Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[WinchesterPremium]

It looks like it got inspiration from Monsterhearts, another Apocalypse World game about being horny teenage monsters. Monsterhearts also has Strings you can use to put other players at disadvantage and has dice rolls for interaction between PCs, but it's at least partially a PvP game and the mechanics are built so that you don't have any way of actually accomplishing something without being a huge asshole. It's laser-focused on being a game about shitty teens who are either literal monsters or metaphors for them. It's pretty good if you want a game about ridiculous and over the top teenage drama. Just don't get the second edition, since it fucked up the game a lot by being more woke.

Edit:


Monsterhearts did it before and better.

I saw a lot of people compare it to Monsterhearts while I was looking for it, good to know a little bit more about it.

Excuse me but what the actual fuck.

Cool just what we needed, a sexually-charged teenage sociopath/psychopath game

There isn't really any context, but yeah. That seems to be what happened.

 

[TFT-A9]

"it's ok to poison someone if they're a pompous aristocrat that disagrees with you"

I get the impression these morons did a lot of CN/CE-ish characters at someone else's table, reaped some serious consequences for their behavior and are very angry that they were INVALIDATED by the Paladin NPC smiting the everloving shit out of them as a result

 

[Hummingbird]

It looks like it got inspiration from Monsterhearts, another Apocalypse World game about being horny teenage monsters. Monsterhearts also has Strings you can use to put other players at disadvantage and has dice rolls for interaction between PCs, but it's at least partially a PvP game and the mechanics are built so that you don't have any way of actually accomplishing something without being a huge asshole. It's laser-focused on being a game about shitty teens who are either literal monsters or metaphors for them. It's pretty good if you want a game about ridiculous and over the top teenage drama. Just don't get the second edition, since it fucked up the game a lot by being more woke.

Edit:


Monsterhearts did it before and better.

This I gotta hear. When you mean woke, how badly woke did it become?

 

[WinchesterPremium]

Spoiler: Part 2: Game Master

We left off after finishing character creation, jumping into the GM section. It starts off giving generic GM advice and out of nowhere:

At this point I should note that the mechanics, despite occasionally using gay names (big dyke energy >_>) arn't really lesbian at all. There isn't really anything inherently queer about anything so far, they've used male characters in the examples and that whole "any pronouns you use are valid" thing from above. In two or three classes there is some vague things about society and rules keeping you from being your true self or whatever, but there was that explicit command earlier in the game to make sure that whatever group they're protecting has the same values as the PCs. All the queer stuff just feels like a gimmick, a coat of paint to try and get the gaybucks. So the GM section is the one chance they have to make it actually gay somehow. Otherwise, its only gay if everyone decides to make a gay character. Anyone genuinely interested in this game is probably going to do that, but it really isn't different from any other game where you can decide your character's sexuality (read all of them).

Anyway, the only other GM advice that brakes out of generic is "leave room for your feelings", ask them how they feel and give them time to roleplay all the mood swings the game is constantly forcing on them.

GM moves arn't rolled. Instead, they're things that are chosen when the player rolls under a 6. Or whenever a strong enemy gets a Condition (which you give while fighting them). Or just arbitrarily when the GM feels like it. It suggests the players who failed the roll should feel the main brunt of their failure, though this can be hurting someone they like. It also suggests making the player's relationships complicated by pitting their goals against each other for cheap drama. Fun!

There are only four mechanical GM moves. Take a String away. Apply a Condition. Make them Stagger. Offer EXP to do something then give them a Condition if they don't. There is a longer list of narrative GM moves that are basically just a GM being a GM and saying "things happen!". Like at least a dozen. Each only gets a single line and you'd have to take some time to introduce each element, which will probably get annoying if you take the game's advice to do class-focused moves. For example one of the Nature Witch's suggestions is "Betray Their Foolish Trust". So now you have to introduce a character, have them bond with the party (and especially the Nature Witch) long enough to form trust, then have them betray the party while still having the bad guy be "appealing and relatable" despite screwing your dudes over. That's going to take a lot more time and effort than the move suggests. Others are basically the old "Paladin Trap" where you put the characters who follow rules into situations where they have to break the rules, because players love that! Mostly they're all just creating cheap drama rather than say...moving the story forward.

