Social Media Spells for Arcane Influencers

Hello loyal readers (and disloyal readers too, I suppose). Despite the fact that I haven't kept this site updated for years, I am here again to celebrate its anniversary. d20 Despot is 8 years old! And as always, it's time for an April Fool's post (check out past April Fools here). Just like last year, I'm not pulling the wool over anyone's eyes, as there is far too much disinformation out there as it is. Instead, I've statted up some aggressively stupid spells that act like the fantasy version of social media apps. 

Spells like these have long been a running joke at my table, usually instigated by Kat (the bard in my Graverobbers campaign, played by Jane Kelly) and growing as she and my wife Olivia riffed on the idea. Olivia's character in my Big Sleep campaign (the next big adventure which I wrote for Petersen Games) is a College of Glamour bard who is basically an influencer, always trying to leverage her clout on Instagrimoire. 

(Hey, speaking of social media, you can follow ME on Instagrimoire at instagram.com/d20despot, where I mostly post pictures of my cat and of Warhammer models that I'm painting.)

These spells are probably grossly unbalanced, and are intended to be fun and tongue-in-cheek. These spells should never be construed to grant in-game benefits. The following items are available as Open Game Content under the 5th Edition OGL. Open Game Content is ©2020 Jonah Bomgaars. 

Cursed Items for April Fooling Your PCs

Hi all! Today is the 7th anniversary of d20 Despot's founding! And while I've been on hiatus for the last few years (because I still haven't gotten used to working from home), I will not let this anniversary go unmarked!

Traditionally we've done hilarious April Fools goofs on this most foolish of days, but the world isn't doing great right now and I don't feel like deceiving you even for a good good gag. But that doesn't mean you can't deceive your players! With that in mind, I've crafted a selection of cursed items for all you devious GMs who love pranking your players. If you're running a remote, social distancing game tonight, try slipping your party fighter a potion of hill giant intelligence!

Before I get to the goods, a little update: back in 2018 I was hired as a freelancer by Petersen Games to work on some 5th edition Cthulhu Mythos adventures. These adventures run from 1st to 15th level and are split across 4 books. The first of these Cthulhu Sagas, Ghoul Island, is available now (book 1 is for sale, books 2-4 are up for preorder). I was a junior developer on that one. I was made lead developer on the next adventure, Yig Snake Granddaddy, the first book of which will be released in May! I wrote the whole dang thing and I'm really proud of it. It's got dinosaurs and eldritch abominations and mummified cats!

Ok, on to the good stuff. The following items are available as Open Game Content under the 5th Edition OGL. Open Game Content is ©2020 Jonah Bomgaars. Yeah that's right, I switched to 5th Edition. Get used to it, because it's way, way easier to work with as a developer than Pathfinder (I haven't tried out Pathfinder 2 yet, so don't rule that out).

Bag of Scolding
Wondrous item, rare
This otherwise normal and functional bag of holding is cursed so that whenever you open it to store or retrieve an item, a stern voice from within the bag loudly berates you for your every perceived slight and mistake in a voice that is clearly audible for a 100 foot radius. Casting remove curse on the bag before opening it silences the voice for 1 minute.

Boots of Slipping
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement)
These fine boots appear to all inspection to be boots of speed, and function as such the first time you use them after attuning to them.
   Curse. These boots are cursed, a fact that is revealed only when an identify spell is cast on them. Attuning to the boots curses you until you are targeted by the remove curse spell or similar magic. The boots cannot be removed by any means until the curse is lifted. Each time you activate the boots of slipping (after the first time), the boots duplicate the effects of a grease spell on the ground centered on yourself, with a spell save DC of 13. They do not increase your walking speed. Each time you take the Dash or Disengage action, there is a 50% chance that the boots activate by themselves.

Gloves of Sticky Fingers
Wondrous item, uncommon
These gloves are invisible when worn. While wearing them, you gain a +5 bonus to Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) checks and Dexterity checks made to pick locks. They appear to be gloves of thievery and an identify spell reveals them to be such.
   Curse. These gloves are cursed, a fact that is revealed only after attuning to them. Wearing the gloves curses you until you are targeted by the remove curse spell or similar magic. The boots cannot be removed by any means until the curse is lifted. Whenever you touch a creature that is not you or an object that does not belong to you, alchemical pads in the gloves release a small dose of quick-drying sovereign glue that takes only 6 seconds to set. Dispelling the curse does not break the bond of the glue.

