Red flag thread

>In my setting, Evil is the active philsophical force. Good is simply defined as the length one is willing to go do in order to combat evil. Therefore, a Paladin showing mercy on a defeated evil foe would fall.

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>You will be guided to the location by this NPC, who is a wizard prince from the far off land of La'Dou'Che and he makes his first appearance by saving you from a red dragon with one spell!

> You are destined to save the world from a terrible evil, or die a terrible death trying.

>I read this cool idea for a homebrew twist to the adventure. Wouldn't it be cool if the dragon was a spider dragon?

But that would be cool

What's the spell?

Self Lubricate.

In a silly game it could be okay but it doesn't fit the tone of more serious games.

>Something is picking off groups of dwarves one by one. All the diviners receive from their visions is the shape of dragon wings, which is nonsense, being that you are half a mile underground in the Underdark.
>And then the PC's see it. A giant, chittering mass of legs and scales, silently screaming through its mandibles, the unholy fusion of a black dragon and a gigantic spider, vomiting acidic webbing, silently begging them it kill it before its master calls it back for more painful 'improvements'.

>serious games
>dragon

I don't understand why a massive reptillian-arachnid with a domain covered in oiled webs that it can ignite with a breath isn't serious.

Arachnids are fantastic predators. A dragon with spider traits?? That's bonkers. An ambush predator dragon with a venomous bite on top of a breath weapon, chitinous scales, and all that other good dragon shit?

AND it can fly?

Maybe you should stop imagining it like it's a cartoon animal fusion.

It's like 40K. Big and bold and a bit silly. Not bad for some games but if you want to play LOTR or Conan it doesn't work.

Half black dragon giant spiders are actually in one of the 4e monster manuals

>LOTR or Conan

There's your problem right there.

I wonder in LOTR if it would be possible for one of Ungoliant's children to mate with a Dragon, both of them being creatures created and twisted by evil

>serious
>game

>Conan
>Not "And Conan found that the hat upon his head was actually a chamber pot! And the meat he was eating? Leaves! Laugh at how hysterical it is for Conan to be fooled by such a thing!"

Conan has more fart jokes than an elevator repairman convention.

Aren't there giga-dragons and degenerate elf-orcs in LOTR? I'm not seeing how a devilishly cunning dragon with a segmented body and extra legs/fangs breaks the feel of the world. They love gloomy forests and webbing and people dying horribly over there in Mordor or wherever.

Look, the Uruks were supposedly made by crossbreeding orcs with men. Don't make me imagine Sauron sending in dozens and dozens of orcs into Shelob's lair to try and fuck her, and see what comes out.

muh diiiick

who's willing to bet the nazgul's flying beasts were the result of some unholy corruption of the giant eagles?

>games
>serious

Looks like we gots us a professional here, fellas. Best give him some space, he's got some serious business to attend to. Games and what not.

>Look, the Uruks were supposedly made by crossbreeding orcs with men.

No they weren't. Saruman also isn't the person to make the first ones. I have no idea where this thing got started, but it's certainly not supported by the text.

>magic and technology inexplicably cause each other to stop working

Why would anyone create a setting that has both guns and wizards, but doesn't have gun wizards and wizard guns?

A quick bit of research suggests that Tolkien mentions it in "Morgoth's Ring". Saruman is confirmed to have interbred men and orcs, but it's not explicitly stated that the Uruk-hai are half-human. It's just one interpretation.

I dint understand why anybody would not want magic guns

God blessed us with Outlaw Star. Melfina is the Virgin Mary.

Well how about a more Index/Railgun/Accelerator like setting? Magic can be used with technology, but magic and psychic powers cannot mix or else the practitioner explodes?

Saruman's breeding of the orcs and men, making the "Man-orcs" are NOT Uruk-hai. Especially since the Uruk-Hai were instrumental in several assaults on Gondor about 500 years before the main action of the books and long before Saruman fell to evil and started building his own armies.

>It's just one interpretation.

No, it's not. It's just wrong.

Because guns are already one of the most objectively powerful weapons, and there's not much magic could do to change it on a mechanical level outside of, what, enchanting the bullets? Making the gun shoot X instead of bullets? Magically infinite ammo? Those are minor buffs that aren't very flashy or fun, but they turn an already overpowered weapon into something that's virtually unstoppable.

>the setting has elves
>the setting has more than two varieties of elves than just "haughty magic elf" and "savage wild elf"

How's it feel to ruin a fun thread? Ass.

