) but the players discussion options for 10 minutes doesn't really translate to 10 minutes in game time.

So basically, any tips on judging and tracking the time spent in game? Do you just say that 10 real world minutes is 1 in game minute? Make a judgment call for how long something's taken? Or do you force the players to converse more in game and less above the table strategizing? Thanks!

So I know it's a lot of work and won't be easy, but I'm a first time dm who wants to run a campaign based in Louisiana during the War of 1812. It will be a situation where our plane of existence merged with one of magic and monsters, yet a lot of historic events still played out (such as the Battle of New Orleans). So there will be magic, swords, and some guns.

So my question is, what resources/books would you recomend for something of this caliber? I know there are flintlocks and other firearms (gunslinger class and such) in DND, but what else is already pre-built and where can I find it? Monsters, weapons, characters, etc.

And I would love to hear opinions on the campaign idea as well! Any thoughts and ideas on it are welcome!

A beloved NPC, a space pirate, died saving the party from a bad situation. A funeral is due. I could use some ideas for what to happen during the funeral.

In an upcoming adventure I want to have my Players be hunted by Bugbears. I like to run bugbears as stalkers and slow killers, they like to widdle down the ranks and not let Players rest or sleep, ambush guerrilla warfare then vanish into the night. I want to use traps as well to drain resources and have it take time before they fully strike but I’m having trouble figuring out how to create this encounter without it feeling like a slog. Any advice?

Hi there!

I'm making a slightly homebrew DnD campaign and I would LOVE to get some advice

A friend of mine loved the concept of a swarm of wasps (or a single small wasp) being able to be a druid (or maybe a warlock?) and turn into a single human form

I know it's weird, but, is there any way to do this without completely destroying the base rules? And how can I make it if I do need to bend some stuff from the handbook?

I have a campaign where the party's ultimate goal (so far) is to stop a BBEG from gathering the 333 Gems of Tharizdun. Theres all kinds of plot details regarding the characters and backstories and the like, but the goal is the same: Stop this BBEG.

In the background, however, I have had a slow-burn side story building up regarding an NPC. This NPC is an Aasimar who, despite being such, despises the Gods (seeing them as useless and unwilling to help people in need). This Aasimar, however, has a rather abusive Celestial guide.

This Celestial guide works for the Triad and has tasked this Aasimar NPC to find the Gems first, in which the party is helping with. She's abusive, cold, and uncaring, however... which only adds to the Aasimar's dislike for the gods and celestials. However, she's supposed to be working as an Angel under The Triad, some of the goodest good guy gods in my campaign.

The goal: The Celestial Guide is effectively going rogue, on the path to becoming fallen, caring for nothing but the mission, but wanting the gems for herself in order to use them to literally pull a Minority Report and destroy anyone with even a small amount of "evil" in them, or those she believes might be capable of doing so. No more free will. Just absolution through wiping out anyone she deems determined to do wrong, using the 333 Gems to do so. In my campaign, the gems are like weapons of power and destruction. The more you have, the more power you have and the more destruction you can cause, with all 333 literally able to release Tharizdun from his prison, or be used as a collective WMD. So now that she's going to go down the path of extremism and therefore become another villain, I need to find out how she'll be able to operate under the noses of the gods she works for.

Long story short: How do I get an angel to become rogue and fallen behind the backs of the three gods that employ her? I ask because I know for a damn fact my party will ask "How the hell did they not see it coming?" An idea I had was having her influenced by the current BBEG in some way and having him protect her from their sight, but I'm afraid that this course of action would be seen as a little too "convenient" in the grand scheme of things. Lazy writing at best.

This will allow me to prepare for her as the next story BBEG beyond the current one, and then set up the final acts. So far my only plan is literally having her pretend like she has this whole "plan" in mind for the Triad's best interests, only to pull a fast one in the end, but would that work well? Other ideas are highly welcomed.

For context, I'm running a 5E DnD game and the 6 players are all at level 7. The party consists of a barbarian, fighter, druid, rogue, ranger, and cleric. The adult green dragon is part of one of the character's backstory and they need to track it down and kill it. Would it be a TPK at this level?

Hey all! I’ll be running newish Phandelver/ Shattered Obelisk with 4-5 players. They’ll be starting at level one.

I am simply just looking for any and all general tips for running this campaign from any who may have done it.

For instance I read that some early encounters were super tough and there were some major plotholes. Could just be haters hating but I wanna make sure I’m (somewhat) prepared to improvise if necessary.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read and respond to this post!

