#but there are certain character archetypes/approaches to roleplay that i Do Not Like

[suckinitup]

everytime i think about arthur bennett i think about the airport bathroom nap. gently smoking. recently almost killed. having the absolute Worst fucking time. im too tired to give a full analysis but i also keep thinking about when grizly said something derisive about pathetic characters and them being fan favourites. he can have his own opinion idc- but i also think that it's Notable how i only got attached to arthur after he completely fucked up his entrance in ep 1, and more attached when he terrified that lady with the serial killer vibes, and Because of that was able to appreciate the awesome awesome moves of surviving a whole team of vampire hunters. its the BALANCE thats so so important. you can't have a character that's always perfect, always doing x y z thing right and stoically, because then it doesn't matter when they're doing things right. why should i care about this character if i know theyre going to go in there, say something mildly wise, and then saunter coolly back out with wild explosions behind them? whatever.

but ARTHUR. because he is an rpg guy. is trapped by the whims of the dice and the world. he's the idea of a cool, suave vampire mentor placed into a world where approaching a women in a car park at night is an extremely terrifying thing to do. there are consequences to his actions!! he's not perfect!! he's just a guy who thinks that appearances are important. he has spent so long vamping it up that interacting with humans is difficult for him. he faces problems and overcomes those problems because he is competent (anya; airport sunlight) NOT because he's cool and cool things happen to cool guys. he is desperate to find a cure. his flaws and failures have turned him into a guy, not a story's mechanism, who feels emotion, who does really catty things, who gives up so much that he prides himself in, and that matters. because he is capable of actual failure instead of conceptual, dry, trope failure, it matters when he succeeds, and it gives the audience the opportunity to root for him as a character instead of someone's idea of a character.

idk this is mostly sparked by me not liking arthur so much in the beginning, but i really started to appreciate him as he settled into the story. go vamp boy go relive extreme loss and then get stuck in the airport bathroom. ill be dining cheerfully on the character traits that have gotten to shine because of it

[canmom]

social mechanics in RPGs

not a metaphor this time

so. a comment prompted by seeing this float by the dash.

some TTRPG mechanics are designed to abstract over something. you don't want to intricately simulate climbing a wall so you make a mechanic that says 'roll your Climbing Up Shit number and see if you get up the wall in time' (or whatever the stakes may be). any time you need to climb a wall, you just roll one die, and done. maybe offer a little description.

some TTRPG mechanics are designed to draw the game towards the thing they're simulating and make it a focus. these rules might be elaborate, intricate subsystems - the combat rules in D&D being the archetypal example. particularly in later editions, D&D is really interested in combat, it wants to have an elaborate tactical sim where you're juggling different resources to gain an advantage, it wants combat to take up a lot of game time.

in D&D the combat rules are largely self-referential (i.e. game constructs interacting with game constructs) and don't leave a lot of room to determine things by pure narrative logic, so the system needs to have enough depth to carry that. some systems, such as The King Is Dead, structure nearly every interaction.

other TTRPG systems leave more to player improv. there are various frameworks to account for the interface between the fuzzy narrative game world and the hard, procedural, mechanical one. PbtA has its 'moves', which trigger based on conditions to push the narrative in a certain direction. OSR games like to say 'rulings over rules', where the rulebook is silent on a subject and the GM makes a call on the spot based on the narrative situation. exactly what qualifies as 'going aggro', or whether your gambit is feasible and what dice you should role, is a judgement call.

exactly what should be precisely litigated by a rulebook and what should be left to the improvisation of the players, shaped by various vague prompts, is a huge part of the art of TTRPG design. it depends a lot on the group as well.

I think when it comes to social situations in RPGs, it is easy to get lost in these ambiguities. 5e D&D has three numbers on your character sheet called Deception, Persuasion and Intimidation. (in 3.5e the first two were instead called Diplomacy and Bluff). exactly when you should roll these numbers, and how it interacts with the fiction, is left to the discretion of the group.

the stereotypical "I roll to seduce" could be one approach, an approach where the dice system completely abstracts over social encounters - pretty boring. but equally there is the approach where you roleplay a conversation, and after a certain amount of back and forth, the DM declares 'OK, role me a Deception check' and evolves the fiction accordingly - now you're using it a lot more like a PbtA move, pushing the course of events down bifurcating paths at specific moments, and otherwise pursuing free improvised roleplay. however, from the numbers-and-dice side of things, this looks exactly the same.

some games like Burning Wheel offer a conversation system of comparable complexity to its battle system, designed for tense debate-like confrontations. it has something like a dozen actions - e.g. you can make a Point, Obfuscate, or make a verbal Feint, just as in combat you can Attack, Push or Disarm. Is this to Burning Wheel's advantage? it worked pretty well the one time I played it like 10+ years ago, but I also had a very talented GM who could probably have staged a very convincing debate scene regardless. however, the system provided structure, and prompts (how do I make a point? how do I obfuscate?), so it would surely have played out differently without it. it certainly led to a very intense and fun moment of roleplaying where I had to step out onto the 'stage', which has honestly informed me in TTRPGs ever since.

that said, a lot of the time, the best system for adjudicating social situations is literally just to roleplay it out and make a decision - 'what is this character feeling', 'what that character would say'. no mechanical abstraction can beat the human mind when it comes to simulating human beings. that is the unique advantage of TTRPGs as a medium, which no computer or board game can match! don't throw it away lightly.

the problem for a lot of discussions of RPG design is that how the group handles social situations at the table - what they say and when, when they call for dice - is something that depends a lot on the specific group dynamic, rather than something that can effectively be engineered by a rulebook. like many aspects of RPG practice it is something you learn by doing it and watching other players, not by reading about it in a book. you can try pretty hard - Apocalypse World and cousins are statements of a paradigm as much as anything, most trad games have pages and pages of GM advice - but that's not the same thing.

what makes D&D D&D, what makes indie story games indie story games, are their various play cultures, their habits and traditions - and the book is only part of it.

some players might find the prompts given by the notional buttons that say 'persuade', 'deceive' and 'intimidate' (or equally 'go aggro', 'seduce or manipulate' etc.) to be useful pushes in the right direction to play a highly social character, especially if they feel shy or awkward in life. others might find these limited options constraining, or simply irrelevant. or they might find a way to make them fit the rhythms of their group.

thing is, though, it's highly contextual and you aren't going to solve it forever by turning it into an argument about which is the best book-product-tribe to belong to.

