#also He's actually the first pathfinder character i ever played but he never got a satisfying ending so im gonna throw him into this game

[alistairs]

Troubled men doing wife shit in my mind...

Got tagged by @halsin to make some blorbos in this picrew thank youuu!!

So I present some BG3 guys cause that's all I think about these days:

✦ Tavryn before and after figuring out how this adventuring thing works ✦ ✦ Anson before and after listening to the hat man ✦ ✦ Darius before and after breaking his oath ✦

Tagging: @leviiackrman @shadowglens @minthara @baldurians @yharnams

[baticeer]

BG3 asks: 2, 12, 40, 52, 61, & 104

2. What is their class (+ subclass) and why did you choose it?

Vennet is a wizard. In the actual game I played as Necromancy school, but I think for the lore she should probably have been Transmutation, since she's supposed to be an alchemist. I just didn't want to respec bc I love spamming undead summons lol and I thought I'd lose my spells learnt from scrolls (idk if that is actually how it works).

The original tabletop version of Vennet was a Pathfinder 1e character (for a campaign that never got past session 1 but she was still living in the back of my mind for years...) so she was an alchemist there and I chose wizard because it was the closest and is also my favorite 5e class to play.

12. How does your Tav feel about Us? Did they free them, maim them or leave them behind?

I love Us! Vennet freed it, out of curiosity more than anything because she was pretty disoriented waking up on the Nautiloid. I didn't know it was possible to find Us in act 2, so I never saw it again in my save, but I like to think that in my canon story Ven got Us as a pet and it helped her cope with her part-illithid transformation. And that postgame the Emperor takes Us home with him (he deserves it!)

40. Did your Tav agree to kill the Guardian or did they go talk to them instead?

After seeing Lae'zel almost get killed by the Zaith'isk and only being saved by the guardian's interference, Vennet thought it seemed obvious which one of those two should be listened to, and resisted tooth & nail to the idea of giving up the artifact to the githyanki! She definitely didn't try to stab her guardian when they met inside the Prism [thank god, bc you can't fuck emps if you do lmao] and mostly just. Yelled at him to stop being vague and asked a bunch of questions demanding explanations that he didn't want to give yet

52. What does your Tav think of Dame Aylin?

hmmm I think these are Vennet's takes on Aylin approximately in order of significance:

a powerful ally. glad we freed her and have her on our side. No strong personal attachment to her but we need all the help we can get

she's kind of A Lot with all of the going on about nobility and love and how great she is, sheesh

[sigh] have you seen those muscles though... if Isobel wasn't around... Would

61. How does your Tav feel about Baldur's Gate? Is it their home? Is it their first time in the city?

It's definitely not her home, she's from Menzoberranzan and not only is it her first time in the city but the BG3 plot is also her first time on the surface world for any length of time more than a day or two. She finds the Gate pretty overwhelming, it is more than 2x the size of Menzo (which is the biggest drow city on Faerun) and the ocean also generally makes her uneasy (it's Too Big! we don't have that underground!). She finds the surface world in general kinda... what's the opposite of claustrophobic? Everything is so big and bright and outdoors there is no cavern ceiling over your head, how do you cope!

Post-game, she doesn't ever live in Baldur's Gate permanently but spends a good amount of time there to visit friends and do Society of Brilliance business. She does have affection for the place due to her history there (she calls it her "second birthplace") and also because she loves the Emperor and ofc his city is very important to him.

Waterdeep is even bigger than Baldur's Gate but Vennet is a little more comfortable there because it's not as "rough" and there's more species diversity (the Gate is still pretty heavily human-dominant but most Waterdhavians won't look twice at a drow walking down the street). She still prefers to be in the Underdark and her and Gale alternate their time between living in his home in Waterdeep and her wizard tower in the Underdark.

... aaaaas for that last question, omg, I don't even wanna explain "who did your Tav romance" because it's so silly complicated and I think I've mostly explained it in previous posts before LMAO, but the TLDR of it for those who have not heard my yapping is-

started out romancing Astarion bc she found him attractive, they were very unsuited for each other and she just is not what he needs at all, they finally broke off their weird toxic situationship in act 3 after killing Cazador

Gale fell in love with her, she rejected him when he confessed in game because she was not In Love and was scared of commitment

she was fascinated with the Emperor and did sleep with him ingame but their relationship isn't quite romantic; after she eventually goes through ceremorphosis with his help, they'll have a weird Illithid Psychic Hivemind Bond(tm) lol... he's family, essentially

her true end romance is Gale, postgame after becoming a mind flayer she goes to visit him in Waterdeep and they begin a relationship, they have a lot to navigate btwn her difficulty with commitment and the general weird challenges of having a romance btwn human & illithid, but it all works out eventually and a few years down the line they'll ultimately get married; for more see My Upcoming Fanfic that I swear I am writing and will start posting Soon

[utilitycaster]

I’d been wondering if you were going to listen to the Behind the Screens episode! As someone who was likewise put off by people’s “promotion” of that system, I appreciated hearing about it from trusted actual-players who were new to the mechanics as well.

That said, was there a specific mechanic that you didn’t gel with based on the podcast? Or is it just that the episode didn’t do enough to get you past the vibes you were already picking up from the game?

Sure! There were a few things that I'll cover below as specifics, but I think the biggest takeaway overall I have, as D&D player and a DM, is that it feels like D&D places the largest burden on the DM, and Pathfinder places it far more on the players. Which isn't good or bad, but I think, especially in terms of accessibility, placing the burden of crunch onto the person who says "yes, I like the crunch" instead of on your friend who wants to pretend to be Aragorn for a couple hours a week, makes far more sense. Murph actually says in the episode that 5e was optimized for simplicity, and PF2e for consistency, and I think he's right, and I happen to strongly prefer simplicity in this context.

I also say this as a crunchy person, but you know the D20 bit where Ross Bryant talks about TTRPGs and is like "Come to a world of fantasy...after you fill out your taxes"? The complexity of character creation comes with benefits and drawbacks. The way I described it to someone else is that in my first job, my role involved liaising between our software developers and our end users, and sometimes, software developers were like "this is so intuitive!" and the end users were like "what the hell is this." Pathfinder feels like game designers made the game they wanted to play, and that is great...if you are a game designer. Many people are not. Honestly, that's the biggest takeaway, actually. Pathfinder feels like it was made by game designers or software programmers or some other group of people who are very smart experts in something and don't necessarily know how to like, engage with the layperson in a meaningful way. (I also suspect this is why the fan community is afflicted with similar conditions.)

Specific things I wasn't a fan of:

The three-action economy sounds...ok in theory, but my hunch is it gets rough in practice. Like, it's great you have more room to allow failure of one action on a turn without everything failing, but have you ever been playing D&D and someone takes forever to decide what to do? multiply that by 3. I get wanting to foster creativity and cool moves, but it feels oddly mandated, and you are actively punished for just wanting to hit it three times, which is the main joy of having a sword. Also I checked out the SRD for more information and not only is this a LOT to learn, the mere act of concentrating on a spell takes two actions. Which brings me to the next part:

Emily Axford, who I trust on mechanics, and who was doing a very good job to be as positive and welcoming with a system she does not know as she could, was like "seems like it's not great for casters", and well, yeah. I get where they're coming from, because it is true that at L20 in D&D, a cleric can make god grant boons and a fighter can hit dragon with sword 4-5 times, sometimes 8-9 times. However, you do become a wizard because you want to see through reality, and you become a fighter because you want to swing a sword a lot. Anyway, point being, as a caster main, this is not appealing to me.

I never really got mad that a nat 20 dex save on fireball means you still take half damage, so the critical success/critical fail on saves is like. It's fine. I don't really feel strongly about it, but it doesn't feel like a cool selling point to me either. It's also like...if you really love this, it's very easy to throw into your home D&D game without having to take the rest of Pathfinder along with it.

This is a weird one but I feel like the reflex/fortitude/will save concept is SO CLOSE to being great but falls short. I agree that the three uncommon stat saves (strength, charisma, intelligence) are, well, rarely used and kind of vague. However, in practice, I also find this means many people tend to be super precious with dex and wisdom and won't dump them, even if it makes sense not to have good dex or wisdom, and this also means that charisma casters or strength-based fighters can feel stretched thinner than they genuinely are, stat-wise. It feels like a great way to balance this and trim the fat would be to, perhaps, allow your highest mental stat to be your will save stat, regardless of what it is, or permit strength or charisma to sub for con in some fortitude checks. However, Pathfinder eliminates strength, charisma, and int saves entirely, which unbalances this even further, and like, fuck that.

There were probably more but like, in general, I understand that Pathfinder absolutely has an audience and its fans, but it's just...even when presented by someone who I know isn't being a condescending asshole, who is also coming from D&D, and whom I like, I was just like. This is definitely for some people, and I am not one of them.

[morrigan-sims]

5, 7 and 8 for any of your sims <3

Hiiii Sage!!! I hope you're doing well! I'll do these for my Pathfinder character, Morana, and my dnd character, Rook.

5. How far is your OC willing to go to get what they want?

Morana is very much willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. She doesn't have a very strong moral compass, other than "I do what I need to to survive and learn", so there's not much she won't do. If that means killing someone, or hurting someone, so be it. She wouldn't hurt someone she truly cared about, but currently she doesn't have anyone like that in her life.

Rook will do what he can, but not whatever he needs to. He has a stronger moral compass than Morana, which was imparted on him by both his mentor, Captain Zara, and his party, the Vanguard. He would never betray someone he cares about, nor would he ever hurt them in any way. Additionally, he'll try his very best to avoid hurting any innocents. Depending on the cause, he might be okay with hurting a few people, but only if it was absolutely necessary, like to save someone he cared about.

7. What's one way your OC has changed since you first came up with them?

Morana hasn't changed all that much since I came up with her, but that's largely because I haven't had a chance to play her yet. My characters tend to change and evolve a LOT once I actually start playing them. But so far she's stayed true to her initial concept, which was "creepy necromancer woman with poor social skills". I did eventually finalize that she is canonically autistic, and took most of my own autistic traits and expanded on them. It's going to be interesting to play with the traits people tend to think of as negative about me and my autism and the push them further and explore them in a fictional sandbox. (I've jokingly told my group that Morana is a little bit like me but dialed up to 11, and in some ways that's pretty accurate.)

Rook has changed a LOT since his initial concept. Originally he was supposed to be very smooth and self-assured, very much the charismatic charmer character. But as I started playing him, he ended up becoming a lot different. I realized that given all the trauma in his past, he's not going to be that mature and well-adjusted. He's also one of, if not the, youngest member of the party, and it shows sometimes. I made him a lot more reckless, and I changed the reason for his recklessness from arrogance to more of a desperate loyalty. I also added one of my favorite traits about him, which is the fact that he thinks he's not easily won over, but in reality he is. He would die for anyone who shows him the slightest kindness. In some cases literally. And it's all too easy for someone to someday use that against him...

8. Would your OC ostensibly be able to get away with murder?

Morana absolutely would. She's a necromancer who has an amazing understanding of humanoid anatomy, so she would know exactly how to kill someone to make it seem natural. She's also very calculated and logical, so she would have an airtight plan for what to do before, during, and afterwards. Perhaps the only flaw in her plan is that people think she's creepy as hell, so they might blame the murder on her, even without any evidence. (She is a necromancer after all, and she got banished from her home city for raiding the cemetery to get corpses for her experiments.)

