The Goblins Fan Forum

Progress is good, it's worth spending some time away. Especially when things are going well enough to come back again.

Hi tea! Welcome back!

Welcome back Tea!

I've been suckered back into dm'ing again in the real world for a group of new players and trying to think of a few encounters and random near useless magic items going along said encounters.

The super weak plot is they are supposed to find out what happened to a wizard and the first session will likely just be them going through a "corn" maze to find the entrance to his tower. The maze has some larger areas that I need to fill out with something fitting and I have run out of ideas way to quickly and only got a few filled out

Help me?

If they're new players, you're golden!

Stupid, shitty traps that no-one with an ounce of experience will fall for are hilarious to new players. Pit traps, rope snares, all that good stuff will pose problems for them. If the wizard is missing or incapacitated for some reason, maybe his servants (constructs, creepy old gnome or house-elf or whatever / actual unseen servant) have escaped the tower and are running amok in the maze. I've always thought that gelatinous cubes would make for great home-cleaning pets if you are the sort of person who creates a lot of hazardous waste during the course of their day job.

If it's a maze, labyrinth-style riddle-guardians are cool. Make it something stupid and simple so they don't get confused and frustrated but rather than the answer being the answer to the whole puzzle, make it a clue to what the real solution is. As an example, I made up a puzzle for LotMK where the riddle is stolen straight from the Hobbit:

It cannot be seen, cannot be felt,
Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt.
It lies behind stars and under hills,
And empty holes it fills.
It comes out first and follows after,
Ends life, kills laughter.

The answer is Darkness.

In order to progress safely however, the group would have had to make the area completely dark to show up where a bunch of traps were. That way, the whole puzzle part could be avoided if they hated it, but they'll be rewarded if they solve it.

Also, you could have something sound like it's stalking them. They'll freak out and think it's like a minotaur, or the Children of the Damned or whatever (and maybe it is), but maybe it's just a friendly gelatinuous cube with a grumbly stomach looking for food that can just blorp through the corn instead of following the paths. I wouldn't decide until the day. Chances are, you can just take whatever they're freaking out most about and make it that. They'll feel smart, you get to look like a masterful storyteller. Everyone wins!

Maize Maze Blights.

spiderwrangler wrote: ↑Thu Nov 01, 2018 3:51 pm Maize Maze Blights.

Or do this. This is super cool!

Yeah had planned blights to be the main motivator to keep moving and I've planted two cursed items if they decide to me smart and follow one of the walls. Only decided on what one of them does though. It's a hat of fools. Looks like and ordinary, well crafted hat but once you put it on it becomes a fools hat only removable by a remove curse spell that also agitates blights in the maze.

That'll teach them to try being clever in my maze!
Just need something just as humiliating yet non detrimental for the other path.

I'm also trying to make the maze look like it's a place you could go with friends and family to just enjoy a nice time so I've spread a couple of larger areas into the maze where you could spend some time.
One of the areas contains the pond of tranquility. It has a calming presence you can enjoy on the nearby bench. On the bench is a pillow with a stone of tranquility. If you disturb the stone by moving it, the place will lose the serene aura and soon after a giant toad will jump out of the pond and attack.

I briefly considered naming it the stone of marital bliss. Once per day it can prevent someone from speaking for 3 minutes if you put the stone to the lips of that person. They can still utter the verbal component of spells though.

I still have to decide if the items have been created by apprentices that needed the practice or the whimsical ideas of a mad archmage

thinkslogically wrote: ↑Thu Nov 01, 2018 2:56 pm I've always thought that gelatinous cubes would make for great home-cleaning pets if you are the sort of person who creates a lot of hazardous waste during the course of their day job.

Just popping in to share.

Had a D&D group that was evil-aligned. They had what they called "Fluffy Kitten's Room". Fluffy Kitten was a gelatinous cube they fed people and other garbage to. When they needed a skeleton, they'd tease it out of FK. It was hilarious. Kept the ship in ship-shape... as it were.

Items for a mad mage! * items are items that need to be attuned!

Feather of flinging: An ornate feather that one can throw like a dart. When it hits something, ink appears at that spot.

Unlock lock: this lock, after it's been locked will unlock itself after an hour. Other ways of opening this lock are difficult or impossible. The spell knock fails to open this lock.

Windchime Armour*: medium armour that has same armour value as full plate, but person wearing this armour not only has disadvantage on stealth but perception as well.

Lever of pulling: This lever pulls itself automatically every 10 minuites.