[autumnslance]

I've got a writing question that's been on my mind for a while: how do you keep your OCs from becoming self inserts? Every time I think of developing an OC I realize that it's attributes that I

Oops, you got cut off! But in general: all your OCs are going to have traits of yours; it’s inevitable. Sometimes big things, sometimes small things. It’s how we relate to them, and also just natural, I promise. We write what we know, and we know how we interact with ourselves and the world.

But there is a difference between sharing some traits with a character and making them a self-insert. It’s letting their life, their community and culture, their experiences, also influence their traits and thinking, in ways that might be different from how you would respond in a similar situation. Even if you share those attributes.

This is me so let’s go behind a cut shall we?

Dark Autumn is as introverted and solitary by nature as I am; she can and does interact in professional and friendly ways with people (as I try to do), but needs alone time to recharge. However, Dark also has a very different outlook and relationship with her family than I, since her family is large and supportive, very close knit. If family is a lottery, I got the $50 scratch off prize while she hit the Mega-Millions. So I take that into account when thinking of her relationships not just with family, but with friends and potential romantic interests; Dark sees things through a lens of positive, low-drama familial relationships that I can barely fathom. This also means she has a support network and resources myself and other characters don’t, so gets some wish fulfillment of working through issues with care and grace instead of remaining in unhealthy places. She is my “comfort OC” so gets a lot of good things I wish I had—which shapes how she responds to others, like taking care of a FCmate and becoming something of a big sister figure for him, or the responsible older sister figure of my group of OCs. Which is me, really, idealizing my own older sister tendencies into this giant woman who’s better at it.

Aeryn was written to be on the ace scale; not my first character to be so, but the first written that way as I began to realize where my own orientations lie and wanting to examine that through fiction. That she fell for a certain rogue in the process of playing through MSQ again was not at all intentional. I like Thancred as a character—he hits a lot of tropes I enjoy—but in my own mindset, he’s a frustrating younger brother. I didn’t think I’d do NPC x WoL shipping. But there it is, because in determining Aeryn’s own experiences and how those shaped her, it ended up working out that way (and I spent the better part of 2 years writing the characters separately to figure that out and if it could work before writing them together because it’s not something that comes naturally to me).

Aeryn’s internal anger is something I have a difficult time with; it’s outside my own nature to carry things like that. I have my angers, certainly, but they are different from hers. I tend to need a lot to set me off and then it burns out hot and quick. Aeryn’s more of a long boil she keeps bottled up. I’ve gotten a few things through various fics, I think, but it’s why I do things like reference arguments but rarely depict them. Being non-confrontational myself (I’m meek and have hangups thanks to my own life) it’s a challenge. Aeryn responded to childhood traumas (that I never dealt with), bullying (that I did), losses (that I haven’t yet), and the responsibility she’s been given (thank goodness I don’t) far differently than I. Maybe I’d be more volatile, too, if I had her life. But I understand where her anger comes from sharing some of the reasons, I just shape it differently than my own.

There’s a lot of things about Dark and Aeryn that are accidentally similar, just due to the timing of their character generation and other RP OCs made for other games along the way; “Oh I haven’t done X or Y in a character in awhile” sort of thing, but how each approaches those similarities and why—their quietness, their issues with using magic, their tendency to “adopt” others as family—all come from different places and resolve differently, too.

C’oretta comes from a part of me that doesn’t quite want to grow up. That wishes I had been more of the peppy, active, cheerful, risk-taking, live it up stereotypical party kid, that “popular girl” archetype I felt so often on the outside looking in about. As my second character, I wanted her to be different from Dark Autumn—visually, emotionally, mentally. Where Dark is steady, C’oretta is flighty. While Dark is people oriented, C’oretta’s a bit selfish (like I often feel). Dark’s introverted, C’oretta’s extroverted. Much of C’oretta’s attitude is a deflection against the hurts in her life, a way to fight back against some terrible things. It’s a way I could never react. But I also can’t get away from a character who loves to learn and wants to try new things—but where other characters gain the ability to stick with and see them through, C’oretta gets my easy frustration and boredom, and then the “ooh shiny” of a new interest. There’s a history of ADHD (or whatever the acronyms are now) and even autism and learning issues in my family; it’s possible I have some undiagnosed ND stuff going on, and people have noted these things in C’oretta that I’ve based on my own experiences and those of people very close to me.

Many of my characters have traits I wish I had, or were better at; patience, kindness, consideration, convictions, courage, thoughtfulness, and so on and etc. They’re good at skills I haven’t the knowledge in, or the ability to do. They’re certainly more active than I am, or could be! Because I can take the time to think and plan and research and write those things out better, and just maybe along the way not only learn something myself, but try to practice it better myself. I can even sometimes let them teach me what I can possibly do or be, not just imagine it as an ideal that’s out of reach.

I try to let my characters make mistakes I wouldn’t—or in some cases, have in my past, and that’s OK. Especially if I learned from them, but maybe the character does not. Maybe they do but it takes awhile, or repeated instances until it sinks in. Maybe I let them make errors I still make, as a way to puzzle out better solutions I should probably entertain for myself.

Character voice is something I’ve felt I struggled with in keeping my OCs distinct. Do characters ‘sound’ alike, in dialogue and prose? Having distinct ways of speaking helps; C’oretta’s breathless chatty run-ons are certainly different from Dark and Aeryn’s quieter tendencies. I have to remember to trim down Aeryn’s dialogue more often, say less aloud, add more gestures and facial expressions. I tend to be a talker, an over-explainer (if you can’t tell), while the only times she gets like that are specific. Dark’s somewhere in the middle of those two, like I am. A lot of the reason I like writing NPCs and try to keep them close to my interpretation of canon is to practice distinct character voice to get better at it in my OCs, so they don’t sound like me!