Rook would probably not be able to get away with it. If he were to commit murder, it would be a heat of the moment decision, a crime of passion, even though the decision would not be taken lightly. He is far too reckless and impulsive to have a solid plan, and would likely be discovered immediately, not to mention that being killed with a rapier isn't exactly subtle. His one saving grace is that he knows what it's like to be on the run, and has excellent stealth. So maybe if he managed to make an initial escape, he'd be able to stay free, at least for a while.

[parasite-core]

A few OC questions coming on through!

Which OC is most like you? In what ways?

Which OC is the most comforting to you?

Which OC’s design is your favorite?

I always love hearing about ppl’s charas! Excited to see what answers u give!

Ah, thank you very much for this pleasant surprise! You’ve made my night 😊

Which OC is most like you?

I always think Sai is most like me in terms of personality. She’s a bit timid and shy around strangers, and she doesn’t like loud noises. She isn’t quick to tell people about herself when she first meets them because she feels like she needs to gauge if they’ll judge her for who and what she really is, so she observes people first and grows to trust them before she talks about herself more. She also really throws herself into things when she decides she’s going to do them. If something’s going to get done, it’s either 100% or nothing. Also she has terrible eyesight and is my one OC who needs glasses 😂

Which OC is most comforting to you?

Roland is my comfort OC. He’s the one I always go back to. He was my first Pathfinder OC with a group of people, and he became very special to me. He’s always felt a little different from my other OCs, both before and since him. I remember back when I was playing him telling my GM that he felt like my character with the most emotional complexity I’d ever made. And I got so invested in him that when he had a mental breakdown during a traumatic moment, I actually emotionally crashed a bit as well during that week. I remember during that time telling my GM how much I regretted making a character with so much angst. It’s a big part of what led to Umbrolus and Lucien (at least his initial concept) having no angst at all. Then I got bored of that and went back to my angst full force with Draven. But I never got hit as hard by any moment with Draven as I did with Roland. That’s not to say I wasn’t invested in Draven. I’d probably call her my second favorite after Roland, I love my bad luck girl. But Roland really had a tight hold on my heart. And still does. Which given his literal ability to grab people’s hearts and rip them out…eh…

Which OC’s design is your favorite?

Oh man, see, this is the hard question. I have fun designing all my OCs so a lot of them are up there. After careful deliberation though it’s between my two tieflings. Either my gunslinger Kaius, or my barbarian Umbrolus. What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good tiefling. They can turn out so unique, with different combinations of skin color and horns and glow-y eyes. Kaius has antlers, grey skin, a gunslinger duster over magic celestial armor, and a pistol that never runs out of bullets, so he’s got style and a flare for the dramatic. Umbrolus has two sets of horns and dark purple skin, glowing flame colored eyes when he’s angry, and wears a green fur rimmed cloak made of dragon scales, so he’s got the intimidation factor along with style. If you put a gun to my head and made me choose between them, I guess I’d probably have to go with Umbrolus by a very thin margin. I like the two sets of horns. He was designed to purposely evoke a very dragon-like visage, since he thought he was a dragon.

I have commissioned pictures of them both, so you can see for yourself. Both are by ioanamuresan on Twitter.

[zuzuslastbraincell]

I’ve spent all morning thinking about how the gaang would play tabletop roleplaying games (because of course I have, this is the most on-brand thing I’ve ever done) and here’s my thoughts:

sokka GMs. let’s be honest, he’s the only person who could without it turning into an utter disaster, but also, it’s his idea, he suggests it, he’s super excited about it, they probably start off with some ATLA equivalent of D&D, because almost everyone does, but he probably branches out as he explores more and he gets super into the indie tabletop scene and ends up mixing systems & house-ruling it to create their own extremely weirdly specific homebrew game. he takes being GM very seriously, of course. his preparation folder is intimidatingly huge. he has notes on everything and nobody understands how he keeps up.

suki isn’t a nerd, does not Get it, really (at first), but she joins in because her boyfriend is really excited. she plays a very strong warrior lady :). over time, as she gets better with her character and gets her head around the concept of roleplaying, she gets super into it, and becomes one of the most valued players at the table. she’s a great player but always considerate of people around the table and understands, intuitively, that TTRPGs are a team effort, a collaborative practice, even when there’s a GM.

zuko has no idea what roleplaying games is because he grew up exclusively reading classic literature, but he immediately latches onto the roleplaying aspect of the game, gets super invested into his character, is that player who has written a novel in the ‘background’ section of the character sheet. i can see him play a support character, like a healer/cleric or such, or potentially even a sage/druid who lives in the woods. unfortunately, he has literally no idea how to craft a character that will be effective in play, and constantly fails his rolls because he dumped all his skill points into animal handling (zuko will defend this to his dying breath though). despite this, he’s the most invested in the game after sokka, and I think the seriousness with which he takes it inspires others to take it seriously as well. he gets people to emotionally connect with their story and embrace their characters’ flaws and it makes sokka reassess how he plays as a GM (I imagine Sokka tends towards really crunchy and mechanical games, but playing with Zuko makes him rethink that)

mai joins because zuko suggests it to sokka. sokka is skeptical, but actually, mai takes to it immediately, is a really valuable player, and gets it - mechanically, and also in terms of roleplaying. she’s not put off by the nerdishness of it all, doesn’t find it hard to immerse herself into a fantasy world, ends up looking at the players handbook in depth and crafts a really interesting character who mixes elements of two different classes in a believable way (i’m personally thinking some kind of rogue or an artificer). as a late joiner, mai is happy to adapt to the existing party, and just vibes with the group immediately.

sokka, suki, mai, and zuko make the core group most of the time and everyone else is an occasional player.

katara refuses to join at first because she’s not doing something her dorky brother suggests. as the first campaign goes on, and she realises suki (who is cool, even if she’s dating her brother) and zuko (her other best friend after aang) are both still invested in it, she gives it a shot. her brother helps set up most of her character sheet, which is a cool ice sorcerer-type character that he thinks she’ll like, and she appreciates the effort, and gives it her best shot, but honestly? i don’t think katara really ever gets it. she can waterbend! why would she want to pretend to be a character who can waterbend? she also keeps forgetting turn order is a thing by accident, and doesn’t understand why she can’t just charge into action.

aang is interested because many of his friends are interested. like zuko, he had no idea what this was before sokka got into it, but the monks used to play board games all the time. sokka helps him build a character sheet, and is surprised by the research he’s done into it already (aang cares about what his friends care about imo), and i think he probably ends up playing a few sessions - and they vibe really well, even if aang is a little new to all this. i think aang is most likely playing some kind of unconventional charisma based character, but it’s a fun fit, and takes the story in interesting direction. i think after a few sessions aang drops out - largely because he takes issue with how combat is the primary method of conflict resolution in the game they’re playing, and he tells sokka he’s done enough of that in his life already, and would rather roleplay something other than war or fighting. sokka respects this completely. in fact, i think aang is the other person who really affects how sokka looks at tabletop, and he ends up researching independent two-player games which aren’t focussed on combat, and plays one-shots now and again with aang (and zuko, occasionally too). whenever people want to take a break from the main campaign and play another system for a couple of sessions, aang is always invited.

toph is almost the opposite problem. She's super excited to play because tabletop is mostly oral storytelling & very accesible for her, she’s attentive to the mechanics and builds her own very powerful character who fight her through everything, but is very combat focussed. She isn’t interested in roleplaying much, and finds that aspect of it a little baffling and outside of her comfort zone, quite frankly, and it requires a bit of vulnerability she isn't really there for yet. she clashes with zuko a few times over that. I think she also struggles - as in canon - a little with being a team player at first too i think she swings between katara’s camp of ‘this is dumb’, and becomes an on-and-off player but after a few weeks off, joins in again, before giving it another shot. sokka definitely helps her out here and tries to talk through some of her issues and mediate and find a common ground between what she wants to play vs. what the rest of the table want. she gets super into it eventually, after a few arguments and teething problems, and is a much loved player. she and zuko's characters definitely have a rivals to best friends arc lol.

ty lee never plays herself but often watches because mai’s there. she claims she ‘doesn’t get it’ but somehow has zuko’s spell list memorised, and usually knows exactly what’s happening in the story at any given time.

azula is banned from playing because she likes to antagonise player characters. she minmaxes everything, has calculated how to make the most effective character (which sokka begrudgingly respects), but killed off zuko’s first character the first time they ever played (she claims it’s his fault for having such an ineffective build). after some years, when azula has chilled out a bit more, sokka ends up playing a brutal game of pathfinder when they’re both at university with a different group of friends. it’s only then that sokka realises azula’s about as much a theatre kid as zuko, just through how theatrical her roleplaying is.

[vaguely-concerned]

Some more mass effect andromeda thinky thoughts as I run around heleus getting some achievements! 

- the murderous angaran ai is genuinely so fucking funny. “How are you feeling here on Aya?” “I hope you die” “Is there anything we could do to make you more comfortable?” “BURY THIS PLANET UNDER FIRE AND ASH” “o.oookay. Goodbye then.” “I HATE you.”

- I hope I never become irresistibly moved to write mass effect andromeda fic b/c there really is no other description for a good 70% of the expressions reyes makes than :> and how could one capture that in words

- as mentioned I’ve been doing a bit of achievement hunting and in the process I’ve been switching up a lot of gameplay stuff from how I handled it the first few times around and let me tell you it’s baller as fuuuuuuuuuck -- it just looks so awesome and is so satisfying between the maneuverability of the jetpack and biotic charge and the effects. special shoutout to what happens if you biotic charge a frozen victim enemy and the biotic pull/push combination. (throwing people around like ragdolls is actually so much fun I’ve kept doing it even after I unlocked the achievement lol)

- lol lol when you get meridian online there’s the montage of every planet coming back to life, right? well the one on kadara is from inside kralla’s song, with umi looking out at everything that’s happening. and all I can imagine is her jaded-ass voice going ‘what the fUCK did that asshole kid do now I only just cleaned up after the bar brawl he started with his krogan grandpa and now he’s rearranging the entire fucking planet right from under us goddess I need a drink’ 

- the implication that reyes ‘cards so close to my chest you won’t even know I’m playing’ vidal just does not shut up about how amazing ryder is to anyone who’ll listen gives me so much life. when you try to be mysterious and laidback but the human pathfinder is so fucking cute tho Y____Y (also go watch his scenes if you’re being standoffish with him the entire time -- he clearly wants ryder to like him so much right from the beginning, he’s doing so much work to no avail and I feel sort of bad for how funny I find it haha. interesting that it really does seem to be an emotional thing as well as y’know the practical/tactical benefits of having the pathfinder on his side. methinks the charlatan might be a bit lonely there behind all his masks lol) 

I think this is why I’m willing to give him some benefit of the doubt too, despite all the cloak and dagger stuff -- he’s so immediately drawn to ryder, who you can never make a bad person, really. something in him must respond to that, if potentially only in the ‘attracted to traits I do not possess myself’ way hahaha

- I love sam. so so much. some of the open world implementation is still grating (yes sam. yes I know I can mine this area for resources through my mining interface. we’ve been doing this for a hundred hours sam. you’ve been right here with me the entire time sam. please sam), but he’s SUCH a good and I’d argue underutilized concept (emotionally at least) and the best boy. the fact that he can get SARCASTIC on you fsdhfjsadh he’s growing and learning! he’s doing so from inside your brain which is kind of unsettling but also SO COOL! there’s something about that level of intimacy, of always knowing there will be someone there with you in your head that is super interesting and deserves to be examined more fully -- both how it could be comforting and how it’s  r e a l l y  not how people or ai are generally designed to work lol. 

he also gives us a unique link with our dad and I wonder if the writers would have explored that in more depth if there’d been more development time -- it practically SCREAMS out an invitation to get to play/see things from alec’s POV in short bursts, like the memories you unlock except you could go through playing it as him since sam is common to both of us. (see my ‘our dad comes back through either kett or remnant nonsense in the sequel and we need to find some way to connect with him’ idea. it would be. amazing. listen alec already looked at the ethical guidelines involved in creating ai and went ‘huh interesting ideas but not for me thanks!’, don’t tell me he wouldn’t have left some loophole in so this could happen)  

- reyes literally says ‘the cavalry’s here’ when we get to meridian and I for one love him more than words can express (he also asks us if we’re okay in sort of a sweet/worried way right before we get to the control room. aw buddy) 

- like we don’t think of them like that because we’re in control of them and see all the stumbles and awkwardness and how young they are all the time, but damn the ryder twins must look like something else to everyone in andromeda haha. they literally stride around like demigods restoring entire planets. on voeld spring non-metaphorically follows in their footsteps. shit dude if we’re talking realpolitik here the angara must feel  p r e t t y nervous about this -- there’s no one saying they can’t turn off the vaults as easily as they turned them on. I hope we get them somehow teaching the angara how to do it too, on a smaller scale at least, as a show of good faith or something in a sequel, because that power imbalance is disconcerting  

- I’m glad sam and I have such similar priorities whenever we’re on kadara. ‘maybe mr vidal would know. perhaps we should ask mr vidal about this. mr vidal said something relating to this pathfinder maybe we should speak to him’ . yeah sam i know the feeling, same (it does undeniably read as sam having a bit of a crush which is. hilarious?) 