Hey all,

My players were trying to join a secret resistance group against the BBEG, and to prove their worth, had to secretly steal the crown of the tyrant ruler of the city (who ended up being a powerful vampire). They forged an invitation to a party to gain entrance into the party, and on their way in, found a group of the undead hunter faction in the area investigating claims of undead in the area. They stashed most of the gear, then entered the party posing as waitstaff.

During setup for the quest, one of the resistance groups npcs joined the party to aid them (my party tends to punch first, ask questions later, was hoping the npc could help be a voice of reason). It was stressed to remain secret, as the resistance faction couldn’t be found out. Furthermore, I’m using homebrewed vampires and it was stressed (and foreshadowed) in a fight, the party would likely lose.

Upon discovering the ruler was a vampire, the cleric used a spell to send a message to the undead hunters, hoping to grab the crown off the vampires head in the chaos. Undead group comes in and starts attacking, and while distracted the paladin tries attacking the vampire…long story short, all but one of the party was charmed and they were captured for a blood magic ritual where we’ll be starting the next session.

My question is: if they escape, they’d be running from the law in town, and the resistance group couldn’t risk attracting attention to itself. Should I keep the door (and their gear) closed to them? Make an exception? They got the most part only have fine clothes on, with no gear.

Tl:dr: party stashed gear at resistance hideout in a city ruled by tyrant. Players attacked and were captured by the tyrant, and will have to escape. Resistance group specified that they cannot use violence to steal a crown from said tyrant, but they did anyways. How could they get their gear back if they can escape? Should I close off joining of the faction for them?

I like using OneNote for just about all of it, it's very easy to compartmentalize different notebooks for campaigns, sections for places/people/encounters/tracking the parties progress/actions.

Just wondering how you all keep track of the things you create (or even notes you take while running a published adventure, from changes you make to the written material to just tracking the NPCs or party, that's something I find I lack). I'm sure there are some good methods out there that would be fun to learn.

Bonus:

• Looking for some recommendations for tools to manage audio for my campaign, changing to different tracks for areas/encounters/moments/etc. Like if the party is traveling I can seamlessly switch to the soundtrack of the new location where it sort of fades the previous track away and fades the new one in - that would be much better than the abruptness of just cutting to a different track.
  • Or, during a boss fight being able to change to a new track when they hit a new "phase". Since I can't foresee how long it will take to get there, I can't have it baked into a single track from the start of the boss fight, but being able to tap a key as the last turn is taken while it moves into the next phase provides the same smoother transition.

I'm not an audio-person so I'm not familiar with tools that may allow this, or if there just aren't any.

Hello!

TL;DR: I’ve created a battle mechanic to make players tell stories to each other in character. Will this suck?

Edit: Thank you to everyone who has told me to ask my players about whether they would like to do more role play! I will absolutely do that. With that said, does this idea seem like it would be a good way to achieve that, or will it be clunky? Tysm!

I would like to run a “bottle episode” session in order to encourage my players to role play, but without forcing anyone to if they don’t want to.

My initial thought was that I could either speak directly to the players’ characters one at a time, or trap them together in pairs in order to make the speaking more directional. I would also like to offer in-world reasons for the characters speaking to each other, and for the players to get a deeper understanding of their own characters.

Currently, my idea is this:

The party finds themselves trapped in a magic mist with six chalices and six corresponding dragon wyrmlings. They will discover that if two players touch a chalice at the same time, time will pause and those players will be transported to some kind of demiplane.

To escape the demiplane, they need to either talk or tell stories to fill the chalice with some sort of emotion (love, laughter, connection, fear, pain, or sorrow, depending on the chalice).

Upon their successful escape, the corresponding wyrmling turns into an elemental, which should be easier to defeat.

My hope is that

1. I can pull this off in a way that’s not lame
2. Players themselves can choose which chalices to touch and with whom. I guess the first two players will just be unlucky

Is this a terrible idea? Does anyone have any advice?

I’m running Rime of the Frostmaiden for a group of friends as my first time DMing, and had a question regarding visibility and how that affects ability checks.

For the majority of the time the players are out and about, it’s considered “no light” because of Auril’s everlasting night. About half my players have dark vision, and half don’t.

I understand that for example, if Player A is making an investigation check, Player B could assist. This would give either each player a single roll, or Player A could roll with advantage.

However, if we put this in a no light situation, I’m not sure how the mechanics change. Let’s say Player A has Dark Vision and Player B does not.

If Player A wants to make an investigation check, and Player B offers to assist, I would think Player B wouldn’t actually be able to help since they can’t see and would rule that they can make two separate checks (normal roll for A and disadvantage for B?)

But what if Player B wants to make the investigation check? Normally they would be at disadvantage, so would assistance from Player A give them a straight roll?