And something I’ve never admitted to before is that I think for me, it helps that from the time I was a kid watching various series of Star Trek, I always have had an in-my-own-head-only self-insert. She’s always a support character (that’s what I’m best at). She has cool and unusual abilities to help the actual heroes, cuz heck it’s my internal fantasy and that’s fun. She has traits I want to be better at or wish I had, developed over time with more energy and focus than I can actually muster in reality. As time’s gone on, she’s become more of a mentor and Mom Friend as I’m now older and see a lot of protagonist characters as “my kids” now. She appears in nearly every story I’ve loved over time, in one iteration or another. And because I have a headspace character where I can say “this is what I, ideally, would say and do and be capable of in this situation…” My other characters that I actually write about can vary between doing something similar (if it suits them) to doing something completely different (cuz darn kids never listen) as I can compare them to the self-insert and decide where to diverge.

So it’s a mix of myself and my traits and knowledge, but taking into account how each character would respond and use those same attributes differently than I do or would. Write what you know, write who you are—and then add in some wish fulfillment, some what ifs, some bad choices, some good choices, and shake things up. Give the characters tics and tricks different from yourself and let that shape them, too, by remembering to take those things into account (even if you have to tape a note to your monitor).

And finally, don’t be ashamed of your self-inserts; I’ve known some great characters that started as self-inserts and grew, through their experiences, into wholly different people than their writers over time. Heck, the epic romance my original WoW priest was part of was with a character that started as a self-insert; his player began the game knowing nothing of the lore or roleplaying, but as he learned the story and how to RP, and determined how his character fit into the world and how that shaped him, the character diverged over time, while still sharing some key traits (some endearing, some frustrating, as people are and all part of that friend). It’s not a bad starting point at all. The rest can come over time and practice, especially if you make a lot of OCs and try to make them different from each other while also being aspects of yourself.

[tomatograter]

How do ya capture the "voice" of homestuck characters so well? Besides studying the comic, is there any other media you consume to really get in their head?

First off: Thanks, i’m happy you enjoy my stuff! Secondly… there ARE a few steps i take to the madness.

I basically come from a Dungeon master/Open-world roleplay management background, so when approaching HS cast voices and trying to understand a character to write a story for them i usually take into account 1.INSPIRATIONS, 2.INTERESTS & due to homestuck’s nature, 3.INTERPRETATIONS (As opposed to “player intent”- Hussie’s work is an amalgam of himself and the public input.)

Rereading their logs/sections always helps when you’re trying to figure out their language, pacing, and a bit of their temperament, but getting too lost on mimicking their messages as-is without looking into the character itself may risk leaving them ringing hollow or repetitive (specially for the section of the public that may be more familiar with this character than you are. This is something that may matter to you or not, if you WANT this work to appeal to a specific public or are just messing around.) Because it may just come down to mindless quirk indulgence. In my experience, readers are more forgiving & enthralled by creators who, while not following the specifics of a character’s quirk to a T maintain a sense of internal logic that is congruent with what is shown throughout their appearances. Some AU’s specifically remix, remove or substitute these aspects, and the reason why people usually don’t complain about it is that “it makes sense- given (x) and (x) context.” Like kidswap aus, etc. 

Another thing about Quirks is that they can very easily be broken. Having a grasp of how quirk rules affect a character based on their emotional state and how it changes over time is more valuable than internalizing a hard set of rules that never changes. (Ex: Sollux’ quirk evolves over time. So does Aradia’s, as she changes bodies. June’s quirk takes on Vriska-like qualities after they begin chatting, Vriska uses 8’s and exclamation points more liberally and/or nonsensically when she’s angry/distressed/desperate, Jake’s transatlantic slang and embellishment of speech is mostly at the backseat unless he’s pretending/anxious/overwhelmed, otherwise he’s pretty simple.) Knowing how to break a quirk is just as good as knowing how to write it - traditional prose in fics *may not use quirks at all*, but they’re so good at grasping the particular intonation a character uses when stringing words together at a given situation that you don’t mind that at all. It’s a smooth adaptation.

[GREAT RESOURCE: this google drive has a compilation of all logs between characters in Homestuck separated by participants but usually only lists them on one-on-one basis, so you may wanna look at groupchats in the original comic. I think the epilogues section may be still unfinished. I forget who originally posted it on twitter but i know they have a dedicated tumblr, i’ll edit this if someone can name their blog]

“INSPIRATIONS” are usually how i define character personalities by their distinct mix of archetypes. This is the “PROTAGONIST”, “GOTH GIRL”, “SILLY GIRL”, “COOL GUY”, “WEIRDO”, “GAMER GIRL”, “CODING WANNABE” and other such little buzzwords that HS will throw around in reference to each of its characters, and that usually, but not always, function as a setup to subvert the expectations based on that character come a certain point in the story. Where does the character you’re trying to write fall into, when you try to describe them in these terms? Does their story humour this definition, reject it, destroy it, or evolve it? Does this seem like a genuine fact about them, or a facade? Why do you think that is? (Asking questions is my preferred way of pulling apart and understanding a character, this may work differently for you.)

“INTERESTS” is where i look into for that chunky, fatty, well-grilled meat that goes in the middle of a character’s text. Homestuck characters are defined by what they like, what they aspire to be, and what they fail at becoming(& how that shapes their actions going forwards). Interacting with the media they like may not always be the way, but having a general idea of how it functions and what it means to them is usually very helpful. I was already familiar with a lot of things my favorite characters enjoy, and thus it was easier for me to get attached to them. I also had to watch a lot of shitty movies sometimes. You win some, you lose some.