- the fact that alec ryder thought ellen responded to his bad boy act in any way when what really charmed her was that he was a great big nerd <3 it’s kind of nice to see a fictional marriage that seems to have just been. nice and stable and chill? just two intellectual equals who like and respect each other very much and not a lot of drama until alec went full alec and started developing rogue ai instead of watching his wife die lol. again I would love for the sequel to involve ellen finally waking up and being like ‘death? trying to claim MY husband? I do not think so, I can die he can’t he’s not leaving me behind’ and helping out and you realize that the reason they were soulmates was that under the relatively rational and unemotional surface they’re both, at heart, batshit crazy mad scientists who are insanely devoted to each other. imagine it tho! the people of andromeda realize alec ryder is back from the dead somehow and doing some Shit out there, they put a ton of resources into curing ellen’s disease because their best shot is something to do with the implants she made, hey presto we’ve got all ryders on the board and in play. 

- just want to make it clear that I’m still sad about avitus rix and hope he’s having a good day

- do you think ryder ever asks sam to read something to him ‘aloud’ in his head if he’s anxious and can’t sleep. or just to talk at him about something boring until he nods off. again the possibilities inherent in the concept!!! he has someone who’s closer to him than any other person could be, what’s that like? 

- *me sticking to my sidewinder pistol the whole playthrough even though it’s laughably inefficient* I just wanna feel like a cowboy bioware please work with me here

- the male ryder voice actor has such amazing comedic timing, there’s a lot of reaction stuff out in the field he absolutely nails. I enjoy the female voice too and I like how much emotion she manages to convey towards the end of the game especially, but there’s a casual comedy in male ryder’s voice that can’t be beat. (well, it’s not hawke levels, but then nothing ever is, that’s too much to ask)

- I love vorn and kesh so much. nerd krogans unite & make out

- I still want to sit peebee down and have a long serious talk with her about emotional abuse, maybe give her a hug :( fuck kalinda 

- this game does not get enough credit for how stunningly beautiful it is, it all got buried under criticism about the animations and it’s a fucking shame. the last few vaults you go through are just mindboggling in scale and visual uh striking-ness. it makes me so sad to think there won’t be any more of it D: 

- I really like this mainly casual + logical dialogue options ryder I’ve found; it makes him sound like a younger and more irreverent version of his father, but also softer and less closed off and much more willing to show affection for his family especially. 

- i wonder if different people’s individual SAMs will take on a certain tone/unique pattern when they’ve coexisted long enough. have I mentioned. how much I want a sequel to this game 

- one last reyes note because don’t look at me okay -- I wonder how much we’re meant to read into ‘being honorable never got me anywhere’. on the one hand I’m fully prepared to believe he’s never even tried doing anything the honorable way in his entire life lol but on the other there’s also some interesting potential in the interplay of that sentence and ‘to be someone’. (there seems to be a deep fear in him both of powerlessness and of being truly seen/recognized -- he equates secrecy with safety pretty explicitly -- which seems... telling? of what I don’t know but telling all the same hahaha) like he might be saying he’s tried doing things the ‘right’ way and it didn’t work and the price was too high, so he just went for this instead with the ends low-key justifying the means. hmmm. :Ia (this is what happens when I get Attached to a character with like an hour of screentime my friends, and I’m already primed to give my entire heart away at the sound of nicholas boulton’s voice)

[dungeondivebar]

Dungeon Dive Bar Crawl - Heck Knights In Space!

As we announced last week, we’ll be running a 24 hour stream for Extra Life on November 6 and 7! Check out that link for some more information on the stream and how to tune in.

Each Friday until the event itself, we’ll be publishing an interview with the GM of one of the adventures along with other material to get everybody super jazzed for the stream.

This week we’re talking to Megan, though you may know me better as Retha ;)

How long have you played TTRPGs in general? About five years now. I'd heard a lot about them beforehand, but could never find a group because no one in my tiny hometown was a nerd like me. Finally, in my freshman year of college, I found a group of nerd friends, including Alex, and started a D&D game. 5e was pretty brand-new at that point, so we started in 4e and then changed over not long after.

What is your favorite thing about TTRPGs overall? I love the character design. I'll usually start with a build and work out the concept as I go, but as I build further I usually find the character's personality solidifying in my head, and it's only a matter of time before they have a specific appearance, too. I'm an artist, after all. 

How long have you played Pathfinder and Starfinder in particular? I've been playing Starfinder basically since it was released. I was barely familiar with Pathfinder at the time; I'd played a game with some friends that fell apart after about four sessions, and at the time I wasn't a fan of all the rules and options. Starfinder seemed a bit more reasonable on the options side of things, though, since it was brand new.

I came over to Pathfinder via the lore. I've always been interested in divine casters, and I took an interest in the gods of Pathfinder as they were represented in Starfinder. It's a long story, but I started writing a Starfinder fanfic that had me digging deep into Pathfinder lore, and eventually I got interested enough to actually try to play the game, theorycraft some builds, and get involved in the community of a certain other Pathfinder podcast.

Have you ever been the GM of a campaign or module before? I'm not quite a "forever GM," but I have GM'd a lot. My GMing resumé includes a D&D 4e homebrew that turned into a 5e homebrew, a 2-year Starfinder homebrew, a running play-by-post of the Runelords trilogy, Against the Aeon Throne twice (plus a follow-up homebrew adventure one of those times), an attempt at Hell's Vengeance, a rewrite of Tyrant's Grasp for an all-divine party, the Pathfinder 2e adventure Agents of Edgewatch, and countless one-offs. (Notable one-offs included an all-Shelynite party braving Nidal and a tournament of universes where characters from the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and Golarion came together to fight Tiamat.)

What is your favorite part of being a GM? Getting to make up my own stories or add my own elements to prewritten ones, and ultimately, getting to decide what system we're playing, though if we're doing a long-term campaign the players get some say in this too. I love setting up opportunities for roleplay. I also like seeing what characters people bring to the table, especially when they have a lot of backstory I can work into the campaign.

What will you be running for the Dungeon Dive Bar Crawl? Can you tell us a bit about it? I'm running a homebrew scenario I've temporarily called "Heck Knights In Space." As the name might suggest, I required all the other players to be Hellknights for this game, which mostly just translates to lawful-aligned in Starfinder, since there's only one archetype for it and I didn't want to force everyone to take it. I don't want to spoil anything for the players if they happen to be reading this, but the module's premise is centered around exploring an abandoned Hellknight Citadel that's been broken into and involves both starship and ground combat.

What are you most excited about when it comes to Heck Knights in Space? Getting the chance to combine two of my favorite things-- Starfinder and Hellknights. As far as the module's content goes, there are some enemies that I've been wanting to use for a while now, as well as some I built myself.

Why do you like Hellknights so much? 

...In all seriousness, though, I'm a very lawful person IRL, and also an edgelord. I first read about Hellknights in the Starfinder Pact Worlds book, and basically instantly fell in love. On a deeper level, I'm intrigued by the different Orders and their different philosophies-- I definitely don't like all of them. You've got everything ranging from a group of detectives whose specific objective is to take out bad-faith actors, to a group of bounty hunters that operate across multiple star systems while using their codes as protection from those systems' own enforcement organizations, to a group whose main "thing" is finding new and improved ways to summon devils and work infernal magic. And they all operate under the same overarching codes, the Measure and the Chain, with what I can only imagine are vastly different interpretations.

What do you like the most about the Starfinder system? The lore! The flavor! Watching people try to come up with a balanced party for starship combat (or not try, and then just utterly fail in starship combat... I’ve had that happen in a few Society games, oof) is always a good show. Building my own enemies to fit the campaign is always fun too, especially boss enemies.

Can you explain how starship combat works for the viewers? Screams internally well here goes nothing. PCs operate from within a starship and choose a role on the ship. The only part of their character build that's really relevant to what they're doing is the skill modifier they're using for that role. It usually becomes a team effort, though, because it's a collaborative game.

There's different phases in which different roles operate, though the captain and chief mate can operate in any phase they need to.

Engineering phase is first, and gives ships' engineers and magic officers a chance to repair any damaged systems or boost operational ones to give a bonus to anyone using them this turn.

Next is the helm phase, where pilots roll off for initiative. It's a bit like Star Wars X-Wings in how it handles initiative: the lower roll actually goes first, because whoever acts second has the positioning advantage. (I think at one point Paizo admitted that X-Wings inspired them). Also in the helm phase, the science officer can scan the enemy ship to gain info about it, or can move your shields around to defend the firing arc the enemy ship is facing.

Finally, there's the gunnery phase, where ships attack each other. Obviously, the gunners act during this phase.

It sounds really complicated, but it's easy enough to understand once you get going, as long as you understand what your role can do!

What do you think players are the most excited about? Depends on the player. I know David is super excited about the starship combat system. Alex is more interested in ground combat; he has a technomancer build he's been theorycrafting for a while. Sam is excited about the huge variety of race options; last I heard he was trying to make fetch shakalta happen. Though if that doesn't work, we might see a familiar face…

What do you think our viewers will enjoy the most? If my brother-in-law is any indication, the callbacks to a specific group of Hellknights in Pathfinder will be pretty fun. ;) 

And that’s it for this week’s interview! Tune in starting at 9PM Central on Friday November 6 for the stream and in the meantime, join us at the bar for new Dungeon Dive Bar episodes every Monday at midnight Central!

[adozentothedawn]

First Playthrough Log Pathfinder: Kingmaker Part 31

Oh joy, it seems the mirror quest is bugged, because it doesn’t tigger. The only mention of this I found was in a post from may 2019. 

Aaaand now the game got stuck.

Ah there you go! Now it works.

Is that one ghost guard the elf king? A little disapointing but okay.

This feels weirdly anticlimactic. I haven’t taken a single of damage in the fight against Nyrissa because all she did was just heal herself. What to do with her now...

