If you are a new GM/DM, play the first few hours of Baldur's Gate 3 when it comes out. It gives a near _perfect_ tutorial on how to get a game going. First "level" is linear to setup the story, then the 2nd part you have a clear goal but there are like 6 completely different ways to accomplish it, then you get a settlement and you get given clues and hints on how to solve the underlying, main issue and depending on what you choose it can send you in wildly different directions. It's so well done.
Mechanically, what I've done is basically "A room of one's own". I've sprinkled notable people into adventurers that can become residents of your keep. Not only do the players get a home, the residents become a yearbook of their adventures and a reminder of the impact they're having on the world. It would add a layer of complexity, but now I'm taken with the idea of combining the two. The keep alone being suitable for low-to-mid level bonuses and the keep with residents being for mid-to-high level bonuses. Benefits come for building a greenhouse, but if an Alchemist works in your greenhouse they might produce alchemical items that don't exist elsewhere like tanglefoot bags (seriously, why don't those exist in 5e???). A Druid can move in and make discounted healing salves and other consumables. That blacksmith you saved from that bandit raid might come to be the ferrier in your stables or they work in your forge producing well tailored weapons that are easier to use.
Hell yeah! Love that, use the home base as like a scrapbook of not just downtime moments, but also accomplishments! The whole place becomes a trophy room!
Yeah, I've grown to love doing this. I'm using a sort of mashup of Strongholds and Followers, Kingdoms and Warfare, and the stronghold rules in Advanced 5E for my players' home bases and domains. But whenever possible, I fill the ranks of the retainers or units they acquire with NPCs they've befriended. It's a great way to make the campaign world feel like a familiar place.
I love the image of the NPCs gathered in the stronghold as a 'yearbook'! I've done something similar with my party's airship - they can invite NPCs to join the crew, and each crew member adds something to the services available on the ship. Quzo the artificer can repair damage and provide a few basic healing potions, while her apprentice Lu can give them explosives instead. But, with limited berths the party needs to figure out who they are bringing on their missions, and who they are leaving behind in town. Then, I let them upgrade different parts of the ship, which follows very much the 'A room of one's own' approach - but they've also included things like increasing the ship's speed, navigation, and hull strength as smaller upgrades, while adding an upgraded galley for fancy feasts have been ways to express the party's origins as a restaurant staff.
I do quick time events, where something dangerous and dramatic happens, time slows down for the targeted player, and they have 1 minute of real time to do something to counteract it. The events are always bespoke, and designed to be thwarted by at least 1 spell/ability the player has, but I also reward creative and unexpected approaches. The situation is presented as dangerous, but the actual point is to give the PC a little moment of impressive-ness, especially if the player has been dealing with shitty roles. The event typically forgos the need for rolls, or for 100% mechanical accuracy, since the point is to promote some creativity, fast thinking, and a badass moment.
The HP thing with Boss Monsters is always such a pain for me, and some of it is just the nature of how D&D combat is designed. Combat isn't really supposed to go more than 3 to 5 rounds, but if you take the time to design a boss monster, that sometimes feels like it sucks, like they won't get to do half of their cool stuff if they just go out in 3 rounds, so then you wind up pumping their HP or their defenses or giving them Legendary Saves or any number of other things, but it's really just adding slog. The only thing that has worked for me is introducing them and letting them use some of their powers in scenes where they are not actually the boss / objective. Dragons strafing a battlefield is good for this. A vampire lord having infiltrated a fancy ball. A Beholder in the same dungeon as them but after a different treasure for some reason. Some opportunity to demonstrate the cool things the bad guys can do and even let the players take a couple cracks at them, but not and never intended to actually be the big fight. I typically preserve some of that damage, even if the next combat takes place days later, simply to reward the effort.
In the spell jammer game I run, their pilot is a young red dragon that considers the ship her lair. The more treasure they have in the hold, tge stronger she is and the more bonuses they have in ship to ship combat.
Small thing from RE4, where you gather the sellable items, but some of them can be combined to make an item that is worth more than the sum of its parts. That could work for treasure but also maybe for magic items. You find a ruby that can cast fire ball once a day and an empty ring that gives you fire resistance for one minute, but combine them, and you can summon a fire elemental to be in your service.
I actually gave my players an artifact that let's them combine any two magic items into one (with some caveats). They've made great use of it, and it's a great source of creativity for them!
Ever since playing Suikoden a thousand years ago, I've always loved the idea of a home base with significant people you've met/saved/worked with/etc. some can go with you, some do other benefits to the home base. My P2e group had an Abomination Vaults game going as an alternative game if someone couldn't make it. We each have two characters and a "base" in town, so each game (i.e. each dive into Abom Vaults) can have a totally different character loadout and balance depending on who's playing, and we can have any of the crew back home do stuff for downtime like craft stuff, do big knowledge checks, make income, interact with any of the NPCs that have joined the ranks in any way, etc. And that interaction can include investing in any local shop or service to improve it. It's like a cool party select screen depending on who's playing and what unique skills you want to utilize as downtime and in play respectively.
I loved how characters could keep fighting (all be it less effectively) when they were on death saves in darkest dungeon. So I added a rule where if characters hit 0 hit points they can either get the basic death save mechanic, but drop unconscious, Or keep on fighting, but with a much harsher death mechanic, to represent that their injuries are getting worse by pushing on.
I like the camping mechanics in Darkest Dungeon. Like being able to do activities to buff characters or reduce stress. Or being able to eat varying amounts of food. Eating nothing gives a penalty, eating the minimum amount gives neither bonus nor penalty, and eating more grants a bonus. If used in D&D, this would encourage the party to carry more food than they strictly need, in order to get those buffs. (You could also mimic another aspect of food from DD. Where a random encounter roll might simply mean the party are wracked by hunger. If they don't eat something, they take a penalty.)
For "Remember Me" I would replace that with "Snap Out of It" where you spend a bonus action and you immediately make a saving throw against a condition affecting your bonded friend. Failure or success nobody takes any damage or anything for it, but on a success, your friend is treated as if they had just succeeded (usually ending the effect, except for things like Petrified or Dying).
I was going to suggest giving the friend another chance to make a saving throw (maybe with a bonus?). It’s more dramatic in my mind if your action gives the friend a chance to pull themselves up and rally.
After playing a bunch of "Where the water tastes like wine" I've heavily pushed the idea of sharing stories around a campfire at each rest. I've implemented a standard deck of cards reading where the player's story primer is based on what they got dealt. Each suit would house the general vibe of the story: Hearts - affection and warmth, Diamonds - greed or riches, Spades - deception and drama, Clubs - grief or death. As well as tiny, unique modifiers based on the faces or numbers. I may not use it as often as I did back in the day, but it sure has to open up my players to storytelling, discovering their immersion and more.
I have something that was inspired by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis mechanic, but ended up not particularly resembling it in the end. Basically instead of the players hunting down the people who killed them, they are hunted down by an assassin. As they get stronger, and foil more plans, the actual big bad guys start paying more attention to them. And they start creating more powerful and more specialized undead to hunt the party down (or hiring assassins/summoning demons/whatever). It is only one guy, but he's been specifically designed (within limits) to take the party down. Usually I make the "nemesis" as a PC with one extra over the players for every 5 levels the players have. And he doesn't care about winning the fight, just killing them, so he's totally fine jumping the backline caster and then running away after. And if they can turn the tables and get the assassin, there's a real good chance it's got some decent gear on them. I like this a lot because it creates a real incentive to not blast through all their abilities every fight and then try to debate me into exhaustion for a long rest (Long rest? No problem. I'm sure you'll be fine not wearing your armor for 8 hours). Now, players are telling the cleric "I don't need healing just yet, save your spell slots in case that jerk shows up again." It also lets me occasionally use more ruthless tactics against the party in a way that feels fair to them.
So when I played pillars of eternity I thought "oh this is like dnd but better" and it has loads of stuff to steal for your games. But then when I saw a talk by josh sawyer, the lead designer basically saying poe was his personal rework of dnd it made alot of sense, but also he made a ttrpg alpha of poe in his spare time (available for free on the poe wiki), which had loads of fire ideas! And saved me a bunch of time 😂
Man, every time I hear those gears turning in your intro, I think my cat is yelling at me from the other room. As for what I've stolen, I'll give full credit to "Trekiros - Game Changer" and say that reskinning iconic FPS maps into battlemaps has been a huge success. Giving players multiple lanes of approach, with varying levels of safety and reward, turns a typical "storming the walls" scene into something much more tactical and fun.
I threw my players into a few levels of DOOM and DOOM II, which I think worked out well enough. I had to choose carefully, though, as some of those maps are silly.
Something that the Warhammer Fantasy TTRPG does is have the players make short and long term goals for their characters. Achieving a goal gets a little extra XP.
I love that system, especially how the late medieval/rennaissance society is represented in the available classes, and how you can graduate from one class into another.
An idea I like from a game called fear and hunger is that different limbs of a boss or creature have different turns and abilities but cutting them off mean the boss can't use them anymore and do combos, for example taking out the legs of a giant gives u advantage on its head, this could of course be adjusted for what u needed
For giants, I like the idea that they have resistance to melee attacks unless the attacker is at higher elevation or has Reach. To signify that hitting them in the shins doesn't do as much damage as striking vital organs, which the guy with just a sword can't reach as well. But if you crit, it knocks the giant to their knees, thereby giving you the chance to attack something more valuable.
In my "Unrest" campaign, I borrowed the idea of accolades from the old MMO "City of Heroes" (similar to achievements in World of Warcraft). The party discovered an old dwarven journal describing the Hochburg Pilgrimage, a series of tasks honoring the heroes of the ancient city of Hochburg. This involved visiting three statues to these heroes in the Underdark, dropping a coin in the wishing well at the entrance to the city, and winning a battle in the city arena. As a reward, the party received a boon from the dwarven gods that included a Constitution buff, proficiency in the History skill, and the ability to speak Dwarf. As each of these tasks were mini adventures unto themselves, these rewards were well earned.
I stole potion-making from the Octopath alchemist class, where you have two categories of potion ingredients (a base and an herb), and different combinations make different types of potions. This lets the players harvest a variety of ingredients during their travels and discover new potions when they find a new combo.
When Baldur's Gate 3 introduces the idea that 2 PCs next to each other in the initiative order can choose how they order their actions together, I thought right away of borrowing that for my campaign. Granted, the Baldur's Gate franchise is pretty low hanging fruit for this topic since it's a modified TTRPG in the first place.
I was thinking On same initiative pcs can combo sharing a turn and have advantage whilst within 5ft of each other. Single ttacks against one are at disadvantage or one player may suffer an ac penalty for one turn to convey that to the other.
The campaign fell apart (stupid busy life) but planned on a boss battle where the BBEG got a giant construct/mech that the party would have to climb and fight like Shadow of the Colossus. I didn't work out all of the details but I imagined some holding on mechanic (maybe their Con mod in "grip HP" and failing a strength save loses points. Sacrificing movement or action to recover Grip) I also planned on telegraphing danger areas when the colossus would swing it's arms to try and crush the party hanging on it's body. My plan for the battlemap would be a series is slices. (Lower leg, upper leg, lower torso, etc) Also planned on turrets that can be destroyed but don't really hurt the boss, and nodes that need to be destroyed to open up the cockpit
Personally, I love running Books in my campaigns. Not really a rob off a game, but: Spend a long rest to read a chapter. Once you complete the book (like 3-5 chapters) you get inspired! As well as some kind of perk from the book (you can have a number of these perks equal to your Int mod, min 1). As a DM, I also use these books to sprinkle in lore that the player has earned. The perks aren't super powerful, maybe a skill proficiency, language, tool, new spell added to your list, learning a martial maneuver, dealing an extra d4 damage against {creature type}, some feats (Healer/Chef/Eldritch Adept "hehe spooky"). They're just a very versatile tool.
I like it! Knowing my Players they'll try to sit on someone's shoulders to read :p But a Long Rest is a nice idea, some off time. And if you read a book you're not keeping watch, so someone else has to be awake as well
For the "only I'm allowed to kill you" idea, maybe just advantage to medicine checks or a bonus to healed amount when the rival's HP is below their hit die.
I made a 'Book of Faces' for my kids' campaign. Large leather bound tome that attunes to a player (Not in a game mechnaic way, just their face appears embossed on the cover) that can be left with the player's loved ones back home. Noteable events from the player's adventure magically appear in the book when it is opened. Complete with sketches and notes, so those back home know where the players are and what is happening in their lives. Kids found it very funny.
Great video! I love the idea of customizing a stronghold! Maybe have n-1 number of areas to upgrade, where n is number of players. That way at least 2 party members could compromise or start a rivalry.
I've always want to implement some kind of teamwork-based attack between bonded party members, kind of like what you might see in the Avengers... The ranger shoots an arrow at the bad guy, and then the wizard uses her reaction to set the arrow on fire mid-flight. Or the halfling braces and holds out both swords as the barbarian picks him up and chucks him at the dragon.
I ran a frostpunk inspired campaign where the players had to decide what to prioritize when gathering resources to help a city survive. They could choose to go hunting for food or protecting lumberers while they vathered wood, etc etc. And every decision they made would bring benefits on one hand and detrimento on others. I love these City management mechanics, specially in frostpunk where these decisions can be letal.