Hat of Conspicuous Disguise
Wondrous item, uncommon (requires attunement)
While wearing this hat, you can use an action to cast the disguise self spell from it at will. The spell ends if the hat is removed. The hat always takes a form that would be completely inappropriate for the disguise, such as a floppy purple jester's cap, a neon yellow sombrero, or a bird's nest complete with chirping, illusory birds.

Manual of Medical Misinformation
Wondrous item, very rare
This book contains health and diet tips, and its words are charged with magic. It appears to all inspection to be a manual of bodily health, and an identify spell reveals it to be such. But the book is actually full of harmful misinformation: recipes for detoxifying weight-loss tea enemas, diagrams of jade yoni egg rituals, and conspiracy theories about how healing potions cause autism. If you spend 48 hours over a period of 6 days or fewer studying the book's contents and practicing its guidelines, your Constitution score decreases by 2. This decrease can be removed with a remove curse spell or similar magic. This insidious book never loses its magic.

Necklace of Prayer Bees
Wondrous item, rare (requires attunement by a cleric, druid, or paladin)
This necklace has 1d4 + 2 magic beads made from black pearl and yellow topaz. It appears to all non-magical inspection to be a necklace of prayer beads.
   Curse. This necklace is cursed, a fact that is revealed only when an identify spell is cast on it. Attuning to the necklace curses you until you are targeted by the remove curse spell or similar magic. While cursed, you cannot remove the necklace by any means. Each bead on the necklace seems to contain a beneficial spell that you can cast as a bonus action, like those on a necklace of prayer beads, but activating a bead only summons a swarm of wasps which attacks you relentlessly until it is destroyed. Once a magic bead is activated, that bead can't be used again until the next dawn. If all the beads are activated before the next dawn, the necklace crumbles into a pile of desiccated bee exoskeletons and the curse is broken.

Potion of Hill Giant Intelligence
Potion, uncommon
This concoction looks, smells, and tastes like a potion of hill giant strength. However, it is actually a cursed potion masked by illusion magic. An identify spell reveals its true nature.
   If you drink it, your Intelligence score changes to 5. At the end of 1 hour, you must succeed on a DC 10 Intelligence saving throw or the effect becomes permanent. A remove curse spell or similar magic ends this effect and restores your Intelligence score to normal. This potion only affects humanoids and giants.

Happy April Fools Day!
Stay safe and healthy out there - you are all my favorite people.

-your social distancing d20 despot

Not so Black and White: In Defense of the Alignment System

"Always consider alignment as a tool, not a straitjacket that restricts the character.  Although alignment defines general attitudes, it certainly doesn't prevent a character from changing his beliefs, acting irrationally, or behaving out of character." 

- 2nd Edition AD&D Player's Handbook

"Each alignment represents a broad range of personality types or personal philosophies,

so two lawful good characters can still be quite different from each other." 

- D&D 3.5 Player's Handbook

via Know Your Meme

What is your GM's alignment?

There is a current of thought in the RPG-playing community that D&D's classic nine-part, Good-Evil/Law-Chaos alignment system is outdated, overly simplistic, restrictive of roleplaying, or just plain bad.  This is not a new complaint - it has been around since the first time a GM who had just learned about moral relativism in his Philosophy 101 class looked at his group's paladin and said, "Well in this country it's illegal to not kill babies.  What are you going to do?"  To this day, there are GMs out there who pull out all the stops to make every paladin fall just because they think Lawful Good is an unattainable alignment.

When you are told, "Here are the nine things you can think.  Have fun roleplaying!", then yes, that seems overly restrictive.  But that view of the alignment system is overly simplistic (Ironic that accusations of being overly simplistic themselves come from an overly simplistic view.  And doubly ironic that I am presenting such a view in an overly simplistic manner.  But let's continue, before I am buried under a pile of my own straw-men).  Alignment is really a two-axis spectrum broken down into nine parts for ease of use.  Different viewpoints are possible within any given alignment, not just between two adjacent alignments.  And it is possible for a Lawful Good character and a Chaotic Good character to see eye-to-eye on a situation, just as it is possible for two Lawful Neutral characters to have completely different takes on the same situation.

