🎭 HaiQ's Table

“I set the stage. You decide how the story unfolds.”

About My DMing Style

• About My Toolkit: Games are played via Voice Chat, and my Virtual Tabletop (VTT) of choice is Owlbear Rodeo.

★・・・・・・★ ⚙️ [General Mechanics] ⚙️ ★・・・・・・★

• The Emphasis Roll: When a player commits to a highly risky, improvised, or dramatic action, I may call for an Emphasis Roll. You will roll twice and take the result furthest from 10. If the chosen roll is 9 or below, it counts as a Critical Failure. If it is 11 or above, it’s a Critical Success. High risk, high reward.

★・・・・・・・★ ⚔️ [Combat Mechanics] ⚔️ ★・・・・・・・★

• Adversity Tokens: Failure is just a stepping stone to success. You gain an Adversity Token each time you miss an attack or fail an ability check/saving throw (Max 5 tokens). You can spend any amount of token to add a +1 to a future attack, check, or save. 
  • Avrae Command: !cc create "Adversity Tokens" -min 0 -max 5 -reset long -resetto 0
• Flanking (Optional): At the start of the game, the party will vote on whether to use the Flanking rule (grants advantage on melee attacks when flanking). If the party votes yes, it'll be turned on, but remember... monsters can flank you, too!

★・・・・・★ ⚠️ [Dynamic Encounters] ⚠️ ★・・・・・★

• Out-of-Turn Actions: Combat is a living, breathing thing. Some creatures may take out-of-turn actions in response to your choices, attacks, or environmental outcomes. These fall outside the usual initiative order and represent sudden reactions or desperate measures. These are used at my discretion to create engaging, cinematic encounters and never to punish the players.

• Telegraphed Attack: Some bosses may have a special ability called a Telegraphed Attack. At the end of the creature’s turn, I will indicate the affected area and describe the incoming attack. The attack occurs at the start of that creature’s next turn. Any creature remaining within the marked area is automatically hit unless the description states another way to avoid it.

• Expanded Ready Action. When you take the Ready action, you may ready an action, bonus action, or movement by describing a perceivable trigger. When that trigger occurs, you may use your reaction to perform what you readied unless it was (only) movement.

  ★・・・・・★ ⚙️ [Miscellaneous] ⚙️ ★・・・・・★

• Fast Play. In combat, please expedite your turn. I'll move on after you've taken your main action. This doesn’t mean I’m skipping or ending your turn! If you need to adjust the last bit of your movement, please do so, only notifying me if there may be something of consequence, such as an attack of opportunity. Quips, above-the-table strategizing, in-game flavor text, please use the session's Discord channel while in combat to facilitate fast play.

• Monster Variants: Just like how not all humans are the same, so are the other species of this world. Monsters on my table may not follow their statblock 1:1, do not metagame. Don't be surprised when creatures are doing something that is 'unexpected'.

• Low PvP Tolerance: I roll with the punches, but I do not tolerate PvPs in my games unless both parties in PvP AND half of the other party members have agreed for it to continue. Someone’s agency is always at risk, be it the players involved, the players who must sit and witness, or me.

• Your Turn, Your Choice. Different strokes for different folks. Not everyone needs to conform to the same playstyle. Keep unsolicited comments, even helpful hints, in the text chat. This is a team game; part of that is communication, and the other part is supporting each other’s autonomy.