If you are a new GM/DM, play the first few hours of Baldur's Gate 3 when it comes out. It gives a near _perfect_ tutorial on how to get a game going. First "level" is linear to setup the story, then the 2nd part you have a clear goal but there are like 6 completely different ways to accomplish it, then you get a settlement and you get given clues and hints on how to solve the underlying, main issue and depending on what you choose it can send you in wildly different directions. It's so well done.

I do quick time events, where something dangerous and dramatic happens, time slows down for the targeted player, and they have 1 minute of real time to do something to counteract it. The events are always bespoke, and designed to be thwarted by at least 1 spell/ability the player has, but I also reward creative and unexpected approaches. The situation is presented as dangerous, but the actual point is to give the PC a little moment of impressive-ness, especially if the player has been dealing with shitty roles. The event typically forgos the need for rolls, or for 100% mechanical accuracy, since the point is to promote some creativity, fast thinking, and a badass moment.

Mechanically, what I've done is basically "A room of one's own". I've sprinkled notable people into adventurers that can become residents of your keep. Not only do the players get a home, the residents become a yearbook of their adventures and a reminder of the impact they're having on the world. It would add a layer of complexity, but now I'm taken with the idea of combining the two. The keep alone being suitable for low-to-mid level bonuses and the keep with residents being for mid-to-high level bonuses. Benefits come for building a greenhouse, but if an Alchemist works in your greenhouse they might produce alchemical items that don't exist elsewhere like tanglefoot bags (seriously, why don't those exist in 5e???). A Druid can move in and make discounted healing salves and other consumables. That blacksmith you saved from that bandit raid might come to be the ferrier in your stables or they work in your forge producing well tailored weapons that are easier to use.

Making a high hp monster that is a slog normally into a multi stage boss at maybe every quarter or third of it's hp sounds like a great idea

In the spell jammer game I run, their pilot is a young red dragon that considers the ship her lair. The more treasure they have in the hold, tge stronger she is and the more bonuses they have in ship to ship combat.

Small thing from RE4, where you gather the sellable items, but some of them can be combined to make an item that is worth more than the sum of its parts. That could work for treasure but also maybe for magic items. You find a ruby that can cast fire ball once a day and an empty ring that gives you fire resistance for one minute, but combine them, and you can summon a fire elemental to be in your service.

I have something that was inspired by Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's Nemesis mechanic, but ended up not particularly resembling it in the end. Basically instead of the players hunting down the people who killed them, they are hunted down by an assassin. As they get stronger, and foil more plans, the actual big bad guys start paying more attention to them. And they start creating more powerful and more specialized undead to hunt the party down (or hiring assassins/summoning demons/whatever). It is only one guy, but he's been specifically designed (within limits) to take the party down. Usually I make the "nemesis" as a PC with one extra over the players for every 5 levels the players have. And he doesn't care about winning the fight, just killing them, so he's totally fine jumping the backline caster and then running away after. And if they can turn the tables and get the assassin, there's a real good chance it's got some decent gear on them. I like this a lot because it creates a real incentive to not blast through all their abilities every fight and then try to debate me into exhaustion for a long rest (Long rest? No problem. I'm sure you'll be fine not wearing your armor for 8 hours). Now, players are telling the cleric "I don't need healing just yet, save your spell slots in case that jerk shows up again." It also lets me occasionally use more ruthless tactics against the party in a way that feels fair to them.

Something that the Warhammer Fantasy TTRPG does is have the players make short and long term goals for their characters. Achieving a goal gets a little extra XP.

Man, every time I hear those gears turning in your intro, I think my cat is yelling at me from the other room. As for what I've stolen, I'll give full credit to "Trekiros - Game Changer" and say that reskinning iconic FPS maps into battlemaps has been a huge success. Giving players multiple lanes of approach, with varying levels of safety and reward, turns a typical "storming the walls" scene into something much more tactical and fun.

I loved how characters could keep fighting (all be it less effectively) when they were on death saves in darkest dungeon. So I added a rule where if characters hit 0 hit points they can either get the basic death save mechanic, but drop unconscious, Or keep on fighting, but with a much harsher death mechanic, to represent that their injuries are getting worse by pushing on.

For "Remember Me" I would replace that with "Snap Out of It" where you spend a bonus action and you immediately make a saving throw against a condition affecting your bonded friend. Failure or success nobody takes any damage or anything for it, but on a success, your friend is treated as if they had just succeeded (usually ending the effect, except for things like Petrified or Dying).

So when I played pillars of eternity I thought "oh this is like dnd but better" and it has loads of stuff to steal for your games. But then when I saw a talk by josh sawyer, the lead designer basically saying poe was his personal rework of dnd it made alot of sense, but also he made a ttrpg alpha of poe in his spare time (available for free on the poe wiki), which had loads of fire ideas! And saved me a bunch of time 😂

wildermyth has the exact rivalry mechanic you mentioned, it's very good if you haven't checked it out

00:46 Multi-Stage Combat 03:46 Three Wings 06:42 Character Bonds 10:16 Achievement Milestones

I made a 'Book of Faces' for my kids' campaign. Large leather bound tome that attunes to a player (Not in a game mechnaic way, just their face appears embossed on the cover) that can be left with the player's loved ones back home. Noteable events from the player's adventure magically appear in the book when it is opened. Complete with sketches and notes, so those back home know where the players are and what is happening in their lives. Kids found it very funny.

When she said you can add 3 wings to your home, I immediately thought I'd rather have 2 wings and a tail, so it can fly better. House of the Dragon indeed.

An idea I like from a game called fear and hunger is that different limbs of a boss or creature have different turns and abilities but cutting them off mean the boss can't use them anymore and do combos, for example taking out the legs of a giant gives u advantage on its head, this could of course be adjusted for what u needed

Matt Colville says stealing's okay, Dael Kingsmill says stealing's okay, so ski mask my face and call me a larceny

Great video! I love the idea of customizing a stronghold! Maybe have n-1 number of areas to upgrade, where n is number of players. That way at least 2 party members could compromise or start a rivalry.