In battle the GM moves for the bad guys getting a Condition all have vaguely narrative effects that could possibly work, but it does highlight something I failed to notice earlier in that a badguy who is Afraid, Hopeless, and Insecure isn't really intimidating in the least. The example they used for villains getting conditions was a Darth Vadar clone getting angry after he got hit by a laser sword, and it did what they wanted it to thematically. A second hit would have made him either get scared, feel insecure, guilty, or hopeless and... that doesn't really work at all. It comes across as silly to have your BBEG get emotional after getting shot a couple of times. Back to mechanics, the more crunchy ones are things like calling for backup and making the battlefield more dangerous (probably necessitating the Avoid Danger roll). Others dictate bad guy behavior, like start attacking innocent bystanders or calling out the PCs. None of them are really a deterrent to giving the bad guy Conditions.

It goes on to advice for specific story elements. Each has about a paragraph, but there isn't really any useful advice in them. Its mostly "This thing? Maybe use it." "Maybe make love triangles", "Maybe put obstacles to peoples relationships! Maybe do mystery and intrigue! Maybe make revolution story!" Hang on, revolution story actually has some support. They must really like this one.

Social commentary everyone! "Invasion" gets a similar GM move bar for eeeeevil invaders or subversive elements in your society! I'm pretty sure you're supposed to make the Tyrannical Authority lovable and relatable according to past advice, so be sure to have a justification ready for why you're adversaries are unleashing bioweapons and abducting opponents to make an example of them. And have a second explanation ready for when your woke friends ask you to explain why you're trying to justify genocide.

Last story element is Utopia. Maybe have one.

From there we get to Tone. Have less danger and dangerous rolls to get a lighter tone. Have more to get a darker tone. This takes two pages. It has examples at least.

The section on "narrative positioning" is kinda confusing. Its basically saying that the GM sets the stage and can let the players do things if they want to do things. "Do not tell the wheelchair user (or anyone else) that their wheelchair-using sword lesbian can’t duel as well as any other character." Maybe put a penalty on or have them roll if the thing they want to do would be hard. Don't let them do weird things with NPCs.

Countdowns sound like actual crunch advice! Reveal a threat when a player rolls low, then check boxes off on each failure until the threat happens unless they do something to stop it.

Using entertainment media for propaganda? How'd they come up with that one?

Next on the List of Lists is Structure of Play, a step list for how to run a session. Step one: Introduce the game or do a recap of last session. It works for anime. Step 2: GM takes Strings for NPCs as mentioned way back when. Step 3: PCs do things. Step 4: PCs do more things. Step 5: Make a climax or cliffhanger if you're out of time. Step 6: Give everyone EXP. Step 7: Think about what you did. The explanation for this one is almost the size of all the other steps combined.

How many sessions should you have? However many feel right. Two paragraphs to say that.

Pacing suggestions depend on how many sessions you're going to play. Short games should have fast pacing. Long games can have slower pacing. Full page.

Sometimes people roll bad a bunch. Sometimes people succeed a bunch. Maybe do something if they're failing or succeeding too much.

Finally there is a 4 page example of play, ending the GM section. This uses some of the ongoing characters from the examples, it starts out with Reevon from the last image I posted. Its been a while since I've seen four pages worth of Zirs. I hope I never will again. A second PC is Smitten with them for no real reason, and a third PC offers Emotional support by offering to help Zir ghost haunt said PC if they die in the dramatic duel. This is supposed to be an example of Emotional Support failing and it doesn't get rolled, just rejected.