One final situational question, they were traveling through the woods and I was giving them a series of survival checks to make it safely to their destination. They wanted “Bob” to lead the group and helm most of the checks since Bob is good with survival, however he doesn’t have dark vision. So to cancel out his disadvantage, they used torches. And then a player with dark vision wanted to assist the survival checks, so I am correct to say that equals out to advantage on Bob’s rolls?

Thank you for any advice! This all feels very nuanced and it’s a lot to keep straight in my head.

I am getting ready to start a campaign for a few of my kids and their friends. This will be the first real campaign for any of them and my first real campaign as the DM. The players are all aged 11 to 13. My son wants to play a wild magic sorcerer and I have been considering how to run the surge table and tides of chaos. Please critique my plan.

The first bit is that I plan on running some expanded wild magic table, though I am still up in the in the air as to which table I want to run. I have whipped up my own custom wild magic table, though I am unsure how the balance is. Some of this might be wildly (no pun intended) unbalanced, as this my first experience with wild magic.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JxXsNiJ93IUaG-ysrFnoQJTDIxWArVGRbOfuXW38v24/edit?usp=sharing

Beyond this, what I plan to do is call for a roll on every spell first level or higher. Additionally, I am going to subtract the spell level from the result, and if the result is 1 or lower, then roll on the wild magic table. This way, larger spells have a higher chance of triggering a wild magic surge (e.g. that 9th level spell has a 50% chance of triggering).

When it comes to tides of chaos, I think the way I would do it is this; once the player uses tides of chaos, the very next spell is a guaranteed roll on the table. This gives the player way more control over when a surge is triggered. I am leaning towards a wild magic table that is more about being whacky as opposed to being catastrophically detrimental, or unbalancing, either positively or negatively. I am still working on that detail.

Edit: additionally, I think that any high stakes skill roll might cause a roll to see if a surge is triggered.

Second Edit: added my own wild magic table

This is for the start of a new campaign set in a magical Asian world. Think yokai are common. Asian mythological creatures... that type of thing. The player starts as a coward but does not want to be anymore. The party knows each other from childhood (will be a one shot) then return as adventurers. Through their patron they hope to become more powerful. We want it to be the character transforms from the coward the party used to know him as to the opposite, through the "corruption" of the patron.

Any ideas for Asian themed Patrons?

In a short lvl9 campaign, players just met one of the PC's dads. They have all instantly fallen in love with the incredibly wholesome, loveable, and capable farmer/alchemist dilf. All of my players are absolutely certain I'm going to kill the dad even thought I've given no indication of such. What do I do with this NPC? I wanna do something creative with him in the plot, without killing him; preferably something that will surprise my players.

Context: Campaign takes place in a city with a brutal dictatorship where the king rules with an iron fist, dad is an alchemist, his wife is an assassin for the thieve's guild.

I know at least one Gooserat is on Reddit so if you see this stop reading now.

I’ve got a slightly convoluted plot here. One of the players is a bard with an enormous family. One of his siblings is also a bard, but unlike him, she’s wildly popular and successful. The twist: she’s not really a bard, she’s a warlock. Her patron writes all her songs for her. The game has a sci fi element, and the second twist is that the patron isn’t writing the songs either—they’ve found an old iTunes/Spotify library and are pulling songs from there and changing a few words to fit the setting. (Ie, “took the midnight train”—>”took the midnight boat,” substituting a city in that world for “South Detroit,” etc.)

My question—what are some good songs for her to have ripped off? Preferably songs that can be played on a lute and sung by one person. She’s got a rockstar kind of vibe—lots of black leather, silver jewelry, and spikes. For some reason her set list is tripping me up more than anything. Basically what actual songs would be popular even if they were played in a fantasy world?

I've been tinkering around with putting together narrated recaps of my sessions and I wanted to share how you can for your party too. Think The Witcher 3 loading screens but custom made for your own sessions.

The workflow looks something like this:

• Record the session (obv get players' permission first)
• Transcribe the session using OpenAI's Whisper
• Paste the transcription into ChatGPT and ask it to generate a brief recap in second person (use "you")
• Use ElevenLabs to generate the voice narration
• Combine the voice narration with some thematic background music using Audacity or any other editing software

If you don't want to record the session, you can alternatively write a brief point form summary of the important events and ask ChatGPT to turn it into a nicely written recap.

Here are some examples:

The Death of Cornelius Bagshot

The Heart of the Ocean Diamond

Doctors and Drink Carts

​

It's definitely a bit of an endeavor to produce these, so as a side project I've been working on putting together a website that automates this process. It's not public at the moment, but so far it can take a session recording and spit out the narrated recap with a simple drag and drop. Here are some screenshots of what it looks like so far. I'd love to hear if you have any cool ideas that could make it better.