Dael videos always spark joy 😌 I love the shopkeeper repeat checkpoint concept. Definitely adding to my next campaign, since our current one is almost over!

In a game called Wildermyth (would recommend), there's something like that relationship perk system where you get different perks based on if it's a friendship, romance or rivalry. Friendship gives a chance at a defence bonus (got your back!), romance gives bonus damage against anyone who hurts your lover (lovers vengeance), and rivalry gives a bonus to stunts if your rival gets a stunt before you can (oh yeah? Watch this!). Each bonus scales with the degree of the relationship.

Personally, I love running Books in my campaigns. Not really a rob off a game, but: Spend a long rest to read a chapter. Once you complete the book (like 3-5 chapters) you get inspired! As well as some kind of perk from the book (you can have a number of these perks equal to your Int mod, min 1). As a DM, I also use these books to sprinkle in lore that the player has earned. The perks aren't super powerful, maybe a skill proficiency, language, tool, new spell added to your list, learning a martial maneuver, dealing an extra d4 damage against {creature type}, some feats (Healer/Chef/Eldritch Adept "hehe spooky"). They're just a very versatile tool.

Something a bunch of games have done is have big fights where one entity is represented by like multiple pools of hit points and abilities. When fighting constructs, or abominations with weird biology, I like to split the creature's total hit points and give different limbs or attachments their own hit points. I run a very pulpy adventure that's in a sort of an early industrial steampunk version of fantasy Egypt, and the players can eventually fight a giant mechanical scorpion as the title match in a coliseum. The scorpion has a tail, two pincers, and a head, each with their own hit point pools. The fight starts off difficult, with the scorpion having a bunch of actions, reactions, and legendary actions that give it tool for everything the players throw at it. But if they're tactical and focus their attacks at the left pincer for instance, the scorpion loses its Acid Spray legendary action for the rest of the fight. It can be fun for me too, figuring out how the scorpion changes its own tactics as it loses limbs. When they destroy all the limbs, the fight is over! Just keep the limb's hp reasonable and it can make for a dynamic fight that doesn't last much longer than a normal boss fight.

KZfaq says Dael uploaded a new video, and I click. First of all, you're great and super creative and I love these videos where you're just dumping thoughts. Two, your video editor is killing it. That "Vague & Evocative" graphic at 6:31 was on point.

Love the bonded and rivals- that's a very cool idea. As well as the 2nd phase of a fight. Not from video games - but I steal a lot from books and comics. My favorite plot-line I stole was to have a friend come in for the final three sessions as a child of one of the characters from the future, who has time-traveled back numerous times to prevent a particular future and each time has learned more about what she needs to specifically do to avoid her future but this is the last time she can travel back. She got to say so many ominous things from other potential futures. Mash up of Back to the Future and Middle-Game (great book highly recommend.)

The river flows!

You know, it isn't exactly the same, but the X-Com relationship action reminded me of the game I just started replaying Dragon Quest 9 and that game's Coup de grâce system. For those who haven't played it: Based on certain triggers, (ie losing a large chunk of health from one hit or doing a ton of damage stuff like that) a party member might get the chance to do a special move called a coup de grâce (which in spite of the name isn't always a damaging finishing move) things like: • Drastically increasing your evasion for a few turns (Minstrel) • Healing everyone in the party and removing all negative effects (Priest) • Next few turns all your spells and abilities cost zero MP (Mage) • Guaranteed critical hit (Warrior) The catch being that a: you don't know when you will get to use these abilities and b: you only have a few turns to use it or you miss your chance and it's gone. They are powerful abilities, but those restrictions force you to think on your feet. And there's another factor, if one or more party members are holding on to a coup de grâce charge the rest of the party's chances of getting one go up a little bit and if everyone uses a coup de grâce at the same time you get a Co-op de grâce where as a group you can do massive damage in one attack or become completely invincible for a few turns. But like I said, after a few turns you miss your chance Right now I'm not entirely sure how I'd port this to DnD, but I feel like there's definitely potential here

I stole potion-making from the Octopath alchemist class, where you have two categories of potion ingredients (a base and an herb), and different combinations make different types of potions. This lets the players harvest a variety of ingredients during their travels and discover new potions when they find a new combo.

I love the achievement idea, i think id do a gold amount for the shopkeepers regulars bonus, or 10 unique higher value items, cause theres a big difference between a party clearing you out of your entire monthly magic items stock in a day or two every time theyre in town, VS if someone comes into your shop to buy a cup of sugar once in a while, youre gonna be familiar and friendly with both cause they come in often, but youre probably gonna want to make sure the big buyers keep coming back by giving some perks. the bonds and rivalries are really incredible as well, i love the idea of a team working for so long together that they have battle tactics that work for them, that arent rooted in their own knowledge of combat, but in their knowledge of their party members and how they fight, and how they can best defend or support the other while fighting together. I feel that should be like, an actual part of the core rules. Especially the ones for rivalries, which, while flavoured to be spiteful, are actually super helpful to the other player, meaning you get the sweet taste of characters hating each other, but not the bitter bite of the players getting frustrated at each other. also, your hair is gorgeous in this video

One of the ideas I stole was similar to your idea of small customizations. I give "level up paths" for homebrew magic items, where after a certain amount of experience attuned, that item can gain one enchantment of the player's choice from a list of two or three. Often they're just reskinned versions of feats or spells or whatever, but they are often very fun!

my go to is always Telegraphing. i ran LMOP for two players and while they did get some NPCS some of those fights are hard, like the flame skulls can just oneshot you all with fireball, or the green dragon fight, so i describe the dragon taking a huge deep breath the round before the breath weapon, or the flameskull building up a charge of fire in front of it, just to let them know "hey, this might suck if you dont do something"

WOW, your videos have always been wonderful but the new editing style adds so much! Well done :)

In my "Unrest" campaign, I borrowed the idea of accolades from the old MMO "City of Heroes" (similar to achievements in World of Warcraft). The party discovered an old dwarven journal describing the Hochburg Pilgrimage, a series of tasks honoring the heroes of the ancient city of Hochburg. This involved visiting three statues to these heroes in the Underdark, dropping a coin in the wishing well at the entrance to the city, and winning a battle in the city arena. As a reward, the party received a boon from the dwarven gods that included a Constitution buff, proficiency in the History skill, and the ability to speak Dwarf. As each of these tasks were mini adventures unto themselves, these rewards were well earned.