The bad guys show up! What is clearly the badguy comes up at threatens the protagonist! And it gets...X-carded. The bad guy called them "Xenos" and that is a slur and how dare you. The shitlord GM asks them why they X-carded and they respond. It does a great job illustrating how overly sensitive players can ruin dramatic moments, but I don't think that is what it is supposed to do. GM rewinds this horrible moment that will scar the poor player for life and tones it down. Now the player wants the bad guy to start a fight with them, so they roll the Figure Her Out, succeed, and have the GM drop information in their lap. Is it getting repetitive if I said under a decent system the player would decide how they wanted to start a fight and then roll to see if it worked? Yes? Fine, back to the example. Turns out the bad guy is gay for the Imperial Princess so insulting her will start a fight. The player states how relatable this is, because you can't spell storytelling without telling (and I guess this does mean you are actually supposed to make the Evil Empire of Racism and Genocide relatable? I kinda thought they just didn't consider the implications.). Player is about to start a fight when a second PC comes and drags them off, using a String to do so, to do "gay stuff".

Now the first PC wants to get the Princess together with Gay Badguy to end the Empire's evil homophobia. The two PCs hug and roll Emotional Support for real this time. It fails. They allow the dice to decide how their characters feel, and get a condition. So they decide to use a Ghost Teleportation move and demonstrate the kinda success with it. They end up in the Princess's bedroom, and ghosts attack her. So they decide to call Ze from earlier and the example ends.

Next is Campaigns and Characters. Maybe they arn't too lazy to write a setting after all? Find out next time.

 

[Fictional Character]

This I gotta hear. When you mean woke, how badly woke did it become?

The second edition lists this as a selling point:

• Rules and advice on asexuality have been added.
• A four-page guest-authored section on race and racism has been added to the text, thanks to Ciel Sainte-Marie, Jeeyon Shim, and James Mendez Hodes.

It's been a long time since I read it, but in general they fucked with mechanics to make it more inclusive and safe. In the original, the Turn Someone On move was an absolute effect. The character was turned on because the point is that you play hormonal teenagers who are unable to control themselves in any way and shouldn't be allowed outside without adult supervision. Second edition lets players declare their character asexual. It's mechanically patched that the move has the effect of Shut Someone Down move when used on asexuals, but it's a weak change, since it doesn't fit in with other mechanics. For example, it makes asexuals immune to vampires. It's the most important change, since it highlights how the focus shifted to making players always 100% 'safe and comfortable'.

It comes with the usual safety tools and IIRC even has the usual talk about how fascists are not welcome. It was all implied in the first edition, since it had a separate pdf file on how to create safe environment in the game created by the author, but it's baked into the core rules now. There's explicit rule that you're allowed to Fade to Black when sex happens which is insane to me that something like that had to be said.

In general, the changes just took a lot of edge from the game. A lot of the nastier Darker Selves (basically, the character becoming an absolute shithead embodiment of the worst parts of their monster archetype as consequence of almost dying/certain moves) and Sex Moves (the effect that happens when you have sex, obviously) have been toned down. For example, Fae Darkest Self has been interpreting absolutely everything others say as a promise and punishing broken promises violently. In 2e Fae is explicitly given an out to allow them not punishing broken promises in blood. It's a mess, since the second edition toned down NPC involvement while at the same time making conflict between PCs more safe and less appealing. It loses a lot of focus the original had on the PCs being abhorrent people especially if you took the monster aspect of PCs as metaphor and not literal which is pretty easy to do.

There's also a bunch of smaller mechanical changes that suck not because of any woke influence, but because they're just bad. You can no longer get to customize your stats and have to pick out of two predetermined statlines. The advances for increasing your stats got removed. The game is now less lethal and therefore potentially lasting longer than the normal 4-5 sessions at best, but you have less options on what to do with that time. What few good changes there are could be easily adapted to 1e with houserules.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Tell me, how do you guys come up with character designs and or concepts for your PC and or NPCs as either player or DM? That is to say what aspects do you consider first and how do you generally develop that into your final product. I’ve always been interested in hearing about the creative process of others and thought this would be a great place to ask.

 

[TFT-A9]

Tell me, how do you guys come up with character designs and or concepts for your PC and or NPCs as either player or DM? That is to say what aspects do you consider first and how do you generally develop that into your final product. I’ve always been interested in hearing about the creative process of others and thought this would be a great place to ask.