Inspired by the custom wing system based on Skyrim, I just started working on how to make customizable camps based on the gang camp in RDR2, right now I’m splitting things into four categories: Needs, Utilities, Stashes, and Chores. The needs are required, and can lead to major consequences if not met, things like food, water and shelter, but also thinks about clothes and warmth and protection. Utilities are not required and is where the customization comes in, it can be things like horses or games or whatever else someone might add to their camp, non-essentials that can provide some benefit. Stashes are what they sound like, it’s the supplies that can be stored long term, like firewood or clothes or ammunition. Chores are the things that need to be done to support the camp, and more specifically, the things that need to be done to tend to the camp’s needs and utilities. It can be hunting and gathering, chopping wood, guard duty, feeding chickens and collecting eggs, whatever needs to get done. TO BE CLEAR: It is assumed that these are being taken care of during downtime, the players do not have to state what they are doing, though I do suggest having players decide who does what chores. The reason it matters is so that as the DM you can choose to make something go wrong, the horses get spooked and run off, a coyote manages to nab a chicken, whoever was hunting came back empty handed, something that makes the players need to improvise and correct for something. I’m thinking about using a “chaos” system like from Triangle Agency, make it so when players fail a roll it creates a point of chaos that goes into a pool that the DM can spend on effects, for 5 chaos a bear wanders into camp, for 20 a blizzard hits just as they run out of firewood (though have it be a bit more broad for what you’re spending on, 1 chaos can be a minor inconvenience, 2 chaos could be a utility chore failure, 5 for a need chore failure, 10 for a minor problem, 15 for a major problem, 20 for a catastrophe). The other part of this is the customization, talk with players about what they want in the camp and the responsibilities therein, it’s basically the same as the wing system Dael came up with, but I do have one optional part. I think it might be good to allow one utility per two people in camp, that way the camp can’t just be huge and emphasizes that it takes or to manage the camp, only being able to support as much as the people in the camp can manage, failure to manage some situations can lead to problems in others, if you don’t have food for yourself you probably don’t have food for your horses, for example. I don’t have a good system for the stashes yet, so ideas would be appreciated. VERY work in progress, let me know what y’all think.
Love these ideas! For my game, I've borrowed from Cyberpunk is the idea of the players balancing their character's sanity and slide into psychosis. I start with the idea that magic is a dangerous thing to wield in general. Everyone gets a Sanity stat, and failing a save against a spell or magic effect (or ineffectively casting a spell) drives your character closer to becoming insane. As the damage adds up on their psyche, the begin hearing whispers, seeing things that "aren't real", etc. Eventually, they learn to listen to the voices (learn the language of the Elder Ones), and if they get to their last Sanity Point, they get a NEW character sheet several levels over their current one with a whole bunch of cool abilities as they become a conduit for the eldritch. But, if they go to 0, they enter a sort of psychosis and have to be put down by the party. It's become a great way for me to add deep lore and let the players play with a knife edge mechanic.
In a game called Wildermyth (would recommend), there's something like that relationship perk system where you get different perks based on if it's a friendship, romance or rivalry. Friendship gives a chance at a defence bonus (got your back!), romance gives bonus damage against anyone who hurts your lover (lovers vengeance), and rivalry gives a bonus to stunts if your rival gets a stunt before you can (oh yeah? Watch this!). Each bonus scales with the degree of the relationship.
I used the Fascination and Dread sanity mechanic from Cultist Simulator in an RPG I ran. One character contracted Fascination (from contact with an occult artifact) which manifested itself as mania, but then contracted Dread (from a different occult artifact) which neutralized the Fascination and itself. (yes, this character was entertainingly unwise in their handling of hazardous magical objects)
One of the ideas I stole was similar to your idea of small customizations. I give "level up paths" for homebrew magic items, where after a certain amount of experience attuned, that item can gain one enchantment of the player's choice from a list of two or three. Often they're just reskinned versions of feats or spells or whatever, but they are often very fun!
Re: multistage combat, I recently ran an encounter where the PCs fought a fire giant priestess of the god of rage. When they killed her, she immediately rose as a fire-based undead (completely different stats), and they had to kill her all over again. Mechanically the same as having a new enemy join the fight partway through, but much more interesting for the story.
One thing I kind of want to implement from Hollow Knight is the idea of coming across a master warrior, who can teach a character a combat trick. Something outside the normal class-based powers, that you can't just learn from leveling up. You have to be _taught_ how to do it (or teach yourself, possibly from downtime activity or a major story event). It's not a given, but a reward for adventuring. Some party members get new powers from finding magic items. The party Monk or Fighter might get new powers from learning some martial arts or weapon technique from a reclusive master. This is something the GLOG (Goblin Rules of Gaming) kind of flirted with in its core rules (the idea that you get the core of your class's "kit" up front, but everything else must be acquired through adventuring), but never really explored. I think it's an underutilized mechanic. Encouraging the players to seek out greater power, rather than passively receiving it just for showing up to the game. Make the players WANT to interact with the world and discover its secrets. Hunt down leads of hidden masters or forgotten lore.
In the 5e game I'm running, we've taken a page out of Monster Hunter's book with crafting from monster remains. One of my players made a habit of harvesting monster parts from any big fight, and to simplify things I just have them bring the parts to a city where an NPC can be commissioned to craft. They suggest what type of thing they want (weapon, armor, potion, but not too specific), and I base the item's form and abilities off of the parts/monster. I especially like attaching an action/bonus action that mimics one of the monster's legendary actions. Offloading the specifics of a crafting system to the DM has a lot of benefits. 1) It's an asynchronous process, as commissions take time, so I can think about what's being crafted between sessions. 2) I get an excuse to come up with ridiculous homebrew items. 3) I can make sure I create a bespoke item that suits at least one party member and will be relevant to the campaign. 4) No fiddling about with fine-grained inventory management/bookkeeping. 5) It's like a slot machine, players don't know exactly what they're getting and it's fun to see their reactions when I share the item stat block the next week. 6) I like storied items with lore behind them, and this system leads to unique items with an origin story that can persist in my setting long beyond any PC's possession of them. A few examples: Behir scale handwraps that give monks lightning punches. Chimera hide armor that offers fire resistance. Boots that grant the wearer the ability to leap towards an attacker as a reaction under certain conditions (which the monster could do as a legendary reaction, based on your fire drake homebrew). A displacer beast themed morning star that gives a stacking -1 penalty (lasts 1 round) to enemies every time it is swung as an attack.
Dael videos always spark joy 😌 I love the shopkeeper repeat checkpoint concept. Definitely adding to my next campaign, since our current one is almost over!
9:50 -- For the "Only I Get to Kill You", an interesting alternative could be that, once per long rest, if you are next to an unconscious rival that is about to take a killing blow or fails the last saving throw prior to death, you can use the action to come to their aid: You'd take the penalty (full or halved damage -- or maybe there's no penalty at all), and your rival would survive that turn, still unconscious. Doesn't sound super op and could buy some extra time for the party to offer proper help.
I've taken a lot of inspiration from video games for my D&D games over the years, and actually have implemented a couple of things you brought up in this video too. I'm also a big fan of multi-stage boss fights, so I had a fight once where the party was up against an evil paladin necromancer with a few thralls. The thralls could be killed, but once the paladin's hp hit 0, he healed for half of his hp and revived all of his thralls, which each got a little bonus, and it was a really satisfying fight for the players. Currently I'm also running a seafaring campaign where the party is collecting crew members that each offer different bonuses and services, with the option to upgrade their ship too. We're still pretty early on, but I've got a lot of plans for upgrading the hull, weapons, and facilities that they can choose from to really make the ship their own, and it even gives them a nice way to dump excess gold. A lot of the npcs they've been recruiting are also acting as trainers, with the party studying under them to gain new proficiencies. They don't have a healer at the moment, so the monk is studying natural magic with the druid they've brought on so they can eventually multiclass, and the fighter is helping out on the deck to try and work toward proficiency with nautical vehicles. One thing I actually kind of want to steal too is Elden Ring's ash of war system, or at least something kind of similar, where you can attach mundane maneuvers to mundane weapons. A couple of the more simple ones I was considering are things like Spinning Slash to give your weapon attacks cleave for a round, Perseverance for a slight AC boost and a little damage reduction, or Impaling Strike to negate the AC bonus provided by shields. Of course there would be some kind of restriction on their use or resource that went along with it, but I think it'd be a neat way to give martial characters some cool new stuff to mix things up, and even make weapons feel more fun for non-martial characters. It could be argued that magic items can fill the same niche, but I always liked the idea of having warriors that didn't rely too heavily on magic and fought just with their own martial prowess. It's just really cool flavor to me, and it could even help to differentiate some of the more same-y martial weapons from each other. Lots of weapons with the heavy property deal 1d12 damage, but should you take the greataxe to cleave through hordes of weak enemies, or the pike to skewer through shields? Idk, just feels like it would make weapon choice matter a bit more than just "do I want a strength or dex weapon?"
A thing I just stole from video games in my recent session is the chill, low-stakes side quest. I personally love when I'm playing a game and have a well-written side quest that involves no combat, just helping out a person with something low-stakes and fun. For example the mayoral election in the new Zelda game. So my players just arrived in a new city and I wanted to do the classic quest noticeboard, one of the things I put on there was a notice about a lost cat. My players decided to look for the cat, and went through the side quest continually waiting for the other shoe to drop, using divine sense on the questgiver, debating whether the cat was going to turn out to be a displacer beast or to have been eaten by some monster, etc. Nope, they just met a quintessential cat lady who deeply loved her cat Mrs Mittens (probably their favourite NPC of mine so far, really leaned into the kitsch house decor and her total devotion to her pet), looked for Mrs Mittens in a harbor warehouse district, and found her in a warehouse in a box with a new litter of kittens which they delivered back to an overjoyed owner of now 9 cats. They absolutely loved it.
There needs to be a rivalry benefit called "That still only counts as one!" Whenever your rival kills an enemy, you get a bonus on your next attack; the size of the bonus scales with the size of the slain enemy.
I am a big fan of creating multi-phase boss fights for my D&D games, especially for big bads. I also like stealing things like, a boss being protected by some kind of barrier, and you have to find and destroy things in the room to make the boss vulnerable. One boss fight I created, the Boss itself had a MASSIVE amount of hit points (it was a storm elemental). Throughout the fight, it would summon air elementals to aid it in battle, if the party turned their attention on the adds and killed them, it had a direct effect on the bosses hitpoint total. Each add killed reduced the bosses maximum hit points by 10%. So, it was easier to kill the boss by killing its allies, rather than trying to focus the boss itself. Each time they killed an add, I gave a description of how it was weakening the boss.
After each Bad guy my players have killed, they collected a little trophy, A tooth form their first bandit captain, the beak of a rather nasty octopus, it started out as just a one time joke, but as it carried on having these little mementos made the players past accomplishments feel a lot more present. At one point someone whipped out one of the nastier trophies to aid an intimidation check! It's a small thing, but these unique cosmetic loot items added quiet a bit to our campaign.
A thing I nipped from video games (I don’t think it exists in vanilla DND, but it wouldn’t be the first time I reinvented the wheel unknowingly), was a magic powered, goblin driven, robot. Players a few levels higher might’ve been able to defeat it outright, but with its hefty AC and HP, my level 4 players stood little chance… except the goblin driving the thing was visible in a glass dome on top. The dome had its own AC and HP. The players had to specify they were aiming at it, and would have disadvantage on melee attacks, but they figured it out, destroyed the dome, murced the goblin and left the machine as it was (the magic power source cut off when the goblin died.
I love the achievement idea, i think id do a gold amount for the shopkeepers regulars bonus, or 10 unique higher value items, cause theres a big difference between a party clearing you out of your entire monthly magic items stock in a day or two every time theyre in town, VS if someone comes into your shop to buy a cup of sugar once in a while, youre gonna be familiar and friendly with both cause they come in often, but youre probably gonna want to make sure the big buyers keep coming back by giving some perks. the bonds and rivalries are really incredible as well, i love the idea of a team working for so long together that they have battle tactics that work for them, that arent rooted in their own knowledge of combat, but in their knowledge of their party members and how they fight, and how they can best defend or support the other while fighting together. I feel that should be like, an actual part of the core rules. Especially the ones for rivalries, which, while flavoured to be spiteful, are actually super helpful to the other player, meaning you get the sweet taste of characters hating each other, but not the bitter bite of the players getting frustrated at each other. also, your hair is gorgeous in this video
The 'Only I Get to Kill You' rival-bond ability is fun, but could be watered down: Maybe the unconscious player auto-succeeds a death save instead of regaining 1 hp. Or either rival can heal additional hitpoints to the other if they use a healing action. Anyway, love the idea!
UA-cam says Dael uploaded a new video, and I click. First of all, you're great and super creative and I love these videos where you're just dumping thoughts. Two, your video editor is killing it. That "Vague & Evocative" graphic at 6:31 was on point.
TL;DR: Guardians from Breath of the Wild. I've stolen a lot of things that I can't think of, but one thing I stole from Breath of the Wild is making an enemy monster that's literally the Guardians. Mine has a legendary action that can't be used until the turn after it uses its bonus action to begin targeting an individual with its targeting laser and begins charging its main plasma beam. If the target breaks line of site with the Guardian it loses target and must use a bonus action to find a new target again. These are a rare but sometimes recurring CR5 monster in my world (2 times), and as they get higher level they are faced with more at once. The more there are, the more angles they can see the players from, and the harder it is to avoid one of the deadly beams. The beams are very powerful and can down some level 5 players at full HP in a single shot, so this laser beam telegraphing the death ray plasma beam is really intense and forces high mobility on the battlefield. It also pierces the target, so you can't hid behind another player because if the robot can see you even a little bit it's not complete cover and instead you're just getting your friend killed with you. It can also slash you with its claws with its main action. Fortunately my players were not dumb and used the targeting laser as the warning it was. They used their misty steps and the like very effectively to survive and win the day. Almost turned the monster into a chump, but the intensity of the battle was still very strong in the emotional reaction from the players. Just like the Guardians from Breath of the Wild makes me nearly piss my pants no matter how many I've taken down with a wooden pot lid. Sorry. Text block.
"Engagement is very important ... for the algorithm" Probably the best thing I've borrowed was a mashup. In a Star Frontiers game I had an Ent-like being (LotR) that lived in a glade in the agrarian dome of a spaceship (Silent Running) who was also essentially a Jedi Master (I'm not going to insult anyone by informing them where Jedi come from).