EX: It’s easier to write Dave’s pov if you have a good grasp of the pop culture & economics he so often references. (What he likes) It’s easier to write Rose’s pov when you’ve searched a bit of armchair psychology wikipedia definitions and familiarized yourself with the genre and existential questions usually involved in Eldritch Horror, and how it evolved outside of Lovecraft. (What she aspires to be like) It’s easier to write Jake when you understand his persona is a collage of juvenile and outdated archetypes taken from action flicks & shitty mainstream comicbooks, that he ultimately fails to ever live up to and hinders his development as a kid at odds with self-imposed traditional masculinity, dreading to publicize the big “Gay” word. (What he fails at becoming)

It’s always useful to ask yourself “Why does this character like (x)” and what that particular thing may say about them. It doesn’t have to be a big groundbreaking revelation, just put yourself into their shoes and try to reverse engineer what you’re presented about them vs their environment, personal issues, and you might just find yourself understanding why they do what they do. 

“Karkat probably likes cheesy romantic comedies because they’re peak middleclass normalass media for someone who’s ostracized from troll society and is purposefully a shithead to keep people away”

“Terezi probably likes dragons because they’re FUCKING COOL but also whoops here’s all this historic lore about Redglare and their lusus and a tragic sense of JUST1C3”

“Aradia probably grapples with the concept of mortality and the ephemeral nature of life, so she’s really into the morbid observation of disasters & archeology & bones, i guess? Is this because she died really young? Oh. Maybe yeah.”

But if you find the above too hard to access on your own, that’s where 

INTERPRETATIONS come in to make this process smoother in the case you just wanna write an extended cast thing and frankly you could not give less of a shit about (x)’s lore, you just want to have a sense of what people like about them, and why people read about them, and how you can purposefully adapt that into your text so socmedia user halfucker69 isn’t crying on your mentions for 11 whole threaded comments about how you did their babyboybaby wrong. I can’t exactly point to you where you can FIND meta because this highly depends on the character, and sometimes you just have to make your own food, but you’ll be good if you try to look into creators who post about these characters, whose thoughts or fan media seem to be congruent with your idea of said character or solid enough that you can easily see how it’s been developed from point A to point B. Interact with more fanworks. Find out what works for you and what doesn’t. “Character study” is a whole genre of fanfic, if you don’t wanna go for shippy stuff - but a lot of “shippy stuff” has its own valuable edge to seeing how people internalize a character, and shouldn’t be as easily dismissable as it is. Again, you’ll have to rely on your own sense of internal logic here - you can’t take EVERY work as the universal truth, but trying stuff out will give you a better sense of who you think this character is.

Then you have to get around trying to write it, which is easier said than done. A lot of times writing about a character will lead you to understanding them better, and you may even find yourself disagreeing with things past-you said when you were first beginning to think about them, and that’s ok. You only get better at writing by asking better questions and then writing some more. Take your time with it. I hope this helps!

[dailycharacteroption]

2nd Edition Pathfinder: My Thoughts part 5

Outro

 There’s a lot to like and dislike about P2E, and I don’t knock anyone that finds the pros outweighing the cons, good on them.

I just wish they had maybe done things a bit differently, you know? Simplicity is good, but I’ve always found detractors claiming that P1 was too “math-y” or was suffering from “system bloat” to be lacking in a certain ring of truth.

On the former note, the fact that pretty much every character sheet I’ve ever seen, official or otherwise is built for you to add all your bonuses into a total together, meaning you pretty much only have to do any adding once per level-up or the addition of new equipment, which is no big deal.

As for the latter, can we just consider that Pathfinder is a 10 year old system? 10 years, that pretty much never happens with tabletop rpgs and strategy games. Certainly it all looks imposing when you view the full body of hardbacks and paperbacks associated with it, but I’ve never found it to be that bad. In fact, I’ve found it to be quite the opposite. The vast array of different options provides a literal whole world of possibilities, with even similar options demonstrating subtle nuances that exist out there.

Consider the concept of the samurai warrior, for example. Another system might simply have you build the character using a pre-existing martial class, just reflavored, or perhaps put out a supplement for eastern fantasy that included an option for samurai. P1, however, not only put out a samurai class which was a parallel to the western cavalier, but also later supported it with various archetypes to fill in a lot of those Japanese tropes that the class didn’t already cover!

 Moving on before this devolves into a tangent, maybe it’s just the nostalgia in me, but one of the big appeals I felt for P1 back in the day is the fact that it seemed made to preserve and build upon the feel of the 3.5 edition of the World’s Oldest Roleplaying Game in a time when that system was being replaced by a simplified (and widely controversial) system.

Does that make me some sort of grognard unwilling to accept change? Some might make that claim. However, Pathfinder did plenty to change the game as well, though in much more subtle ways than outright dropping the previous system in favor of a new one, that is until now. I can’t speak for the future of P2E, but I can’t help but see a parallel here.

 But who knows? Maybe I’m wrong and there will be some big update to 2nd edition that lights a fire in me? Maybe there will come a time when I truly shelve the 1st edition books for good… (And maybe if frogs had wings they wouldn’t bust their bums every time the land, HA!)

We’ll just have to approach the future with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. See you all next week with more entries!

[sindumpster]

What made you think up Jake? Plus how did you put together his personality?

I can’t think of a single moment since I’ve had various iterations of Jake since I was 10 or so. But back then he was probably based off of character tropes and archetypes that I liked seeing in cartoons and fantasy novels, but never having it quite melded the way I wanted. So I went the whole DIY approach and decided to make my own cartoon characters. Either that or he came from a fandom OC for some embarrassing book about certain animals before making him several types of fantasy critter until I finally made him a dragon. That or he was part of my shapeshifter obsession. And maybe throw in some classic Star Trek or reboot Doctor Who obsession with him too, although it’s really subtle now.

