Role-playing Games Stack Exchange
Role-playing Games Stack Exchange

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What is a "funnel"?

I often see the term "funnel" used in describing adventures or campaigns, but it's not clear to me what it actually means. An example of this kind of use is this blog post talking about playing a "funnel". It doesn't explain what a funnel is, just…
Ramone
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Narrative Combat versus Use of Miniatures

When I first started playing D&D, my DM did not use battlemaps or miniatures to describe combat. Everything was described to us, and questions to the DM were part and parcel of the experience, such as: "Do I have Line of Sight? Can I take a Move…
Logan MacRae
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Are mounts proficient in armour (barding)?

Mounts can be given barding to duplicate the effect of armour at 4x the cost. However, barding makes no statement about armour proficiency, nor does the stat block for some of the more obvious mounts (Riding Horse, Warhorse, etc.). If a mount is…
Miniman
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Is Forgotten Realms the default setting in 5e?

In D&D 3.x, the core books stated that the default setting was Greyhawk and the first few adventures were set in it (e.g. The Sunless Citadel, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil). In D&D 4e, the core books stated that the default setting was…
Thunderforge
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Should a new player call out a "bad" GM?

I've started playing my first D&D game. The group I'm playing with wants me to be the GM, but since I've never played D&D before this I wanted to play as a normal player first. There was one group member who I hadn't met until we started up a new…
Ice-9
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How can I make things easier on my dyslexic and high-functioning autistic players?

I have other players read out information from my dyslexic player's character sheets when necessary, and I use non-verbal visual aids whenever possible. I generally give out copies of any important visual aids, such as maps, riddles, or red…
cartomancer
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What do you do when a player intimidates your campaign boss to surrender?

So my players recently fought a big bad campaign boss. The (custom made) boss was a kind of solo beserker king, and the encounter difficulty was designed to be fairly moderate until the boss became bloodied, at which point he would frenzy and…
Ravn
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What was Braunstein, and why was it important to the beginning of the hobby?

I've heard of a game called Braunstein that apparently was the precursor to Dave Arneson's Blackmoor campaign. Can someone tell me what Braunstein was, and why it's important?
Ry St
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Where can I find fantasy minis on the cheap?

I'm looking to build a collection of fantasy miniatures, preferably pewter - but I don't want to buy them one at a time from my local hobby store... Much too expensive, and they don't often carry anything I'm interested in buying, which makes it a…
Erik Forbes
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What's the origin of the Mimic?

The Mimic is an iconic figure of the modern fantasy genre, best known for disguising itself as a treasure chest to tempt and ensnare adventurers and turn them into a meal. It's shown up in D&D (ca. 1977), in Dark Souls (2011), and arguably in less…
doppelgreener
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How can I protect an NPC's death scene from interfering PCs with cure magic?

In my current campaign, a plot point is going to involve the PCs finding a dying man who has been kept prisoner and beaten repeatedly over a long period of time. He is able to give the party some important information before he expires. Classic…
Darth Pseudonym
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How often do I need to hand out spell scrolls as the DM in order to balance the Wizard's spell list with the Cleric's?

I'm running a campaign for a party that includes two casters: one Necromancy Wizard, and one Cleric. The party hit level 5 last session, and while the Wizard was consulting with me about what new spells to take, I realized that many of the spells…
Tack
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How does one become a god?

How does one become a deity? I read Deities and Demigods, but some things are either not explained or not mentioned at all. Do you have to get a blessing from a god with 20+ divinity? Can you achieve ascendancy with a lot of worshipers? (Let's say…
Invader Zim
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How do we gently ask a frustrating player to leave our game?

I have been a part of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign for almost a year now (I am not the DM) and we have a player (in his early 30s) who has, within the past few months, quickly become very difficult to deal with. He is notoriously late, often an…
The_Hopeless_Paladin
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How do I present an unbeatable encounter without frustrating my players?

So, I have run Curse of Strahd sometimes, but every time I run it I find a new problem in my DM'ing haha. I will try to make it answerable without specifically CoS experience and keep it spoiler free. Strahd, a powerful Vampire, is the main villain…
HellSaint
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