I'm sure someone has mentioned this already, but Vaesen has a pretty similar base modification system, which gives you certain bonuses during mysteries. It's not quite the same because it's developments bought with limited resources rather than either-or choices, but I'd say it's comparable for people who prefer a different style with a similar outcome.
My favorite thing from video games to add to my TTRPG is literal quest lines/rewards. It's really just codifying things the players should be taking notes on, but I have a system that identifies all of the quests and personal tasks of PCs, lists the reward(s), and lists the next step in the quest/task, with a brief description of what has occurred on this plot line so far. It is hugely beneficial for my players to keep all of their goals in mind and tracking their own progress, while also foretelling what their reward(s) will be.
So I run Mage the Ascension, and one of the 5 Conventions of the Technocracy is the Void Engineers, basically somewhere between Star Trek idealists and gritty space marines protecting earth from hostile alien forces from beyond. Each of the Traditions (magical mages) and Technocratic Conventions (technological super science) got their own book, and the Void Engineers added in the ability to make space ships. The ship building was super cool and the combat was decent enough, but I changed the combat to be more like FTL: Faster Than Light, where you could target specific systems, try to hit rooms with people in them, have alternate way to succeed in combat and it was super cool.
I recently did the thing where an enemy changes at 1/2 HP! It worked great. I homebrewed a giant worm with a vampiric head on one end and a necrotic head on the other. At 1/2hp, the worm ripped in half and new heads grew from the new ends. It made a very lasting impression on my players.
The game Wildermyth is a _very_ party based RPG based heavily in procedural generation and dynamic relationships with randomly generated characters, and the way Wildermyth handles "death" is interesting to me. Dying in DnD always felt really empty for some reason. In Wildermyth, if a character drops to 0 hit points, you're given a 2-3 "Mortal Choices". The choices you have are randomly allotted and range from going out in a final attack, or giving inspiring words that buff the remaining party for the battle. Among the most interesting are the ones where the character actually _survives_ the battle, but they are permanently injured or scarred in a way. Losing an eye, missing an arm, mentally rattled, etc. I think you can translate this over to DnD by giving the player whose character has hit three failed death saving throws a similar choice. Expend some "defy death" token that they get maybe once a year (or once ever) to automatically rise back to a few hit points, but suffer a permanent debilitating injury or affliction as a result. Or maybe the player welcomes the death of their character and wants to go out in a last hurrah, dealing big damage as their final act. Either way, I think its a cool system that can lead to some neat stories.
One thing I want to try for D&D or Pathfinder is a Milestone-Plus system based on the leveling system in Kingdom Hearts 2. Basically, finishing major story archs give you "bonus" milestone levels, while you gain EXP by interacting with and learning more about the setting and NPCs. This allows you to create an adventure in advance with a minimum level in mind, but also throw in some secrets that may require higher level skills and abilities while rewarding setting interaction.
Adding to the Stronghold & Followers reference, I absolutely love what the Acquisitions Inc. book did, and they offer something very similar to what you suggest, but with a versatility as to the "base" - it could be a ship that slowly gets improved and/or enchanted (imagine imprisoning or hiring a water elemental to help your ship be faster/have better defenses), a simple carriage turning into a caravan which then gets linked into a magical train, etc. I also like the idea you find in some games (like GW2) of being able to experience moments of the past through distortions. You can either relive them as yourself, or embodying someone there at the time (premade character sheets could be one way to do it?). I feel like it can let players learn about the world or just experience cool cinematic moments easily.
Love the bonded and rivals- that's a very cool idea. As well as the 2nd phase of a fight. Not from video games - but I steal a lot from books and comics. My favorite plot-line I stole was to have a friend come in for the final three sessions as a child of one of the characters from the future, who has time-traveled back numerous times to prevent a particular future and each time has learned more about what she needs to specifically do to avoid her future but this is the last time she can travel back. She got to say so many ominous things from other potential futures. Mash up of Back to the Future and Middle-Game (great book highly recommend.)
In the Naruo Ninja Storm games, you have punching attacks, magic attacks, and "ultimate" magic attacks. However, if you build up your 'teamwork' meter, using your ultimate attack allows your hole party to use their ultimate attacks. But, if your characters have a special relationship, the perform an even more ultimate attack that does more damage and plays an animation where you and they do something amazing. In example, one of the Uchiha clan might shoot a normal fireball as their regular attack, and a huge fireball as their ultimate attck. As a team ultimate jutsu, you throw a thousand daggers and your team mate teleports between the daggers slicing the enemy, and then now positioned in flanking, both blow a maintained fireball against eachother causing an almost nuclear level explosion. In dnd 5e, if you both have inspiration, less than half hitpoints and are within 60ft - I let them know their ultimate attack is ready and they can (at no cost) move anywhere in that 60ft, describe an attack. And I then roll the monsters hit dice and it does that much damage.
I added Final Fantasy's blue magic to a campaign (when affected by a monster ability like an Umber Hulk's Confusing Gaze, the player makes a check to possibly learn that ability). I also made a combo attack system for players to use and a side quest inspired by The Goose from Untitled Goose Game. Glad to see so many other people coming up with fun ideas to steal!
Mixing Dark Sun and Pillars of Eternity: Each player has two characters, the backup character can do side quests to level up and further subplots that players don't want to follow. When the player wants he can exchange the main character for the other one, usually the exchange can only be done in the base or during a downtime, but in case the main pc dies he can exchange it in a short time to be able to continue playing that session. This way players can experience different classes in the same campaign.
Recently my group was having a montage/downtime of their first year as adventurers (the campain started after the first year) but I wanted to creat connections with the party and world. So I "borrowed" from drafting mechanics like MTG and hearthstone, I had printed 20-ish questcards with simple changlinges and possible rewards then all the players got one card every in-game month and they choose one quest as a party to do. This way they meet several named NPCs, places and even got some hints of the story to come, but most importantly the party relised where they were strong/weak as a party of only three players.
One I've thought about taking are Battalions from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. They're basically a group of soldiers that are equipped like gear that grants some minor stat bonuses and a small ability that relate to the type of soldiers (War Mages might get X number of freecasts of Fireball, Archers can put down a volley on a cross-shaped spot on the battlefield somewhere, Armoured Knights can protect from some damage, etc etc.). It seems like a good way of giving the impression of large-scale combat without having to A) change the core combat very much and B) have many new abilities to learn. Whenever the equipped character takes damage, the unit takes some casualties, and perhaps the benefits shut off when under 1/3 strength or so, that way it forces them to consider a new resource to manage that can't just be healed back up with magical healing. Ooh! And if you want a really big battle, then you can combine that with another game mechanic, the Return Line from Ace Combat 04, which is just a line on the edge of the map during a mission that refreshes your hit points and ammunition when you cross it, that way you can give the players a way to avoid being attritioned to death from large waves of enemy soldiers, while also making it a bit of an opportunity cost, since they have to go ALL the way to the bottom most edge of the map to heal. I can imagine one final, long battle against the armies of the main villain, where battalions are depleted and refreshed multiple times in order to fight off the hordes until finally the main villain descends (perhaps telegraphed so that particularly low HP{ players can cross the Return Line), so that way you can have this big flowing battle that still allows the players to be at mostly full fighting strength for the final boss.
Since I am a bad DM, and I always forget about inspiration - I like to use a "Play of the Game" system inspired from Overwatch. The players discuss and vote on who they think did the coolest/funniest/best thing during the session, and that player gets inspiration. If there are ~4 or more players I'll give out a bonus GM inspiration. I really like this system because it serves a few purposes. At the end of the session all the players basically hype each other up and reminisce about their favorite moments, so everyone ends on a really high note. It also let's you as the GM know what sticks out to each player about the session, so you can include more moments they enjoy in future sessions.
For my smaller groups, I often give them a ship or something like that filled with Sidekicks (sometimes literally using Sidekicks, sometimes using monster-ish stat blocks that work like sidekicks), and they can choose one of the sidekicks to go on missions with them or go into town or whatever. Just your standard BioWare-ass stuff. Most recently, we played a Spelljammer-ish campaign that was very drop-in/drop-out, very inconsistent player numbers, with a really episodic flair. We used the Epic Heroism rules (long rests were 1 hour) and most adventures were rarely more than 2 sessions, so the BioWare-y crew was there partly to make sure they could field a balanced team if one or more players was absent. They had the Captain of the ship, Allejandro Villastellara, a Triton Rogue Mastermind, the ship's doctor, Dr. Ephremus Fogworth, an air genasi with a degenerative disease that's causing them to slowly discorporate, necessitating they exist entirely in their barometric pressure suit (Armorer Artificer), and the ship's quartermaster, "Psully", who was a Giff Wild Magic Barbarian using one of the goofy ass items from the Ravnica books that amounted to something like a gattling gun. The NPCs (I guess these are DMPCs, at this point?) were sort of a shared resource, so they took turns playing as them. What I didn't expect was their desire to continue collecting NPCs as companions. Eventually, I came up with the idea of a mechanic where the crew NPCs (who were not gaining experience or hit points at the speed of the heroes) had special abilities that each *player* could tap once per adventure (what we called an "extended rest". This was the same rate their spaceship/spelljammer's special abilities recharged), but they needed to have a Bond with that NPC to do so. The idea was that you'd call on that bond to get one of their cool special abilities, but by the time I had it mostly sorted out, we were back up to a consistent # Of players and they stopped tapping the crew as much for help, which suited me fine.
By the end, they wound up with a Rakshasa who they discovered adrift in space in a vac suit where the Rakshasa's true name had been carved before someone spaced her out the air lock, leaving the Rakshasa to reconstitute in the suit after each death only to immediately suffocate again, the semi-lucid remains of a god that had died in ancient cosmic war, a self-contained Giant-Rune powered AI unit loosely modelled on a modron called The Venn, and an amiably gibbering mouther with the Regeneration spell stuck on it called Skimdooz, and a collective of Quori (the dream ghosts from Eberron) that they could consult on more ethereal matters or. Skimdooz, the Venn, and the Quori Collective wound up more like items than characters, since Skimdooz somehow became a living Healing Potion factory, with a con save to avoid getting sick from using it and a % chance of a random effect, The Venn became the Warforged player's Docent, and the players would go and talk to the Quori to ask one of them ride along on adventures to "Observe" and grant the player a psychic ability (spell) for that adventure. So, not purely video game-y, but still worked pretty well.
Several PBTA games have a simple system for bases (I.e. MOTW & Apocalypse World) where you pick a limited number of rooms/resources from a list. Id love to make a barebones pirate game where, in addition to their character sheets, the players share a sheet for their ship and one for their base (town, fortress) with limited additions they unlock using “treasure experience”
You know, it isn't exactly the same, but the X-Com relationship action reminded me of the game I just started replaying Dragon Quest 9 and that game's Coup de grâce system. For those who haven't played it: Based on certain triggers, (ie losing a large chunk of health from one hit or doing a ton of damage stuff like that) a party member might get the chance to do a special move called a coup de grâce (which in spite of the name isn't always a damaging finishing move) things like: • Drastically increasing your evasion for a few turns (Minstrel) • Healing everyone in the party and removing all negative effects (Priest) • Next few turns all your spells and abilities cost zero MP (Mage) • Guaranteed critical hit (Warrior) The catch being that a: you don't know when you will get to use these abilities and b: you only have a few turns to use it or you miss your chance and it's gone. They are powerful abilities, but those restrictions force you to think on your feet. And there's another factor, if one or more party members are holding on to a coup de grâce charge the rest of the party's chances of getting one go up a little bit and if everyone uses a coup de grâce at the same time you get a Co-op de grâce where as a group you can do massive damage in one attack or become completely invincible for a few turns. But like I said, after a few turns you miss your chance Right now I'm not entirely sure how I'd port this to DnD, but I feel like there's definitely potential here
2-phase fights are my favorite to homebrew and design. Most recently my PCs fought a pair of devil and demon knights. They started mounted and were more mobile and had a charge ability that damaged and left a ground effect in the line they charged through. Then when one of them got to half health they were dismounted, the mount left, and the knight gained a new ability that made use of the ground effects that were left over. Worked really well, was a lot of fun to put together and a lot of fun to run. Rivalry/support bonuses are something I'm going to think on and try to use! Thanks for the great ideas and content!
When she said you can add 3 wings to your home, I immediately thought I'd rather have 2 wings and a tail, so it can fly better. House of the Dragon indeed.
Combo moves! I love when players try combo moves! I always try to reward that behavior. That "I'll shoot the giant with my arrows in a way that creates steps for the monk to get to its head" or "I cast witchbolt... on the barbarians axe!"
not exactly a homebrew mechanic but I did a sort of mini-game encounter that was ripped right from the game Overcooked. Instead of combat the players had to frantically move ingredients from station to station in a kitchen to fill orders from customers in a Feywild Restaurant. It was a big hit!
I've stolen a complete storyline and a magic system for my D&D campaign and homebrew setting respectively. The D&D game started off pretty faithfully following the story of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but at this point close to the end of act 2 (out of 3), it's almost unrecognisable. My homebrew world/setting is a reimagining of the world from Gladius for the PS2. Gladiatorial society with norse/viking/egyptian inspired cultures, and a magic system that requires you to build up power by hitting enemies first. Kinda flips the power dynamic of fights to be more spectacular the longer the fight goes on, which is perfect for a gladiatorial system I feel.
A trinket that is worn/carried that modifies a specific a spell/ ability of the players. Not like extra damage but like giving a boost to the speed of Gaseous Form, making Web's webs fire resistant instead of flammable, or adding a fear trigger to the Berserker's bonus action hit. Sort of like Borderlands items can modify and enhance the base abilities of the Vault Hunter.
