They’ll really freak out when the fifth sock pops up.

Ah, we meet again, Drrrggt Do'Footden.

That's great, I think you've made it impossible for your players to forget the characters

A lot of the time ears like that come in a pack with multiple sets.

The third drow was the only true drow since they were the only under-elf

I think the duality of man shines through in both directions on this one

I'm just curious how many sets of elf ears you have to own to just start glueing them onto your socks.

That is the opposite of dumb!

This is fucking genius!

Bardiac Arrest is my new nickname for Power Word: Kill.

Somehow I read "bardiac arrest"

Don't ask me how or why

That's awesome!

If you were neutral you could probably offer your services to the family of any deceased enemies that you may or may not have had a hand in.

Going to play a necromancer in our next campaign. The twist is he's a happy little lawful good halfling. Goes around performing funeral, death and undeath services!

As my old man used to say, "it's better to be used than to be useless".

Glad I'm not the only one that went there

Just don't be a goose that can't cackle. Be both the gnarled tree and the silent goose chosen for dinner.

Be both useful & useless, without being either, or be both. A river freezes in winter, flows in spring and runs backwards sometimes after an earthquake. Dao can also spell Ado. Such is the art of confusion. Goodbye & hello.

or a Necrophiliac...

Be Zhuangzi's useless tree. Too gnarled for the carpenters to cut down.

I dm a group I specifically started on the premise of "I will use every rule and sub-system to make this harder for you." It fucking sucks for the PCs – constant exhaustion; tracking food, water, weight; the whole shebang. Campaign is set in the desert, so obviously they can't cast "Create water" – where would be the fun in that? I have permission to kill off PCs if they fuck up or just happen to die in combat. The encounters are tough as nails. I could make them harder by playing the enemies like I would in a TT wargame, but I mostly roleplay appropriate behavior. If I did try, I could probably wipe them, or at least one or two, with almost every encounter.

They all love it. All of them are experienced players, though. I wouldn't put new players through this absolute wood chipper.

Wow thanks for the detailed write up. It sounds like a really fun and well thought out way to play. I will definitely steal parts of it for a future campaign :D

I tried mazes in sessions, but it always felt a bit arbitrary as they would just say “we hug the left wall”. Was the maze shifting? How was it describes?

the maze was not shifting, but it also wasn't a true maze in the sense that there was one continuous wall with no gaps. (IE following a single wall would lead to walking the same loop.) The maze's gaps were constructed such that doing so would keep you in whatever ring you were in.

the maze itself was static, but that didn't really matter cuz they suck at making their own maps. (or note taking in general. I record the audio of each session and give them speech-to-text transcripts that they never look at unless I give them a very good reason to.)

The maze was essentially broken into rooms (even if I described it as a continuous hallway,) Each section of the maze constituting we use oldschool dungeon turns for non-combat (which is about ten minutes) when exploring dungeons, and each section is the area they can technically cover in a single dungeon turn.

Theres a few general actions they could take-

1. explore.
2. pass through.
3. rest.
4. combat.

exploring might come up with loot of some type- health potions, useful items. maybe gold (which could be used at the start of the next session for better starting gear.) or scrolls and stuff. Maybe they find interesting wayfinding symbols that lead them into traps. (yeah. I'm not that nice. There's no treasure without risk.) (mostly there isn't treasure.)

Passing through gets you into the next section.

resting got a bit wonky and needed some tweaking between sessions, but it was a very short rest- dungeon turns are about ten minutes of in-game time where a short rest is about 1 hour and a long rest is at least 8 hours. we essentially settled on getting 2 actions/spellslots that would reset on short rest, or one long-rest spell slot instead.