I mean I’m really tempted. More gameplay? And it would fit Tamary’s character... I’m just annoyed at myself that I didn’t save after defeating her.

j/ Mister, you are a giant floating ball of fire. With spikes. Calling you a lantern is like calling a burning house an oven. Like yeah I guess you can use it for that, but it seems kind of overkill.

I just realized I never saw Lander again, so maybe he’ll show up here. Edit: Yeah, there he is!

j/ Those are way too many Irovetti’s. At least they’re fittingly weak.

I just got my decleration of love from Kanerah and Kalikke and I must say I’m impressed. It’s great. I love it. It was so sweet and all I want is to hug them. I promise they’ll get a better wedding than just that though. 

j/ The last battle and Nyrissa just killed a dominated Jubilost. Thanks Nyrissa, remind me to never recruit you again.

What to do now... Not gonna lie, essentially becoming a fey does sound kind of dope. But also... immortality? Meh. At least if my wives don’t get same I’m very hesitant. Not gonna deal with Nyrissa though. I really don’t know why, but have less pity for her than for the Lantern King. Maybe it’s the voice actors, Nyrissa’s voice actress is just too good at sounding like a bitch.

I can’t find the actual ending slides unfortunately, but I did find something that said he was the chaotic ending and Nyrissa the good one, and like, why? What about Nyrissa is good? Like I get that she was fucked over and all, and we can totally have a discussion on her moral ambiguity, but how would allying with her lead to a good ending? Because in all honesty, but her and the Lantern King are kind of wonky with morals. They’re both selfish dicks, but they’re endgoal isn’t to hurt people. They’re very fine with it, but it’s not the point of what they’re doing. Anyway, I think I’ll both to fuck off. They can have their game somewhere else, Tamary is fine with the absolute batshit insane story she gets out of this. Becoming a fey would be dope, but also he admitted to being lonely and seem kind of insane. So yeah no thanks.

Aw, no he’s sad. If I’d been able to I would have told both they’re welcome to visit as long as they behave themselves. I can play tricks with him alright, I just don’t want immortality.

Okay, and now I’ll put a break, because after this will be my reactions to the ending slides, which make this thing even longer than usual and I don’t want to annoy people too badly. At least not with long posts.

You know, I pity what happened to Nyrissa in the beginning. It was a bad idea, but the Lantern King is also a dick with no sense of scale. She didn’t deserve that. But I don’t really pity her for her following fate, because that’s entirely her choice. He pulled back and gave up. She could do whatever she wanted to, for example apologize to her sister who were definitely the victims here, instead she chooses pointless revenge.

The republic thing is weird but okay.

Oh fuck you, I didn’t spend frivoulously. I was rich beyond reason in the end. 

My treasury is full of artifacts, but I’m out of money. Okay.

I can live with Brevoy sulking at me. 

Oh come on, no need to be so mean to Lander. It’s not like he was ever a real threat, and he actually did his job fine. I just hope he doesn’t get himself killed again.

Good for Amiri. Did her job well, and when she noticed it wasn’t for her, left them better than they were before. 

Not sure I’m too happy with Pitax, but it’s not bad enough to really annoy me. Let Moskoni have some money if he does his job well. (Even though apparently I don’t have any.)

I’m fine with the academy thing. As long as the leaflets are more creative than the last ones they’re at least entertaining.

Good for Varn! He’s a good man and deserves good things!

I’m glad Kesten stays. Tamary’ll see if she can find his sweetheart and she’s interested will make sure she can live here with her mother. For Tamary, fucking over noble marriage rules is a matter of principle. (As will be shown in the thing I’m currently working on.) Edit: Nevermind, she showed up on her own. Well good for them.

I’m glad the Sweet Teeth are having fun.

I’m a bit dissapointed at this non explanation for the Storyteller. Especially after that last bit it really feels like there’s something missing. Oh well, I hope he has fun wherever he goes. Maybe he’ll come visit later.

Yeah, like I said I have some issues with Valerie, but that would take too long to do here. Maybe later. But it’s not really the ending and more the general concept that I have an issue with, for what it’s worth the ending is fine I guess.

I like Harrim’s ending better than I expected. Nice.

I absolutely adore that Jaethal is now hanging out with Salim. I desperately need a buddy cup story about these two. I would die laughing.

Octavia is fine. I’m not really sure what else to say. Not very surprising, not very interesting, but fine. Good for her.

I like that Regongar’s plan for the future is basically just woo Octavia. That’s a romcom I’m down for!

Tristian stays, which is nice of him. Thank you.

I’ll gladly be godmother of Ekun’s baby, but I won’t lie, I’m not terribly into him marrying Elina. She was a kind of a creep. I’ll just have to hope Tamary managed to talk some sense into her, much like the Watcher does with Xoti.

I love Jubilost. He’s great. Not super into the game trying to ship him with Nyrd, it just seems kind of pointless, but I’m super into the rest. You are always welcome here Jubilost!

I’m so glad that Nok-Nok is happy. Even if his ending slide is still worded a bit... well mean, at least he seems to have found his place.

The whole Tartuccio Tartuk story is still kind of weird but I’m strangely into it. You go kobold man! (Also was it the Lantern King who reserructed him? If I ever found out who did it I forgot, but who else would it have been?)

!!!!! That’s so fucking cute!! Why aren’t there more tiefling shippers? I don’t get it. I love them so much. I hope Idream of the wedding tonight. This is absolutely adorable. Also, it’s tradition now to put little horns on the wedding hats? Oh hell yes! I love this so much... It’s so fucking cute I’m dying. I don’t think anything can top this. Excuse me while I go cry over my tiefling wives.

Bitches, I just got married! You can keep your marriage proposals, my wives are the best!

I still don’t know why they thought they had to do this to poor Linzi, but okay I guess.

Well, I guess now my last question is how I’ll start Varnhold’s Lot.^^ Not today anymore though, it’s already midnight. I want to though. Hmmm...

[houseofvans]

ART SCHOOL | INTERVIEW WITH JUSTINE JONES

Baltimore based artist and illustrator Justine Jones creates her vein of psychedelic fantasy horror drawings–filled with tiny black lines and an occasional pop of bright colors–which have been featured on the covers of Kobold Press and Warlock magazine. Using the hashtag #VisibleWomen to amplify the voices and portfolios of women comic artists, Justine has be able to do more illustrative work and character design. We’re excited to find out more about Justine’s artistic journey, her love of role-playing games, comics, art, her influences and much more. . .  Take the leap! 

Photography courtesy of the artist. 

Introduce yourself?    Hi, I’m Justine!  I’ve lived in Baltimore Maryland for the past decade and currently live in a small apartment downtown with my partner and my shiba inu Mo, who is a cool and grumpy guy.

How would you describe your work to someone who is just coming across it? I used to call it storybook surrealism, but now I guess it’s more like psychedelic fantasy horror?  Monsters and Wizards.  Lots of tiny black lines, sometimes with lots of bright intense colors.

How did you start from doodling and drawing to what you do now? I feel like it sort of happened organically.  When I was younger, I would do just pencil drawings, and then in my late teens, I got more into using micron pens.  I didn’t really discover color until a few years ago, so I’m a huge color noob.  I think a lot of it also came from working in comic shops for years and going to conventions.  Seeing all of these amazing artists grow, and thinking hey, I could maybe also do that! I first started with t-shirt designs because it just seemed really fun, and I used to have a really hard time selling prints.  People don’t need more prints, but they can always use clothes!  Now i’m getting more into illustrative work and character design, and I’m loving it!

Who and what were some of your early artistic influences? When I was a baby, my dad hung an Aubrey Beardsley print over my crib.  My mom thought it would make me deranged, and maybe it did, but it also made me love ink work and Art Nouveau style haha.  I was obsessed with sword and sorcery stuff and loooved cartoons like He-Man and She-ra, and later, Pirates of Darkwater. I also spent a lot of time in elementary school copying sexy comic book ladies from 90s comics, and I know that is pretty far from what I do now, but it’s honestly how I learned to draw.  I also copied a lot from children’s storybooks when I was little.  

What are some things that inspire the drawings you make? What are some of your favorite creatures and beings you like to explore in your art? Video games are a huge inspiration to me, from SNES JRPGs, to games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne.  Also folklore and mythology from around the world, and fantasy artwork from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s.  Basically anything fantasy.  My favorite things to draw are wizards and monsters.  I love body horror, anything disgusting and beautiful at the same time.  I take a lot of inspiration from Manga, like Berserk, or anything Junji Ito.  I’ve done a lot of Illustrations for Clark Ashton Smith stories, which I find endlessly inspiring, visually.  Just like, fantasy/ sci fi/ dying earth type stuff.

When did you start collaborating with Kobold Press on creating some awesome fantasy art covers for their publications?  I remember getting the email from them when I was on the way to Necronomicon Providence in 2017.  I thiiiink they found my stuff through the visible women hashtag on twitter?  I was very excited because I owned some of their adventures from back in the day when I played Pathfinder!!  Plus, I have always always wanted to draw things for table top RPGs, so it’s been really cool to actually do it! The Warlock mag that I’ve been doing covers for is awesome because it’s going for an old school DND vibe, but it’s all things that are made for 5th edition.  You can get it on their patreon, and I hiiiighly recommend it to anyone who plays 5e dnd!!  

Take us through your artistic process? What’s a typical day in the studio like? Haha extremely chaotic!  I don’t even have a real set workspace, which I really need to change, I just draw where ever. Just chill out, listen to music or a podcast, and draw.  If I’m further along in a drawing and don’t need to focus so much, I’ll watch movies or video gameπ– let’s plays while I’m drawing.  I also love to listen to/ watch things that are in theme with what I’m drawing, to give me some inspiration.  I try to go to coffee shops to change things up sometimes!  Basically I just do a bunch of sketches until something materializes, and then I will just slowly refine the sketch.  I guess it’s not that exciting, but it’s cool to see the first sketch and the finished product because in my head, the sketch always looked like the finished product, but when you go back to look at it, it’s usually just indecipherable scribbles.

What are your essential art tools and materials? 90% of my art is just done using a .05 mechanical pencil and micron pens.  I also draw everything on smooth bristol.  If I have time and want to make my lines super crisp before I scan them in, i will use a light box.   Then for color, I generally use Kyle T Webster brushes in Photoshop with my Wacom tablet.   If I’m on the go, I like to draw things in Procreate on my iPad Pro, but I’m definitely not as good at doing detailed lines digitally.  

What do you do when you’re not drawing or working on projects? How do you unplug? Haha, I wish I ever truly unplugged, I think my brain is now melded into the internet!  But mostly I love to play video games.  JRPGs and anything From Software/ Soulsborne (currently obsessed with Sekiro!)  I also love comics and manga.  I’ve been reading The Girl From the Other Side, which is a beautiful dark fairytale Manga by Nagabe.  I also just got one called Witch Hat Atelier, which has the most amazing art! My partner also owns an insane amount of board games, so we play a lot of those.  I’m obsessed with coffee, and work part time at a coffee shop, and my favorite thing in the world to do is eat good food.    

What has been the most challenging project you’ve worked on? How did you overcome those obstacles and what did you take away from it? I made a kind of cosmic horror short story in mini comic form last year for SPX, I had very little time,  and it was my first time actually writing a story/ dialogue to go with my pictures.  It was insanely challenging.  I ended up with a finished product that I’m really proud of and that I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback on.  I think it really drove home the fact that I just need to stick with things and finish them, even if I don’t feel like they’re perfect.  I’m never going to have the time that I want, and I’m never going to feel like anything is perfect.  I can still make a great thing!  