I have run with the Dark Souls telegraph. In my game I give the big bad 2-3 signature moves (The variety keeps them on their toes and combat stays engaging but its not too hard tto keep track of the telegraphs) and then at the end of their turn I roll to determine which move is going off, describe the telegraph, let everyone prepare, then at the start of their next turn it unloads, I'll usually cheat and lower the damage the first time (but still roll a massive amount of dice to put fear into them) just to give them a chance to learn the patterns of unusual monsters. My players have begun to read into these telegraphs and find weakspots in the monsters. (Hurling explosives at the dragon right before it unleashes its breath causing shrapnel to lacerate its face for example)
I dont' have any of my own special mechanics since I'm pretty ne to DMing, but I'll definitely use the house concept, since that's something I was already thinking about giving to my players. The hard part is gonna be coming up with balanced benefits. I'll have to think on that.
My player, noticing me make an annotation for my completely benign achievement: "So what was that?" Me: "That? Don't worry about it. So you are going to ask a question to the innkeeper, right?" Player, with eyes wide open: "Yeah, but from the door. Is there a table or something I can flip and hide behind? Just in case."
I've done tonnes for a bunch of different one shots. The Monster Hunter inspired Amellwind's Guide to Monster Hunting is amazing. Upgrading weapons like magic items and inputting the parts of monsters you hunt into your weapons to give them additional effects is great. I've used a Hades style boon-system that levels players up and grants players magical items in a D&D rogue-like dungeon crawl. I've run a one-on-one game where the player could swap between characters like a LEGO game. I track quests in my campaigns updating a google doc in the style of the Baldur's Gate 3 logbook so the players are easily reminded of their goals, including their personal quests. I resolve large war encounters using the dice and battle system from the Root board game to see how many soldiers die every turn, while the party fights important enemies. The warforged in my campaign setting act like the Glitch race from Starbound. I used to do my own version of Strongholds and Followers base building too, but I've since switched to Cult of the Lamb base building, where the party can decide on a single event to do that provides different effects, like a Spa Day providing temporary hit points (Zelda/HollowKnight style). The one thing I'll never get done is a new class based on using companions solely for combat, where each archetype is connected to a creature type, which changes what game it is based off of. An elemental tamer hasPokemon, a dragon tamer rides their dragon How To Train Your Dragon style, a plant tamer places plant-based turrets down like Plants Vs Zombies, the beast tamer has both a feline and canine that operate like the palico and palamute from Monster Hunter Rise, the undead tamer is a good necromancer, the monstrosity tamer upgrades their Frankenstein's monster with new body parts, and the construct tamer has Bakugan.
I would like a boomerang where I first draw it's path on a tiny screen and then I throw it and the boomerang follows that path and I can use it to hit switches and stuff from far away. Yes, that's my contribution to this.
i know this idea was technically part of the kingmaker module in pathfinder, but Im currently running a game where my players became protectors of a town because its a magical site, and i gave them a list of upgrades they can buy to improve the town AND the keep that they now inhabit. + upkeep costs, income, and other bonuses that an upgrade might give! (Like an aviary reducing the time it takes to sow rumors by half and giving an npc spymaster bonus on their rolls for their tasks, or their own stables with an expert stablemaster unlocking the possibility of weird mounts like in dragon age inquisition!) its very much frankensteined but i am happy with it
Pokemon, Dragon Quest (Warrior) Monsters, and a little Black Clover. You have a familiar or an animal. An alchemist can craft a special crystal that a wizard can enchant to contain a familiar or animal. You can have up to 3 familiars/animals held in this way (like Pokemon in PokeBalls). You can only use one at a time. The familiar gets stats and levels up and can learn attacks (but only has one "attack slot"). Like you were talking about character bonds, DQM had a "wild" system for monsters. When caught in the wild they would have some sort of number indicating their wild stat, the higher it was the less likely it would listen to their master. If you leave the monster at the farm (the game's storage system) it's wild number gets higher. Now, using this concept, adding this to the familiar, if you keep the familiar out of the crystal then it's wild level decreases, but if it spends too much time in the crystal, it's wild level will go back up and may not listen to you. In Black Clover, certain characters have spirits that increase their strength and magic and unlock new abilities. You can use this concept and that can be applied by each familiar giving a special bonus and maybe even a combo attack if their bond level is maxed. In summation: You get up to 3 familiars/animals you can keep in special crystals that have to be created by an alchemist and enchanted by a wizard (special material gathering and finding an alchemist and wizard, if there are none in the party, can be a side quest). When summoned out of the crystal these familiars/animals give a bonus, can attack, and if their bond is maxed can give characters access to a new ability/attack during battle. But if left in the crystal too long the bond will diminish. (Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe an easier way to explain it is it's kind of summons materia from Final Fantasy 7 with a bond system, and max bond gives limit break.) Maybe these crystals might get stolen during a battle. Maybe if the bond is weak then the familiar might listen to the thief and attack the party. Maybe if the bond is strong, the familiar might attack the thief instead. Maybe if the bond is maxed out does a Critical hit or an unleash limit break on the thief.
Silly example, but this girl I was seeing had a Dating D&D book. It had a simple campaign in it, but it had a neat mechanic of we both had examples of turn ons and offs as a character, and if a player did something they felt looked like one of those things, we would make a secret relationship roll and add it to the like/dislike scale. We never got far enough in it to see what the payoffs were, but it would be cool to use that kinda dynamic in a game to unlock what you were talking about in your bonds abilities. I could imagine a high relationship score would unlock abilities that they can do together that are powerful, or when one person does something, the sense of rivalry spurs them on. So they are never bad, but one, they work together, the other, work apart. It also reminds me of Chrono Trigger, and the use of dual techs, where 2 players could spend a turn to combine skills/magics they have for some better-than-the-sum-of-its-parts effect. Having all spells/skills combine in crazy ways has sooo much potential but is also overwhelming.
Something a bunch of games have done is have big fights where one entity is represented by like multiple pools of hit points and abilities. When fighting constructs, or abominations with weird biology, I like to split the creature's total hit points and give different limbs or attachments their own hit points. I run a very pulpy adventure that's in a sort of an early industrial steampunk version of fantasy Egypt, and the players can eventually fight a giant mechanical scorpion as the title match in a coliseum. The scorpion has a tail, two pincers, and a head, each with their own hit point pools. The fight starts off difficult, with the scorpion having a bunch of actions, reactions, and legendary actions that give it tool for everything the players throw at it. But if they're tactical and focus their attacks at the left pincer for instance, the scorpion loses its Acid Spray legendary action for the rest of the fight. It can be fun for me too, figuring out how the scorpion changes its own tactics as it loses limbs. When they destroy all the limbs, the fight is over! Just keep the limb's hp reasonable and it can make for a dynamic fight that doesn't last much longer than a normal boss fight.
This idea kind of blooms out into a bit of a rework of martial combat, but I LOVE the stamina system from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. I really love it because it can govern really well distances you can run (I use a sprint action that is 3 times your speed that costs stamina), how long you could swim, how high you can climb, etc. I also say that making a melee attack costs 1 stamina point, but everyone naturally regenerates a stamina point once per turn anyways
Something I like to do for big big fights (that I got from video games) is changing the map between boss phases. Do stuff like smash through the floor and fight in rubble, or smash through a window and take the fight to the courtyard... it's cheesy, but my players always loved me swapping out maps on them. It can even be something as simple as adding new obstacles or features to the terrain. Maybe the boss wizard starts syphoning power off of magical capacitors, the hissing and movement of machinery, or just add a new wave of monsters from goop-filled tanks.
Hey Dael, and other fellow TTRPGers. The point made about relations, and a shared connection between players seems neat. I'm sure some of you will have heard of this but Darkest Dungeon 2 (a game you can find on steam, epic games, etc.) has a very similar mechanic. Characters in that game have relations, and if they work well together and help each other out, they get bonuses (extra damage, higher chance to crit, better chances of handling in-game problems, etc.) I personally have been play testing some of these as relations between the party as a way to encourage players to do their downtime together (downtime is a huge part of my campaigns, but I find that it can be a little stale if it's always 1 on 1). If you ever do an 'Ideas to Steal from Video Games 3', I think this could be a really good point to bring up/elaborate on. Wish you all the best and take care. :)
I think trying design a specific enemy from a video game is a great exercise for coming up with fun and unique gameplay. Monster Hunter is a great source for this, especially when it comes to phase changing (in particular cyclical phase changes). One example for me was designing the lightning wolf Zinogre for Pathfinder 2e. It had a mechanic where it spends time charging (which can be interrupted) up into a more "electrified" state where he does more electrical damage and changes his moves... but you can knock him out of this state with enough damage, making a good offense the best defense here. So I create two states where the damage numbers and special abilities, and even weakness to cold (he gets weaker to ice in his charged state) are defined. I then set three charges need to be acquired to change states. Give him a move for 2 actions that automatically gives him 2 charges, and will give him a third charge on his next turn unless hit by at least two attacks, at which point Zinogre will need to spend another action to finish charging (it also comes with an aoe, so hooray telegraphed attacks). Once in this state, players have to do a certain amount of damage to put it back into its original state.
In preparation to run Blades in the Dark for the first time for a table that had never played it before, I decided I wanted to use Colville's quest cards to tutorialize optional mechanics. I wrote down some optional facets of the game (flashbacks, desparate position, devil's bargains, the various teamwork mechanics etc) on post-it notes with brief explanations and put five (not too many) of them in front of the players. The first player to use each mechanic got to take that post-it note, and could rip it up later to heal 2 stress. It is marginally impacting the balance of the game, but I'm not worried - they're consumable.
I loooooooove rebellion stories and did one for my first campaign. I was inspired by Dragon Age Inquisition where you're building this force of different groups united by a single cause. So I had my players go around the map and recruit different factions, using roleplay encounters and the different factions they succeeded in recruiting added unique bonuses or troops to the final battle. Like for instance they recruited these elves who used these attack on Titan style grappling hook contraptions and in the final battle they had them to be able to scale the walls of the city and even had them scout for healing potions in the evacuated buildings. Super fun
Slay The Spire has some really cool enemy design that I’ve converted indirectly into 5e statblocks, like combining the exploding sentry and the cultist to make an enemy that progressively gets stronger but after a certain amount of turns, it explodes, dealing damage all around it (the 5e monster charges itself up with psychic energy, doing more damage, but after 3 turns it’s too much and it’s head explodes)
One thing i do for the multistage, is give my mobs potions or some kind of consumable which changes their form in some way. A potion of "wildshape" for example. I have shark mage who turns into a giant shark with legs. Whats good about this is if the players get a decent enough perception check they can take it and use it themselves. If its something unique they probably wont know what it does until they either have it valued or they consume them. I also have "last ditch" spells and abilities that ill only break out when under a certain amount of health. Mechanically they exhaust the monster so they might even use it twice if they get desperate but they pay for it in more than spell slots.
For more ideas about the bondmate stuff, you can dig through the darkest dungeon 2 relationship act-outs, for example, getting a free swing at something an ally you trust hits, reducing healing against targets that aren't your lover, jumping in front of damage, etc
Dragon Age Inquisition is the primary source I take my inspiration for an awesome dragon fight. Each "piece" of the dragon (legs, body, head, wings, tail) can be attacked. Each of those "pieces" has a hit point value. Once a "piece" hits zero, the dragon takes a debilitating effect. Leg - movement reduced by quarter. Tail - lose its tail attack Wing - lose its wing attack and flight Head/body - stunned until the end of its next turn
my go to is always Telegraphing. i ran LMOP for two players and while they did get some NPCS some of those fights are hard, like the flame skulls can just oneshot you all with fireball, or the green dragon fight, so i describe the dragon taking a huge deep breath the round before the breath weapon, or the flameskull building up a charge of fire in front of it, just to let them know "hey, this might suck if you dont do something"
I posted this in the DM binder video comments section too, but as it’s an older video I thought maybe it might be better here? That DM binder video resonated with me so hard when I first saw it while looking for what to put in my own GM binder. I’ve really wanted to run a campaign after 30+ years not sitting down at that table. I’m visual and used to keep a binder when I GM’d, but drew a blank on what might work for me now. I watched and immediately re-watched, and have watched that video again several more times in the months (2+ years, lol) since. I’m neurodiverse and since I started treatment a few years ago I’ve found I’m having difficulty with things I used to do fairly easily; in particular: writing and world-building. I still don’t have my binder started, I still haven’t run my session zero. I hoped your organization method would soak into my brain through osmosis and suddenly spawn into reality in my empty binder, but nothing yet. 😂 I would love to see a follow-up video, where you show what your current GM binder is like. How its organized and laid out - what you still use, what you don’t use anymore; that kind of thing. I’m specifically designing a Fallout 2d20 Campaign so my binder would be themed and contain content for that game accordingly.
If you are a new GM/DM, play the first few hours of Baldur's Gate 3 when it comes out. It gives a near _perfect_ tutorial on how to get a game going. First "level" is linear to setup the story, then the 2nd part you have a clear goal but there are like 6 completely different ways to accomplish it, then you get a settlement and you get given clues and hints on how to solve the underlying, main issue and depending on what you choose it can send you in wildly different directions. It's so well done.
Real life?
Mechanically, what I've done is basically "A room of one's own". I've sprinkled notable people into adventurers that can become residents of your keep. Not only do the players get a home, the residents become a yearbook of their adventures and a reminder of the impact they're having on the world.
It would add a layer of complexity, but now I'm taken with the idea of combining the two. The keep alone being suitable for low-to-mid level bonuses and the keep with residents being for mid-to-high level bonuses.
Benefits come for building a greenhouse, but if an Alchemist works in your greenhouse they might produce alchemical items that don't exist elsewhere like tanglefoot bags (seriously, why don't those exist in 5e???). A Druid can move in and make discounted healing salves and other consumables.
That blacksmith you saved from that bandit raid might come to be the ferrier in your stables or they work in your forge producing well tailored weapons that are easier to use.