I kind of start out with a basic concept, sometimes shamelessly cribbed and adapted from other media, other times I find out after the fact that I had basically recreated X character from Y book/movie/franchise pretty much by accident

sometimes it helps to fall back on established storytelling methods (i.e. establishing the presence and nature of conflict for a character, and consequently their motivation within the setting) and then letting your mind run wild a bit.

 

[WinchesterPremium]

Spoiler: Part 3: Settings and Adventure

Its a generalist system, so you can ripoff whatever you want! Unless what you're ripping off hates gay people. Then you have to make them the badguy when you're ripping them off. There is a Collaborative World-building sheet later that will keep the GM from having to come up with things like a setting and plot, and waste at least half of your first session!

But if you don't want to do that, it introduces several settings for you to use! Starcross Galaxies, as seen in the past examples, rips of Starwars and Startrek. Lesbeans Coffeehouse is a magic coffee house between worlds with a cishet invasion or something! Neon City 2099 is the timely Cyberpunk ripoff! Three Orders of Ardor are sacred prostitutes like Babylon, so you can play a hooker paladin! Les Violettes Dangereuses are artists who come from some place with zeppelins or something. Doesn't really give their setting, but they're revolutionary artists! Finally there is Yuisa Revolution, an anarchist hippy commune of Injuns and refugees. You must protect them from the evil colonizers! So far the ideas are either essentially parodies or really, really, dumb. Of them all my favorite is OoA, simply because it is both the most original and actually fits the theme they're going for here. Lets see if the in-depth descriptions will change my mind!

Starcross Galaxy
Like I said, its Starwars with elements of Startrek. Evil empires, space magic, laser swords, etc. PCs will be part of the Haven Cooperative, a bunch of hippies opposed to the Void Legion. Adventure seeds are things like smuggling supplies to rebels and helping refugees, introducing a character who is questioning their gender, and the movie from the example. Other examples are banging aliens. That is the part they got from Startrek. It has what sounds like the tentacle girl from earlier as one of the NPCs, along with a Ze who doesn't really have a plot hook associated with Zim. There is a lesbian spaceship with an "assigned at berth" pun. That pun is probably the only good joke I've seen thus far. Probably because the next character uses De pronouns and is a dragon prostitute meant to be taken seriously, so this whole book is kinda a joke. It suggests using stupid names because space people might speak in math or smell don't judge them bigot. It finishes out with a custom move for exploring space with details based on who owns the space.

Lesbeans
Someone read the Inn Between Worlds TV tropes and decided to make a setting out of it. Foxhole woods has some gay magic energy. That does magic things. Decide what for yourself. One side is a normal city. The other side the magical forest. It says a "cishet incursion" is coming again but doesn't really say what that is yet. Going into the woods gives you a "magical girl like transformation". Oh here the incursion is; white cis people heard about a magic coffee place and thought it was pretty cool so they came to get magic coffee and this is bad because they're cis and the white city council is evil and going to gentrify you to get your magical land. Overall it doesn't read like a serious setting, but I don't think that is an excuse to be really dumb. One of the plot hooks is making a magical drink to convince normies (which I will now use in place of cishet) that magic doesn't real so they stop buying drinks from you. It keeps bringing up a Queen and how she's looking for a bride but she has a daughter and none of this makes sense. The next plot hook is turning normies who show up to your gay speed dating service for your magic coffee gay. Speaking of turning people gay the City Council President is a lesbian but doesn't know it yet. The city is bland (you're meant to self insert your own city so there isn't any details) and Foxhole woods isn't really described at all. There are three locations and all the character information is focused on the queen and her immediate family, who are all apparently normal humans. Since its described as a utopia presumably it doesn't have any problems and all the conflict comes from the boring mundane side, and while it suggests sword-fighting as a solution you'll have to come up with how given half the enemies just want to legally purchase coffee and the other half wants to quasi-legally buy your land. It's special rule is just that Coffee can give you +1 if you use a special ingredient or someone who is Smitten buys it for you.