What advice would you give someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and pursue art? Don’t spend 4 years doing nothing, but playing World of Warcraft (Or doooo?).  Uhhh, believe in yourself.  Be nice to other artists.  Draw all the time! Immerse yourself in things that inspire you!  Also, like I said before, things don’t need to be perfect.  Let go of perfect, because sometimes it’s an unattainable ideal.  Just do as good as you can, and don’t beat yourself up so much!  I’m horrible at advice!!!

What’s your best Art School tip that you want to share with folks?   Haha, I moved to Baltimore to go to MICA like, 14 years ago, and then realized I was poor, and would never be able to go to MICA… sooo… I never went to real art school.  I wanted to go so bad, and I still wish I’d had that experience, but I want other people who can’t afford it to know that you don’t NEED it.  Things are a bit harder, but you can find so much free info online if you have the drive, you can teach yourself so many things.  Don’t get discouraged just because art school isn’t gonna happen for you.

What are your favorite style of VANS? I love my lavender/ sea fog Authentic Vans, because they basically go with anything, but I am always eyeing those Sk8-His.

Anything you can share that is coming up?   Ahhhh, I have some realllly cool things that I can’t share yet, but just everyone keep an eye out (It will be very exciting, i swear)!!  As for things I can share, I’m working on some new t-shirt designs, and another comic, and also plan on drawing some more cool wizards in my spare time.   So if you wanna see some cool wizards, uhhh, come to my Instagram–you guys!  Let’s hang out and look at wizards.  And talk about wizards.  And if you don’t like wizards well, don’t come I guess.

FOLLOW JUSTINE: INSTAGRAM | WEBSITE | TWITTER | STORE 

[deaky-disco-queen]

Roll for Romance - Johnica Week Day 4

A/N: Written for @eileen-crys Johnica Week and the Prompt: Party (and Alternative Universe) Disclaimer: I usually don't Play DnD but Pathfinder and never in english so it might not be super accurate but I tried. 

Can also be read on A03.

+++

Veronica opened the door to the common room, balancing her bottle and the extra books that hadn’t fit into her bag anymore in her arms. She was already late and felt awful about it but the lesson had dragged on for longer than she expected and until she had found her way to the common room where the meeting for the Book Club, she was way too late.

As she rushed into the room, she wasn’t faced with a group of people discussing books but instead five guys sitting around a table decked out with papers and pens, a screen of some kind of screen separating a part of the table from the rest. Veronica stopped dead in her tracks. Her bottle finally won the battle against her and dropped to the ground.

   “Ah, sh- Um, sorry, I thought the book club was meeting today?”

She stopped the bottle from rolling away with her foot, clutching her books to her chest. 

The guys couldn’t be any more mismatched. One of them was dressed more fitting for some nightclub or fashion show than a common room in an university. His dark hair was framing his face, the eyes standing out thanks to a generous amount of kohl accentuating them. Another one of them was dressed somewhat similar but yet not at all because he looked like the complete opposite of the first guy with his blond hair and bright blue eyes. The other three were all dressed more “normal”, even if the guy with the brown hair was wearing a knitted sweater vest which was not something she would have thought to see anyone wearing at this age and day. The last two guys had dark hair, one long and curly, the other short and straight, neatly combed.

Veronica couldn’t even guess what they were doing here.

   “Yes, originally, but Mary Austin asked us if she could have Tuesdays instead of Fridays, so we swapped days. So it’s the same time, just a different day.” 

She stopped for a moment, mentally going through her schedule and grimaced when she realized she wouldn’t be able to attend any meetings because she would be in class then. Veronica sighed and blew a strand of hair out her face.

   “Alright, sorry, I’ll be off then. Thank you.”

The next bus that drove into the direction of her apartment was coming in an hour. She could find something to do in this hour, though. There was always something to do after all.

   “Oh, don’t let us chase us away!” The guy with the long black hair said. “Sit down and get comfortable if you want to.”

The university had many common rooms all over campus so she could find another one to do whatever she was going to do to pass the hour but the room was big enough for them and her without getting in each other way, even if it wasn’t the biggest common room around. She nodded thankfully and finally got rid of the things in her hands by putting them down on one of the two other tables. The curly haired guy got up and picked up her water bottle, holding out for her.

   “Thank you.”

She settled down at the table, rummaging through her stuff to find her notebook, searching for something to do to pass the time. The year had just started a week ago and there were no essays to write yet, no presentations to prepare just now and so she was stuck with flipping through her textbooks.

It wasn’t really interesting nor what she had hoped to do with her day. Still, it was way better than wandering around campus without having anything to do.

The guys were going back to whatever they were doing, papers rustling and pens scratching, pages being flipped. She wished she had brought her headphones but they were most likely still lying on her bedside table. They weren’t loud at all but she felt as if she was intruding something despite having every reason being here.

   “So, I was thinking about a druid.”

   “Again?”

Somebody laughed then and more joined in and Veronica looked up shortly. The guy with the short black hair was shaking his head but also smiling as he grabbed a book, opening it on a marked page.

   “Okay, druid it is. Which race? And keep in mind, we’re doing a pretty combat heavy campaign. Just for your background and all.”

She still had no idea what they were talking about. The brown haired guy had noticed her staring. He was smiling, though, and Veronica blushed, quickly looking away.

Her mother had always told her staring was rude and she should never do it. Manners had always been the most important thing to her and Veronica had grown up with her breathing down her neck to make sure she was the proper and polite daughter she had always wanted. Even now, after moving out and starting her own life in London, her mother’s words rang after her and she found herself correcting her behaviour to please her mother despite her not being here.

   “-because I’m always the one who has to do heavy hitting! The only one! Because you guys alway want to play rogues and mages and shit.” The blond one complained. “Maybe I want to play a mage for once!”

   “Do you want to play a mage?” The guy with the long black hair asked, propping his elbows onto the table and resting his chin on his hands.

   “Fuck no!”

   “Why do you complain about it, then?” Curly haired guy asked.

Veronica had been re-reading the same page for a while now, too distracted by the guys and intrigued by what they were doing.

   “Hey, do you want to play, too?”

It was the brown haired guy who called over to her. It had caught the other guys’ attention, too, and they looked back and forth between them.

   “I have no idea what you are doing.” She admitted.

   “Dungeons and Dragons.” All of them answered, the words quickly becoming a jumble of sounds but it was somehow still clear enough for her to understand what they were saying.

She had a vague idea what that was, only from some throw-away mentions from TV or some people she had been hanging out with but she had no real knowledge about it. She told them as much. What followed was an explanation- admittedly, a bad one because everyone starting talking all over each other and kept interrupting- but Veronica got a better idea of what it actually was. Not a good one but it was something.

   “We could always need another player. If you want to, you can try it.”

Veronica looked back to her textbook. She hadn’t comprehended anything from the page- hadn’t even tried to if she was being honest- sighed, then closed it and got up. They made enough space for another chair and cleared off a little bit of the table.

   “I’m Jim, by the way.” Short, straight black haired guy introduced himself. “And those are Freddie, Roger, Brian and John.”

   “My name’s Veronica.”

As it turned out, Dungeons and Dragons- or DnD as they kept calling it- was way more complicated than she ever thought it would be. Her head was spinning with all these options for races and classes and many other things Jim was explaining to her now.

   “It’s alright if you don’t understand everything just yet. You’ll get there with time.” Freddie assured her.

Veronica didn’t even know if she was going to take the time she might need to understand everything. She hadn’t anticipated this at all. Her day had started out with her firmly believing she was going to joining a book club, not doing this. She had planned on joining some kind of club at university because it would help her making friends with people with similar interests outside of her classes. But since she couldn’t join the book club now, she might as well find something new. If this new thing in question was this, she didn’t know yet. It might as well be.

   “Okay, easy thing first: Which race do you want?”

   “Uh, elf maybe?”

Jim flipped through a book- the rulebook, she was told- and when he found what he had been looking for, he pushed it towards her. She read over the part he pointed out to her which explained to her how elves worked in this.

   “There are also half elves, just on the other page.”

She hummed absently, already busy reading. Jim seemed to be happy with that and went back to talk to Freddie about his character idea. It helped a little bit so Veronica understood somewhat more and afterwards she read the text about half elves, too and decided she liked them way more. Jim was still busy with Freddie and she waited awkwardly, holding the book open at the page.

   “Did you pick something?”

John had noticed her looking like she didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to do now. It wasn’t far off from the truth, honestly. She felt kind of lost in the midsts of all this. There was just so many things and Veronica had no idea where to even begin.

   “Yeah, half elf?”

It sounded more like a question, her voice trailing up at the end and she searched for any sign that she was doing something wrong.

   “Alright, solid choice, do you need help with the classes?” He asked.

   “Yes, please.”

John chuckled lowly and tugged on the book so she would let it go and turned a few pages.

   “Do you want something that’s more combat, heavy-hitting, or more range or maybe magic?”

She looked at him helplessly, shrugging and John smiled and nodded. Veronica chuckled, feeling somewhat embarrassed. It was stupid because she knew nothing about DnD so of course she had no idea about anything, really. There was nothing to be embarrassed about because why should she know stuff about something she never dabbled in?

He didn’t seem to hold it against her- because there was nothing to hold against her, she told herself- and started explaining the classes to her. She tried following it all but it was a lot. Thankfully, he didn’t mind when she asked question after question, willing to explain things several times. He really went into the details, spelling out the pros and cons of all classes for her.

   “I guess I’m playing a fighter. Someone has to be able to do some damage.” Roger said, shrugging. “Hey, Deaks, pass the rulebook real quick, I want to check something.”

John rolled his eyes but did as he was asked.

   “I can play a damage class.” Veronica said.

She kind of sold herself to joining this group. This game sounded like fun and Fridays were the only days she really had time for any clubs activities. The university had many clubs and she had chosen the book club because the timing had just been too good to pass up. She adored reading and doing so with other people and exchanging thoughts sounded like fun to her. This wasn’t reading and she didn’t understand this at all yet but it had something that intrigued her.

Roger grinned at her.

   “Oh, look, someone who wants the party to survive for once! I like her already, you all can suck it. Veronica is my best friend for this campaign now.”

Freddie and Brian rolled their eyes at the blond but in a fond way, giving themselves away with their smiles. Jim was looking like someone who was used to this whole spiel and happy yet looking already done. She had no idea what the correct reaction to this was so she just smiled at Roger and then turned back to John.

   “I guess, I’m a damage class then?”

   “Rog, give back the book, we have to talk damage classes!”

Roger laughed and winked at Veronica, making her laugh, and gave back the rulebook. John flicked at his nose, missing by a mile but the blond waggled his eyebrows and blew him a kiss which only made John chuckle lowly as he shook his head.

   “But only because it’s for Veronica!”

In the end, she went with a cleric of the light domain. There had been so many things to choose from- domains, armor, weapons and all these little extras- it made her head spin. All of them helped her, giving her tips on what she should choose but leaving the ultimate decision up to her, even if it was something they wouldn’t suggest her to choose. Afterwards, she listened to the others creating their characters.

Brian was playing as an elf druid with a badger companion Nobody seemed surprised by that- in fact, Jim said it before Brian could and the curly haired man blushed before clearing his voice and agreeing, continuing on as if nobody had said anything.

They must be friends for a while already, Veronica assumed.