Hell yeah! Love that, use the home base as like a scrapbook of not just downtime moments, but also accomplishments! The whole place becomes a trophy room!
Yeah, I've grown to love doing this. I'm using a sort of mashup of Strongholds and Followers, Kingdoms and Warfare, and the stronghold rules in Advanced 5E for my players' home bases and domains. But whenever possible, I fill the ranks of the retainers or units they acquire with NPCs they've befriended. It's a great way to make the campaign world feel like a familiar place.
I love the image of the NPCs gathered in the stronghold as a 'yearbook'!
I've done something similar with my party's airship - they can invite NPCs to join the crew, and each crew member adds something to the services available on the ship. Quzo the artificer can repair damage and provide a few basic healing potions, while her apprentice Lu can give them explosives instead. But, with limited berths the party needs to figure out who they are bringing on their missions, and who they are leaving behind in town.
Then, I let them upgrade different parts of the ship, which follows very much the 'A room of one's own' approach - but they've also included things like increasing the ship's speed, navigation, and hull strength as smaller upgrades, while adding an upgraded galley for fancy feasts have been ways to express the party's origins as a restaurant staff.
I do quick time events, where something dangerous and dramatic happens, time slows down for the targeted player, and they have 1 minute of real time to do something to counteract it. The events are always bespoke, and designed to be thwarted by at least 1 spell/ability the player has, but I also reward creative and unexpected approaches. The situation is presented as dangerous, but the actual point is to give the PC a little moment of impressive-ness, especially if the player has been dealing with shitty roles. The event typically forgos the need for rolls, or for 100% mechanical accuracy, since the point is to promote some creativity, fast thinking, and a badass moment.
Oh this is an awesome idea, definitely stealing.
Stolen, ty
Making a high hp monster that is a slog normally into a multi stage boss at maybe every quarter or third of it's hp sounds like a great idea
The HP thing with Boss Monsters is always such a pain for me, and some of it is just the nature of how D&D combat is designed. Combat isn't really supposed to go more than 3 to 5 rounds, but if you take the time to design a boss monster, that sometimes feels like it sucks, like they won't get to do half of their cool stuff if they just go out in 3 rounds, so then you wind up pumping their HP or their defenses or giving them Legendary Saves or any number of other things, but it's really just adding slog.
The only thing that has worked for me is introducing them and letting them use some of their powers in scenes where they are not actually the boss / objective. Dragons strafing a battlefield is good for this. A vampire lord having infiltrated a fancy ball. A Beholder in the same dungeon as them but after a different treasure for some reason. Some opportunity to demonstrate the cool things the bad guys can do and even let the players take a couple cracks at them, but not and never intended to actually be the big fight. I typically preserve some of that damage, even if the next combat takes place days later, simply to reward the effort.
Mightier than the Tarrasque, more terrifying than an army of Beholders, it's...
the Giant Slog!
In the spell jammer game I run, their pilot is a young red dragon that considers the ship her lair. The more treasure they have in the hold, tge stronger she is and the more bonuses they have in ship to ship combat.
this is a very awesome idea i wish i could give it more than 1 thumbs up
Small thing from RE4, where you gather the sellable items, but some of them can be combined to make an item that is worth more than the sum of its parts. That could work for treasure but also maybe for magic items.
You find a ruby that can cast fire ball once a day and an empty ring that gives you fire resistance for one minute, but combine them, and you can summon a fire elemental to be in your service.
I actually gave my players an artifact that let's them combine any two magic items into one (with some caveats). They've made great use of it, and it's a great source of creativity for them!
Ever since playing Suikoden a thousand years ago, I've always loved the idea of a home base with significant people you've met/saved/worked with/etc. some can go with you, some do other benefits to the home base.
My P2e group had an Abomination Vaults game going as an alternative game if someone couldn't make it. We each have two characters and a "base" in town, so each game (i.e. each dive into Abom Vaults) can have a totally different character loadout and balance depending on who's playing, and we can have any of the crew back home do stuff for downtime like craft stuff, do big knowledge checks, make income, interact with any of the NPCs that have joined the ranks in any way, etc. And that interaction can include investing in any local shop or service to improve it.
It's like a cool party select screen depending on who's playing and what unique skills you want to utilize as downtime and in play respectively.
I loved how characters could keep fighting (all be it less effectively) when they were on death saves in darkest dungeon.
So I added a rule where if characters hit 0 hit points they can either get the basic death save mechanic, but drop unconscious,
Or keep on fighting, but with a much harsher death mechanic, to represent that their injuries are getting worse by pushing on.
I like the camping mechanics in Darkest Dungeon. Like being able to do activities to buff characters or reduce stress. Or being able to eat varying amounts of food. Eating nothing gives a penalty, eating the minimum amount gives neither bonus nor penalty, and eating more grants a bonus. If used in D&D, this would encourage the party to carry more food than they strictly need, in order to get those buffs.
(You could also mimic another aspect of food from DD. Where a random encounter roll might simply mean the party are wracked by hunger. If they don't eat something, they take a penalty.)
For "Remember Me" I would replace that with "Snap Out of It" where you spend a bonus action and you immediately make a saving throw against a condition affecting your bonded friend. Failure or success nobody takes any damage or anything for it, but on a success, your friend is treated as if they had just succeeded (usually ending the effect, except for things like Petrified or Dying).
I was going to suggest giving the friend another chance to make a saving throw (maybe with a bonus?). It’s more dramatic in my mind if your action gives the friend a chance to pull themselves up and rally.
After playing a bunch of "Where the water tastes like wine" I've heavily pushed the idea of sharing stories around a campfire at each rest. I've implemented a standard deck of cards reading where the player's story primer is based on what they got dealt. Each suit would house the general vibe of the story: Hearts - affection and warmth, Diamonds - greed or riches, Spades - deception and drama, Clubs - grief or death. As well as tiny, unique modifiers based on the faces or numbers. I may not use it as often as I did back in the day, but it sure has to open up my players to storytelling, discovering their immersion and more.
I have something that was inspired by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis mechanic, but ended up not particularly resembling it in the end. Basically instead of the players hunting down the people who killed them, they are hunted down by an assassin. As they get stronger, and foil more plans, the actual big bad guys start paying more attention to them. And they start creating more powerful and more specialized undead to hunt the party down (or hiring assassins/summoning demons/whatever). It is only one guy, but he's been specifically designed (within limits) to take the party down. Usually I make the "nemesis" as a PC with one extra over the players for every 5 levels the players have. And he doesn't care about winning the fight, just killing them, so he's totally fine jumping the backline caster and then running away after. And if they can turn the tables and get the assassin, there's a real good chance it's got some decent gear on them.
I like this a lot because it creates a real incentive to not blast through all their abilities every fight and then try to debate me into exhaustion for a long rest (Long rest? No problem. I'm sure you'll be fine not wearing your armor for 8 hours). Now, players are telling the cleric "I don't need healing just yet, save your spell slots in case that jerk shows up again." It also lets me occasionally use more ruthless tactics against the party in a way that feels fair to them.
So when I played pillars of eternity I thought "oh this is like dnd but better" and it has loads of stuff to steal for your games. But then when I saw a talk by josh sawyer, the lead designer basically saying poe was his personal rework of dnd it made alot of sense, but also he made a ttrpg alpha of poe in his spare time (available for free on the poe wiki), which had loads of fire ideas! And saved me a bunch of time 😂
Definitely bookmarking this for later!
Are there some ideas you found especially compelling? Would be cool if you could highlight one or two. :)
Agree please let us know your ideas
Man, every time I hear those gears turning in your intro, I think my cat is yelling at me from the other room.
As for what I've stolen, I'll give full credit to "Trekiros - Game Changer" and say that reskinning iconic FPS maps into battlemaps has been a huge success. Giving players multiple lanes of approach, with varying levels of safety and reward, turns a typical "storming the walls" scene into something much more tactical and fun.
What in the world does your cat sound like?
@@l.o.b.2433 Listen closely to the right ear. There's a distinct "cat meowing" noise that is clearly just a squeaky gear. But it gets me every time.
I threw my players into a few levels of DOOM and DOOM II, which I think worked out well enough. I had to choose carefully, though, as some of those maps are silly.
Something that the Warhammer Fantasy TTRPG does is have the players make short and long term goals for their characters. Achieving a goal gets a little extra XP.
I love that system, especially how the late medieval/rennaissance society is represented in the available classes, and how you can graduate from one class into another.
00:46 Multi-Stage Combat
03:46 Three Wings
06:42 Character Bonds
10:16 Achievement Milestones
Thank you
An idea I like from a game called fear and hunger is that different limbs of a boss or creature have different turns and abilities but cutting them off mean the boss can't use them anymore and do combos, for example taking out the legs of a giant gives u advantage on its head, this could of course be adjusted for what u needed
Runehammer has a good version of this in ICRPG
For giants, I like the idea that they have resistance to melee attacks unless the attacker is at higher elevation or has Reach. To signify that hitting them in the shins doesn't do as much damage as striking vital organs, which the guy with just a sword can't reach as well. But if you crit, it knocks the giant to their knees, thereby giving you the chance to attack something more valuable.
I've always wanted to run a kraken encounter like this, where each tentacle is a separate monster, and you have to target the head to really kill it.
wildermyth has the exact rivalry mechanic you mentioned, it's very good if you haven't checked it out
Omg YES. Wildermyth is an amazing game, especially for dnd fans
In my "Unrest" campaign, I borrowed the idea of accolades from the old MMO "City of Heroes" (similar to achievements in World of Warcraft). The party discovered an old dwarven journal describing the Hochburg Pilgrimage, a series of tasks honoring the heroes of the ancient city of Hochburg. This involved visiting three statues to these heroes in the Underdark, dropping a coin in the wishing well at the entrance to the city, and winning a battle in the city arena. As a reward, the party received a boon from the dwarven gods that included a Constitution buff, proficiency in the History skill, and the ability to speak Dwarf. As each of these tasks were mini adventures unto themselves, these rewards were well earned.
I stole potion-making from the Octopath alchemist class, where you have two categories of potion ingredients (a base and an herb), and different combinations make different types of potions. This lets the players harvest a variety of ingredients during their travels and discover new potions when they find a new combo.
When Baldur's Gate 3 introduces the idea that 2 PCs next to each other in the initiative order can choose how they order their actions together, I thought right away of borrowing that for my campaign. Granted, the Baldur's Gate franchise is pretty low hanging fruit for this topic since it's a modified TTRPG in the first place.
I was thinking On same initiative pcs can combo sharing a turn and have advantage whilst within 5ft of each other. Single ttacks against one are at disadvantage or one player may suffer an ac penalty for one turn to convey that to the other.
The campaign fell apart (stupid busy life) but planned on a boss battle where the BBEG got a giant construct/mech that the party would have to climb and fight like Shadow of the Colossus.
I didn't work out all of the details but I imagined some holding on mechanic (maybe their Con mod in "grip HP" and failing a strength save loses points. Sacrificing movement or action to recover Grip)
I also planned on telegraphing danger areas when the colossus would swing it's arms to try and crush the party hanging on it's body.
My plan for the battlemap would be a series is slices. (Lower leg, upper leg, lower torso, etc)
Also planned on turrets that can be destroyed but don't really hurt the boss, and nodes that need to be destroyed to open up the cockpit
Personally, I love running Books in my campaigns. Not really a rob off a game, but: Spend a long rest to read a chapter. Once you complete the book (like 3-5 chapters) you get inspired! As well as some kind of perk from the book (you can have a number of these perks equal to your Int mod, min 1). As a DM, I also use these books to sprinkle in lore that the player has earned. The perks aren't super powerful, maybe a skill proficiency, language, tool, new spell added to your list, learning a martial maneuver, dealing an extra d4 damage against {creature type}, some feats (Healer/Chef/Eldritch Adept "hehe spooky"). They're just a very versatile tool.
I like it! Knowing my Players they'll try to sit on someone's shoulders to read :p But a Long Rest is a nice idea, some off time. And if you read a book you're not keeping watch, so someone else has to be awake as well
For the "only I'm allowed to kill you" idea, maybe just advantage to medicine checks or a bonus to healed amount when the rival's HP is below their hit die.
I made a 'Book of Faces' for my kids' campaign. Large leather bound tome that attunes to a player (Not in a game mechnaic way, just their face appears embossed on the cover) that can be left with the player's loved ones back home. Noteable events from the player's adventure magically appear in the book when it is opened. Complete with sketches and notes, so those back home know where the players are and what is happening in their lives. Kids found it very funny.
Great video! I love the idea of customizing a stronghold! Maybe have n-1 number of areas to upgrade, where n is number of players. That way at least 2 party members could compromise or start a rivalry.
I've always want to implement some kind of teamwork-based attack between bonded party members, kind of like what you might see in the Avengers...
The ranger shoots an arrow at the bad guy, and then the wizard uses her reaction to set the arrow on fire mid-flight.
Or the halfling braces and holds out both swords as the barbarian picks him up and chucks him at the dragon.
I ran a frostpunk inspired campaign where the players had to decide what to prioritize when gathering resources to help a city survive.
They could choose to go hunting for food or protecting lumberers while they vathered wood, etc etc. And every decision they made would bring benefits on one hand and detrimento on others. I love these City management mechanics, specially in frostpunk where these decisions can be letal.
Inspired by the custom wing system based on Skyrim, I just started working on how to make customizable camps based on the gang camp in RDR2, right now I’m splitting things into four categories: Needs, Utilities, Stashes, and Chores.
The needs are required, and can lead to major consequences if not met, things like food, water and shelter, but also thinks about clothes and warmth and protection.
Utilities are not required and is where the customization comes in, it can be things like horses or games or whatever else someone might add to their camp, non-essentials that can provide some benefit.
Stashes are what they sound like, it’s the supplies that can be stored long term, like firewood or clothes or ammunition.