Im seriously impressed with the production value in this video! The better editing and graphics are super helpful for your points and overall you feel more scripted and crisp!

Ever since playing Suikoden a thousand years ago, I've always loved the idea of a home base with significant people you've met/saved/worked with/etc. some can go with you, some do other benefits to the home base. My P2e group had an Abomination Vaults game going as an alternative game if someone couldn't make it. We each have two characters and a "base" in town, so each game (i.e. each dive into Abom Vaults) can have a totally different character loadout and balance depending on who's playing, and we can have any of the crew back home do stuff for downtime like craft stuff, do big knowledge checks, make income, interact with any of the NPCs that have joined the ranks in any way, etc. And that interaction can include investing in any local shop or service to improve it. It's like a cool party select screen depending on who's playing and what unique skills you want to utilize as downtime and in play respectively.

I loooooooove rebellion stories and did one for my first campaign. I was inspired by Dragon Age Inquisition where you're building this force of different groups united by a single cause. So I had my players go around the map and recruit different factions, using roleplay encounters and the different factions they succeeded in recruiting added unique bonuses or troops to the final battle. Like for instance they recruited these elves who used these attack on Titan style grappling hook contraptions and in the final battle they had them to be able to scale the walls of the city and even had them scout for healing potions in the evacuated buildings. Super fun

Al Gore Rythm is the bane of our existence! :O I love you, I love the dance at the beginning, I love the limited options thing!

I swear at this point I should just get "Vague & Evocative" tattooed on my body.

My player, noticing me make an annotation for my completely benign achievement: "So what was that?" Me: "That? Don't worry about it. So you are going to ask a question to the innkeeper, right?" Player, with eyes wide open: "Yeah, but from the door. Is there a table or something I can flip and hide behind? Just in case."

Active Initiative!!! Games like FF7 Remake have the feature where you can switch allies at any time, and I never liked Initiative anyway. So I found an OSR way of Initiative that reminds me a lot of FF7! How it works: Everyone rolls Initiative, only whoever rolls the highest matters here. Everyone (including enemies) gets 1 Token (we use little cowboy hats). Person #1 goes, attacks Enemy #1 and kills him. Person #1 now gets to choose who goes next (usually an ally). Person #2 attacks Enemy #2, Enemy #2 lives, and because of that they now get to "Jump In" and declare they get to go after this Person #2, because they took damage. Enemy #2 goes, and play keeps going until everyone has taken a turn, and whoever goes last gets to choose who goes first next round (so there's a little benefit to going last). After everyone has gone, new round starts, and everyone gets their Token back. I've ran this several times now, and it's been great! It's way more engaging, and players can coordinate way more.

After playing a bunch of "Where the water tastes like wine" I've heavily pushed the idea of sharing stories around a campfire at each rest. I've implemented a standard deck of cards reading where the player's story primer is based on what they got dealt. Each suit would house the general vibe of the story: Hearts - affection and warmth, Diamonds - greed or riches, Spades - deception and drama, Clubs - grief or death. As well as tiny, unique modifiers based on the faces or numbers. I may not use it as often as I did back in the day, but it sure has to open up my players to storytelling, discovering their immersion and more.

Inspired by the custom wing system based on Skyrim, I just started working on how to make customizable camps based on the gang camp in RDR2, right now I’m splitting things into four categories: Needs, Utilities, Stashes, and Chores. The needs are required, and can lead to major consequences if not met, things like food, water and shelter, but also thinks about clothes and warmth and protection. Utilities are not required and is where the customization comes in, it can be things like horses or games or whatever else someone might add to their camp, non-essentials that can provide some benefit. Stashes are what they sound like, it’s the supplies that can be stored long term, like firewood or clothes or ammunition. Chores are the things that need to be done to support the camp, and more specifically, the things that need to be done to tend to the camp’s needs and utilities. It can be hunting and gathering, chopping wood, guard duty, feeding chickens and collecting eggs, whatever needs to get done. TO BE CLEAR: It is assumed that these are being taken care of during downtime, the players do not have to state what they are doing, though I do suggest having players decide who does what chores. The reason it matters is so that as the DM you can choose to make something go wrong, the horses get spooked and run off, a coyote manages to nab a chicken, whoever was hunting came back empty handed, something that makes the players need to improvise and correct for something. I’m thinking about using a “chaos” system like from Triangle Agency, make it so when players fail a roll it creates a point of chaos that goes into a pool that the DM can spend on effects, for 5 chaos a bear wanders into camp, for 20 a blizzard hits just as they run out of firewood (though have it be a bit more broad for what you’re spending on, 1 chaos can be a minor inconvenience, 2 chaos could be a utility chore failure, 5 for a need chore failure, 10 for a minor problem, 15 for a major problem, 20 for a catastrophe). The other part of this is the customization, talk with players about what they want in the camp and the responsibilities therein, it’s basically the same as the wing system Dael came up with, but I do have one optional part. I think it might be good to allow one utility per two people in camp, that way the camp can’t just be huge and emphasizes that it takes or to manage the camp, only being able to support as much as the people in the camp can manage, failure to manage some situations can lead to problems in others, if you don’t have food for yourself you probably don’t have food for your horses, for example. I don’t have a good system for the stashes yet, so ideas would be appreciated. VERY work in progress, let me know what y’all think.