John made a human artificer and it was only thanks to Jim passing her the rulebook to read that she understood what John was saying. She understood what fighters, rogues and rangers and all these things were- she wasn’t stupid and read a lot of fantasy books- and it wasn’t too hard to get the gist of some more specific classes but she had never heard of an artificer before.

Freddie’s character was a tiefling bard which seemed fitting for what she had gotten from Freddie’s personality so far. He obviously had put a lot of thought into his character’s looks, too, going on for a while to describe the exact shape his horns had. It was somewhat adorable, seeing how excited he was as he gestured wildly.

Roger played as a dwarf fighter because- in his words- it was the best combination of all and he had expected to be the only heavy hitter on the group. He did shoot her a thankful look, though before going fully into the description of his character.

Jim, who was their DM as it looked like, then told them about the setting of their game and it was then that Veronica knew she wouldn’t miss the book club all that much. By the time Jim was giving out sheets so they could build their characters backgrounds, hours had passed and she hadn’t even really noticed.

After this, they rolled their stats which were explained to her in detail and Jim helped her where to put what stat where. She didn’t quite get what the numbers meant exactly just yet but she was assured she would with time. There was a lot of more maths and adding numbers to the character sheet they had gotten.

   “We’ll meet again next week for the first actual game but please tell me about your backgrounds at least on the day before. Veronica, can I add you to the group chat?”

She gave him her number and was quickly added to a group chat with the other guys. She saved the numbers into her phone and so did they.

   “I can send you some links that explain things, if you want me to.” Jim offered as they packed their things together.

   “That would be useful, thank you.”

Jim smiled at her and Veronica smiled back. They said their goodbyes and she gathered her things again, carefully putting her papers between the pages of one of her textbooks so they didn’t get crumbled.

Freddie, Jim and John left in the same direction as her and they kept an easy stream of chatter between them. Veronica couldn’t help but smile as she listened to them, occasionally joining in with her own short remarks. Freddie hugged her when they had to part ways, Jim and John waved after her.

She didn’t even mind having to wait another twenty minutes for her bus.

+++

   “Make a persuasion check.”

Roger groaned but grabbed his die, shaking them in his hands before letting it roll. Veronica watched with one hand clamped over her mouth, her face hurting from laughter. Freddie wasn’t fairing much better as it looked like, his shoulders shaking with mirth. They exchanged a look, both of them breaking into a new fit of laughter that infected Brian and John, too.

   “Uh, 13?” Roger said. “Is that enough?”

He shot them a quick look, desperately trying to keep it stern but it only lasted about a second before he started laughing, too. Jim was the only one who was halfways composed but he was also giggling as he went through his notes.

   “Alright, then.” He said, clearing his throat and slipping back into his DM voice. “The guard looks kind of weirded out by you, eyeing you up and down, but eventually nods and lets you all pass.”

Jim then launched into a description of the town and Veronica quickly composed herself and made some notes of things she thought might be important.

John, who was sitting next to her, opened a new bottle of water and when he noticed her looking, he offered it to her first.

   “Thank you.” She murmured, not wanting to interrupt the DM and took the offered bottle.

   “You’re welcome.”

+++

Roger, Brian and John were waiting in front of the lecture hall and Veronica smiled when she saw them, squeezing past other students.

   “Hey, Veronica! How was class?” Roger greeted her, pulling her into a half hug.

She hugged Brian, too, having to go on her tiptoes to be able to wrap her arms around his neck and then she hugged John. It might just be her imagination but she thought maybe the hug lingered just a little bit longer than usual.

   “It was nice. A bit boring.”

They had planned to take advantage of the good weather, holding this week’s session outside in a little secluded seating area. It was probably a stupid idea and they all knew it but the idea had come up and they kept joking about it and now they were doing it.

It proved to be an awful idea because it was windy and the table was way smaller than they thought it would be and they basically were sitting squished together. Nobody could sit next to Jim- for obvious reasons- so they only had one measly bench to sit on.

John’s thigh was pressed up against hers and she could feel the warmth of his skin seep through the fabric of her skirt. She couldn’t move without brushing up against him. It made her blush madly and she just hoped it could be played off as coming from all the laughing.

Veronica had no idea when this little crush had started but it was a thing now and she didn’t know what she was supposed to do with it now. Sure, John was nice to her but he seemed like the guy who was nice to everyone. She wasn’t special in this regard. She wasn’t special at all, in fact.

There was absolutely no reason for him to like her in any other way than a platonic one. Which was fine. She could live with that. Maybe. If John would just stop moving and knocking their arms together. It wasn’t his fault and Veronica felt bad about getting a little bit frustrated with him because he wasn’t even doing anything.

   “I’ll cast fireball against the owlbear.” She said when it was her turn in combat.

John gave her a thankful smile as his character had been quite knocked around by the monster which was now distracted by Veronica’s character. She smiled back, ignoring the way her heart fluttered.

+++

Veronica had no idea what time it was, she only knew it was late and she was tired. They had assembled at Freddie’s and Jim’s apartment, sitting on the floor around the new battle map Jim had bought for a weekend full of dungeon crawling.

She couldn’t feel her left leg below the knee. It had fallen asleep about an hour ago and by now she really didn’t want to stand up, dreading the inevitable pins and needles that would bring.

Roger yawned loudly, almost knocking into Veronica as he did so. Jim followed, then Brian and John and then all of them were yawning.

Veronica slumped a little bit, closing her eyes for just a moment while Freddie charmed his way into the hearts of the noblemen. John’s shoulder proved to be a pretty comfortable pillow for her head.

   “Ronnie, hey, we’re done for today.”

She flinched, sitting upright suddenly and groaned at the stiffness in her neck. Blinking blearily, she looked up at John.

   “Did I fall asleep?”

   “A little bit.”

A blush rose on her cheeks and she rubbed her neck, awkwardly clearing her throat. John smiled at her. He got up with a low groan and held out a hand to help her up. Her leg didn’t appreciate it and she winced, pinching her calf and immediately regretting it. She hissed and squeezed John’s hand.

   “You okay?”

She nodded and let go of him with an apologetic smile, carefully stepping over the miniatures and the battle map. She stretched, frowning when her spine popped loudly.

   “Oh, I heard that.” Freddie said, face contorted in empathy.

Veronica laughed quietly as she squatted down again to help cleaning up the room, grabbing the empty chip bags and used cups and brought them into the kitchen. John followed not long afterwards, carrying several plates.

   “Where’s the dishwasher?” She asked him.

   “They have none. Just put it in the sink for now. We’ll take care of it tomorrow.”

The idea didn’t really appear to her, she would rather take care of it now but she also didn’t want to do dishes now at all. So she only nodded and put the cups into the sink and threw the bags in the trash. Brushing off some crumbs from her shirt, she checked the clock. Just past three in the morning. She groaned.

   “Ronnie, you get the sofa!” Jim yelled from the living room.

   “Thanks! Appreciate it!”

She could faintly hear Roger mock-complaining about her being favoritized and she rolled her eyes, barely suppressing a grin.

   “I’m glad you could make it.” John said.

He wasn’t directly looking at her, rummaging through the fridge instead but he glanced at her quickly.

   “So am I!” She admitted.

There had been so many essay deadlines and presentations she had to deliver in the past week and Veronica hadn’t been sure if she could come. Honestly, there was still a lot of things to do but she decided she deserved a break.

   “We probably would have died without you.”

She chuckled and knocked their shoulders together.

   “You would have.”

“We are very cocky today, aren’t we?” John gasped, his wide grin betraying his hurt and betrayed voice.

Veronica bit her lip, unable to not smile back at him and then shook her head slightly. She also didn’t know where this suddenly came from. John was chuckling and pulled out two cups of yoghurt from wherever they had been hidden inside the fridge.

   “Late night snack?” He asked.

   “Yes, always. I get the spoons, you hide the food from Rog.”

+++

   “I can’t buy them.”

She stared at the dice displayed in front of her. They were beautiful, yellow with white in a marble effect and Veronica really wanted them.

   “Why not?” John asked, effortlessly looking over her shoulder.

   “I didn’t came here to buy anything.”

That was true. John had asked her if she wanted to go to the comic book store. He said he needed a certain color for a new miniature he was painting and she hadn’t seen any reason to not come along.

   “Just because you didn’t plan to buy anything doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to buy anything.”

Veronica turned her head to look back at him over her shoulder. He looked amused, a grin tugging on the corner of his mouth. She looked back to the dice and bit her lip.

   “I already have a pair of dice.”

She did. Right after the first playing session, she had ordered the dice she needed. It was a simple pair, just simple black dice and they were nice but they weren’t pretty like those were.

   “Yeah, and? Have you seen Freddie’s dice bag? He has so many dice! Probably more than any of us combined. Brian has quite the collection, too.”

He wasn’t wrong. Freddie had a huge bag that was filled with dice of all kinds of colors. He had borrowed her some until she had bought her own. She shrugged.

   “I don’t need them, though.”

   “But you want them.”

Veronica made a frustrated sound. She did want them. They were pretty. But she didn’t need them. John sighed, then chuckled and reached around her to grab the dice.

“If you won’t buy them, I’ll buy them for you.”

She grabbed his arm quickly and held it tightly, eyes wide as he shook her head.

   “No! I can’t let you do that. I don’t need them, I’m fine.”

John leaned in a little bit, smiling at her before he let his head fall against her shoulder and sighed.

   “Buy the dice, Ronnie. If they make you happy, buy them. Or let me buy them for you.”

He quickly straightened up again, easily pried her fingers from his wrist and pushed the dice into her hand. She contemplated it for a long moment, then sighed and nodded.

   “Fine, I’ll buy them.” She grumbled.

His grin was wide and he squeezed her shoulder. Veronica blushed and clutched the bag of dice in her hand as she followed John to where the paints were displayed.

+++

Veronica straightened out her skirt and fussed over her hair for a moment before grabbing her purse and rushed downstairs.

John’s car was already parked in front of her apartment and he was standing next to it, dressed in a nice shirt and pair of pants. Veronica’s heart sped up a little bit. She smiled, blushing when he returned the smile.

   “You look very pretty.”

Her cheeks felt hot already and she absently brushed over the fabric of her skirt. He had surprised her when he had asked her for a date after one of their play sessions. It had been embarrassing how long it had taken her to form an answer but John hadn’t seemed to mind much. His face had been bright red but the relieved smile when she had said yes had been adorable.

   “You look good, too.” She said, gently fixing his collar.

John drove them to a small but nice restaurant, holding open doors for her and asked before he took her hand. The food was good and she had worried they wouldn’t have anything to talk about but that wasn’t the case. They were chatting the whole evening and Veronica didn’t want it to end. John seemed to feel the same, drawing it out and only asking for the bill only when he really couldn’t hold it off anymore.

   “Do you want to go for a walk?” She asked.

   “Yes, please!”

There was a park not far from the restaurant and John took her hand again- asking for permission again- and they walked along the pavel paveway. Veronica listened to him ramble about his latest engineering projects and it was fascinating even if she didn’t really know how most of it worked. John probably didn’t understand much about her curriculum classes but he listened anyway and asked questions nonetheless.

At some point, they could not make any pretenses anymore and had to go back to the car to drive home again.

   “I’d really enjoyed this evening.” Veronica said.

   “Me too. Can- May I take you out again?”

She nodded, bit her lip and tucked her hair behind her ear. Would John try and kiss her? She would like that, she thought.

He didn’t kiss her, instead he got out of the car to open her car door and help her getting out. He did press a chaste, almost fleeting kiss to her cheek after bringing her to the apartment door.

