I Found One And Probably Only Valid Use Of ChatGPT In TTRPGs: To Translate Contracts From The Breach

tiny adventuring party

POV: kitten

THE BOX BEAST is finally getting painted

I'd like to post more, but I'm stuck in a pile of half finished boxes

how about giving them personal quests that are connected to each other? that gives players an opportunity to offer each other help when they realize that there is a connection. or quests that can be solved using characters' backgrounds or connections. like "oh, we need to track down those stolen goods, isn't one of us actually a former smuggler?" stuff like that it's easier to do in the beginning of campaign, but can be done in the middle as well also since it's ttrpg newbies we are talking about, I think it's worth noting that not all players even enjoy roleplaying character bonds and all that. People can still have a lot of fun and be active in a story while having a vaguest idea of what makes them to do it together. new players and GMs often get their idea of what d&d is from there, but it's far from the only way to play and not the only valid one.

what I'm trying to say with it is - if you try all the advice and still can't push some of the players in the direction that you want them to go, don't feel discouraged. it doesn't necessarily mean that you did a bad job as a GM. it could mean that they are looking for their style of TTRPG and this is simply not it. I saw countless players who came into the hobby from critical role only to discover that they actually don't enjoy being in character, or actually doing character development rather then watching it. all they want is to be plopped into a dungeon with minimal context and die a thousand funny deaths. or maybe they want to participate in a campaign where everyone have developed proper character bonds and all that, but want to be that guy who just tugs along and lockpicks locks for all those fancy roleplaying people. as long as everyone is having fun it's actually a valid option too. it's more of a tangent than an advice on the given topic, but.. yeah.

Fellow DND / ttrpg enthusiasts

I'm currently running my first campaign in DND 5e and have now encountered the problem that the party doesn't seem to be bonding naturally.

Does anyone have recommendations or prompts what I could implement in the session to make their characters open up a bit, or warm up to one another?

I abandoned the idea of taking commissions a while back, because every time I tried it just fucked me up psychologically. But I really should have been working on my online brand as an artist anyway.. Because right now a couple of emergency commissions could literally save my life, but I have no followers to sell them to.

Well. If I survive this it's going to be a life lesson. If you have a half-decent skill at your disposal - better don't let it get rusty and know how to quickly monetize it if everything else fails.

I dreamed that I was writing an adventure for Delta Green. Or rather, running it, improvising as I went. There was a scene where a character (a child) is sneaking around an empty school, because there is a monster on the second floor of the school. The kid doesn't know it yet, but the monster is a bunch of people stuck together in a slimy heap. He only knows about the monster because of the sounds it makes - like someone slapping a wet mop on the floor.

The school is empty because there is a September 1st assembly going on outside the school. I have no idea if they do something like this in the US, but it was ambiguous whether the adventure was taking place somewhere in the former USSR or somewhere else. It could have been any other event that required all the students to be gathered outside.

There was a clue that the history teacher was telling the kids how before WWII Germany hired people in the USSR for sabotage and they had a secret sign to identify each other - a coin. And he showed this coin. It and the monster were somehow connected. And the child was trying to decide - either to use something from the chemistry class to try to defeat the monster, or not to approach it at all, find a coin and run.

At the same time, another character, also a child, was riding a train and trying to figure out how to send her mother a text message so that she would think it was from her father, who was now on an expedition at a polar station.

Unfortunately I don't know what the context was, but in the dream I really enjoyed watching the player figure out how to do it from a child's point of view.

Fay creature process

Forgot to post it here