Combat is, well. self explanatory, except we used some 'expedited' combat turns. It was very fast paced combat so we didn't get too bogged down in it. (the murder hobo loved this.) Because it was basically one player against my cohort of NPCs, so there didn't need to be a lot of conversation or table talk. it was easy to keep the dice rolling, so to speak.

it needs to also be said that there different things that could trigger a combat. the center of the labyrinth was a boss that was ultimately unbeatable. (though the bard made the best go of it, managing to seduce the poisonous plague slime... he died from around 36 new and interesting diseases and 28 different kinds of poison.)

there were the roving patrols that were moving along a path I could see (and there was an awareness check whenever they got close to the PC. the roving patrols were actually the most dangerous, largely because they would come in as you were finishing up the last combat and such like. These were the gladiators (complete with the excessive muscles, spandex and sock-improved mooseknuckles. we're never going to forget the moment the Murder Hobo asked why they always had an extra pair of socks...)

the goal, is to keep moving and stay away from the roving pats, trigger enough combat rounds that you kept yourself up in gear, rest enough to keep your action economy viable and do everything in your power to stay out of the center room. And then there were the random encounters.

Hoe did the randomness of the labyrinth work?

so, to preface this, they didn't know how the mechanics worked at the start. they had sending stones that characters could use to talk to other characters- and incidentally the gladiators, some of whom were in with them. Not that they knew they were gladiators... they presented themselves initially as other contestants. During rests and exploration, they would be free to talk with whoever. If they said something 'I just passed an ugly sphinx statue!', the gladiators would, for example, know where they were and try to find them. the gladiators would, on occasion tell them things. give them advice. (sometimes, it was even good advice.)

they had to build their map as they went, and they could only see the current status of the section they were in, and the roving patrols were liable to move traps around just for the fun of it.

each dungeon turn, I would roll an encounter check. a nat 1 would trigger an encounter. the outer-most ring would use a d20. then inwards from there, a d12, d8, d6, d4 and d2. if nat1 was rolled, then I would roll a d20 with a list of potential encounters. (this was described as being portalled into the labyrinth on top of them.) if, lets say we had a sixteen and they had already had that encounter, they'd go down the list until an encounter they hadn't had. If they were clear through to 20, it comes back to the start. if they had 20 encounters.

Each encounter was difficult enough that not using spell slots liberally was a risk. If you went past 10 turns, the gladiators would hear the fighting and come towards you. All. of the gladiators, except the center boss room.

the goal was to survive each sessions as long as possible, winning entailed being the last one standing.

as far as how I actually described the labrynth itself, the walls were largely uniform, though there might be the occasional pictograms or wayfinding markers or other puzzles for them to play with. (including a few that were just there to waste time. like giant rotary abacuses, or one that was described as a caledescope that you'd have to look into and align the gaps. it would then tattoo "idiot" on their forehead one letter at a time. those were 'align the disk' like puzzles they got to work on, on their own.)

the floor changed, on occasion, from being 'sandy' to some kind of flagstone, to tiled mosaics, to quick sand. the walls were tall enough to avoid letting them misty step or whatever out.

That is a really awesome premise! Hoe did the randomness of the labyrinth work? I tried mazes in sessions, but it always felt a bit arbitrary as they would just say "we hug the left wall". Was the maze shifting? How was it describes?

Well. The flavor wasn't entirely "war" per se, but the the campaign was pitched as a season of American Gladiator meets the Minotaur of Crete's Labyrinth. Each session was a one shot with the goal of getting and living for as long as you can. The winner is the last person standing. Each session, they got to start over with everything.

they had draw their own maps. There was fog of war. there were patrols moving about and the potential for random encounters (the random encounters were triggered based on a dice roll- a d20 for the outer rings, and a d2 for the inner most ring. a second d20 determinted what they were facing... if the encounter had already been rolled, it goes to the next) they had some sending stones so they could talk to the others... including other competitors... (or so the announcer told them at any rate.)

they started off the labyrinth with a very restrictive amount of gold each session, and had to buy their starting gear, or rely on drops. weapons and such also had durability so they couldn't just evade combat in the outer rings.

it was fun. it was chaotic. it was entertaining.

Yeah, it looks like sloppy shit and devalues your labor. Would rather your sketches over the nightmare fuel crap. You could probably find an artist to make it for real for less than $100 and help out a fellow artist in a time of ai crap. Plus, it'd make your product look like it took the actual effort it took.