Oh god, it’s time for a meme I made 2 years ago

Sometimes that can be fun, but only if everyone at the table is onboard for a wild tangent. If the other players are bored as shit while the special snowflake starts a unicorn breeding operation, it’s time to use that No. And you, the DM, are included in that too; if your players want to drag you off to write every book in the library and that’s not fun for you, you have the right to say “hey maybe you should play the game I made for you instead.”

You decide that if an when the players make it a priority with their choices.

Addendum to the “Are you sure you want to do that” bullet: if a player ever does something that seems nonsensical to you, ask them what they expect to achieve by doing that. Understanding their motivation is often what resolves the miscommunication and/or allows you to steer them towards a better way to do what they’re trying to do.

Wow, just learned I’ve been missing the aoo rule for 20 years.

You could have the same spell OR the Counterspell spell. The benefit of taking Counterspell was that it could work against anything.

Spot on about the action economy observation though.

I read once that the earliest edition(s?) didn’t have Rogue as a separate class, that everyone would be searching for traps and such. And when Rogue was added with the explicit ability to detect traps, it caused a crises because suddenly that implied that no one else had that ability.

It’s the cats you gotta worry about.

There are a couple ways to get auto-generated transcripts from youtube (eg https://www.howtogeek.com/793947/how-to-get-the-transcript-of-a-youtube-video/ ), but there are enough errors and bad UI that I find reading them to be more miserable than just watching the video.

Main quest? Weird tangent? They’re the same picture!

God you just described my prep in a nutshell. This is how they ended up fighting an orchestra

I like to fully improvise games in Digital Shades

Hi. I’m sorry, this looks like a legitimately great book, but we only allow self promotion from active users. I am removing your post, but if you are interested in becoming a member of our community, you would be welcome to post 1 self-promo per week in the future.

hissss it burns ussss

He even did the full chest bump thing. And then in case there was any doubt, he did the whole gesture again.

Ok. It was just an example of a way you might make an encounter revolve around a spell, not an exhaustively researched adventure module.

I don’t remember them being reformed at all in TNG, but I admit it’s been awhile. I picture them as capering caricatures in TNG. But I’m thinking specifically of that moment where Quark argues with Odo that he can save them a bunch of small dangers by making one big gamble; it shows the Ferengi way of thinking about things as not just allegory, but as an actual culture that succeeds in some ways and fails in others.

Edit: Which I liked since the federation is ostensibly all about interacting with new and different cultures.

Edit edit: Not to say any of that invalidates your own feelings about it. I care about and find meaningful some stuff; you are under no obligation to feel the same way, nor are you wrong for not doing so. I only share because sometimes it’s fun to hear other’s perspectives, and I appreciate you sharing yours with me.

There are ways. You could, for example, set up a bbeg where that’s his whole deal. The townsfolk are scared of this guy because he has the supernatural power to just kill you, straight-up. Maybe the questline leading up to their encounter involves the players finding defenses or counters or sabotaging his supply of spell components or whatever, such that, if they DO get power-word-killed, it’s because they had ample opportunities to not, and failed to take them.

Not every character moment has to be climactic. You gotta mix in some slow-burn stuff there too. And also remember that early episodes like this had to do a lot of heavy lifting to reform the Ferengi from their disastrous TNG appearance.

Except that’s the point, they will not be having fun. Nor will you, nor will any of the other players. Because that setup is not fun. And presumably you’re hosting a game for your friends with the intention of everyone having fun, so it’s best if you find another tact.