Love these ideas! For my game, I've borrowed from Cyberpunk is the idea of the players balancing their character's sanity and slide into psychosis. I start with the idea that magic is a dangerous thing to wield in general. Everyone gets a Sanity stat, and failing a save against a spell or magic effect (or ineffectively casting a spell) drives your character closer to becoming insane. As the damage adds up on their psyche, the begin hearing whispers, seeing things that "aren't real", etc. Eventually, they learn to listen to the voices (learn the language of the Elder Ones), and if they get to their last Sanity Point, they get a NEW character sheet several levels over their current one with a whole bunch of cool abilities as they become a conduit for the eldritch. But, if they go to 0, they enter a sort of psychosis and have to be put down by the party. It's become a great way for me to add deep lore and let the players play with a knife edge mechanic.

I've always want to implement some kind of teamwork-based attack between bonded party members, kind of like what you might see in the Avengers... The ranger shoots an arrow at the bad guy, and then the wizard uses her reaction to set the arrow on fire mid-flight. Or the halfling braces and holds out both swords as the barbarian picks him up and chucks him at the dragon.

Love to see the Angry GM's Bifurcated Snake get some recognition! Almost nostalgic, Angry's articles and Colville's videos made me the DM I am today.

I ran a frostpunk inspired campaign where the players had to decide what to prioritize when gathering resources to help a city survive. They could choose to go hunting for food or protecting lumberers while they vathered wood, etc etc. And every decision they made would bring benefits on one hand and detrimento on others. I love these City management mechanics, specially in frostpunk where these decisions can be letal.

The campaign fell apart (stupid busy life) but planned on a boss battle where the BBEG got a giant construct/mech that the party would have to climb and fight like Shadow of the Colossus. I didn't work out all of the details but I imagined some holding on mechanic (maybe their Con mod in "grip HP" and failing a strength save loses points. Sacrificing movement or action to recover Grip) I also planned on telegraphing danger areas when the colossus would swing it's arms to try and crush the party hanging on it's body. My plan for the battlemap would be a series is slices. (Lower leg, upper leg, lower torso, etc) Also planned on turrets that can be destroyed but don't really hurt the boss, and nodes that need to be destroyed to open up the cockpit

I played in a pathfinder campaign set in the Elder Scrolls setting where we got set bonuses for armor like in an MMORPG. The GM gave us the list of set bonuses ahead of time so we knew which set we wanted, and we had some opportunities to spend gold to upgrade certain pieces into specific set pieces to help the process.

Slay The Spire has some really cool enemy design that I’ve converted indirectly into 5e statblocks, like combining the exploding sentry and the cultist to make an enemy that progressively gets stronger but after a certain amount of turns, it explodes, dealing damage all around it (the 5e monster charges itself up with psychic energy, doing more damage, but after 3 turns it’s too much and it’s head explodes)

For the "only I'm allowed to kill you" idea, maybe just advantage to medicine checks or a bonus to healed amount when the rival's HP is below their hit die.

When Baldur's Gate 3 introduces the idea that 2 PCs next to each other in the initiative order can choose how they order their actions together, I thought right away of borrowing that for my campaign. Granted, the Baldur's Gate franchise is pretty low hanging fruit for this topic since it's a modified TTRPG in the first place.

In the 5e game I'm running, we've taken a page out of Monster Hunter's book with crafting from monster remains. One of my players made a habit of harvesting monster parts from any big fight, and to simplify things I just have them bring the parts to a city where an NPC can be commissioned to craft. They suggest what type of thing they want (weapon, armor, potion, but not too specific), and I base the item's form and abilities off of the parts/monster. I especially like attaching an action/bonus action that mimics one of the monster's legendary actions. Offloading the specifics of a crafting system to the DM has a lot of benefits. 1) It's an asynchronous process, as commissions take time, so I can think about what's being crafted between sessions. 2) I get an excuse to come up with ridiculous homebrew items. 3) I can make sure I create a bespoke item that suits at least one party member and will be relevant to the campaign. 4) No fiddling about with fine-grained inventory management/bookkeeping. 5) It's like a slot machine, players don't know exactly what they're getting and it's fun to see their reactions when I share the item stat block the next week. 6) I like storied items with lore behind them, and this system leads to unique items with an origin story that can persist in my setting long beyond any PC's possession of them. A few examples: Behir scale handwraps that give monks lightning punches. Chimera hide armor that offers fire resistance. Boots that grant the wearer the ability to leap towards an attacker as a reaction under certain conditions (which the monster could do as a legendary reaction, based on your fire drake homebrew). A displacer beast themed morning star that gives a stacking -1 penalty (lasts 1 round) to enemies every time it is swung as an attack.

i would give the whole world to have the moment when a boss says "i've given thee courtesy enough." and just goes absolute ham sammich on the players.

"Engagement is very important ... for the algorithm" Probably the best thing I've borrowed was a mashup. In a Star Frontiers game I had an Ent-like being (LotR) that lived in a glade in the agrarian dome of a spaceship (Silent Running) who was also essentially a Jedi Master (I'm not going to insult anyone by informing them where Jedi come from).

My favorite thing from video games to add to my TTRPG is literal quest lines/rewards. It's really just codifying things the players should be taking notes on, but I have a system that identifies all of the quests and personal tasks of PCs, lists the reward(s), and lists the next step in the quest/task, with a brief description of what has occurred on this plot line so far. It is hugely beneficial for my players to keep all of their goals in mind and tracking their own progress, while also foretelling what their reward(s) will be.

A thing I just stole from video games in my recent session is the chill, low-stakes side quest. I personally love when I'm playing a game and have a well-written side quest that involves no combat, just helping out a person with something low-stakes and fun. For example the mayoral election in the new Zelda game. So my players just arrived in a new city and I wanted to do the classic quest noticeboard, one of the things I put on there was a notice about a lost cat. My players decided to look for the cat, and went through the side quest continually waiting for the other shoe to drop, using divine sense on the questgiver, debating whether the cat was going to turn out to be a displacer beast or to have been eaten by some monster, etc. Nope, they just met a quintessential cat lady who deeply loved her cat Mrs Mittens (probably their favourite NPC of mine so far, really leaned into the kitsch house decor and her total devotion to her pet), looked for Mrs Mittens in a harbor warehouse district, and found her in a warehouse in a box with a new litter of kittens which they delivered back to an overjoyed owner of now 9 cats. They absolutely loved it.