And uh…also his personality went through tons of reboots and drafts just like his appearance (I even made a series of drawing based on all his “looks” and corresponding personalities). But in the early days I wanted him to be the wacky and ever-grumpy counterpart to my straight man sorta self insert Joseph (altho not a self insert anymore), since I was really obsessed with comedic duos and wanted one in a modern fantasy context since I didn’t really see anything like that at the time, but I wanted it super bad. Like actually had dreams about making a fantasy sitcom as a teen? And then kinda got into character hell to the point I was gonna write a cheesy modern fantasy book, although the book then got really feelsy and gritty–but because I was in writing and development hell all through high school I started solidifying my characters more and Jake became really complex personality-wise. Another thing that helped was roleplaying with a friend (who was also working on a book so…crossovers happened) so that I could experiment with different things and see what worked and what didn’t. And also having friends that would ask me questions about my characters and throwing them into hypothetical situations really helped me figure out all that stuff, and then learning how to do it with myself and also just daydreaming random scenes in my head. Also later being pointed out to me that Jake is uncanny similar to a spoiled cat.

That aside, nowadays I mostly base his personality and reactions to things from his backstory. Like I slowly figured out and wove his backstory together based upon the personality I had built for him from my story, sorta like reverse-engineering based upon what I had set in stone. And then once I knew his backstory and where he came from and all his psychological issues and cultural beliefs and where his personality traits came from and how they developed–it more or less provided me with a cohesive framework where I can easily know how and why he reacts to things the way he does. Which is EXTREMELY HELPFUL since he can be a bit of a wild card at times and contradicts himself a lot and even I would sometimes screw up his reactions. But also wanted him to be full of those contradictions and problems since that’s what people are like, and I like flawed realistic characters despite him being a dragon and all pff

Although it also gets more convoluted too cuz original Jake was TOO COMPLICATED so I broke him into two characters: Jake and Kurt, and that helped simplify and focus both sides of him into more manageable characters. Jake being the half that pursued vore straight away, and that became an aspect of his character too.

So yeah I kinda don’t recommend following that example because Jake comes from the beginnings of my character-making and embodies all of my mistakes as well. Nowadays I make characters based off of core elements/traits or thinking something like “I want a character that interacts with X character in X way”. But more or less starting with simple elements like “I want a character that’s nice and sweet but kinda naive and simple”. Like throwing in some attributes and flaws from the get go, or a funny contradiction. And then just playing with them, throwing in random stuff to their character, or playing the “what if” game with yourself until you feel kinda solid with them, then reverse engineer a backstory to explain those traits. That’s more or less my process nowadays and how I would work with Jake now if he was a new OC.

Anyways sorry this is a long and convoluted answer (took me several tries to write it), but it’s actually a pretty complex question given how I’m not entirely sure what inspired or kickstarted me to create him, developing him was a years-long process that’s still continuing, and the obsession with him was kinda a lucky accident rather than intentional lol. Like I just stumbled on a flawed character aesthetic that was kinda good and stuck with it?? And he worked really good for vore and trash I wanted to write on the side XD

[grandnincompoop]

Fire Emblem, Design Philosophy, and My Quarrels

Let's harken back to 2001 and the release of Super Smash Brothers Melee. I had an N64 and a Gameboy, so I was familiar with most of the characters. You had Mario and Fox and Samus- I had either played their game or learned about them from the original Super Smash Brothers. I didn't really know you could just go on the internet and look up how to unlock all of the characters when the game came out, and even when I did, we would just look up how to get Mew in the original Pokemon. Nor did I have a Nintendo Power subscription. I had one issue- 2003's Issue 173, probably because it had Star Wars on the cover. So in the daunting quest of trying to discover how to unlock every character, you meet Marth and Roy. As with most of the non-Japanese world, I was left wondering who these two sword guys were. I was 9, so obviously I wasn't in the market for importing untranslated Famicon games. My curiosity wasn't satiated until 2003 with the release of Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advanced, but I was immediately infatuated.

The Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is a highly linear game. This was an age long before sprawling open worlds were commonplace in every RPG or shooter. You merely progressed from quest to quest, accumulating an ever growing roaster with each mission. Except for the three missions that include Arenas, there's no way to deviate from the progression of game's 37 chapters. The experience points you can gain are limited, and honestly the game is stronger for that. As much fun as I had grinding Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, such as the time I trapped a high level Malboro with a cycle of sleep/attack/heal, it diminished from the thrill I experienced with Fire Emblem with its terrifying combat where every critical hit mattered. Simplicity and transparency are core to the experience. Almost like a board game, the game takes a narrow concept- in this case rock-paper-scissors, the adds some elaboration to it to make it flow into a fantasy world of mages and magical creatures. There are stats like strength and defense, and you have health and there's a grid you move on and there's a percentile to hit, all of which are visible to the player. That's about it and the game was better for it.

 The core elements could easily be fitted to a pen and paper experience which is what brought me to believe that the game had a Bottom Up development. I was introduced to this term by Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic: the Gathering, who describes it, along with its developmental opposite (Top Down), as "Top Down is subject matter based. I want to capture the subject matter. Bottom Up is mechanical based. There's a tool I want to make use of. How can I best make use of that tool." Not to insult the subject matter of Fire Emblem, but it, like its combat system, isn't complicated. They're collections of sometimes loosely related stories of a prince having to fight some evil in a world with dragons, drakes, wizards, EVIL wizards, undead/possessed/ etc etc. You could play them for their narrative, but most people I know and have read play it for the combat and support system (hold on, I'll get back to that in a moment). Looking at interviews with  Shouzou Kaga, the original creator of the series, his initial intent was to create a "roleplaying simulation", which he describes as

 "A strategy game. But strategy games typically are kind of “hardcore” and dry. (laughs) You only care about winning or losing the battle, and there’s no space for the player to empathize with the characters or story.

I love strategy games like that too, but I also love RPGs. By adding RPG elements, I wanted to create a game where the player could get more emotionally invested in what’s happening. Conversely, one of the drawbacks of RPGs is that there’s always just a single protagonist. Thus, to a certain extent, you can only experience the linear story that the game creator has prepared for you.

I wanted to create a game where the story and game will develop differently for each player depending on the units they use. Thus I added the strategy elements and arrived at this hybrid system."

 This idea doesn't seem to fit exactly into either of MaRo's definitions. Concept isn't exactly subject matter, usually a story or pre-established setting, nor is it strictly mechanical based, although it's definitely closer to that. If we looked at a chart from a 2007 article on Gamasutra titled "Game Design Cognition: The Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches:

 We see that beginning at a concept is part of the Top-Down process. So I guess my research proved I was wrong with my assertion when taking a developmental process from a relatively simple process, making a card with rules, and applying it to a highly complicated one, creating a video game.