Neon City 2099
Its cyberpunk. The first few paragraphs already paint a much more interesting picture than Lesbeans, its possible my standards have been lowered significantly just by that last setting. It just has a bunch of generic cyberpunk setpieces, but at least here the whole "fight the evil corporation with your hacker powers" is already an established trope so it fits a bit better. Generic Megacorp bad, generic cyberpunk rebels good. First hook examples are about AI Idols (vocoloids), a concept that probably wasn't worth three different plot hook suggestions. Next three are about Rebellion, fighting to take down Mega-corp. Last three are Cyberpunk noir where you play as detectives. All three plot hooks require to GM to write everything but the start, making it difficult to make a competent mystery out of IMO. The Fixer (Zi) pastes emoticons over their face and will get you things if you go on a date with zim. Zer sword also has emojis. The Champion is kind of an interesting concept in that she's a gladiator who takes parts off those she defeats and adds them to her equipment, such that her sword hilt is the severed hand of her last foe. If we're lucky she'll do the same to the PCs. Mistress Anderson dresses in bondage gear and wants to be "dominated" by the rebels. She's always watching and fights with a whip. Custom character creation is saying how the Megacorp did something to you wrong personally, custom rule is Investigate (Ask the GM questions about the scene and they'll throw the answer in your lap).

The Three Orders of Ardor
Time for the hookers. Open with a suggestion that you should "feel free" to fade to black and also shouldn't rape people, worded in a way that says you can totally roleplay all the sex if you want. They fight with staffs that can also be used to pole dance in a pinch. How liberating! The three Orders in the title are Order of the Searing Embers (sleep with locals), Order of the Figurehead (dirty pirate hookers, sleep with seawoman coming into port), and the Order of the Artisans (make things). It tells the story of the Grand Mother who is...some kind of owl furry hooker , who had a big orgy with non-human races to found the city and now rules it. She also split herself in half non-sexually in a confusing way that suggests half of her is going out murdering enemy nations. First plot hook revolves around a lost egg, You can help a furry bring it to nearby orcs, keep it and raise it as your own (not sure how you'd make that into a full plot), or keep it from getting stolen by pirates. Like the vocoloids it didn't really need three plot hooks. The second are all about the Orders but they never...really made an antagonist for this setting, so they're things like helping a furry get ready for a date or going to give offerings to some dead people.

. Overall the most deviant of the settings. The rest of the book never mentioned anything more than "making out" with some implications(especially with sex workers), this is really the only one that throws around sex and sexuality this blatantly. Custom moves is Staying the Frost, pole dancing for a powerup. Its mechanically stronger than most the core moves. "Blowing on the fire" just skims by the no-sex-moves promise by saying it can also be things other than sex, but its sex. You both get a String. Overall I was right saying that it was one of the most original settings, but I'm not really sure what they're going for with it. They have cannons and pointy sticks, its apparently cold, none of the orcs and furries get explained, so I'm not sure what most of the setting is supposed to look like. Like I mentioned earlier there also isn't really anything to do aside from sleep around. They didn't explain any enemies, and it is explicitly stated that all the whores are on good terms with the other groups so you can't have internal conflict either. The other stories hold on to well-trod settings for a reason, none of them really have any space to get fleshed out in.

The Dangerous French Violets:
Rebel artists, as it says above. Industrial Barons made a bunch of money and now live in floating cities. The rebels fight them and leave behind black violets. It makes it clear that the workers are totally going to overthrow the rich. Suggests your characters write songs and poems to liberate the population, using some to conjure magic swords. It says its a steampunk setting focused around the Conglomerate Isles of Apollo, it basically feels like Bioshock Infinite from the view of someone who supports all those rebel dudes. No wait, I misread that because of the funny font...its steamfunk. What is the difference? Steampunk is white. Steamfunk is for minorities. No really. They're going for the jazz age here. There is a bunch of blunt metaphor world building about how the islands are literally chained to the planet and how the barons literally live above the worker etc. A bit of world building to how the worker (and thus your character) lives. First adventure hook has you being hired as a zepplin crew, then either spying on your bosses, getting blitzed while on shore leave and missing the flight, or deal with a propaganda film shown on the zeppelin. The next has a Good Guy Baron who pays his workers well. First two are helping him, third is the workers deciding that they actually want communism instead and probably murdering him. Last one is downtime in their hometown, with three hooks mostly based on meeting people who give a totally unrelated plothook. First character is a "questioning" female Baron who totally needs you to liberate her from her oppressive opulence. The first rebel poet is a faeself and her pronouns give me a headache. She made the magic swords everyone uses now. Special rule is the ability to make a sword from art, described basically however you want. Swords don't have any mechanics so its just flavor. Not 100% original, but leaves the hookers out in the cold given it has a better devolved and more sensible setting. Its definitely more original than the straight-up parodies, with some sensible if heavy handed world building. The characters all kind a suck still.

