#((roleplaying))

[theoutcastrogue]

According to EN World (I mean I wouldn't know and couldn't possibly be bothered) the author of this tweet is "former gaming executive turned culture warrior Mark Hern".

The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons is a WotC book that just came out for the game's 50th anniversary, and the passages are from "the foreword written by Jon Peterson, one of the foremost historians about Dungeons & Dragons and who also collaborated with Wizards of the Coast on the book".

Elon Musk, famous idiot, immediately piped in supporting the tweet

and obviously fuck Musk and fuck the "culture warriors", here's how I see it (without having read the book, but I'm confident my guesses are educated enough).

This book is promotional material. The good part is that it brings to light primary documents, which are invaluable for research. The bad part is that it's promotional material, like everything that comes out of WotC. No one should trust a fucking brand (silence, brand) to tell its own story. I've read some of Jon Peterson's previous work, and I thought he's an excellent researcher but only moderately able to pick up the prejudices baked in the hobby. Gets some of it, misses a lot. I'm guessing his criticism came about by WotC's own request, and would not be printed if their PR team (and legal team, probably) didn't approve it. And I'm gonna note that said criticism, while in the right direction (to be clear, the basic stance of "this was shitty, but erasing it from history and pretending it didn't exist doesn't help; what helps is acknowledging the shittiness" is absolutely correct), is very light and very careful. The history of D&D needs STRONGER criticism, which will never happen in a WotC publication.

And what I'd like to see is a comprehensive critical history of D&D, which I don't think exists yet. We have EITHER involved and well-researched but largely uncritical histories, even when they delve deep into the cultural environment that made D&D's birth possible, OR works that explore a single topic or focus on a handful of problematic™ elements. AFAIK. If I'm missing something, by all means, let me know! Here's my bibliography so far (not including papers, which can be VERY critical):

David M. Ewalt, Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Play It (Scribner, 2013)

Jon Peterson, Playing at the World: A history of simulating wars, people and fantastic adventures, from chess to role-playing games (Unreason Press, 2012)

Michael J. Tresca, The Evolution of Fantasy Role-Playing Games (McFarland, 2011)

Jennifer Grouling Cover, The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-playing Games (McFarland, 2010)

Sarah Lynne Bowman, The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems and Explore Identity (McFarland, 2010)

Joseph P. Laycock, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds (University of California Press, 2015)

Ashley ML Brown, Sexuality in Role-Playing Games (Routledge, 2015)

and the promos

30 Years of Adventure: A Celebration of Dungeons & Dragons (WotC, 2006)

Michael Witwer et al, Art & Arcana: A Visual History (Ten Speed Press, 2018)

Michael Witwer, Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons (Bloomsbury, 2015) [not a promo per se, but fully a eulogy]

[shinsources-archived]

USEFUL SITES FOR ROLEPLAYERS

Thought I'd make a list of some useful websites for those of us who enjoy roleplaying and what have you here on Tumblr and whatnot.

roleplay formatter: Made by the awesome @rpclefairy. I honestly can't recommend this one enough. Great for adding color, changing the font size, and the whole shebang with bold + italics + underline + strikethrough. 10/10 always use

fsymbols + emojipedia: These are both great for making your tags fancy and whatnot.

alt codes: This is genuinely great for teaching you how to make the symbols with your keyboard for everyday use so there's that. It's especially useful if you and/or your muses speak a second language so that's a bonus.

text color fader: *marge vc* I just think gradient effects on text is neat. *end marge vc*

list of colors (wikipedia): Has a list of an infinite number of colors and their hex codes. Very useful if I do say so, myself. But that's just me.

screencapped.net: Great for getting all sorts of screenshots for making icons, GFXs, promos, and whatnot.

fancaps.net: Also great for getting all sort of screencaps for making icons, GFXs, promos, and whatnot. My only complaint is that it's a little annoying to navigate so here's the proper links to movies, tv shows, and anime.

photopea: Great if you can't afford Photoshop and/or don't like using GIMP.

hakuneko: It's not so much a website as much as it is a program. You can download manga, comics, webtoons, doujinshi, etc. for making your icons, GFXs, promos, and whatnot. It's also just a great way to read stuff and catch up on everything.

Feel free to reblog and add more. <333

[foldingfittedsheets]

One of the best compliments I receive is when my DnD group forgets that I’m playing both characters in an exchange.

We’ve been playing with the same DM for years and have legacy characters that pop in sometimes but also in our last campaign I took over a really pivotal NPC in order to romance my wife harder. So I end up having a lot of talking to myself scenes because characters need to resolve their differences or bond.

I initially worried about having conversations with myself but my party is always excited about it and routinely forget that I’m both people. They view my characters as discrete entities and I think that’s just about the highest praise imaginable.