It's true the orc-men are sarumans forces in the Shire not the uruk

>cites LOTR
>cites Conan

I mean, fuck, what do you think Ungoliant was? Just a really EXTRA big spider? It's not like Shelob was ever explicitly described, either, and what little description was made made a point of saying 'not just a giant spider'.

And there's

Oh

Oh I'm being TROLLED

Okay

8/10, good works.

... That sounds perfect for a conan style game.

I'm imagining something like this.

Or this

Don't forget >edgy bondage elf

only acceptable if the DM is running a TES game

>GM immediately shows a very shaky understanding of their chosen system and a first session they obviously didn't put much time into

>the bad guys are an uncannily modern network that all use lead masks, are completely unscryable and untraceable, and are able to teleport blitz you the moment you leave a lead-lined room

>This is an online game with 9 players in various time zones, most of whom have full-time jobs or school.
IT NEVER WORKS!

>I'm a setting with predictable magic and uses thereof, it doesn't make sense for a coordinated and funded network of operatives to prepare around the existence of magic

I am staunch in my position that people who play wizards are all power-trippers.

I know you're not but that doesn't make me detest wizard PCs any less.

>tfw got really excited about running a game in a cool new system
>got bogged down with a big work emergency and had 0 time to prep for session 1
>didn't want to out it off
>bumbled and bungled the whole thing

>The overgod who has the final power over the world and pantheon is called [Reference to GM/DM or their name]

On the same note:

>The powerful, cool and awesome DMPC whom all the chicks want to fuck is quite obviously the DM's self-insert, to the point that he sometimes talks in first person when describing the DMPC's actions

>every NPC in the world holds the exact same opinion regarding politics and even individual PCs - except for the villains, who always hold the exact opposite views and are always stupid and wrong

> The villains hate women and minorities, and seem obligated to remind you about this.

It would be 100% ok in any of Howard's stories.
It's
>big
>creepy
>a predator
>did I mention creepy? giant flying scaly spider with a breath weapon? that's a sanity check
>evil
perfect mob of the week!

My GM speak in first person for the monsters, and everything that actively try to kill/hurt us.
Strangely, these monsters succeed at hurting us.

I mean that that GM specifically said "I walk towards the door" instead of "The DMPC walks toward the door," or "I take out my sword and bisect the guard in half" instead of "The DMPC takes out...", like that, instead of just doing his dialogue in first person (which is completely acceptable). That was the only NPC that he did that for, too.

That campaign really got boring fast, from all the asspulls he did so I eventually quit.

New DM here, how do I avoid doing a DMPC?

Just don't do one.

Well, you just don't do it.

Got a list of stuff to avoid?

I want my players to get help from NPCs in general.

"I've done at least 25 damage to this skeleton, how is it not double-dead?"
"It's resistant to your attack."
"I'm using a warhammer, that should be one-shotting it."
"Skeletons have DR5/bludgeoning, AKA resistance to blunt attacks."
"... and Zombies are resistant to slashing?"
"... yes?"
"And Angels are resistant to evil weapons?"
"... yes?"
"And WEREWOLVES are RESISTANT to SILVER?"
"... ... ... *starts rattling tits with a frowny face over how I'm being disruptive*"

Make them bards, marshalls, and so on.

Use NPCs in combat sparingly. As a player, I don't particularly appreciate having npcs around making combats drag out for potentially longer than they need to be.

A DMPC is an NPC that is a permanent or near-permanent member of the party, that is usually also capable of combat, and probably better than the party at it (this is the bad part).

Until you get a feel for what's acceptable or not, just don't keep a combat capable NPC in the PCs party for more than, say, two sessions in a row, or even more than one session.

Basically, avoid NPCs overshadowing the players.

>an NPC that is a permanent or near-permanent member of the party, that is usually also capable of combat,
Is that really an issue?

Absolutely. Sounds like you were well on your way to making a DMPC

Yes, most of the time.

What if the PCs can fire it?

Why would they fire someone who makes fights easier on them?

Alternatively if he doesn't, why even have the NPC?

Is it really that bad to just have a friend of the party that deal 1d6+2 damage and ends their turn?

That just sounds like a pointless drag (as per ).

And speaking from experience, it wont end up like that at all, you'll start slow, but then you'll like the character, and maybe fudge some rolls, modify some stats, and before you know it, you're teleporting behind the BBEG and screaming "Nothing personal, kid."

Anyway, take our advice and don't do it, at least until you get a feel for DMing. By then you wont want to do it.

>Sanity check
Wrong Howard, mate.

Angels being resistant to evil makes some sense

How do you rattle your tits?

