Thread by @delaneykingrox

One of my fave tricks to liven up any #TTRPG system is assigning things with "playable adjectives".

So a player doesn't pick up just any fireball spell- they get a (rolls dice) Overzealous Fireball. Or a (rolls dice) Hungry fireball.

So what does that mean? Well, if the player can find a reason or justification that the adjective is in use, then they get a bonus.
They can also use it in a negative way to bank a bonus later.

For example, a "hungry" fireball may make them ravenous when cast, or...

Or perhaps the hungry fireball immediately uses all fire in the vicinity- so all torches and candles go out when it is cast.

This is on the fly, and encourages players to improvise and be creative. Players who struggle with this can just agree on bonus conditions.

You can apply playable adjectives to pretty much anything, from weapons (hooked sword, rusty sword, bitter sword, slender sword) to characters themselves (confused barbarian, chill warrior, icy band, enchanting artificer)

I encourage players to using "bracketing"- where they make up a name for something and put the actual game names in brackets afterwards.

So your magic missile can be "screaming ghostskull (magic missile)"

This way you can put any custom effects and adjectives in the brackets.

At all times I encourage my players to tailor and customise their experience. And just adding a simple word to something can do a great deal to widen the options.

If my shitposting, tips and tricks help give you idea, I appreciate all the help I can get:

ko-fi.com/dellak

(Having several tables of adjectives for various things is pretty easy to do, copy pasta into a spreadsheet, trim down to the nearest dice value and tape that to your DM screen.)