 The concept is a fascinating one, however, playing with ideas that a modern genre, the grand strategy game, has to tackle with mindboggling amount of complexity. Since the plot is designed to introduce you to the menagerie of personalities they've designed, the writings is. . . charming, but not patricianly nuanced. By no means is the game the pinnacle of writing in interactive narratives. The characters personalities attached to a colorful aesthetic, almost comparable to what Blizzard's Overwatch did in making such a wide spectrum of characters that at least one should be appealing to even the most surly of fans. You'll have a female caviler who is a tom boy or a timed knight who, despite his bulking armor, commonly goes unnoticed. They're archetypes, not fully realized characters like you'll find in more traditionally RPGs with tomes of backstory and goals.  Overwatch and Fire Emblem develop their characters in the same manner- mid-combat dialog. Fire Emblem's greatest development (and what makes it stand out among the other strategy role playing games) is the Support System. Sure, it's fluff, but it evokes the feeling that there was a world before you arrived. Fire Emblems Awakenings main character, Chrom, will reminisce the past with his sister, another solider in your army. Except she can permanently die, unlike the Valhalla fantasy that is Overwatch where they we return to their friends to the next bout. Kaga always intended for your unit's looming mortality to cause shifts in how you view the narrative. "I wanted to make a strategy game that was more dramatic, something where you would really be able to feel the pain and struggle of the characters. That’s why characters can’t be revived once they’re killed, to impart a sense of gravity and seriousness. In turn, I think the result is that the more love you have for your characters, the more rewarding the game is." X-Com, a highly popular western SRPG for MS-DOS that came out four years later, attempted this with randomly generated names, nationalities, and looks for its characters. But unless you're willing to really lose yourself in the game and make your own narrative for the characters, their deaths will only have an impact in the loss of your highest level sniper, not the archer who was currently flirting with your barbarian. The game could create emersion through its characters and their deaths, but instead it becomes what I believe is the bane of  the series. There's a universe where each battle is like a chess match, where you must maliciously strategize your moves so take the least amount of causalities and each critical hit will either make or ruin your day. But we don’t live in that universe. Instead we're plagued with problems twofold: the prevalence of a dominate strategy and the existence of the reset button.  

 "A dominant strategy, in the context of game design, is something that emerges due to game imbalance. A clear example of dominant strategy would be "blocking the opponent from getting three in a row", in Tic-Tac-Toe."

 Fire Emblem is amazingly easy to get into and play, although maybe not to master. Unless you count the tactic I commonly refer to as the "death blob". It's like creating a delicious candy with a hard exterior and gooey center. Looking at another game for a second, Final Fantasy Tactics, you'll send your warriors and knights forward to pick off the prime targets while your mages and archers mop up. (Of course, there's another strategy where you carefully positioning yourself defensively into one corner, but they have means of combating this by starting you on the low ground to make you fight your way to high ground.) You can afford to have one or two units fall in combat because it'll only be moments before the healer arrives to mend any major injuries. It allows for the type of aggressive playstyle the computer utilizes against you, creating "drama". Fire Emblem is the antithesis. Dave Riley of the Fast Karate for the Gentlemen podcast and occasional game reviewer for Anime News Network says about action, "Most of the game is a creeping, careful crawl that moves the entire army in an ironclad block three spaces at a time. Movements are so fraught, and battles so carefully measured, that when the tide turns in your favor it's hard know what to do with the power." Usually your objective is to rid the map of foes that don't tend to move until you've moved past a certain threshold within their vacinity. As such, you'll surround your weaker characters, the mages, archers, the ones you're just now getting to leveling up, with those that have heavier armor or are higher in level. Then you move slowly across the map. And I mean agonizingly slow. Unless there is some sort of pressure on you, like a timed mission or some character you can interact with before the enemy overtakes them, it's three squares at the time for you. They've tried to counter this in some ways by having enemy units spawn behind you if you're taking too long, but that just leads to the second problem. Allowing the units to pair up to increase stats in Awakening was a good solution, but it showed to be highly overpowered when combined with the stats gained from the support system.

The second problem has coexisted with the game since inception. Instead of having gameplay be a carefully planned chess match (similar to the newly released Into the Breach which rewards sticking with failed "timelines" and even has a continent function to undo one turn per mission), we play the game like a speedrunner, resetting innumerous times in leu of missed attacks and unfortunate critical hits until we have such an intense knowledge of the map that we could perform it to lull us to bed. By adding Casual Mode in later games they've done some work to rectify this, and while the game might be more fun to play without having to turn off the console for the nth time, we loses Kaga's initial intent. In a joint interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, he admits to Kaga that "when I die, I always reset". Even the creator of Final Fantasy has become victim to this pitfall! Kaga notes that "it’s not a big problem if some of your characters die in Fire Emblem; I want each player to create their own unique story. Don’t get caught up trying to get a “perfect ending.” Have fun!" But we just can’t because we have to see how the almost insignificant side dialog between the dark mage and pegasus knight will turn out. Will they become friends? We'll never know if we don't reset because an unexpected arrow saw an end to the purpled haired rider.

 The problem has exasperated even further with adding generations to the games. Awakening saw those cute support conversations to their apex by having them result in children, but not just any children- super soldiers of your own siring. Instead of being something cute you do on the side, a treat if you will, they added mechanics to the system. Depending on the abilities known by the parents and the hidden stat progressions (a thorn in the side of the wonderful transparency of the game), the child might be an unkillable machine of death that gets to move twice after reaping another soul all while regaining any  lost health. Fire Emblem has always had Uber characters. There's always the gallant knight, advisor to the lordling at the beginning of your adventure! (who is there solely to suck all the experience that should be going to anyone else) Then there's the  sweet young lad who starts as the weakest possible unit, needing to be babied for dozens of hours until they've shown their true colors as the harbinger of all lives, capable of taking down armies alone. But the child rearing aspect of the later games really irks me. It makes the game feel like it's become an anime character breeding simulator, where instead of letting love naturally develop on the battlefield as it has, you have to comb through wikias to see what the best combination for a certain child is. For a game that has forgone the grinding experience, it surely got lost in not remembering what made it so great to begin with in its transparency.