   “Thank you for the nice evening.” He mumbled, a dark blush spreading over his cheekbones.

She chuckled, ducking her head slightly and squeezed his hand, their fingers still laced together.

   “No, thank you. See you tomorrow for the game?”

   “Wouldn’t dare to miss it.”

[recalcitrantlycaffeinated]

DND: an update

We spent the majority of a campaign session giving chase to a merchant ship, which we then successfully captured and vanquished after several in our party losing almost all their HP due to an enormous amount of poor rolls.  We probably only survived this encounter (with MERCHANTS) unscathed because our DM was also rolling terribly.

However, we also managed to get haunted by a dead pirate captain.  We’d heard that he’d been cursed to an undead life after abusing his crew, and that the only way his soul would find rest would be if he collected a thousand skulls.  He’d been sailing for decades, haunting a ship for three days before dragging it to the bottom of the ocean, never to be seen again.

There was also a storm.

Rather than try to avoid the pirate captain’s imminent approach, we just waited for it to happen.  My fellow pirates regained HP and tried to protect our ships from the storm, while I walked around complaining about the pirate captain’s ineptness.  A thousand skulls?  He hadn’t collected a thousand skulls in decades?  What was this guy’s problem?  Did he really want to collect skulls at all?  (Just in case, our bloodthirsty shark shaman started collecting her human skulls as an offering, while our seductive sorceress beheaded a bunch of fish in order to add their skulls to the pile.)

Our encounter with the pirate captain was...a mess.

His ship was completely crewed by zombies.  He was standing by himself, ringing a bell incessantly.  He did not respond to the offer of skulls from my compatriots, he just wordlessly kept ringing the bell.

I somehow ended up first in the initiative order, and was so annoyed about this legend that I went anti-rogue and just straight up boarded the ship and got ready to go right to the captain to give him a piece of my mind.  It took me two rounds to get that far, by which point I was extra annoyed about the bell ringing and the ignoring and the stupid amount of time he’d taken to get these skulls, and also had taken a ballista bolt to the chest, so I slapped both hands onto the bell to silence it before commencing my frustrated interrogation.  

The captain did actually interact with me, and basically explained that the technical terms of the geas he was under only required him to take one skull per boat, and since he wasn’t ready to stop sailing yet, he would just torture the remainder of the crew.  He couldn’t be convinced to leave us alone, because he was a better pirate than we are and really really liked watching people suffer, so we determined we’d have to kill each other.  

I skipped the rest of my turn because I’m pregnant and had been waiting to use the restroom for the entire bottom of the initiative order, and as soon as that was done I realized that our DM had mentioned that the captain looked afraid when I’d grabbed onto the bell, so I knew exactly what I needed to attack once my turn came back around.

The captain didn’t attack me on his turn, because he’d attacked our fighter during the previous round, doing some serious constitution drain damage, and our DM was super eager to use the second-level step of that attack, assuming the fighter would again fail his save because the captain was kind of OP.  He was right...and after announcing that the constitution drain now doubled, he started going into a triumphant explanation that the fighter’s HP immediately went down to zero and he was unconscious...

Except he wasn’t.  He was dead.  Because his constitution had been reduced to zero.

Our group has been playing Pathfinder together as a group for years now.  This particular campaign is about a year and a month old.  I think we’ve had HP go down to zero maybe twice over all those years, and have always been able to revive our characters in some way.  My husband has only been playing with us for a short time (this was his fighter character’s third session ever)...and he straight-up died.

This was great protection for my character, though, as I was then able to handle the bell on my next turn.  Rather than attacking the bell, like a Normal Person, I ran away with it and jumped over the side of the boat.  Apparently the bell and the boat were connected, because as the bell began sinking to the bottom of the ocean, so did the boat we were on.

We considered letting the boat sink and hoping that they couldn’t re-hook up the bell to regain boat control, or if they did that they wouldn’t bother us again, but then someone brought up the idea of putting the bell into our bag of holding, hoping the ship would have to magically follow and that everything would blow up.

When this happened, it opened up a rift to the Astral Plane.  Both the sorceress and the shark shaman got dragged in.  The sorceress failed her will save and did not feel the need to leave, and the shark shaman (who had passed her save) attempted to rescue her, but the person playing the sorceress declared this unnecessary and decided this was a fitting end for his character and said she should just be left there.  

So on the one hand, we defeated a high level enemy permanently, leaving him never to terrorize a ship again, rather than merely escaping or temporarily defeating him...but on the other hand, we lost two of our characters in the process.

This will probably be good, though, because my husband gets to write his own character since he now understands the bare minimum about how Pathfinder works, and the other person can now make a character that isn’t so slutty she breaks the campaign and is impossible to roleplay comfortably in front of the children.      

[annakie]

D&D Frustration

A long time ago, round about 2007, I made a D&D character.  A bard with a several-pages long backstory, crafted over several months, a character that I loved so very much.

And then I tried to play her in a game, and the game quickly died.

I tried again, and that game died.

OK, I thought.  I’ll get some friends together and even a DM who made the campaign specifically with my character in mind.

The DM and one of the players got into an argument about THE PRICE OF HORSES about five sessions in, neither one of them would budge about it.  We never had another session because of the horse-price argument.

A couple of years later, I wanted to play that character in my first 4e D&D game with my main friend group, but the PHB2 wasn’t out yet.  So I played a rogue, who was also a lovingly-crafted character, (actually a re-imagining of the very first D&D character I ever rolled back in 2e) and happily played her for five years, but always wanting to play that bard.

I joined a couple of other random campaigns in that time, often trying to play that Bard, but no game ever stuck. Including the one game that turned out so badly it’s still my go-to “terrible campaign” story when comparing terrible D&D campaign stories.

The next campaign I played with my main friend group was a Star Wars game, so I made a cool pilot/shitty Jedi character who I loved.

And then we started a Pathfinder game, and I excitedly submitted my bard idea to my DM, who did such a great job honoring my rogue character.

The pathfinder game never really touched on our character’s backstories much and died around level 7.  So there went my opportunity to play that bard I loved so much with my main friend group.  I wasn’t happy, so instead, I joined an online game to play her.

And that game was GREAT.  It was everything I ever wanted for that character.  Finally, after over 10 years and probably close to a dozen tries to play her.  The DM in that game flaked, but one of the players took up the DM reins for almost a year and a half we’ve been regularly playing.  I LOVE that game and the other players so much and it was truly amazing.

And we got to about level 7, and our characters' backstories were starting to be explored, and we even got to the one session where some of the Big Reveal stuff about my character was happening.  I was so excited, I’d played out how this would happen in my head SO.  MANY.  TIMES.  And how it was happening was so great, and so much fun.

And a few weeks ago the DM announced he was having personal issues, and put the game on hiatus.  So I picked up the reins to run a mini-campaign until the DM was back on his feet so we could continue our game, which ended on a HUGE cliffhanger for not only my character but one other character as well.

....and the DM announced he wants to start a new campaign instead of continuing our old one.

I’m... honestly kind of devastated about it.

I honestly kind of am not even sure I want to play anything else in 5e.  Like 5e is fine, but none of the character classes really excite me anymore.  I feel like between CR, TAZ and things I’ve already played and DM’d in 5e that I’ve seen just about everything the system has to offer.  I also play in Starfinder, Pathfinder 2, 13th Age, and D&D 4e games and gotta be honest, I find all of those more interesting than 5e.  I don’t want to not play with these players, because I love that group, but I loved THAT campaign with THAT storyline so much.

And I get that the DM wants a fresh start.  But I’m... I felt like this is it.  After a dozen years this is finally the game where this character really gets to LIVE.  And I honestly felt like that character was more “alive” than any character in any game I’ve played in since that rogue in 4e, and before that a bard I played in 3.5 for several years.  There’s characters you play that are like “Yeah this character is fun and I’m enjoying this” and there’s characters that... like claw into your soul and become a part of your narrative.  I’ve played a lot of fun, good characters I enjoyed and loved, but only Annotea and Annwyl and I felt like this one, were a part of that digging deep in your soul thing for me.  And I loved where THAT campaign was going and the other characters in that game so much, and I’m going to MISS THEM.  I don’t know if I can continue trying with this character after this.  I felt like her story was being told and now maybe it never will.

I don’t know really how to approach this with the DM.  He has every right to want to start over after his break, especially for the reasons he took the break, but... it’s honestly kind of breaking my heart that he wants to do this.  And if his heart isn’t in that campaign anymore, how fun would it be anyway?

For now, I asked for a couple more weeks to finish up my mini-campaign that I’m DMing, and he joined with his own character tonight.  And it was great.  But I have to decide what I want to do in the next couple of weeks, if I can get over my deep disappointment and find another character to play and enjoy.

[utilitycaster]

just a bunch of D&D (or really kind of pathfinder) lore questions I want answered and/or random ideas

or rather that I want to explore in a game, given that the game I DM is very infrequent and will be more so since someone’s about to have a baby I should probably just go on Facebook and be like “if I DM-ed a remote game would you play” but anyway that’s besides the point:

1. correct me if I’m wrong but it seems from the free SRD that the pathfinder system doesn’t require subclasses per se and you can just like, be a rogue? Like, subclasses (or archetypes) seem to be more of a build recommendation with specific skills and feats, rather than granting special abilities. It’s like a prefab thing vs. a bunch of modular bits in what is already a very modular system. Which, to be fair, is arguably what subclasses are in D&D 5e in a way, like a fixed selection of feats that kick in at specific times.

2. would love more lore on the effort involved in becoming a wizard. For example, Hamid in RQG is a fairly smart character who studied wizardry but it never worked for him and it turned out that he’s a sorcerer, but like, he’s trained in spellcraft and arcana and he’s intelligent, so why didn’t it work?

3. Adventurers are exceptional but let’s talk about the following possibilities

just-enough-above-average to technically be a certain class, especially for classes that don’t require much inborn specialness - hedge wizards, simple pickpockets, someone who’s kind of better at punching than most. Lots of L1 or 2 NPCs just kind of chilling out there

people who are in fact exceptional, but never really went on the adventuring or specialist path (so I’m discounting like, non-adventuring mages here as well). Someone who learned a little bit about how to harness their ki, but also while they were bumming around a temple they sort of took an oath, they got a bit of archery and wilderness training that one time, a passing entertainer thought they showed some promise... and anyway they’re like overall L5 or 6 with maybe a 13-14 each in dex, strength, charisma, and wisdom but they’ve got a level each in monk, paladin, ranger, bard, and fighter and it’s just like “oh yeah that’s Old Man Jemsin, he’s got a lot of crazy stories but he never did settle down”

people who have to hide their class for some reason as mentioned in my speculation on Ludinus. Warlocks who carry a cheap piece of shit instrument they can barely play to hide that they’re not technically a bard. Arcane archers who feverishly crammed a wilderness guide and stocked up on health potions to get a job as a ranger. Paladins who pretend they’re just a very charming knight.

people who are truly exceptional and just never had the opportunity. Some random INT 18 person who’s the village teacher but if they ever picked up an arcane tome they could become the greatest archmage in a generation. A peaceful lumberjack who would be deadly with any weapon.

class changes after traumatic brain injury or similar dramatic event. Oliver Sack’s Musicophilia has a number of case studies with people who developed a huge love for and even talent for music after dramatic accidents (one got literally struck by lightning). Imagine if you will a barbarian who suddenly no longer felt angry after a particularly brutal fight that left them unconscious, but was for the first time ever able to tap into the music of creation.

sorcerers or clerics who are just like “I know I’m special/chosen, but how about fuck this”

more accidental warlocks, but not even in a Fjord bargain-to-save-their-life way. I think I’ve mentioned this before but I have this idea for a warlock who just got like, really high in the woods and didn’t realize they stumbled into a portal to the feywild.

often sorcerers are very rare and wizards less so but consider a world where that’s flipped (maybe there was like, Genghis Khan, but a dragon, a few generations back, or there was a huge magical accident that gave everyone powers like in comic books) and so it’s shocking to find someone who actually has a solid understanding of how magic actually works, even though tons of people do it.