The Yuisa Revolution

Yu Is A. Get it, its USA. Pre colonial USA (+ refugees because refugees welcome) vs the ebil colonist. Its a utopia where everyone is loved and junk. Free love and one with nature. It has magical tranny fruit. Anarchy. Basically its a big hippy commune. It says both that people are free to come and go as they please and that mountains and natural barriers defend it from foreigners, so I'm not really sure how they get there. Bad guys are the Drakekonian Empire, headed by a dude with a monster girl fetish "making him a #wokebae for a war criminal racist". Its basically authoritarian England. Markettopia is another kinda bad guy, a republic that likes money. That is basically it for world building. It isn't entirely clear to me what prevents Drakekonia from just showing up and hanging out given that there isn't any like laws or anything to stop them. You would think they could just show up, fill a cart with stuff, then leave. Anyway the first plothook...doesn't make any sense. They capture the daughter of the commune's founder and turn her into a goddess for some reason and somehow. Now they're using her goddess power to take over the world somehow. Plot hooks are gathering allies and saving her, they all sound like they go together in a campaign rather than being separate things. Next three are doing Propaganda (their words) in foreign nations for unclear reasons. Last three are the Empire invading the hippy commune and you doing things to stop them. Characters are again described as furries for unclear reasons. Super Special NPCS get more space than the worldbuilding did. Like the Emperor's Daughter who is actually part dragon and rides a wyvern who is also actually a dragon. I'm not sure if I'm getting tired or if this all just stopped making sense. The Emperor is the only man to get a text block, murdery jerk etc who fights with a giant lance. I'm rooting for him. Marketopia has two xenogenders, Meolody the feaself who steals things and Nalia who just shape-shifts into random things every night. Custom rule is just a character creation thing where you say why you care about your little paradise. Overall there isn't any details here for the setting. Marketopia especially just kinda exists. The Empire just exists as a faceless enemy. Yuisa just kinda exists as a hippy commune. It isn't like the chilly hookers where you don't know what your doing, you're almost certainly fighting the generic Empire, but you don't really know why you're fighting in the first place. Like with the generic city above that is probably so you can make it a more personal paradise, but that in the end just makes it generic out of the box.

Overall the angry flowers probably has the strongest setting, Starcross and Neon City are generic but workable, Lesbeans and Yuisa are poorly fleshed out but might be able to squeeze out the one plot they're designed around, Ardor is a mess that the author typed with one hand.

 

[TFT-A9]

Tell me, how do you guys come up with character designs and or concepts for your PC and or NPCs as either player or DM? That is to say what aspects do you consider first and how do you generally develop that into your final product. I’ve always been interested in hearing about the creative process of others and thought this would be a great place to ask.

As an addendum to my first post: I honestly get a ton of inspiration from music as well. A song isn't always the genesis of a character but I find it helps me flesh them out, and sometimes it kind of becomes a theme song for them.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

As an addendum to my first post: I honestly get a ton of inspiration from music as well. A song isn't always the genesis of a character but I find it helps me flesh them out, and sometimes it kind of becomes a theme song for them.

I find music is a huge influence on how I develop characters who I didn’t specifically base off of any one idea. Though more often than not I think I tend to build characters, at least during the early stages of conception based on a vague idea. For instance, I once made a character entirely for the purpose of ensuring that the DM could not destroy my weapons, spellbook, etc. which led me to making perhaps one of my most infamous characters, Jack.