Mode of battle changed with some Blink Dogs when the party realized the dogs were hungry... it led to a dark turn of events. XD

I used the Fascination and Dread sanity mechanic from Cultist Simulator in an RPG I ran. One character contracted Fascination (from contact with an occult artifact) which manifested itself as mania, but then contracted Dread (from a different occult artifact) which neutralized the Fascination and itself. (yes, this character was entertainingly unwise in their handling of hazardous magical objects)

The 'Only I Get to Kill You' rival-bond ability is fun, but could be watered down: Maybe the unconscious player auto-succeeds a death save instead of regaining 1 hp. Or either rival can heal additional hitpoints to the other if they use a healing action. Anyway, love the idea!

Ideas to steal from Videogames: Loot boxes and Battle Passes. I am making so much money now with my DnD groups :D

I've taken a lot of inspiration from video games for my D&D games over the years, and actually have implemented a couple of things you brought up in this video too. I'm also a big fan of multi-stage boss fights, so I had a fight once where the party was up against an evil paladin necromancer with a few thralls. The thralls could be killed, but once the paladin's hp hit 0, he healed for half of his hp and revived all of his thralls, which each got a little bonus, and it was a really satisfying fight for the players. Currently I'm also running a seafaring campaign where the party is collecting crew members that each offer different bonuses and services, with the option to upgrade their ship too. We're still pretty early on, but I've got a lot of plans for upgrading the hull, weapons, and facilities that they can choose from to really make the ship their own, and it even gives them a nice way to dump excess gold. A lot of the npcs they've been recruiting are also acting as trainers, with the party studying under them to gain new proficiencies. They don't have a healer at the moment, so the monk is studying natural magic with the druid they've brought on so they can eventually multiclass, and the fighter is helping out on the deck to try and work toward proficiency with nautical vehicles. One thing I actually kind of want to steal too is Elden Ring's ash of war system, or at least something kind of similar, where you can attach mundane maneuvers to mundane weapons. A couple of the more simple ones I was considering are things like Spinning Slash to give your weapon attacks cleave for a round, Perseverance for a slight AC boost and a little damage reduction, or Impaling Strike to negate the AC bonus provided by shields. Of course there would be some kind of restriction on their use or resource that went along with it, but I think it'd be a neat way to give martial characters some cool new stuff to mix things up, and even make weapons feel more fun for non-martial characters. It could be argued that magic items can fill the same niche, but I always liked the idea of having warriors that didn't rely too heavily on magic and fought just with their own martial prowess. It's just really cool flavor to me, and it could even help to differentiate some of the more same-y martial weapons from each other. Lots of weapons with the heavy property deal 1d12 damage, but should you take the greataxe to cleave through hordes of weak enemies, or the pike to skewer through shields? Idk, just feels like it would make weapon choice matter a bit more than just "do I want a strength or dex weapon?"

I added Final Fantasy's blue magic to a campaign (when affected by a monster ability like an Umber Hulk's Confusing Gaze, the player makes a check to possibly learn that ability). I also made a combo attack system for players to use and a side quest inspired by The Goose from Untitled Goose Game. Glad to see so many other people coming up with fun ideas to steal!

One thing I want to try for D&D or Pathfinder is a Milestone-Plus system based on the leveling system in Kingdom Hearts 2. Basically, finishing major story archs give you "bonus" milestone levels, while you gain EXP by interacting with and learning more about the setting and NPCs. This allows you to create an adventure in advance with a minimum level in mind, but also throw in some secrets that may require higher level skills and abilities while rewarding setting interaction.

One thing I kind of want to implement from Hollow Knight is the idea of coming across a master warrior, who can teach a character a combat trick. Something outside the normal class-based powers, that you can't just learn from leveling up. You have to be _taught_ how to do it (or teach yourself, possibly from downtime activity or a major story event). It's not a given, but a reward for adventuring. Some party members get new powers from finding magic items. The party Monk or Fighter might get new powers from learning some martial arts or weapon technique from a reclusive master. This is something the GLOG (Goblin Rules of Gaming) kind of flirted with in its core rules (the idea that you get the core of your class's "kit" up front, but everything else must be acquired through adventuring), but never really explored. I think it's an underutilized mechanic. Encouraging the players to seek out greater power, rather than passively receiving it just for showing up to the game. Make the players WANT to interact with the world and discover its secrets. Hunt down leads of hidden masters or forgotten lore.

After each Bad guy my players have killed, they collected a little trophy, A tooth form their first bandit captain, the beak of a rather nasty octopus, it started out as just a one time joke, but as it carried on having these little mementos made the players past accomplishments feel a lot more present. At one point someone whipped out one of the nastier trophies to aid an intimidation check! It's a small thing, but these unique cosmetic loot items added quiet a bit to our campaign.

I've done tonnes for a bunch of different one shots. The Monster Hunter inspired Amellwind's Guide to Monster Hunting is amazing. Upgrading weapons like magic items and inputting the parts of monsters you hunt into your weapons to give them additional effects is great. I've used a Hades style boon-system that levels players up and grants players magical items in a D&D rogue-like dungeon crawl. I've run a one-on-one game where the player could swap between characters like a LEGO game. I track quests in my campaigns updating a google doc in the style of the Baldur's Gate 3 logbook so the players are easily reminded of their goals, including their personal quests. I resolve large war encounters using the dice and battle system from the Root board game to see how many soldiers die every turn, while the party fights important enemies. The warforged in my campaign setting act like the Glitch race from Starbound. I used to do my own version of Strongholds and Followers base building too, but I've since switched to Cult of the Lamb base building, where the party can decide on a single event to do that provides different effects, like a Spa Day providing temporary hit points (Zelda/HollowKnight style). The one thing I'll never get done is a new class based on using companions solely for combat, where each archetype is connected to a creature type, which changes what game it is based off of. An elemental tamer hasPokemon, a dragon tamer rides their dragon How To Train Your Dragon style, a plant tamer places plant-based turrets down like Plants Vs Zombies, the beast tamer has both a feline and canine that operate like the palico and palamute from Monster Hunter Rise, the undead tamer is a good necromancer, the monstrosity tamer upgrades their Frankenstein's monster with new body parts, and the construct tamer has Bakugan.