A better question is why you, the GM, feel a need to have a character of your own among the adventuring party?

So they try to make friends rather than murder everything.

What he said.
You think that, yeah a bard is a good support character. He's mostly social rolls anyway.
And then the group runs into a situation and you sit there talking to yourself. Having your NPC saying the perfect things.

Then a bit later you havehim on the same level as the PCs and gains gear to keep him useful. Aka, free stuff. And then he gets some more focus. You won't think it's a lot. But you compare it to the group as a whole, not to each of them individually.

Maybe you even decide to keep track of the WBL, undershoot a bit so that he's not taking over. But then, you want them to fight something in particular, but halfway through the fight you realize that it has DR 20/Adamantine. No one has adamantine weapon and they're dying!
Then the easy way out to save them is for the DMPC to have an adamantine weapon. And thus saving the day, trivializing the PCs struggle.

HAHAHAHAHAH!
No. If you want to have them make friends, have someone they need to save, or protect. You are better off with an expert with ranks in cook, logistics, geography and a high strength score to carry loot than anything with something resembling a BaB or a combat feat.
The players are there to feel awesome and heroic. Anything that takes time and attention from that is not something they like.
But your awesome characters having a barber that cooks and cleans?
Shit that's luxury and handy.

>implying my players aren't all cooks, tailors and artists

Reminds me of how Poppy O'Possum's dragons are cephalopods. And really, REALLY fucking dangerous. NOT ENOUGH TO KILL A DRAGON

Your post is nonsense and I'm not even sure how to begin listing all the problems with it.

>racial alignment, whether absolute or "a tendency"
I will put up with playing a game where the preloaded lore has this awful wart, because it's hard enough to get normies into a TTRPG they've HEARD of, but I have never run a game where this shit wasn't explicitly houseruled out and frankly neither should you

> This is an online game with 9 players

FTFY

>species monocultures

>human societies are the only racially mixed societies
nice Stormfront fanfiction but I prefer my fantasy based on less incredibly inaccurate conceptions of history

>Wizard guns
>A gun that fires wizards
>Or
>A gun that is also a wizard
>you decide

>fantasy
>history
Magic is a-okay but mythical creatures forming monocultures is inconceivable?

monsteradvancer.com/generate.maurl?monster=Spider, Monstrous Colossal&hd=32&size=C&str=11&dex=11&con=10&int=0&wis=10&cha=10&templates=Red Half-Dragon&pf=true

...

>mythical creatures forming monocultures is inconceivable
are they in an intelligence class at least as advanced as humans
>YES
yes, that's inconceivable
>NO
I applaud your creativity and hope you enjoy the roleplaying challenge of playing animal-level intelligences, but keep in mind that many reasonably bright animals have more than one culture within a particular society and a BUNCH of social animals including-but-not-limited-to humans form interspecific communities

racial alignments should only serve to act as a guideline for the majority of a race's population, not the players
>pic related

>racial alignments should only serve to act as a guideline for the majority of a race's population, not the players
objective alignment is a dodgy enough concept. if you're using the gygax two-factor analysis of morality you're already dangerously close to losing my interest. marry that to Tolkienesque fantastical analogues for 18th-century anthropological race theory and your setting is shit no matter what other cool elements it has

Actually, beings far more advanced than humans would be prone to forming monocultures because beings like us would be too slow or too incompatible to commune with them. See: the Borg

>what is gaping dragon

How about to counter the spells that mages would use to mess up gun use? A D&D Protection from Missiles spell would really fuck guns up, let alone spells like Heat Metal (on the magazine), Lock (on the safety catch), Animate Weapon, Enchant item, Rust, etc.

But MUH GUNS!

>uses anime picture

there's your answer

>You are destined to save the world from evil, AND die a terrible death trying.

racial alignment is one of the most realistic things in d&d and if you don't believe me watch the fucking news

>not believeing in Deontological objectivity
>Nietziche plz go

>not very flashy or fun

The Iron Kingdoms has pistolier mages who can enchant their bullets at will to do all sorts of shit. A few hits:

-Knockback/down
-Extra range
-High explosive
-Flare/flashbang
-Incendiary
-Corrosive
-Bouncer (the double-kill special)
-Ghost shot (shoots through obstacles)
-Other ghost shot (turns target ghostly so mundane allies can shoot through it)

Some of them also use rifles, or load up the guns on their favorite walking tank with mage bullets. Just imagine a twelve foot tall steam powered robot with a chain gun on each arm, spraying out streams of HE rounds in a storm of sparks and floating rune circles.

Flashy and fun? Check and check.