Because I am a big believer that multiclassing should generally require sufficiently high stats, more cases of brutally average performers and swordsmen but who have a hidden talent. Make the cleric of a god of art a painfully awkward person who never could figure out the music of creation but the deity saw them and decided this devotion deserved a reward. For narrative foil reasons I think a deeply devout worshiper of this god should also realize that they’re doing magic with their music but it sure doesn’t look like clerical magic

the cleric-paladin relationship needs to be explored far more fully than it has been. Do they get along or are the clerics like “hmm you are kind of extra my child” and the paladins are like “DON’T YOU WANT TO GO LAWFUL APESHIT”

fewer pit fights more wizard battles

way more exploration of divine vs. arcane casting in 5e and how utterly ridiculous and arbitrary the division is. I want this to be an ongoing debate between the arcane and divine caster.

[pinkpuffballdude]

Who is Celestia sparrow and what happened with the wizard :0

OKAY. SO. I am HONESTLY not in the mindset to write this rn because some SHIT just went DOWN in our campaign but ALSO this is a great way to destress. Anyway if this comes off as uhhh real weird that’s why. Let’s go.

So to start: me and my friend, @clericjester, have been playing Pathfinder together with my brother and two of his friends for about eight years. Celestia is my character, and has been that entire time, and Thela is Sage’s character. Both of us are rouges, but I multiclassed as... multiple things now, but mostly a bard, so I’m the charismatic one of the party. We’re also the two hardcore RPers of the group, so we’ll go off and do side adventures sometimes, when they come over and were like “hey dad*. Pathfinder.”

*my dad is our DM. It’s very convenient. 

This was one of those times.

It started with an already canon event, where the party split up in a city to go off and find... something, it doesn’t really matter now, but Celestia and Thela went off together and ended up in a bar. Thela got approached by some random thug and offered a TON of money to go and rob a house. We, being a pair of greedy bastards, of course accepted, and hashed out a plan in which Thela would go do the actual breaking in, being the sneakier one, while Celestia stood outside and distracted the guards so they wouldn’t bother her. And that’s what happened! 

Except Mr Thug Man neglected to mention that it was a fucking powerful magic users house that we were stealing from, and so after we got away unscathed (okay that’s a lie, Thela broke into his writing desk and got some cool shit, but also set off some kind of alarm? maybe? and nearly got caught by a pair of GOLEMS) he CHASED US DOWN and has been sending us to this crazy bullshit dimension occasionally where everything explodes.

But first! We thought we’d gotten away! We ran away from the building, the guards didn’t catch us, we met back up with the group, it was all good! Until my DAD was like “okay so you’re on the road to where ever, here’s a map, arrange yourselves in this square” and we’re all like OH GOOD COMBAT and two GLASS GOLEMS you know, the two from the wizards house, came up the road and made a beeline for Thela (and Celestia got on her riding dog and RAN away because FUCK that, but they didn’t care about her cause she had no loot!) and Thela climbed straight in the air and the party almost left her to die, but defeated the golems instead and then turned to both of us and were like WHAT DID YOU DO and ever since we’ve been denying our wizard crimes.

Note: we don’t actually know if he’s a wizard! we don’t even know if he hates us! we just call him a wizard for ease of discussion. 

Later, we were all in a tower in a mad scientists castle, and us two were trying to figure out what the hell the stuff we stole actually did, by trial and error. We already knew that the rods we’d gotten were Immovable Rods, hence the climbing into mid air, and a couple other things, and had moved on to the fountain pen we’d stolen. We scribbled all over the walls of that tower, writing whatever we wanted to, trying to figure out what the hell it’s purpose was. “It’s just ink you can see with Detect Magic!” we said. “It doesn’t even do anything cool!” Okay, said my dad. So you can see it with Detect Magic. “Yeah!” So you can see any of it with Detect Magic. “Right!” From anywhere, he said, with great patience. We looked at each other. We looked at the walls, now absolutely covered in whatever random shit we could think of, in magical ink, visible from anywhere, written by a pen we stole from a wizard who was actively after us. “oh no,” we said, in unison, and immediately jumped into bed and pretended it never happened. Continue lying about our wizard crimes.

I think... after that he met us on a road somewhere, just. literally in the middle of the road, as we were travelling, whole parties there, and the BASTARD teleports us to aNOTHER DIMENSION, and LEAVES US THERE, and tells us that we should “hurry up, wink wink nudge nudge”, and gives us a timer, thing. We are in the middle of a jungle. long story short we make it to the check in point with minutes to spare, and as we leave the ENTIRE FUCKING PLANET EXPLODES. ALL THE OF THE TREES ARE EXPLODING, THERE’S A GIANT DUST CLOUD OF ALL THE DIRT GETTING KICKED UP, IF WE’D MISSED THE CHECK IN WE WOULD HAVE FOR CERTAIN DIED. Thankfully we get teleported out, and the Bastard confiscates all the cool samples we took from there and lets us go. And we go on our merry way! We’re miles from where we started! Stop being such a trickster god!

Later on we were staying at a hunting lodge, right, and there was some stuff that we still hadn’t figured out, like a silver bracelet that as far as we could tell didn’t do anything when you put it on. So we’re at this lodge, it specialises in werewolf hunters, right, so this lodge is FULL of werewolf hunting fanatics. This is important. There’s been a string of murders within the lodge, and no one can figure out who’s doing the killings and we’re going all detective on this shit, which means the party is split up. It’s fine, were safe, whatever, but this does mean that Thela and Celestia are alone and outside under what turns out to be a full moon (I bet you can see where this is going). We’re at a dead end, we can’t find anything, so THELA thinks it’s a GREAT IDEA to pull out the bracelet and just. put it on. We hadn’t actually put any of the items on, or used them that much, until we knew what they did, but no! she just. Pulled it out. And put it on. 

And immediately turned into a fucking black wolf, bit Celestia, and jumped over the twenty foot high wall (that’s about six meters for all you metric heathens out there). Sage was not in control. Thela woke up the next morning in their shared room! and they had one of the hunters track her trail from the yard all the way around to their room, which as soon as he got there they regretted because a fucking werewolf had gone into their room and Thela was now a werewolf who became an npc when she was a wolf oh my god what are we gonna do. The answer to that, of course, was keep it hidden until she fucking JUMPED UP INTO THE BOYS ROOM AND RAN THROUGH THE HALLS, AS A WOLF, TEARING SHIT UP, THROUGH THE WEREWOLF HUNTING LODGE, WOLF THELA NO. Anyway that’s one of the proudest moments of my life because Celestia was able to convince the most bloodthirsty of all the hunters that the boys were simply playing some sort of game, that for some reason involved running through the halls screaming WEREWOLF, THERE’S A WEREWOLF IN THE BUILDING. I peaked. So Thela ended up hiding in the shadows (and Celesia’s room) for the next three days until the full moon ended, by witch time we were able to talk the boys down and get on with our lives, and the adventure. Also the murderer was the soft drunk boy, as possessed by an angry murder werewolf ghost. That was a trip.

Fun fact about Thela’s lycanthropy: I don’t think it’s true lycanthropy, because 1) shes got a silvery tattoo that 2) tells her which animal she’s gonna become that 3) changes, depending on what turns out to be multiple factors. One of them is location, but right now she can always be a tiger because she’s wearing a tiger belt. 

The latest and greatest wizard shenanigans were when he showed up and teleported us and a monk named Balance (who was aptly balanced on a fucking chain when we met them), and who he for some reason wanted to stop guarding a randomass bridge, BACK to the exploding planet. This time, pre exploded! There was actually stuff to find there, and we got four exploding snails out of it*. AND a bunch of samples. The check point this time was a moving platform because this man only finds joy in our suffering, but he didn’t meet us when we got out, AND we’d gotten to our destination in three days instead of three weeks, so...

And Thela’s tattoo didn’t show anything while we were there? Like, either she couldn’t shift or if she did it would have been into the Void? We didn’t test this. 

*so they actually rapidly compress into spheres when threatened, creating a shockwave similar to a bomb. Reusable slug bombs!

And today after our Lovecraftian Experiance (which I can also talk about, if you’d like) the tattoo looks. Twisted. But only to Thela. I think hallucinations are in order. Also I want to peel off my skin, but that has nothing to do with Bastard Wizard.

So that’s the story of our wizard shenanigans, thanks for asking!

[wewererogue]

Hey,  it's the "curiousity killed the cat"  guy from a couple of days ago. (I don't have a tumblr or I'd find a better way to answer.)  I agree wholeheartedly that it is a playstyle first and foremost. Hell, this guy is primarily a pact of chain warlock. (was a rogue before he met his patron) I like when you can match mechanics with a theme.  I may never bring him to a rogue archetype, but I may also build a version that actually focuses on traps and secrets instead of move and damage.

(about this ask)

I like when you can match mechanics with a theme too! Seriously, I find it immensely satisfying when a character’s crunch fits perfectly the fluff. In 3rd Edition, I’d jump through hoops to combine abilities from classes and feats (and prestige classes, and races, and templates, and variant rules, etc etc etc) for that purpose, and it was a bloody mess most of the time, almost like a puzzle with random pieces. And still I tried to make it work, and I enjoyed it so much - it was like a game-within-the-game.

At one point I was even drawn to GURPS character creation, which is a classless system and (therefore) offers maximum customisation, but the system as a whole was too much hassle for the group.

In any case, I noticed that 5e gently steered me away from that game. (And it’s definitely the system, not because I got old and tired or something - I build Pathfinder characters from time to time, and then it’s back to scouring sources for the combo that’ll get me the Most Accurate Simulation™).

5e has a lot fewer “official” options for characters, but it’s got backgrounds and subclasses that are SO easy to customise and tweak, and of course to homebrew from scratch. Feats are a piece of cake to homebrew too - unlike 3.5, you don’t have to sit there in bewilderment, wondering if you’re supposed to balance it with Weapon Focus or freaking Divine Metamagic, because you sure as fuck couldn’t do both.

When I homebrewed things for 3.5, I (unconsciously?) treated them like New House Rules™ that, with DM’s approval, could apply from now on in all games. So I considered how the things interacted with everything else in the books. Which was… quite a lot to consider.

Now? Now I don’t give a fuck about that, I treat everything as a tool to flesh out this specific character for this specific game. And I just got to balance the background with other backgrounds, and the subclass with other subclasses. Like, my homebrew backgrounds are now named after the characters. It’s way more efficient AND more satisfying for me to build a new one every time I play (so: a perfect fit by default) than browse long lists to find one that’s close but not quite, and then look for other character options to combine so I can accurately portray what I had in mind in the first place.

And honestly, it’s so liberating.

Okay, I got excited and carried away. :P My point was, if you are into tweaking and homebrewing subclasses for 5e, it’s THE BEST THING EVER. Go for it! And you can check out this video by Mike Mearls, where he explains the basic design rationale for roguish archetypes, and how he balances them. Cheers! (16)