Since I am a bad DM, and I always forget about inspiration - I like to use a "Play of the Game" system inspired from Overwatch. The players discuss and vote on who they think did the coolest/funniest/best thing during the session, and that player gets inspiration. If there are ~4 or more players I'll give out a bonus GM inspiration. I really like this system because it serves a few purposes. At the end of the session all the players basically hype each other up and reminisce about their favorite moments, so everyone ends on a really high note. It also let's you as the GM know what sticks out to each player about the session, so you can include more moments they enjoy in future sessions.

Mixing Dark Sun and Pillars of Eternity: Each player has two characters, the backup character can do side quests to level up and further subplots that players don't want to follow. When the player wants he can exchange the main character for the other one, usually the exchange can only be done in the base or during a downtime, but in case the main pc dies he can exchange it in a short time to be able to continue playing that session. This way players can experience different classes in the same campaign.

So I run Mage the Ascension, and one of the 5 Conventions of the Technocracy is the Void Engineers, basically somewhere between Star Trek idealists and gritty space marines protecting earth from hostile alien forces from beyond. Each of the Traditions (magical mages) and Technocratic Conventions (technological super science) got their own book, and the Void Engineers added in the ability to make space ships. The ship building was super cool and the combat was decent enough, but I changed the combat to be more like FTL: Faster Than Light, where you could target specific systems, try to hit rooms with people in them, have alternate way to succeed in combat and it was super cool.

There needs to be a rivalry benefit called "That still only counts as one!" Whenever your rival kills an enemy, you get a bonus on your next attack; the size of the bonus scales with the size of the slain enemy.

Great video, as always! After my players completed their first dungeon together, I gave them an Amplify ability, like an offscreen teammate combo attack from the old Marvel vs Capcom games. Anyone could use their reaction and spend a hit die (mechanic some of new players didn't get/kept forgetting, so I wanted to focus on that) to add a dice (to damage or healing, of the die type already being used) to a successful hit/heal. They determine the flavor, minor but fun and cinematic addition. And it helps folks stay engaged during other people's turns, they can really stick it to the hated enemy or a valuable target.

There's a boss in ESO that has an interesting AEO that i lifted for one of my baddies. It's the final boss of one of the dungeons and it shatters a bunch of glass and whips it around. If you're too far back it'll do massive damage and you'll wipe, so everyone has to pile in close to the boss Use with caution, could abruptly end a campaign 😂

I recently did the thing where an enemy changes at 1/2 HP! It worked great. I homebrewed a giant worm with a vampiric head on one end and a necrotic head on the other. At 1/2hp, the worm ripped in half and new heads grew from the new ends. It made a very lasting impression on my players.

For my smaller groups, I often give them a ship or something like that filled with Sidekicks (sometimes literally using Sidekicks, sometimes using monster-ish stat blocks that work like sidekicks), and they can choose one of the sidekicks to go on missions with them or go into town or whatever. Just your standard BioWare-ass stuff. Most recently, we played a Spelljammer-ish campaign that was very drop-in/drop-out, very inconsistent player numbers, with a really episodic flair. We used the Epic Heroism rules (long rests were 1 hour) and most adventures were rarely more than 2 sessions, so the BioWare-y crew was there partly to make sure they could field a balanced team if one or more players was absent. They had the Captain of the ship, Allejandro Villastellara, a Triton Rogue Mastermind, the ship's doctor, Dr. Ephremus Fogworth, an air genasi with a degenerative disease that's causing them to slowly discorporate, necessitating they exist entirely in their barometric pressure suit (Armorer Artificer), and the ship's quartermaster, "Psully", who was a Giff Wild Magic Barbarian using one of the goofy ass items from the Ravnica books that amounted to something like a gattling gun. The NPCs (I guess these are DMPCs, at this point?) were sort of a shared resource, so they took turns playing as them. What I didn't expect was their desire to continue collecting NPCs as companions. Eventually, I came up with the idea of a mechanic where the crew NPCs (who were not gaining experience or hit points at the speed of the heroes) had special abilities that each *player* could tap once per adventure (what we called an "extended rest". This was the same rate their spaceship/spelljammer's special abilities recharged), but they needed to have a Bond with that NPC to do so. The idea was that you'd call on that bond to get one of their cool special abilities, but by the time I had it mostly sorted out, we were back up to a consistent # Of players and they stopped tapping the crew as much for help, which suited me fine.

Combo moves! I love when players try combo moves! I always try to reward that behavior. That "I'll shoot the giant with my arrows in a way that creates steps for the monk to get to its head" or "I cast witchbolt... on the barbarians axe!"

Adding to the Stronghold & Followers reference, I absolutely love what the Acquisitions Inc. book did, and they offer something very similar to what you suggest, but with a versatility as to the "base" - it could be a ship that slowly gets improved and/or enchanted (imagine imprisoning or hiring a water elemental to help your ship be faster/have better defenses), a simple carriage turning into a caravan which then gets linked into a magical train, etc. I also like the idea you find in some games (like GW2) of being able to experience moments of the past through distortions. You can either relive them as yourself, or embodying someone there at the time (premade character sheets could be one way to do it?). I feel like it can let players learn about the world or just experience cool cinematic moments easily.