It is important to think of the alignment system as descriptive, not proscriptive.  That is, the thoughts and actions of your character define your alignment, your alignment doesn't define the thoughts and actions of your character.  The alignment written on your character sheet is a measure of your character's actions to this point, or perhaps represents the goal that your character strives for.  Furthermore, a character's position on the alignment spectrum is fluid, not fixed.  It is constantly shifting about as he or she makes new decisions, is confronted with new choices, and has moments of introspection.  A Lawful Evil character may slip up with a few Chaotic (or even Good) acts before steering back to LE.  Some of the best roleplaying moments can come from a character's journey through a change in alignment.  After all, what is drama without character development?

d20 Despot Reviews the 5th Edition D&D Basic Ruleset - My Initial Thoughts

Earlier this week, Wizards of the Coast released the Basic Ruleset (a free, watered-down version of the rules) for D&D Next, which they are now just calling D&D, and which I will be calling 5th Edition D&D because - unlike Wizards and Microsoft - I don't like confusing people.  So I have spent several hours badly neglecting my schooling in order to bring you folks my initial reactions to this new official ruleset.

You can download the rules for free here, at Wizards of the Coast's website.  

To make a long story short, it seems fine.  I really want to play it.  But I very much doubt that it will replace Pathfinder as my go-to fantasy RPG.  There are some things that they did really well, like the classes.  There are some things they did poorly too, but those are outnumbered by the things they did that confuse me.  It's a very decent ruleset with a lot of really great pieces in there, but it's not enough to make me abandon my current system yet.

I appreciate that they really tried to tone down the rampant bonus accumulation that plagues D&D/Pathfinder once players hit even moderate power levels; they really bring the focus back to die rolls more than bonus-stacking, which is great.  And they did a lot to simplify things, some of which worked and some of which didn't so much.

Alright, I'm done making long stories short.  Here's the long story, with my remarks presented in no particular order:

2013 Year in Review

Well, 2013 is winding down to a close, which means it's time for every blogger to post a year's-end retrospective, because it is a great thing to do during the holiday season when you are too busy to come up with grand new ideas and your readers are too busy to read them.  I thought I'd give some time to all the RPG-related news and exciting developments that have come across in the last year.  First and foremost:

d20 Despot
Obviously the biggest piece of RPG news this year is the founding of the popular blog d20 Despot, which took the internet world by storm with its first post on April 1st (incidentally, that'll mean that I'll have to whip up some fun stuff every April Fools Day).  The blog seeks to provide interesting perspectives on various aspects of the RPG experience, and especially to freely provide open game content for GMs and players.  Wow, whoever runs the blog must be a really cool and handsome guy!

Editions

My first introduction to D&D was the PC game Baldur's Gate, a truly excellent game based on 2nd Edition AD&D.  Subsequently, I played Icewind Dale, which captured my attention (and heart) by allowing me to create all six members of my adventuring party.  I spent hours creating character after character, party after party ("Ooh, I could make a party based on the Justice League!  Or the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen! or the cast of Farscape!" etc.), all with only the barest of grasps on the underlying mechanics.  I had no idea what 18/00 strength meant, why a warhammer's damage was cryptically listed as "1d4+1," or what in the world THAC0 was.  All I knew was that I needed to slay awesome monsters and acquire a spectacular array of magical items.  I needed to read every book I came across, pick up every gem I found, learn every magical weapon's backstory, and talk to every NPC.  I needed to explore every inch of that world.

Looking back on it now, I'm really surprised it took me so long to get into tabletop RPGs.

Anyways, having been exposed to it before even knowing what D&D was, 2nd edition holds a very special place in my heart/RPG-bookshelf.  Today I thought, seeing as it is relatively early in my time as a blogger (blogist? blogomancer?), that I would talk about the various editions of D&D and what experience I get out of them.  And I guess I thought correctly, because here I am doing just that!