Chores are the things that need to be done to support the camp, and more specifically, the things that need to be done to tend to the camp’s needs and utilities. It can be hunting and gathering, chopping wood, guard duty, feeding chickens and collecting eggs, whatever needs to get done.
TO BE CLEAR: It is assumed that these are being taken care of during downtime, the players do not have to state what they are doing, though I do suggest having players decide who does what chores. The reason it matters is so that as the DM you can choose to make something go wrong, the horses get spooked and run off, a coyote manages to nab a chicken, whoever was hunting came back empty handed, something that makes the players need to improvise and correct for something. I’m thinking about using a “chaos” system like from Triangle Agency, make it so when players fail a roll it creates a point of chaos that goes into a pool that the DM can spend on effects, for 5 chaos a bear wanders into camp, for 20 a blizzard hits just as they run out of firewood (though have it be a bit more broad for what you’re spending on, 1 chaos can be a minor inconvenience, 2 chaos could be a utility chore failure, 5 for a need chore failure, 10 for a minor problem, 15 for a major problem, 20 for a catastrophe).
The other part of this is the customization, talk with players about what they want in the camp and the responsibilities therein, it’s basically the same as the wing system Dael came up with, but I do have one optional part. I think it might be good to allow one utility per two people in camp, that way the camp can’t just be huge and emphasizes that it takes or to manage the camp, only being able to support as much as the people in the camp can manage, failure to manage some situations can lead to problems in others, if you don’t have food for yourself you probably don’t have food for your horses, for example.
I don’t have a good system for the stashes yet, so ideas would be appreciated.
VERY work in progress, let me know what y’all think.
Love these ideas!
For my game, I've borrowed from Cyberpunk is the idea of the players balancing their character's sanity and slide into psychosis.
I start with the idea that magic is a dangerous thing to wield in general. Everyone gets a Sanity stat, and failing a save against a spell or magic effect (or ineffectively casting a spell) drives your character closer to becoming insane.
As the damage adds up on their psyche, the begin hearing whispers, seeing things that "aren't real", etc. Eventually, they learn to listen to the voices (learn the language of the Elder Ones), and if they get to their last Sanity Point, they get a NEW character sheet several levels over their current one with a whole bunch of cool abilities as they become a conduit for the eldritch. But, if they go to 0, they enter a sort of psychosis and have to be put down by the party.
It's become a great way for me to add deep lore and let the players play with a knife edge mechanic.
In a game called Wildermyth (would recommend), there's something like that relationship perk system where you get different perks based on if it's a friendship, romance or rivalry. Friendship gives a chance at a defence bonus (got your back!), romance gives bonus damage against anyone who hurts your lover (lovers vengeance), and rivalry gives a bonus to stunts if your rival gets a stunt before you can (oh yeah? Watch this!). Each bonus scales with the degree of the relationship.
I used the Fascination and Dread sanity mechanic from Cultist Simulator in an RPG I ran. One character contracted Fascination (from contact with an occult artifact) which manifested itself as mania, but then contracted Dread (from a different occult artifact) which neutralized the Fascination and itself. (yes, this character was entertainingly unwise in their handling of hazardous magical objects)
One of the ideas I stole was similar to your idea of small customizations. I give "level up paths" for homebrew magic items, where after a certain amount of experience attuned, that item can gain one enchantment of the player's choice from a list of two or three. Often they're just reskinned versions of feats or spells or whatever, but they are often very fun!
Re: multistage combat, I recently ran an encounter where the PCs fought a fire giant priestess of the god of rage. When they killed her, she immediately rose as a fire-based undead (completely different stats), and they had to kill her all over again. Mechanically the same as having a new enemy join the fight partway through, but much more interesting for the story.
One thing I kind of want to implement from Hollow Knight is the idea of coming across a master warrior, who can teach a character a combat trick. Something outside the normal class-based powers, that you can't just learn from leveling up. You have to be _taught_ how to do it (or teach yourself, possibly from downtime activity or a major story event). It's not a given, but a reward for adventuring. Some party members get new powers from finding magic items. The party Monk or Fighter might get new powers from learning some martial arts or weapon technique from a reclusive master.
This is something the GLOG (Goblin Rules of Gaming) kind of flirted with in its core rules (the idea that you get the core of your class's "kit" up front, but everything else must be acquired through adventuring), but never really explored. I think it's an underutilized mechanic. Encouraging the players to seek out greater power, rather than passively receiving it just for showing up to the game. Make the players WANT to interact with the world and discover its secrets. Hunt down leads of hidden masters or forgotten lore.
In the 5e game I'm running, we've taken a page out of Monster Hunter's book with crafting from monster remains. One of my players made a habit of harvesting monster parts from any big fight, and to simplify things I just have them bring the parts to a city where an NPC can be commissioned to craft. They suggest what type of thing they want (weapon, armor, potion, but not too specific), and I base the item's form and abilities off of the parts/monster. I especially like attaching an action/bonus action that mimics one of the monster's legendary actions.
Offloading the specifics of a crafting system to the DM has a lot of benefits. 1) It's an asynchronous process, as commissions take time, so I can think about what's being crafted between sessions. 2) I get an excuse to come up with ridiculous homebrew items. 3) I can make sure I create a bespoke item that suits at least one party member and will be relevant to the campaign. 4) No fiddling about with fine-grained inventory management/bookkeeping. 5) It's like a slot machine, players don't know exactly what they're getting and it's fun to see their reactions when I share the item stat block the next week. 6) I like storied items with lore behind them, and this system leads to unique items with an origin story that can persist in my setting long beyond any PC's possession of them.
A few examples: Behir scale handwraps that give monks lightning punches. Chimera hide armor that offers fire resistance. Boots that grant the wearer the ability to leap towards an attacker as a reaction under certain conditions (which the monster could do as a legendary reaction, based on your fire drake homebrew). A displacer beast themed morning star that gives a stacking -1 penalty (lasts 1 round) to enemies every time it is swung as an attack.
Dael videos always spark joy 😌
I love the shopkeeper repeat checkpoint concept. Definitely adding to my next campaign, since our current one is almost over!
9:50 -- For the "Only I Get to Kill You", an interesting alternative could be that, once per long rest, if you are next to an unconscious rival that is about to take a killing blow or fails the last saving throw prior to death, you can use the action to come to their aid: You'd take the penalty (full or halved damage -- or maybe there's no penalty at all), and your rival would survive that turn, still unconscious. Doesn't sound super op and could buy some extra time for the party to offer proper help.
I've taken a lot of inspiration from video games for my D&D games over the years, and actually have implemented a couple of things you brought up in this video too. I'm also a big fan of multi-stage boss fights, so I had a fight once where the party was up against an evil paladin necromancer with a few thralls. The thralls could be killed, but once the paladin's hp hit 0, he healed for half of his hp and revived all of his thralls, which each got a little bonus, and it was a really satisfying fight for the players.
Currently I'm also running a seafaring campaign where the party is collecting crew members that each offer different bonuses and services, with the option to upgrade their ship too. We're still pretty early on, but I've got a lot of plans for upgrading the hull, weapons, and facilities that they can choose from to really make the ship their own, and it even gives them a nice way to dump excess gold. A lot of the npcs they've been recruiting are also acting as trainers, with the party studying under them to gain new proficiencies. They don't have a healer at the moment, so the monk is studying natural magic with the druid they've brought on so they can eventually multiclass, and the fighter is helping out on the deck to try and work toward proficiency with nautical vehicles.
One thing I actually kind of want to steal too is Elden Ring's ash of war system, or at least something kind of similar, where you can attach mundane maneuvers to mundane weapons. A couple of the more simple ones I was considering are things like Spinning Slash to give your weapon attacks cleave for a round, Perseverance for a slight AC boost and a little damage reduction, or Impaling Strike to negate the AC bonus provided by shields. Of course there would be some kind of restriction on their use or resource that went along with it, but I think it'd be a neat way to give martial characters some cool new stuff to mix things up, and even make weapons feel more fun for non-martial characters. It could be argued that magic items can fill the same niche, but I always liked the idea of having warriors that didn't rely too heavily on magic and fought just with their own martial prowess. It's just really cool flavor to me, and it could even help to differentiate some of the more same-y martial weapons from each other. Lots of weapons with the heavy property deal 1d12 damage, but should you take the greataxe to cleave through hordes of weak enemies, or the pike to skewer through shields? Idk, just feels like it would make weapon choice matter a bit more than just "do I want a strength or dex weapon?"
A thing I just stole from video games in my recent session is the chill, low-stakes side quest. I personally love when I'm playing a game and have a well-written side quest that involves no combat, just helping out a person with something low-stakes and fun. For example the mayoral election in the new Zelda game. So my players just arrived in a new city and I wanted to do the classic quest noticeboard, one of the things I put on there was a notice about a lost cat. My players decided to look for the cat, and went through the side quest continually waiting for the other shoe to drop, using divine sense on the questgiver, debating whether the cat was going to turn out to be a displacer beast or to have been eaten by some monster, etc. Nope, they just met a quintessential cat lady who deeply loved her cat Mrs Mittens (probably their favourite NPC of mine so far, really leaned into the kitsch house decor and her total devotion to her pet), looked for Mrs Mittens in a harbor warehouse district, and found her in a warehouse in a box with a new litter of kittens which they delivered back to an overjoyed owner of now 9 cats. They absolutely loved it.
There needs to be a rivalry benefit called "That still only counts as one!" Whenever your rival kills an enemy, you get a bonus on your next attack; the size of the bonus scales with the size of the slain enemy.
I am a big fan of creating multi-phase boss fights for my D&D games, especially for big bads. I also like stealing things like, a boss being protected by some kind of barrier, and you have to find and destroy things in the room to make the boss vulnerable. One boss fight I created, the Boss itself had a MASSIVE amount of hit points (it was a storm elemental). Throughout the fight, it would summon air elementals to aid it in battle, if the party turned their attention on the adds and killed them, it had a direct effect on the bosses hitpoint total. Each add killed reduced the bosses maximum hit points by 10%. So, it was easier to kill the boss by killing its allies, rather than trying to focus the boss itself. Each time they killed an add, I gave a description of how it was weakening the boss.
After each Bad guy my players have killed, they collected a little trophy, A tooth form their first bandit captain, the beak of a rather nasty octopus, it started out as just a one time joke, but as it carried on having these little mementos made the players past accomplishments feel a lot more present. At one point someone whipped out one of the nastier trophies to aid an intimidation check! It's a small thing, but these unique cosmetic loot items added quiet a bit to our campaign.
A thing I nipped from video games (I don’t think it exists in vanilla DND, but it wouldn’t be the first time I reinvented the wheel unknowingly), was a magic powered, goblin driven, robot. Players a few levels higher might’ve been able to defeat it outright, but with its hefty AC and HP, my level 4 players stood little chance… except the goblin driving the thing was visible in a glass dome on top. The dome had its own AC and HP. The players had to specify they were aiming at it, and would have disadvantage on melee attacks, but they figured it out, destroyed the dome, murced the goblin and left the machine as it was (the magic power source cut off when the goblin died.
I love the achievement idea, i think id do a gold amount for the shopkeepers regulars bonus, or 10 unique higher value items, cause theres a big difference between a party clearing you out of your entire monthly magic items stock in a day or two every time theyre in town, VS if someone comes into your shop to buy a cup of sugar once in a while, youre gonna be familiar and friendly with both cause they come in often, but youre probably gonna want to make sure the big buyers keep coming back by giving some perks.
the bonds and rivalries are really incredible as well, i love the idea of a team working for so long together that they have battle tactics that work for them, that arent rooted in their own knowledge of combat, but in their knowledge of their party members and how they fight, and how they can best defend or support the other while fighting together. I feel that should be like, an actual part of the core rules. Especially the ones for rivalries, which, while flavoured to be spiteful, are actually super helpful to the other player, meaning you get the sweet taste of characters hating each other, but not the bitter bite of the players getting frustrated at each other.
also, your hair is gorgeous in this video
The 'Only I Get to Kill You' rival-bond ability is fun, but could be watered down: Maybe the unconscious player auto-succeeds a death save instead of regaining 1 hp. Or either rival can heal additional hitpoints to the other if they use a healing action. Anyway, love the idea!
UA-cam says Dael uploaded a new video, and I click. First of all, you're great and super creative and I love these videos where you're just dumping thoughts. Two, your video editor is killing it. That "Vague & Evocative" graphic at 6:31 was on point.
TL;DR: Guardians from Breath of the Wild.
I've stolen a lot of things that I can't think of, but one thing I stole from Breath of the Wild is making an enemy monster that's literally the Guardians. Mine has a legendary action that can't be used until the turn after it uses its bonus action to begin targeting an individual with its targeting laser and begins charging its main plasma beam. If the target breaks line of site with the Guardian it loses target and must use a bonus action to find a new target again.
These are a rare but sometimes recurring CR5 monster in my world (2 times), and as they get higher level they are faced with more at once. The more there are, the more angles they can see the players from, and the harder it is to avoid one of the deadly beams. The beams are very powerful and can down some level 5 players at full HP in a single shot, so this laser beam telegraphing the death ray plasma beam is really intense and forces high mobility on the battlefield. It also pierces the target, so you can't hid behind another player because if the robot can see you even a little bit it's not complete cover and instead you're just getting your friend killed with you.
It can also slash you with its claws with its main action.
Fortunately my players were not dumb and used the targeting laser as the warning it was. They used their misty steps and the like very effectively to survive and win the day. Almost turned the monster into a chump, but the intensity of the battle was still very strong in the emotional reaction from the players. Just like the Guardians from Breath of the Wild makes me nearly piss my pants no matter how many I've taken down with a wooden pot lid.
Sorry. Text block.
"Engagement is very important ... for the algorithm"
Probably the best thing I've borrowed was a mashup. In a Star Frontiers game I had an Ent-like being (LotR) that lived in a glade in the agrarian dome of a spaceship (Silent Running) who was also essentially a Jedi Master (I'm not going to insult anyone by informing them where Jedi come from).