Recently my group was having a montage/downtime of their first year as adventurers (the campain started after the first year) but I wanted to creat connections with the party and world. So I "borrowed" from drafting mechanics like MTG and hearthstone, I had printed 20-ish questcards with simple changlinges and possible rewards then all the players got one card every in-game month and they choose one quest as a party to do. This way they meet several named NPCs, places and even got some hints of the story to come, but most importantly the party relised where they were strong/weak as a party of only three players.

A thing I nipped from video games (I don’t think it exists in vanilla DND, but it wouldn’t be the first time I reinvented the wheel unknowingly), was a magic powered, goblin driven, robot. Players a few levels higher might’ve been able to defeat it outright, but with its hefty AC and HP, my level 4 players stood little chance… except the goblin driving the thing was visible in a glass dome on top. The dome had its own AC and HP. The players had to specify they were aiming at it, and would have disadvantage on melee attacks, but they figured it out, destroyed the dome, murced the goblin and left the machine as it was (the magic power source cut off when the goblin died.

In the Naruo Ninja Storm games, you have punching attacks, magic attacks, and "ultimate" magic attacks. However, if you build up your 'teamwork' meter, using your ultimate attack allows your hole party to use their ultimate attacks. But, if your characters have a special relationship, the perform an even more ultimate attack that does more damage and plays an animation where you and they do something amazing. In example, one of the Uchiha clan might shoot a normal fireball as their regular attack, and a huge fireball as their ultimate attck. As a team ultimate jutsu, you throw a thousand daggers and your team mate teleports between the daggers slicing the enemy, and then now positioned in flanking, both blow a maintained fireball against eachother causing an almost nuclear level explosion. In dnd 5e, if you both have inspiration, less than half hitpoints and are within 60ft - I let them know their ultimate attack is ready and they can (at no cost) move anywhere in that 60ft, describe an attack. And I then roll the monsters hit dice and it does that much damage.

Re: multistage combat, I recently ran an encounter where the PCs fought a fire giant priestess of the god of rage. When they killed her, she immediately rose as a fire-based undead (completely different stats), and they had to kill her all over again. Mechanically the same as having a new enemy join the fight partway through, but much more interesting for the story.

Something I like to do for big big fights (that I got from video games) is changing the map between boss phases. Do stuff like smash through the floor and fight in rubble, or smash through a window and take the fight to the courtyard... it's cheesy, but my players always loved me swapping out maps on them. It can even be something as simple as adding new obstacles or features to the terrain. Maybe the boss wizard starts syphoning power off of magical capacitors, the hissing and movement of machinery, or just add a new wave of monsters from goop-filled tanks.

2-phase fights are my favorite to homebrew and design. Most recently my PCs fought a pair of devil and demon knights. They started mounted and were more mobile and had a charge ability that damaged and left a ground effect in the line they charged through. Then when one of them got to half health they were dismounted, the mount left, and the knight gained a new ability that made use of the ground effects that were left over. Worked really well, was a lot of fun to put together and a lot of fun to run. Rivalry/support bonuses are something I'm going to think on and try to use! Thanks for the great ideas and content!

I’m currently going through Elden Ring (actually can’t wait to end writing this comment to go back!) and I finished AC Odyssey not that long ago so for my next campaign I’m planning to combine the two open-world designs. Basically, you have several distinct regions (like a red forest), each region has its own distinct sub-region (plain forest, a lot of giant boulders and caves and ancient white ruins all over the place) so things don’t get stale; there’s a super-boss for every region that you have to defeat eventually (they can wait for you to level-up) and you get a cool thingy for defeating them - but that cool thingy can be unlocked/used only at specific location in a different region. Combining this with Odyssey system, you get a lot of incentives to travel to different regions. But not immediately. “Yeah, we know where the treasure is hidden but it will take a whole week to travel there - a week that this vampire would use to regain his strength”. And by the time you defeat the vampire, you get rumors about some PC-backstory-related-event happening in the same region as the treasure. Now you have two incentives to travel to that region. And those could be so many different things: a part of the personal quest, a powerful item, a spell scroll or a rare spell component, a reward for completing a major quest (which leads to its own quest), a piece of important lore, a ravaging dragon for you to defeat (seriously, give your players something cool and magical for defeating a true dragon like in Skyrim - Fizban’s Treasury has some rules regarding that). I’m planning to make a series of hidden dungeons that would lead to one another. Like you complete the dungeon and find a clue where to search for the next one. Something like that.

Aww, the character relationship moves remind me of Wildermyth. I bet you'd love that game (if you haven't played it already), it was like the best video game for capturing the vibe of tabletop before BG3 came along

Pokemon, Dragon Quest (Warrior) Monsters, and a little Black Clover. You have a familiar or an animal. An alchemist can craft a special crystal that a wizard can enchant to contain a familiar or animal. You can have up to 3 familiars/animals held in this way (like Pokemon in PokeBalls). You can only use one at a time. The familiar gets stats and levels up and can learn attacks (but only has one "attack slot"). Like you were talking about character bonds, DQM had a "wild" system for monsters. When caught in the wild they would have some sort of number indicating their wild stat, the higher it was the less likely it would listen to their master. If you leave the monster at the farm (the game's storage system) it's wild number gets higher. Now, using this concept, adding this to the familiar, if you keep the familiar out of the crystal then it's wild level decreases, but if it spends too much time in the crystal, it's wild level will go back up and may not listen to you. In Black Clover, certain characters have spirits that increase their strength and magic and unlock new abilities. You can use this concept and that can be applied by each familiar giving a special bonus and maybe even a combo attack if their bond level is maxed. In summation: You get up to 3 familiars/animals you can keep in special crystals that have to be created by an alchemist and enchanted by a wizard (special material gathering and finding an alchemist and wizard, if there are none in the party, can be a side quest). When summoned out of the crystal these familiars/animals give a bonus, can attack, and if their bond is maxed can give characters access to a new ability/attack during battle. But if left in the crystal too long the bond will diminish. (Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe an easier way to explain it is it's kind of summons materia from Final Fantasy 7 with a bond system, and max bond gives limit break.) Maybe these crystals might get stolen during a battle. Maybe if the bond is weak then the familiar might listen to the thief and attack the party. Maybe if the bond is strong, the familiar might attack the thief instead. Maybe if the bond is maxed out does a Critical hit or an unleash limit break on the thief.

