I think you should take what the DM said at face value. No hard feelings, just vibe mismatch. It happens.

For sure. Or just chat with them outside of the session some time

Yeah I mean, basically anything can work with the right campaign, players, characters, etc. But my opinion doesn’t matter; your player’s opinions are the ones that do.

I’ll also add that the element of surprise is overrated. You think it will be cool when the player discovers this effect at a dramatic moment but it is far, FAR more likely that they never discover it at all. Or they only discover it after it’s been frustratingly negating everything they’ve tried to do so far. Or that they discover the curse at an un-dramatic moment and make the rational decision to just never trigger it again. That’s why I say it’s much better to tell the players ahead of time and set the expectation that being cursed will be a major part of their story; then they can DECIDE to have their character “accidentally” trigger the curse at a dramatic moment or what have you. You won’t have to tell the player “you’re compelled to yell now” they’ll automatically go “GOD I just feel like YELLING right now FOR SOME REASON!” and feel good about playing their character instead of feeling bad that you’re taking over their character.

With something more than an incidental curse, you really need player buy-in. I recommend meeting with each player, telling them you’d like to give them a cursed item that will be a major part of their character’s arc throughout the story, and the broad strokes of what you have in mind for their particular curse. Then, be receptive to feedback on that. Good players will recognize that this is a roleplay opportunity for them and try to fit it into the arc they had in mind for their character, but they may want the details tweaked to fit their particular narrative goals…eg to make the curse an ironic reflection of their flaws or a nod to their backstory or whatever. I recommend you try to approach this premise with a collaborative mindset.

Once in my early days, I ran a game where the players were all werewolves. I was reading a lot of GRM at the time and it was very edgy and I tried to give them a moral quandary: an injured baby. Do they curse the child with lycanthropy to save it?

That’s when the players hauled out the cursed healing potion from 15 sessions ago they’d been hauling around this whole time :/

The temptation to just post the address of a certain bar and a time is nearly overwhelming

It’s safe to assume that the US government owns all your software and the Chinese government owns all your hardware. The thing that protects you is that your local police department is too stupid to work a computer and you’re probably not important enough to come to the attention of the heavy hitters in the government.

As for whether or not the mcfascists will kick in your door: maybe. The answer would still be “maybe” regardless of your internet usage…it’s random and arbitrary by design, to keep everyone terrified and encourage them to constantly compete to please the regime.

This is good advice but I will add that putting a timer on player’s turns is also itself a bit of a problem…it comes off as infantalizing.

That’s not really how bots work. It would have to be coded to actually read and reply to your responses

I disagree with everything besides #1. I think this may actually be too dated to be helpful.

Anyone gone back to school for an advanced degree after working in the field for a long time? What was your experience like?

The thought entered my mind to go back to school and get a Masters or something. I have 14 years in the field already but my bachelor’s was unrelated. Anyone else done something similar and have any input?

Ooh, this looks neat. I don’t think I’d use it for spurious notes but it might be a good replacement place to do the making-it-good part

You can use Google Forms to get the RSVP functionality you’re looking for. And maybe a dedicated Discord channel with suitable posting restrictions so it’s JUST DMs posting such forms? Or you could even have them DM you their pitches and you post them, such that you can make the channel so only you can post. I also like using this tool for scheduling: https://www.when2meet.com/

You need a method to quick jot stuff down in the moment. I use google keep for those thoughts/ideas. It’s on my phone, very low friction always to just pull it out and get something out of my head. Make it good later, just use your notes app (or an actual notepad if you’re oldschool) to get it out of your head so you can think of other stuff without worrying about losing it.

Also worth noting, when doing group stealth, you’re effectively limited by the least-stealthy party member, since it usually only takes one person getting caught to give the game away.

You mean y’all have adventuring parties that aren’t composed entirely of weird lil guys?

https://tenor.com/view/gif-gif-19496570

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