I'm sure someone has mentioned this already, but Vaesen has a pretty similar base modification system, which gives you certain bonuses during mysteries. It's not quite the same because it's developments bought with limited resources rather than either-or choices, but I'd say it's comparable for people who prefer a different style with a similar outcome.
My favorite thing from video games to add to my TTRPG is literal quest lines/rewards. It's really just codifying things the players should be taking notes on, but I have a system that identifies all of the quests and personal tasks of PCs, lists the reward(s), and lists the next step in the quest/task, with a brief description of what has occurred on this plot line so far.
It is hugely beneficial for my players to keep all of their goals in mind and tracking their own progress, while also foretelling what their reward(s) will be.
The return of vague yet evocative!!!
So I run Mage the Ascension, and one of the 5 Conventions of the Technocracy is the Void Engineers, basically somewhere between Star Trek idealists and gritty space marines protecting earth from hostile alien forces from beyond. Each of the Traditions (magical mages) and Technocratic Conventions (technological super science) got their own book, and the Void Engineers added in the ability to make space ships. The ship building was super cool and the combat was decent enough, but I changed the combat to be more like FTL: Faster Than Light, where you could target specific systems, try to hit rooms with people in them, have alternate way to succeed in combat and it was super cool.
I recently did the thing where an enemy changes at 1/2 HP! It worked great. I homebrewed a giant worm with a vampiric head on one end and a necrotic head on the other. At 1/2hp, the worm ripped in half and new heads grew from the new ends. It made a very lasting impression on my players.
The game Wildermyth is a _very_ party based RPG based heavily in procedural generation and dynamic relationships with randomly generated characters, and the way Wildermyth handles "death" is interesting to me. Dying in DnD always felt really empty for some reason. In Wildermyth, if a character drops to 0 hit points, you're given a 2-3 "Mortal Choices". The choices you have are randomly allotted and range from going out in a final attack, or giving inspiring words that buff the remaining party for the battle.
Among the most interesting are the ones where the character actually _survives_ the battle, but they are permanently injured or scarred in a way. Losing an eye, missing an arm, mentally rattled, etc. I think you can translate this over to DnD by giving the player whose character has hit three failed death saving throws a similar choice. Expend some "defy death" token that they get maybe once a year (or once ever) to automatically rise back to a few hit points, but suffer a permanent debilitating injury or affliction as a result. Or maybe the player welcomes the death of their character and wants to go out in a last hurrah, dealing big damage as their final act. Either way, I think its a cool system that can lead to some neat stories.
One thing I want to try for D&D or Pathfinder is a Milestone-Plus system based on the leveling system in Kingdom Hearts 2. Basically, finishing major story archs give you "bonus" milestone levels, while you gain EXP by interacting with and learning more about the setting and NPCs.
This allows you to create an adventure in advance with a minimum level in mind, but also throw in some secrets that may require higher level skills and abilities while rewarding setting interaction.
Adding to the Stronghold & Followers reference, I absolutely love what the Acquisitions Inc. book did, and they offer something very similar to what you suggest, but with a versatility as to the "base" - it could be a ship that slowly gets improved and/or enchanted (imagine imprisoning or hiring a water elemental to help your ship be faster/have better defenses), a simple carriage turning into a caravan which then gets linked into a magical train, etc.
I also like the idea you find in some games (like GW2) of being able to experience moments of the past through distortions. You can either relive them as yourself, or embodying someone there at the time (premade character sheets could be one way to do it?). I feel like it can let players learn about the world or just experience cool cinematic moments easily.
Al Gore Rythm is the bane of our existence! :O I love you, I love the dance at the beginning, I love the limited options thing!
Love the bonded and rivals- that's a very cool idea. As well as the 2nd phase of a fight.
Not from video games - but I steal a lot from books and comics. My favorite plot-line I stole was to have a friend come in for the final three sessions as a child of one of the characters from the future, who has time-traveled back numerous times to prevent a particular future and each time has learned more about what she needs to specifically do to avoid her future but this is the last time she can travel back. She got to say so many ominous things from other potential futures. Mash up of Back to the Future and Middle-Game (great book highly recommend.)
Mode of battle changed with some Blink Dogs when the party realized the dogs were hungry... it led to a dark turn of events. XD
In the Naruo Ninja Storm games, you have punching attacks, magic attacks, and "ultimate" magic attacks.
However, if you build up your 'teamwork' meter, using your ultimate attack allows your hole party to use their ultimate attacks.
But, if your characters have a special relationship, the perform an even more ultimate attack that does more damage and plays an animation where you and they do something amazing.
In example, one of the Uchiha clan might shoot a normal fireball as their regular attack, and a huge fireball as their ultimate attck.
As a team ultimate jutsu, you throw a thousand daggers and your team mate teleports between the daggers slicing the enemy, and then now positioned in flanking, both blow a maintained fireball against eachother causing an almost nuclear level explosion.
In dnd 5e, if you both have inspiration, less than half hitpoints and are within 60ft - I let them know their ultimate attack is ready and they can (at no cost) move anywhere in that 60ft, describe an attack. And I then roll the monsters hit dice and it does that much damage.
I added Final Fantasy's blue magic to a campaign (when affected by a monster ability like an Umber Hulk's Confusing Gaze, the player makes a check to possibly learn that ability). I also made a combo attack system for players to use and a side quest inspired by The Goose from Untitled Goose Game. Glad to see so many other people coming up with fun ideas to steal!
i would give the whole world to have the moment when a boss says "i've given thee courtesy enough." and just goes absolute ham sammich on the players.
Mixing Dark Sun and Pillars of Eternity: Each player has two characters, the backup character can do side quests to level up and further subplots that players don't want to follow.
When the player wants he can exchange the main character for the other one, usually the exchange can only be done in the base or during a downtime, but in case the main pc dies he can exchange it in a short time to be able to continue playing that session.
This way players can experience different classes in the same campaign.
Recently my group was having a montage/downtime of their first year as adventurers (the campain started after the first year) but I wanted to creat connections with the party and world. So I "borrowed" from drafting mechanics like MTG and hearthstone, I had printed 20-ish questcards with simple changlinges and possible rewards then all the players got one card every in-game month and they choose one quest as a party to do.
This way they meet several named NPCs, places and even got some hints of the story to come, but most importantly the party relised where they were strong/weak as a party of only three players.
One I've thought about taking are Battalions from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. They're basically a group of soldiers that are equipped like gear that grants some minor stat bonuses and a small ability that relate to the type of soldiers (War Mages might get X number of freecasts of Fireball, Archers can put down a volley on a cross-shaped spot on the battlefield somewhere, Armoured Knights can protect from some damage, etc etc.). It seems like a good way of giving the impression of large-scale combat without having to A) change the core combat very much and B) have many new abilities to learn. Whenever the equipped character takes damage, the unit takes some casualties, and perhaps the benefits shut off when under 1/3 strength or so, that way it forces them to consider a new resource to manage that can't just be healed back up with magical healing.
Ooh! And if you want a really big battle, then you can combine that with another game mechanic, the Return Line from Ace Combat 04, which is just a line on the edge of the map during a mission that refreshes your hit points and ammunition when you cross it, that way you can give the players a way to avoid being attritioned to death from large waves of enemy soldiers, while also making it a bit of an opportunity cost, since they have to go ALL the way to the bottom most edge of the map to heal. I can imagine one final, long battle against the armies of the main villain, where battalions are depleted and refreshed multiple times in order to fight off the hordes until finally the main villain descends (perhaps telegraphed so that particularly low HP{ players can cross the Return Line), so that way you can have this big flowing battle that still allows the players to be at mostly full fighting strength for the final boss.
Matt Colville says stealing's okay, Dael Kingsmill says stealing's okay, so ski mask my face and call me a larceny
A. Larcenius
Or Alexander Larcenius VI
Since I am a bad DM, and I always forget about inspiration - I like to use a "Play of the Game" system inspired from Overwatch. The players discuss and vote on who they think did the coolest/funniest/best thing during the session, and that player gets inspiration. If there are ~4 or more players I'll give out a bonus GM inspiration.
I really like this system because it serves a few purposes. At the end of the session all the players basically hype each other up and reminisce about their favorite moments, so everyone ends on a really high note. It also let's you as the GM know what sticks out to each player about the session, so you can include more moments they enjoy in future sessions.
WOW, your videos have always been wonderful but the new editing style adds so much! Well done :)
I will pass your compliments on to Editor Jack! Thank you!
For my smaller groups, I often give them a ship or something like that filled with Sidekicks (sometimes literally using Sidekicks, sometimes using monster-ish stat blocks that work like sidekicks), and they can choose one of the sidekicks to go on missions with them or go into town or whatever. Just your standard BioWare-ass stuff. Most recently, we played a Spelljammer-ish campaign that was very drop-in/drop-out, very inconsistent player numbers, with a really episodic flair.
We used the Epic Heroism rules (long rests were 1 hour) and most adventures were rarely more than 2 sessions, so the BioWare-y crew was there partly to make sure they could field a balanced team if one or more players was absent. They had the Captain of the ship, Allejandro Villastellara, a Triton Rogue Mastermind, the ship's doctor, Dr. Ephremus Fogworth, an air genasi with a degenerative disease that's causing them to slowly discorporate, necessitating they exist entirely in their barometric pressure suit (Armorer Artificer), and the ship's quartermaster, "Psully", who was a Giff Wild Magic Barbarian using one of the goofy ass items from the Ravnica books that amounted to something like a gattling gun. The NPCs (I guess these are DMPCs, at this point?) were sort of a shared resource, so they took turns playing as them.
What I didn't expect was their desire to continue collecting NPCs as companions. Eventually, I came up with the idea of a mechanic where the crew NPCs (who were not gaining experience or hit points at the speed of the heroes) had special abilities that each *player* could tap once per adventure (what we called an "extended rest". This was the same rate their spaceship/spelljammer's special abilities recharged), but they needed to have a Bond with that NPC to do so. The idea was that you'd call on that bond to get one of their cool special abilities, but by the time I had it mostly sorted out, we were back up to a consistent # Of players and they stopped tapping the crew as much for help, which suited me fine.
By the end, they wound up with a Rakshasa who they discovered adrift in space in a vac suit where the Rakshasa's true name had been carved before someone spaced her out the air lock, leaving the Rakshasa to reconstitute in the suit after each death only to immediately suffocate again, the semi-lucid remains of a god that had died in ancient cosmic war, a self-contained Giant-Rune powered AI unit loosely modelled on a modron called The Venn, and an amiably gibbering mouther with the Regeneration spell stuck on it called Skimdooz, and a collective of Quori (the dream ghosts from Eberron) that they could consult on more ethereal matters or.
Skimdooz, the Venn, and the Quori Collective wound up more like items than characters, since Skimdooz somehow became a living Healing Potion factory, with a con save to avoid getting sick from using it and a % chance of a random effect, The Venn became the Warforged player's Docent, and the players would go and talk to the Quori to ask one of them ride along on adventures to "Observe" and grant the player a psychic ability (spell) for that adventure.
So, not purely video game-y, but still worked pretty well.
Love to see the Angry GM's Bifurcated Snake get some recognition!
Almost nostalgic, Angry's articles and Colville's videos made me the DM I am today.
Several PBTA games have a simple system for bases (I.e. MOTW & Apocalypse World) where you pick a limited number of rooms/resources from a list.
Id love to make a barebones pirate game where, in addition to their character sheets, the players share a sheet for their ship and one for their base (town, fortress) with limited additions they unlock using “treasure experience”
You know, it isn't exactly the same, but the X-Com relationship action reminded me of the game I just started replaying Dragon Quest 9 and that game's Coup de grâce system. For those who haven't played it:
Based on certain triggers, (ie losing a large chunk of health from one hit or doing a ton of damage stuff like that) a party member might get the chance to do a special move called a coup de grâce (which in spite of the name isn't always a damaging finishing move) things like:
• Drastically increasing your evasion for a few turns (Minstrel)
• Healing everyone in the party and removing all negative effects (Priest)
• Next few turns all your spells and abilities cost zero MP (Mage)
• Guaranteed critical hit (Warrior)
The catch being that a: you don't know when you will get to use these abilities and b: you only have a few turns to use it or you miss your chance and it's gone. They are powerful abilities, but those restrictions force you to think on your feet.
And there's another factor, if one or more party members are holding on to a coup de grâce charge the rest of the party's chances of getting one go up a little bit and if everyone uses a coup de grâce at the same time you get a Co-op de grâce where as a group you can do massive damage in one attack or become completely invincible for a few turns. But like I said, after a few turns you miss your chance
Right now I'm not entirely sure how I'd port this to DnD, but I feel like there's definitely potential here
2-phase fights are my favorite to homebrew and design. Most recently my PCs fought a pair of devil and demon knights. They started mounted and were more mobile and had a charge ability that damaged and left a ground effect in the line they charged through. Then when one of them got to half health they were dismounted, the mount left, and the knight gained a new ability that made use of the ground effects that were left over. Worked really well, was a lot of fun to put together and a lot of fun to run.
Rivalry/support bonuses are something I'm going to think on and try to use! Thanks for the great ideas and content!
When she said you can add 3 wings to your home, I immediately thought I'd rather have 2 wings and a tail, so it can fly better. House of the Dragon indeed.
:D Three winged biblically accurate house.
Combo moves! I love when players try combo moves! I always try to reward that behavior. That "I'll shoot the giant with my arrows in a way that creates steps for the monk to get to its head" or "I cast witchbolt... on the barbarians axe!"
not exactly a homebrew mechanic but I did a sort of mini-game encounter that was ripped right from the game Overcooked. Instead of combat the players had to frantically move ingredients from station to station in a kitchen to fill orders from customers in a Feywild Restaurant. It was a big hit!