A possible version of **Only I Get to Kill You!** Once per long rest, when you are within 5 ft. of your Rival, you can drop prone and spend your Action to *passionately* tell them how they're not allowed to die yet because you're the only one who gets to kill them. If you do, they regain 1 HP and return to consciousness.

For more ideas about the bondmate stuff, you can dig through the darkest dungeon 2 relationship act-outs, for example, getting a free swing at something an ally you trust hits, reducing healing against targets that aren't your lover, jumping in front of damage, etc

I think trying design a specific enemy from a video game is a great exercise for coming up with fun and unique gameplay. Monster Hunter is a great source for this, especially when it comes to phase changing (in particular cyclical phase changes). One example for me was designing the lightning wolf Zinogre for Pathfinder 2e. It had a mechanic where it spends time charging (which can be interrupted) up into a more "electrified" state where he does more electrical damage and changes his moves... but you can knock him out of this state with enough damage, making a good offense the best defense here. So I create two states where the damage numbers and special abilities, and even weakness to cold (he gets weaker to ice in his charged state) are defined. I then set three charges need to be acquired to change states. Give him a move for 2 actions that automatically gives him 2 charges, and will give him a third charge on his next turn unless hit by at least two attacks, at which point Zinogre will need to spend another action to finish charging (it also comes with an aoe, so hooray telegraphed attacks). Once in this state, players have to do a certain amount of damage to put it back into its original state.

Dragon Age Inquisition is the primary source I take my inspiration for an awesome dragon fight. Each "piece" of the dragon (legs, body, head, wings, tail) can be attacked. Each of those "pieces" has a hit point value. Once a "piece" hits zero, the dragon takes a debilitating effect. Leg - movement reduced by quarter. Tail - lose its tail attack Wing - lose its wing attack and flight Head/body - stunned until the end of its next turn

I've stolen a complete storyline and a magic system for my D&D campaign and homebrew setting respectively. The D&D game started off pretty faithfully following the story of Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but at this point close to the end of act 2 (out of 3), it's almost unrecognisable. My homebrew world/setting is a reimagining of the world from Gladius for the PS2. Gladiatorial society with norse/viking/egyptian inspired cultures, and a magic system that requires you to build up power by hitting enemies first. Kinda flips the power dynamic of fights to be more spectacular the longer the fight goes on, which is perfect for a gladiatorial system I feel.

Watching Dael go on rants is honestly one of my favorite pick me ups. Thanks for being a wonderful human - as always great content and inspiration :)

Hey Dael, and other fellow TTRPGers. The point made about relations, and a shared connection between players seems neat. I'm sure some of you will have heard of this but Darkest Dungeon 2 (a game you can find on steam, epic games, etc.) has a very similar mechanic. Characters in that game have relations, and if they work well together and help each other out, they get bonuses (extra damage, higher chance to crit, better chances of handling in-game problems, etc.) I personally have been play testing some of these as relations between the party as a way to encourage players to do their downtime together (downtime is a huge part of my campaigns, but I find that it can be a little stale if it's always 1 on 1). If you ever do an 'Ideas to Steal from Video Games 3', I think this could be a really good point to bring up/elaborate on. Wish you all the best and take care. :)

I'm sure someone has mentioned this already, but Vaesen has a pretty similar base modification system, which gives you certain bonuses during mysteries. It's not quite the same because it's developments bought with limited resources rather than either-or choices, but I'd say it's comparable for people who prefer a different style with a similar outcome.

We’ve come full circle! Videogame RPGs first stole from tabletop RPGs, not tabletop is stealing right back 😆

I would like a boomerang where I first draw it's path on a tiny screen and then I throw it and the boomerang follows that path and I can use it to hit switches and stuff from far away. Yes, that's my contribution to this.

not exactly a homebrew mechanic but I did a sort of mini-game encounter that was ripped right from the game Overcooked. Instead of combat the players had to frantically move ingredients from station to station in a kitchen to fill orders from customers in a Feywild Restaurant. It was a big hit!

*Obligatory Tears of the Kingdom reference* Actually, I use stuff from the Fire Emblem series a lot. It's already a tactical combat game set on a grid, so I steal battlemaps from there all the time. It's also a great source of inspiration for combat objectives, so your players can have something to worry about other than dropping every enemy to 0.

In regard to the character-team-up options: Trails of Cold Steel does that rather well imho. Each two characters have up to 7 bond-levels that slowly increase over time by linking those two characters with each other and they get escalating benefits the higher the bond becomes. (including the improved activation chance of any of those) Examples: Killing blow: If A damages an enemy below a threshold, B can make a free follow up attack to finish the monster Guard: B gets attacked, but A takes the damage instead Cheer: B gets attacked and A casts a low level heal as a free action Recharge: B casts a spell and A recharges Mana to B (restores spell slot) Counter Attack: B gets attacked and A gets a free attack against that monster. The excellent Wildermyth also has some mechanics, depending on the relationship of the characters: Watch this (rivals): A makes a critical and Bs chance for a critical increases Lovers Revenge (lovers): B gets attacked and As next attack against the attacker does bonus Damage

Several PBTA games have a simple system for bases (I.e. MOTW & Apocalypse World) where you pick a limited number of rooms/resources from a list. Id love to make a barebones pirate game where, in addition to their character sheets, the players share a sheet for their ship and one for their base (town, fortress) with limited additions they unlock using “treasure experience”

This idea kind of blooms out into a bit of a rework of martial combat, but I LOVE the stamina system from Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. I really love it because it can govern really well distances you can run (I use a sprint action that is 3 times your speed that costs stamina), how long you could swim, how high you can climb, etc. I also say that making a melee attack costs 1 stamina point, but everyone naturally regenerates a stamina point once per turn anyways