 There are aspects of Fire Emblem that reflect actual war. Every character is such: an individual with hopes, dreams, and interests. Taking a little time to get to know them leaves you with a sense of loss when they're lost in a pillar of flame from some nameless enemy mage. These games could be so much more with a little more finesse. The series has gone on for decades now, and this has caused the games to roll up increasing more systems until it has reached the point now that it is hard to see the game for what it once was. The concessions you have to make are never "there's no way I can do this without sacrificing someone for the noble cause" like the newly released Battletech RPG throws at you; the concessions are "time to waste a little more time and reset the game again." I believe the game I want to make can come- they just have to do a little more resetting.

[fic-dreamin]

Wrong printing; full of errors, starting with the cover. The product listed is not correct. The cover is for the second printing of the book. If your copy reads "Pathfinder Adventure Path," it is the first printing, which has 19-20 pages of errata on the Paizo.com website. The corrected second printing has a cover that reads "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game." I will amend my review once a legitimate copy of the book arrives. Go to Amazon

Fairly big publisher error See, this book is great. Absolutely fantastic. But the copy I got had a publisher error. It jumped on several pages — for instance, the page after 32 was not 33, but rather page 69. And this happened on several pages. I ended up having to return it. 3/5 stars because if not for the publisher errors, it would have been a great addition to my collection. Go to Amazon

Overall this book gives a lot of excellent options, and makes certain character concepts much easier ... Overall this book gives a lot of excellent options, and makes certain character concepts much easier to play. Most of the classes are well-constructed and fairly balanced. Specifically, the martial classes have a lot of advantages over their more generic parent classes if you want to play a specific concept. I do find that the classes themselves are somewhat limited in that they fill pretty specific roles, and will have a bit of a problem getting away from that role. However, as these classes are intended to supplement rather than replace the Core Rulebook classes, that is a fairly minor concern. Go to Amazon

I'm glad I have this book! I'm glad I bought this book. The new classes add a lot of interest to the game. I've been having fun with my skald, a hybrid of the barbarian and bard classes - great for role playing just like a bard, but still OK in combat. I haven't played many of the other classes yet, but they all seem to be well thought out and have good balance to them. Go to Amazon

If you want to approach classes differently or have very creative players this book will assist them. If you have grasped all the basics of the core books and want to try some new class ideas that are unusual this book could be for you. If you are world building from scratch or from a beloved series but you need a class that's not represented yet, you can build a balanced one with the materials. If you're running a campaign with a low number of players, some hybrid classes can fill multiple roles (at reduced effectiveness of the core classes). There are a few new styles and archetypes for existing classes but a bulk of the book is for players looking for something different in their class options. understanding that it's my opinion that it's not a necessary book but what it sets out to do it does well. Go to Amazon

Take your Pathfinder character to the next level Great supplement to create richer, deeper and more interesting Pathfinder characters. Go to Amazon

Great Help Great explanations. Easy to read and understand. Go to Amazon

A few problems but I don't regret buying it. This book from what I can tell is pretty good. I'm personally not a big fan of investigator since it's fairly similar of inquisitor: now with grit! and I feel that slayer is a little too good but I've never actually seen them played before so take what I say with a grain of salt. A lot of new archetypes, feats, and magic items available for new and old classes. I gave it four stars because the book comes off as unpolished, there are more typos than usual that I've noticed and for some reason they slapped adventure path on the title for no readily apparent reason. Go to Amazon

Five Stars Five Stars Happy with item it's like all paizo products... good content, but the book binding sucks. You have to be very gentle with these or the pages c Five Stars It's a good source book for the Pathfinder RPG system Four Stars Five Stars Unnecessary, but nice Great shipping

[prokopetz]

Much has been said on the topic of “powergaming” in tabletop roleplaying games - that is, the tendency for certain players to let their actions be guided by whatever gives the biggest bonus, rather than what’s most in character or what makes the most sense narratively. Typically, powergaming is framed as strictly opposed to good roleplaying; the conventional wisdom is that the only ways to address it are either to monitor and punish it, or else to let it slide and accept that certain players at your table won’t “really” be playing a role.

I’m not persuaded that this is the case. I think the notion that powergaming is incompatible with good roleplaying is a symptom of the fact that your game-mechanical incentives are out of whack with their narrative context - or, to put it another way, that the rules you’re using are not the rules of the notional game you’re actually trying to play.

Sometimes this is just a matter of where the game’s content is focused - for example, a game about vampires that tries to sell itself as an exploration of personal horror, but 80% of the game-mechanical text is taken up by long lists of cool powers that let you run around being some sort of goth superhero - and sometimes it’s more foundational  - e.g., a game that’s supposed to be about gonzo cyberpunk action, but in practice players have to approach every heist super-cautiously and count every bullet because the death spiral is brutal and the resource loop makes it nearly impossible to turn a profit - but in the end it boils down to the same problem: the behaviour that the rules encourage is not consistent with the behaviour that the milieu expects of its protagonists.

I suspect that part of the reason powergaming is regarded as so difficult to manage is because it’s easier to look at tabletop RPG rules in terms of what they forbid, rather than what they reward. It’s simple enough to spot when your players are avoiding particular activities because the game’s rules punish those activities, but as tabletop game designers, we seem to have a collective blind spot about situations where gameplay goes off the rails because the rules are rewarding inappropriate play.

Of course, we need not stop at avoiding inappropriate rewards. If the incentives furnished by your rules are sufficiently in sync with the conventions of the game’s narrative milieu, it’s entirely possible to end up with a game where not only is powergaming not incompatible with good roleplaying, powergaming can actually produce good roleplaying.