I started off with the class and race and then found myself asking, “but what kind of person would need to be able to do this?” From there his history and personality began to develop. One thing I’ve always found important is finding the character a distinct voice and choice of vernacular to set their style of speech apart from your own and give them another, albeit somewhat superficial, layer of personality.

Edit: If it wasn’t obvious by now, yes. I deal with a lot of bullshit from DMs and GMs constantly and have at this point begun making characters in such a way as to preempt that. I know some people think that’s kind of cancer and I totally agree normally but in my defense these characters generally aren’t optimized or anything like that.

 

[TFT-A9]

I find music is a huge influence on how I develop characters who I didn’t specifically base off of any one idea. Though more often than not I think I tend to build characters, at least during the early stages of conception based on a vague idea. For instance, I once made a character entirely for the purpose of ensuring that the DM could not destroy my weapons, spellbook, etc. which led me to making perhaps one of my most infamous characters, Jack.

I started off with the class and race and then found myself asking, “but what kind of person would need to be able to do this?” From there his history and personality began to develop. One thing I’ve always found important is finding the character a distinct voice and choice of vernacular to set their style of speech apart from your own and give them another, albeit somewhat superficial, layer of personality.

Edit: If it wasn’t obvious by now, yes. I deal with a lot of bullshit from DMs and GMs constantly and have at this point begun making characters in such a way as to preempt that. I know some people think that’s kind of cancer and I totally agree normally but in my defense these characters generally aren’t optimized or anything like that.

Dickhead DMs nearly made me swear off Paladins. There really aren't too many classes that are as unfun to play as a Paladin that's lost his abilities basically by DM fiat.

I think the last character I conceptualized was a semi-reformed juvenile delinquent turned prizefighter. Campaign he was in basically got dropped by the DM and forgotten about, might try to revisit the concept at some point given the opportunity.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Dickhead DMs nearly made me swear off Paladins. There really aren't too many classes that are as unfun to play as a Paladin that's lost his abilities basically by DM fiat.

I think the last character I conceptualized was a semi-reformed juvenile delinquent turned prizefighter. Campaign he was in basically got dropped by the DM and forgotten about, might try to revisit the concept at some point given the opportunity.

You ever try playing in a Westmarch server? They aren’t always the best but when you find the right one the adventures can turn out truly epic. One day I’ll have to tell you all about Lieutenant Khalahad Marcevia II.
I use Westmarches generally to test out and test play character concepts or story ideas. I DM in one but I wouldn’t recommend it because the head DM is a murder happy retard who can’t keep his own settings from falling apart. I mostly use that one in particular to test encounters since I’m one of the few DMs that actually runs adventures there.

I found some screenshots of The Great Gryphon Hunt. It was something like five sessions, each about six to ten hours. We ended up killing literally every single gryphon in that region of the world.
That’s right. We hunted down their nests and murdered every single one of them. Made leather jackets out of the hides with ‘Gryphon Slayers embroidered on the back and I had the feathers and a few hides made into a really fancy crimson Cloak Of Protection. But why I hear you asking.

Why? Because one night at the bar Khalahad Marcevia II heard that a man’s caravan had been attacked by a single gryphon and he looked at his friends, bought them all drinks and said “May The Great Gryphon Hunt Commence!” And what had initially been a joke turned into a long quest.

 

[WinchesterPremium]

I find music is a huge influence on how I develop characters who I didn’t specifically base off of any one idea. Though more often than not I think I tend to build characters, at least during the early stages of conception based on a vague idea. For instance, I once made a character entirely for the purpose of ensuring that the DM could not destroy my weapons, spellbook, etc. which led me to making perhaps one of my most infamous characters, Jack.

You rolled an unarmed monk?

 

[Mr. Manchester]

You ever try playing in a Westmarch server? They aren’t always the best but when you find the right one the adventures can turn out truly epic. One day I’ll have to tell you all about Lieutenant Khalahad Marcevia II.
I use Westmarches generally to test out and test play character concepts or story ideas. I DM in one but I wouldn’t recommend it because the head DM is a murder happy retard who can’t keep his own settings from falling apart. I mostly use that one in particular to test encounters since I’m one of the few DMs that actually runs adventures there.