Today when discussing a book scene my beloved said, “I’m excited to put in Nastya yelling at Orion, we didn’t get that in game.” In game the party watched Nastya chewing out Orion and I described body language because the content of the argument was secret and because their accents are hard to switch between.

“Yeah, I didn’t have the fortitude for that one.”

My wife paused before going, “Oh yeahhhh, both of them are you. I forgot.”

[flightyquinn]

Creating my character often involves figuring out who that character is. As I'm designing their looks, I'm making decisions about how I'm going to play for the entire 40 or more hours I'm putting into the game.

I just thought this thread on character creation in RPGs was neat.

[anim-ttrpgs]

(Exerpt from Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy.)

[lackadaisycats]

Varasta - a luck deity. Some artwork I did for The Delver’s Guide last year!

[fansplaining]

Some fangirls would spend entire fan-club meetings doing “Beatle-talk” in their approximation of Liverpudlian accents. They would act out scenes from “A Hard Day’s Night,” or even make up their own scenes, assigning each other Beatles personas, which they would stick with in the long-term. (Pity the girl who got Ringo!) ... Pamela des Barres, the groupie famous for her dalliances with real-life rockstars like Mick Jagger and Keith Moon, recounted her experiences with fantasy ones, too—as a teenage Beatles roleplayer. “We were two girls in a constant state of Beatle skits. I played John and myself, and she played Paul and herself. We could switch personalities with the flick of an accent. We [...] professed undying love with semiperfect working-class Liverpudlian accents. At night, we played all four people at the same time, when we would lie entwined in each other’s arms, pressing our four sets of lips together in an eternal expression of Beatle Love.”

@areyougonnabe's latest for Fansplaining digs into modern-day Beatles shippers and fanworks creators—but she also casts back to the fan practices of the 1960s, particularly the act of “Beatle-play.”

Read the article—or listen to an audio version, read by Allegra herself!

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was on Tumblr and saw one of those old ask blogs where the person running the blog roleplays as a random character, except the character was me. The only post I can even remember was me saying I was apparently from Ukraine.

[fandomverseofanthony]

Tales of Forge & Fortune - A Cozy Fantasy Smithing TTRPG - Launches October 11th

Tales of Forge & Fortune launches on Kickstarter on October 11th, but be sure to go directly to the pre-launch page from here, so that you can follow and be notified the moment it launches! Also sign up for the mailing list to be entered for a chance to create a town NPC (backstory, tasks, and all) that will be featured in the game!

For fans of Dungeons & Dragons, Animal Crossing, Pathfinder, Fantasy Life, Dave the Diver, Stardew Valley, and many other TTRPG and Cozy Games - you're going to LOVE Tales of Forge & Fortune!

Although crafting is at the heart of this game, there are still PLENTY of opportunities for roleplaying and adventure, without ever having to worry about losing your character or progress in the process. You can even interact with the people of your town, doing favors and getting to know them better, while participating in holidays and special events like Battle of the Bards or the Heart of the Forge competition.

There is plenty more to do, but here are some quick info pointers to give you a better idea of what you'll be getting into.

[dinoberrypress]

Little Wolves is crowdfunding NOW!

It's finally here, y'all! The crowdfunding campaign for our tabletop RPG of folk tales, fae queens, and werewolves is live on Backerkit~

Support our work here!

From the award-winning publisher behind Motel Spooky-Nine, You’re In Space And Everything’s Fucked, Dinocar and more, Little Wolves is a tabletop role-playing game about adventuring through a realm of folk & fae as shapeshifting werewolves.

In Little Wolves, you’ll craft real-world paper masks that represent their characters, modifying them over the course of their adventures to reflect the marks their experiences leave on them while transforming between your Wolf and Mortal forms!

The crowdfunding campaign aims to bring the game’s vivid world to life in an 8.5” x 8.5” full-color perfect bound book loaded with gorgeous art from a team of 4 artists accompanying setting & mechanics from award-winning designers Julie-Anne Muñoz and Nevyn Holmes. 

The crowdfunding campaign launches May 14th, running through June 11th, 12pm US Central with an initial funding goal of $19,500 USD with plenty of stretch goals to unlock for more art, more content, and even an expansion!

Making masks & shifting forms

In your Wolf form, you have access to the benefits of your beastly Attributes, can sing magical Spellsongs, and can resist harm with your Resolve. In your Mortal form, you'll switch your Attributes, Spellsongs, and Resolve out for strong, flexible Mortal Powers that can turn the tide of any situation they're used in. Through character advancement, you can strengthen yourself as you see fit. Perhaps you favor one form over the other, or you may switch between them frequently. The choice is yours.