I've stolen a complete storyline and a magic system for my D&D campaign and homebrew setting respectively.
The D&D game started off pretty faithfully following the story of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but at this point close to the end of act 2 (out of 3), it's almost unrecognisable.
My homebrew world/setting is a reimagining of the world from Gladius for the PS2. Gladiatorial society with norse/viking/egyptian inspired cultures, and a magic system that requires you to build up power by hitting enemies first. Kinda flips the power dynamic of fights to be more spectacular the longer the fight goes on, which is perfect for a gladiatorial system I feel.
A trinket that is worn/carried that modifies a specific a spell/ ability of the players. Not like extra damage but like giving a boost to the speed of Gaseous Form, making Web's webs fire resistant instead of flammable, or adding a fear trigger to the Berserker's bonus action hit.
Sort of like Borderlands items can modify and enhance the base abilities of the Vault Hunter.
I have run with the Dark Souls telegraph. In my game I give the big bad 2-3 signature moves (The variety keeps them on their toes and combat stays engaging but its not too hard tto keep track of the telegraphs) and then at the end of their turn I roll to determine which move is going off, describe the telegraph, let everyone prepare, then at the start of their next turn it unloads, I'll usually cheat and lower the damage the first time (but still roll a massive amount of dice to put fear into them) just to give them a chance to learn the patterns of unusual monsters. My players have begun to read into these telegraphs and find weakspots in the monsters. (Hurling explosives at the dragon right before it unleashes its breath causing shrapnel to lacerate its face for example)
I dont' have any of my own special mechanics since I'm pretty ne to DMing, but I'll definitely use the house concept, since that's something I was already thinking about giving to my players. The hard part is gonna be coming up with balanced benefits. I'll have to think on that.
My player, noticing me make an annotation for my completely benign achievement: "So what was that?"
Me: "That? Don't worry about it. So you are going to ask a question to the innkeeper, right?"
Player, with eyes wide open: "Yeah, but from the door. Is there a table or something I can flip and hide behind? Just in case."
I've done tonnes for a bunch of different one shots.
The Monster Hunter inspired Amellwind's Guide to Monster Hunting is amazing. Upgrading weapons like magic items and inputting the parts of monsters you hunt into your weapons to give them additional effects is great.
I've used a Hades style boon-system that levels players up and grants players magical items in a D&D rogue-like dungeon crawl.
I've run a one-on-one game where the player could swap between characters like a LEGO game.
I track quests in my campaigns updating a google doc in the style of the Baldur's Gate 3 logbook so the players are easily reminded of their goals, including their personal quests.
I resolve large war encounters using the dice and battle system from the Root board game to see how many soldiers die every turn, while the party fights important enemies.
The warforged in my campaign setting act like the Glitch race from Starbound.
I used to do my own version of Strongholds and Followers base building too, but I've since switched to Cult of the Lamb base building, where the party can decide on a single event to do that provides different effects, like a Spa Day providing temporary hit points (Zelda/HollowKnight style).
The one thing I'll never get done is a new class based on using companions solely for combat, where each archetype is connected to a creature type, which changes what game it is based off of. An elemental tamer hasPokemon, a dragon tamer rides their dragon How To Train Your Dragon style, a plant tamer places plant-based turrets down like Plants Vs Zombies, the beast tamer has both a feline and canine that operate like the palico and palamute from Monster Hunter Rise, the undead tamer is a good necromancer, the monstrosity tamer upgrades their Frankenstein's monster with new body parts, and the construct tamer has Bakugan.
I would like a boomerang where I first draw it's path on a tiny screen and then I throw it and the boomerang follows that path and I can use it to hit switches and stuff from far away.
Yes, that's my contribution to this.
i know this idea was technically part of the kingmaker module in pathfinder, but Im currently running a game where my players became protectors of a town because its a magical site, and i gave them a list of upgrades they can buy to improve the town AND the keep that they now inhabit. + upkeep costs, income, and other bonuses that an upgrade might give! (Like an aviary reducing the time it takes to sow rumors by half and giving an npc spymaster bonus on their rolls for their tasks, or their own stables with an expert stablemaster unlocking the possibility of weird mounts like in dragon age inquisition!)
its very much frankensteined but i am happy with it
Pokemon, Dragon Quest (Warrior) Monsters, and a little Black Clover.
You have a familiar or an animal. An alchemist can craft a special crystal that a wizard can enchant to contain a familiar or animal. You can have up to 3 familiars/animals held in this way (like Pokemon in PokeBalls). You can only use one at a time. The familiar gets stats and levels up and can learn attacks (but only has one "attack slot").
Like you were talking about character bonds, DQM had a "wild" system for monsters. When caught in the wild they would have some sort of number indicating their wild stat, the higher it was the less likely it would listen to their master. If you leave the monster at the farm (the game's storage system) it's wild number gets higher. Now, using this concept, adding this to the familiar, if you keep the familiar out of the crystal then it's wild level decreases, but if it spends too much time in the crystal, it's wild level will go back up and may not listen to you.
In Black Clover, certain characters have spirits that increase their strength and magic and unlock new abilities. You can use this concept and that can be applied by each familiar giving a special bonus and maybe even a combo attack if their bond level is maxed.
In summation: You get up to 3 familiars/animals you can keep in special crystals that have to be created by an alchemist and enchanted by a wizard (special material gathering and finding an alchemist and wizard, if there are none in the party, can be a side quest). When summoned out of the crystal these familiars/animals give a bonus, can attack, and if their bond is maxed can give characters access to a new ability/attack during battle. But if left in the crystal too long the bond will diminish. (Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe an easier way to explain it is it's kind of summons materia from Final Fantasy 7 with a bond system, and max bond gives limit break.) Maybe these crystals might get stolen during a battle. Maybe if the bond is weak then the familiar might listen to the thief and attack the party. Maybe if the bond is strong, the familiar might attack the thief instead. Maybe if the bond is maxed out does a Critical hit or an unleash limit break on the thief.
Silly example, but this girl I was seeing had a Dating D&D book. It had a simple campaign in it, but it had a neat mechanic of we both had examples of turn ons and offs as a character, and if a player did something they felt looked like one of those things, we would make a secret relationship roll and add it to the like/dislike scale. We never got far enough in it to see what the payoffs were, but it would be cool to use that kinda dynamic in a game to unlock what you were talking about in your bonds abilities. I could imagine a high relationship score would unlock abilities that they can do together that are powerful, or when one person does something, the sense of rivalry spurs them on. So they are never bad, but one, they work together, the other, work apart.
It also reminds me of Chrono Trigger, and the use of dual techs, where 2 players could spend a turn to combine skills/magics they have for some better-than-the-sum-of-its-parts effect. Having all spells/skills combine in crazy ways has sooo much potential but is also overwhelming.
Something a bunch of games have done is have big fights where one entity is represented by like multiple pools of hit points and abilities. When fighting constructs, or abominations with weird biology, I like to split the creature's total hit points and give different limbs or attachments their own hit points. I run a very pulpy adventure that's in a sort of an early industrial steampunk version of fantasy Egypt, and the players can eventually fight a giant mechanical scorpion as the title match in a coliseum. The scorpion has a tail, two pincers, and a head, each with their own hit point pools. The fight starts off difficult, with the scorpion having a bunch of actions, reactions, and legendary actions that give it tool for everything the players throw at it. But if they're tactical and focus their attacks at the left pincer for instance, the scorpion loses its Acid Spray legendary action for the rest of the fight. It can be fun for me too, figuring out how the scorpion changes its own tactics as it loses limbs. When they destroy all the limbs, the fight is over! Just keep the limb's hp reasonable and it can make for a dynamic fight that doesn't last much longer than a normal boss fight.
This idea kind of blooms out into a bit of a rework of martial combat, but I LOVE the stamina system from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. I really love it because it can govern really well distances you can run (I use a sprint action that is 3 times your speed that costs stamina), how long you could swim, how high you can climb, etc. I also say that making a melee attack costs 1 stamina point, but everyone naturally regenerates a stamina point once per turn anyways
Something I like to do for big big fights (that I got from video games) is changing the map between boss phases. Do stuff like smash through the floor and fight in rubble, or smash through a window and take the fight to the courtyard... it's cheesy, but my players always loved me swapping out maps on them.
It can even be something as simple as adding new obstacles or features to the terrain. Maybe the boss wizard starts syphoning power off of magical capacitors, the hissing and movement of machinery, or just add a new wave of monsters from goop-filled tanks.
Hey Dael, and other fellow TTRPGers. The point made about relations, and a shared connection between players seems neat. I'm sure some of you will have heard of this but Darkest Dungeon 2 (a game you can find on steam, epic games, etc.) has a very similar mechanic.
Characters in that game have relations, and if they work well together and help each other out, they get bonuses (extra damage, higher chance to crit, better chances of handling in-game problems, etc.)
I personally have been play testing some of these as relations between the party as a way to encourage players to do their downtime together (downtime is a huge part of my campaigns, but I find that it can be a little stale if it's always 1 on 1).
If you ever do an 'Ideas to Steal from Video Games 3', I think this could be a really good point to bring up/elaborate on.
Wish you all the best and take care. :)
I think trying design a specific enemy from a video game is a great exercise for coming up with fun and unique gameplay. Monster Hunter is a great source for this, especially when it comes to phase changing (in particular cyclical phase changes).
One example for me was designing the lightning wolf Zinogre for Pathfinder 2e. It had a mechanic where it spends time charging (which can be interrupted) up into a more "electrified" state where he does more electrical damage and changes his moves... but you can knock him out of this state with enough damage, making a good offense the best defense here.
So I create two states where the damage numbers and special abilities, and even weakness to cold (he gets weaker to ice in his charged state) are defined. I then set three charges need to be acquired to change states. Give him a move for 2 actions that automatically gives him 2 charges, and will give him a third charge on his next turn unless hit by at least two attacks, at which point Zinogre will need to spend another action to finish charging (it also comes with an aoe, so hooray telegraphed attacks).
Once in this state, players have to do a certain amount of damage to put it back into its original state.
In preparation to run Blades in the Dark for the first time for a table that had never played it before, I decided I wanted to use Colville's quest cards to tutorialize optional mechanics. I wrote down some optional facets of the game (flashbacks, desparate position, devil's bargains, the various teamwork mechanics etc) on post-it notes with brief explanations and put five (not too many) of them in front of the players. The first player to use each mechanic got to take that post-it note, and could rip it up later to heal 2 stress. It is marginally impacting the balance of the game, but I'm not worried - they're consumable.
I loooooooove rebellion stories and did one for my first campaign. I was inspired by Dragon Age Inquisition where you're building this force of different groups united by a single cause.
So I had my players go around the map and recruit different factions, using roleplay encounters and the different factions they succeeded in recruiting added unique bonuses or troops to the final battle. Like for instance they recruited these elves who used these attack on Titan style grappling hook contraptions and in the final battle they had them to be able to scale the walls of the city and even had them scout for healing potions in the evacuated buildings. Super fun
Slay The Spire has some really cool enemy design that I’ve converted indirectly into 5e statblocks, like combining the exploding sentry and the cultist to make an enemy that progressively gets stronger but after a certain amount of turns, it explodes, dealing damage all around it (the 5e monster charges itself up with psychic energy, doing more damage, but after 3 turns it’s too much and it’s head explodes)
The angry dm snake was very useful in designing and writing my version of his abandoned megadungeon project.
One thing i do for the multistage, is give my mobs potions or some kind of consumable which changes their form in some way. A potion of "wildshape" for example. I have shark mage who turns into a giant shark with legs. Whats good about this is if the players get a decent enough perception check they can take it and use it themselves. If its something unique they probably wont know what it does until they either have it valued or they consume them.
I also have "last ditch" spells and abilities that ill only break out when under a certain amount of health. Mechanically they exhaust the monster so they might even use it twice if they get desperate but they pay for it in more than spell slots.
For more ideas about the bondmate stuff, you can dig through the darkest dungeon 2 relationship act-outs, for example, getting a free swing at something an ally you trust hits, reducing healing against targets that aren't your lover, jumping in front of damage, etc
Dragon Age Inquisition is the primary source I take my inspiration for an awesome dragon fight. Each "piece" of the dragon (legs, body, head, wings, tail) can be attacked. Each of those "pieces" has a hit point value.
Once a "piece" hits zero, the dragon takes a debilitating effect.
Leg - movement reduced by quarter.
Tail - lose its tail attack
Wing - lose its wing attack and flight
Head/body - stunned until the end of its next turn
my go to is always Telegraphing. i ran LMOP for two players and while they did get some NPCS some of those fights are hard, like the flame skulls can just oneshot you all with fireball, or the green dragon fight, so i describe the dragon taking a huge deep breath the round before the breath weapon, or the flameskull building up a charge of fire in front of it, just to let them know "hey, this might suck if you dont do something"
I posted this in the DM binder video comments section too, but as it’s an older video I thought maybe it might be better here?
That DM binder video resonated with me so hard when I first saw it while looking for what to put in my own GM binder. I’ve really wanted to run a campaign after 30+ years not sitting down at that table. I’m visual and used to keep a binder when I GM’d, but drew a blank on what might work for me now. I watched and immediately re-watched, and have watched that video again several more times in the months (2+ years, lol) since.
I’m neurodiverse and since I started treatment a few years ago I’ve found I’m having difficulty with things I used to do fairly easily; in particular: writing and world-building.
I still don’t have my binder started, I still haven’t run my session zero. I hoped your organization method would soak into my brain through osmosis and suddenly spawn into reality in my empty binder, but nothing yet. 😂
I would love to see a follow-up video, where you show what your current GM binder is like. How its organized and laid out - what you still use, what you don’t use anymore; that kind of thing.
I’m specifically designing a Fallout 2d20 Campaign so my binder would be themed and contain content for that game accordingly.