View attachment 1689541
View attachment 1689542
I found some screenshots of The Great Gryphon Hunt. It was something like five sessions, each about six to ten hours. We ended up killing literally every single gryphon in that region of the world.
That’s right. We hunted down their nests and murdered every single one of them. Made leather jackets out of the hides with ‘Gryphon Slayers embroidered on the back and I had the feathers and a few hides made into a really fancy crimson Cloak Of Protection. But why I hear you asking.

Why? Because one night at the bar Khalahad Marcevia II heard that a man’s caravan had been attacked by a single gryphon and he looked at his friends, bought them all drinks and said “May The Great Gryphon Hunt Commence!” And what had initially been a joke turned into a long quest.

I'm kind of a boomer when it comes to this sort of thing, but what service would someone find a westmarch server? Like is it something where I would just be able to go find pick up games and stuff? I've never explored that sort of option because I have a dedicated group of other boomers I play on tts with, but they've been canceling a lot lately...

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

You rolled an unarmed monk?

No. One level of fighter and two of conjuration wizard. Monk wouldn’t have worked for the fuckery I had planned. My sidekick was a monk though.

I'm kind of a boomer when it comes to this sort of thing, but what service would someone find a westmarch server? Like is it something where I would just be able to go find pick up games and stuff? I've never explored that sort of option because I have a dedicated group of other boomers I play on tts with, but they've been canceling a lot lately...

They are usually invite only via sites like Roll 20. I know people advertise them there.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Tell me, how do you guys come up with character designs and or concepts for your PC and or NPCs as either player or DM? That is to say what aspects do you consider first and how do you generally develop that into your final product. I’ve always been interested in hearing about the creative process of others and thought this would be a great place to ask.

As folks have noted, music is a good way to start stirring things up.

I've occasionally had some fun times with character creation as I'm a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, Junji Ito, and H.R. Giger. So sometimes, yeah, you get a hero out of me who has a tendency to eat the opposition and looks confused when people complain.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

As folks have noted, music is a good way to start stirring things up.

I've occasionally had some fun times with character creation as I'm a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, Junji Ito, and H.R. Giger. So sometimes, yeah, you get a hero out of me who has a tendency to eat the opposition and looks confused when people complain.

I’m really happy you didn’t add Steven King into that mix as many people would. It shows that you’re actually a fan of the craft and not just some trend chasing poser.

 

[Roybertitos]

Tell me, how do you guys come up with character designs and or concepts for your PC and or NPCs as either player or DM? That is to say what aspects do you consider first and how do you generally develop that into your final product. I’ve always been interested in hearing about the creative process of others and thought this would be a great place to ask.

My approach to creating NPCs is to usually take a character from another piece of media like games, movies, anime, whatever and sort of adapt them as best as I can for the setting. I take their base characteristics like their accents, personalities, abilities, motivations, etc. and add on a few more things to make it unique. It's a lot quicker than coming up with something completely original and usually I change them so drastically no one notices. If they do, my players have a laugh that they caught me, it's all for fun after all.

For example, in a Cyberpunk inspired D&D 5e campaign I took the visual style of Roman Torchwick from RWBY (this was before I dropped the show like a rock, it's pretty shit now) gave him a different name and kept his roguish personality. Then I made him a Drow, and figured it'd be cool if he was a bard and gave him a jazz bar as a front for his criminal enterprise. Since one of my players watched the show at the time, I changed his weapon to two revolvers so they wouldn't catch it.

Add some lore that I don't wanna get into cause this post is long enough then boom, you have an interesting criminal contact for the rogue in the party and a convenient source for quest lines. Gives you more time to focus on the actual story and worldbuilding.

 

[anti SJW]

Nice use of dice.

Funny.

 

[DDBCAE CBAADCBE]

Nice use of dice.

Funny.

I’ve been to amateur wrestling matches like this before. They’re fucking amazing. It’s one of those things that needs to be on every man, woman and child’s bucket list. I once got to see a referee get set on fire and it wasn’t even part of the show.