The Enchanted Forest

As you explore this dense forest you'll meet the powerful and mysterious Queens and aid them, and their courts, through all manner of quests and favors. As a werewolf, you're uniquely gifted in traversing the forest, capable of making it to every edge of the woods, meaning that only you can learn its deepest secrets.

✨ A free demo/quickstart for Little Wolves is available to download and play, get it here! ✨

[gmbencompetence]

Join a Spooky D&D One-Shot:

The Lost Souls of Grimmstone Manor

Looking for a macabre mystery this Halloween season? A fan of appalling puzzles and blood-curdling brain teasers?

I invite you, then, to solve the many mysteries within Lady Helena Grimmstone’s manor. Your deceptively simple task is to identify each spirit within, as well as how they died. Keep a sharp mind and perceptive eye, though…. The haunts within grow ever so aggressive when misidentified…

This one-shot, inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn, combines my joy for puzzles with a love of the eerie. So be prepared for what lay ahead… or perhaps the next adventuring party will be solving the mystery of your ghost… 👻

This Macabre Mystery...

Is Beginner Friendly! Newbs and veterans will be at ease here!

Has tables for every time zone!

Can be a great way to learn D&D (or TTRPGs in general)!

Has hidden Halloween Easter Eggs. Can you find the classic horror monsters hiding within the manor?

Has art by Faerthingale: Commission them here!

Is at a safe, welcoming table by a professional GM who has run nearly 1,000 TTRPG sessions

Find a table here!

[midstpodcast]

Oh, you thought we were done with the moon just because it exploded? 🌔 🛰️

MIDST creators Xen, Matt Roen and Sara Wile join Marisha Ray and Liam O'Brien in #MOONWARD: A Midst Roleplaying Story starting on August 7th!

➡️ https://critrole.com/moonward/

[whilomm]

redoing poll bc i forgot some shit

the poll mostly about character creators with humanoid options, like your typical make your own char RPG. define stuff like "idealized" however you like

(if the answer is "well its complicated it depends on the game and...", choose whatever your favorite/most fun option is)

[superectojazzmage]

My Baldur’s Gate 3 hot take is that debates about whether or not Emperor Balduran is trustworthy or or not are a waste of time because a great deal of the point of the character — narratively and gameplay-wise — is that he’s an extension of you. YOU interpret and decide on his personality, nature, and choices the same way you do with your Tav.

If you want him to genuinely be the flawed and odd-thinking but ultimately noble and heroic “token good Mind Flayer” that he presents himself as, then he will be like that simply because you treat him as being such. He’ll be trustworthy and dependable, totally truthful about only wanting what’s best for Baldur’s Gate and about wanting to free the Illithids from Elder Brain control and make ceremorphosis a consensual choice, while also being open to compromise in the name of forging bonds. He’ll be the unlikely hero who, with you by his side, uses the Stones to destroy the Absolute and save his beloved city.

If you want him to be and treat him like a backstabbing, manipulative liar and potentially dangerous monster who is at best disconnected from basic reality, at worst a murderous narcissist trying to bend you to his will, then he’ll act like it. His interactions with be tense, snappish, and uncomfortable. He’ll threaten you, make unreasonable demands, never compromise, and try to assert control over the party while making clear that your alliance is one of convenience and necessity. And ultimately, he’ll either betray you and defect to the Absolute’s side because he can’t control you or, at your urging, hijack things and use the Absolute to take over the world.

His past is designed to be interpreted in massively different manners depending on what kind of person you want him to be. He killed Ansur either out of justified self defense because Ansur wouldn’t admit that Balduran was still himself beneath the changed form, or because Ansur was trying to stop his evil plans. He dominated Stelmane’s mind because she was a bad person and he wanted to turn the Knights of the Shield into something good, or because he’s an evil manipulator who dominates those he can’t charm. He withheld information from you because he was being cautious and wasn’t sure if you were going to be an ally (like your party members), or because he was manipulating you by making himself seem more sympathetic. He never freed Orpheus and doesn’t want to free him because as an Illithid he rightfully fears a Githyanki Prince and that freeing Orpheus will allow the Netherbrain to control him again, or because he’s an malevolent bastard who knows that Orpheus would ruin his plans. It’s up to you to decide.

He can change tune on a dime, make self-contradictory choices and statements, abruptly do things just because of something you decided to say because you wanted to see what would happen. Just like you do as a player, because he’s as much your PC as Tav. It’s why you get to customize the form he appears in your dreams with. The Emperor is good or evil or whatever depending on what you WANT or MAKE him to be.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

L'Yom Vayom: A Jewish TTRPG

The Complete Edition of L'Yom Vayom, my TTRPG about being Jewish, has just been released! You can grab it at the link below:

Please note that the rules require that the MC be Jewish. Please also note that it might be a pretty tough game to play.