Boots of walking*: These boots walk when the user is tired. Or sleeping. These boots can walk forever. Also these boots are a bit intellegent and are cursed. They just want to explore the world and cannot do so without a living person wearing them. Oh and side note these boots grant water walking.

Book of flipping: This book when used will on a random intraval turn its page to a rude comment or gesture in the book.

Parrot of Parroting*: When attuned acts like a familar to person attuned to it, but it repeats the worst things the owner says about a person they are talking to or close by and it appears at inappurtune times.

The allmighty staff of statistical averages*: While attacking with this staff, everything you roll is average, to hit and damage.

Mini Cannon Cannon Recursive Cannon Cannon*: This mini cannon shoots even smaller cannons out of it, which shoot even smaller cannons out of them, which shoot smaller cannons this goes on until it his its target or goes 1000 feet whichever comes first. Thier range is 250/500 but thier damage is always 1.

The Seen Servant*: This manaquin like object functions like unseen servant except that it is seen, has a spiffy outfit, and moves oddly. When nobody is looking at it it makes a horrible screeching sound. The screeching sound seems to come from 30' away from the manaquin (When found its by either a mirror, or some item that can see it.)

Potion of potion: This potion, when drank acts like a random potion or posion. Near a crate of thses things seems to be a betting scene on who drinks the most of thses potions. There are also some antidotes in a nearby crate.

Wild card*: Once a day this card will activate. When this card activates, it creates wild magic, the owner treated as the caster. No matter where the owner left this card it appears in his pockets within an hour, or hands if they are playing cards or have no pockets. A piece of paper says 'Beware! Unpredicable outcomes! Attune at your own risk!'

More stupid terrible brilliant ideas later! I like making stupid items.

Speaking of the wild card.. I have been considering to have Holger go into the magic crafting business and make a lesser rod of wonder which will take the wild surge list instead, if Spider would permit it

That Lever of Pulling actually sounds pretty useful in puzzles, if the time were reduced. Have it trigger something important, so there's a time limit from the moment they pull it until they fail.

Hoot, last exam in two days, and just got the last of the marks for other assessment from that class, and I've actually got a shot at passing. Just need 60% of the marks from the final exam. Still gonna be rough, but I've been studying harder for this than I ever have before, so there's a chance.

Good for you! I'm glad it's paying off for you and hopefully has taken some of the pressure off this last exam.

Good luck, though I'm sure the work will pay off far more effectively

Exams done, a bit of rest where I just sat around doing nothing but recuperate, and I finally feel good again. I may or may not have made the 60% for that exam, but we'll see when that comes around. For now I'm a free man!

Hooray!! Enjoy the respite

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Aye, merry christmas! I can barely be accurate with my own time while saying that, at this point.

Happy holidays to you as well

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!!

I had a concussion. (Found out not too long ago) Slipped on ice last night and hit my head. Not supposed to look at screens until I feel better. Sorry for the hassle.

Ow! Hope you've taken good care of yourself by the time you see this!

Ouch, sorry to hear that Burns, if SUPER belated by this point. I've not been paying very much attention to this thread >_>

Not sure how many are actively still watching this topic mentioning that, but I'm still gonna see if anyone is watching and see who might be interested in doing a D&D session on roll20? (or maybe tabletop sim, but I think roll20 would fare better)

I've already got some friends that are interested, but right now a lot of things are up in the air besides that we'd be looking to play somewhere on Friday evenings (GMT time), and that we're probably gonna be playing something that's a bit of a "custom module" I designed. (One that I would put here as a forum game, if I didn't already have one which takes up enough time. That's not an issue if you just dedicate X hours on a day for a session, of course )

Barring blocking circumstances, I could see it becoming a weekly or once every two weeks event, assuming there's enough interest to keep a small party going.

So yeah, would there be interest for that? Do I need to write a pitch first?

Usually I'd consider it, but... Well, "Evenings GMT" basically means "The time I sleep." So, I'll have to pass.

Yeah I'd be up for it, but I'm the same for times - you're 6 hours ahead of me so I'd have to skip work to play

Yeah, that's fair, it's a pretty limited time slot. What times would any of you guys be available to play on the weekends? Because, not like I want to ditch my friends but hey if we can't fill the slots on the only time one of them is available it can't be helped, but I think it could be neat to do even if only run as a "forum game", assuming there's enough actual interest to make it work.

Might even be possible to have multiple people playing in different sessions, and do a summary post of the session for others to keep up once it's done? The specific setting I'm planning actually has... Something, which would make that quite feasible with only a couple minor changes.

Maybe I should make this it's own thread to see if there's interest