Let’s take Rose Bailey’s upcoming Cavaliers of Mars, for example. As the title suggests, it’s a game about swashbuckling romance on Mars. One of its notable features is that, rather than stats like Strength, Dexterity, etc., your basic dice rolls are based on one of three Motivations: For Honour, For Love, or For Myself.

At first blush, it looks like a powergamer’s dream; it’s extremely difficult for the GM to gainsay why your character is doing something, so why wouldn’t you just come up with some bullshit reason why you’re always acting on your highest-rated Motivation, and thus get to roll your largest die for everything?

Indeed, why wouldn’t you?

The hero who always has a comically self-interested explanation for her acts of heroism (”of course I rescued you - you owe me money!”) is a well-established archetype of the swashbuckling genre - and so, for that matter, are the prickly asshole who manages to turn literally everything into a matter of honour, and the starry-eyed idealist who can convince herself that nearly anything can be done in the name of love.

The game’s set up so that doing whatever gives the biggest bonus is synonymous with behaving in a milieu-appropriate fashion. Sure, by itself this won’t result in deep characters, but it’s only one facet of a much larger system. We thus have a setup where powergaming produces good roleplaying.

[vieuxnoyesrp]

After skipping over March, we are now back in action with our nominations! Here, we recognize an individual roleplayer from our cast on a monthly basis. The criteria on which this recognition is dependent includes (but is not limited to) the following:

IC

Dedication (Player demonstrates consistent and reliable activity on their character/s.)

Plots (Player takes initiative and immerses character into plots with a variety of other characters, without limiting these to particular connections.)

Depth and Development (Player has a vested interest in portraying all aspects of personality; including flaws, weaknesses and the unenviable, nitty-gritty sides to one’s character. Player digs deeper beneath the archetypes that describe the given character and uncovery hidden layers that change through gradual and realistic development.)

OOC

Inclusivity (Player roleplays with everyone, without advertising a preference for certain characters or prioritizing certain replies above others. Player shows an open willingness to plot with old and new roleplayers, without playing favourites.)

Maturity (Player responds well to admin feedback and treats everyone with respect, without exception or discrimination.)

Good spirit (Player is friendly, approachable, and demonstrates a great attitude overall.)

Along with these general factors, each roleplayer is given a personal statement of appreciation specific to their portrayal and their character. The most important criteria for nomination however, are those traits listed above. Recognition for a role will last one whole month and be posted on the Main’s side-bar.

Without further ado…

         ⚜  C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S,   K I T !  ⚜

Kit, It is hard to believe that your tenure here at Vieux Noyes, is only a few months long. It honestly feels like you've been here since the very beginning. As one of the kindest and most supportive members in our group and considering all you’ve brought to this rp, we think the title of roleplayer of the month absolutely belongs to you.

Your portrayal of Scott is spot on and incredibly endearing. Despite his overwhelmingly good qualities, he still feels relatable and as down-to-earth as any teenager. We're already beginning to see him bloom in so many ways. And your ability to jump from the underdog to the King of the Quarter on the daily is a testament to your skills and versatility as a writer. Marcel is a big power player in New Orleans, and consequentially, not an easy character to play. But you've not shied away from the challenges of his multifaceted personality. You do a great job testing your characters and putting them through trials and tribulations that draw in all of your readers. We also love your devotion to the roleplay. You've maintained consistent activity and on the ooc side of things - you engage your peers and always have a sweet pick-me-up or some insightful words of wisdom to share. Suffice to say, knowing you, we see where Scott gets his lovable nature and where Marcel gets his charm! We adore you as a roleplayer, but beyond that; we admire and respect you and your journey as a human being.

For all these reasons and many more, we recognize you as the fifth recipient of our appreciation award; “Roleplayer of the Month”. Though this is a humble recognition that does not come with material gifts (we wish!) or much fanfare, it is offered to you with all our love and gratitude as admins. Thank you for being such an integral part of this roleplay!

Love,

~ The Admin Team @ VN

[jackcarson-foxfutureworks]

Tabletop RPG Assignment - METAL TASTE - Conception & Early Development

Moving on from the creative writing assignment, I have now been tasked with designing a tabletop RPG with a visually rich handbook with around 10 pages. The handbook is meant to contain information about the world and characters that the players will use. To do this, we first looked at how traits and archetypes worked, aspects of world building and the cliches of tabletop RPGs. Having played Dungeons and Dragons before, I had somewhat of an idea but still found some of these different styles of play to be interesting. Speaking of different styles, we then moved on to playing numerous tabletop RPGs, the most prominent being Lasers and Feelings. This was to give us an idea of how certain tabletop RPGs change up the go-to mechanics of generic RPGs to create unique experiences. I feel like that aspect is what lead to my main goal of creating a unique experience within tabletop RPGs. Another aspect I focused on from Lasers and Feelings is the emphasis on roleplay, or that’s how I saw it. I felt like the character creation really encouraged players to emulate that personality throughout the gameplay experience. I really did begin to feel like a dashing and cocky space pilot. 

That brings us to the initial concept of Metal Taste. I began my design focus on creating a unique experience with a strong emphasis on roleplay and a system inspired by the intense, in your face, and fast-paced action of the DOOM series. This brainstorm actually stemmed from reading the handbook of Apocalypse World and seeing a different side to tabletop RPGs which wasn’t a fantasy or a more friendly aesthetic. AW felt more like a harsh Mad Max than an adventurous Lord of the Rings take on the genre. 

Apocalypse World not only set my mind definitively on a hardcore/metal aesthetic, but it helped inspire further development into mechanics and language. What I did was look at how DOOM approaches mechanics for an FPS video game and then look at how AW uses mechanics as a tabletop RPG. At this stage, it was easier to figure out the best of both worlds, eliminating mechanics which wouldn’t work well in a TRPG environment and altering AW’s TRPG mechanics to fit DOOM’s style. Metal Taste needed constant action, powerful weaponry, useful gadgets, and badass marines to rain hell upon all that stand in their way. That’s why most of the systems within Metal Taste revolve around the player characters and their actions...after all, the player is the most important aspect. Moving on, I needed a foundation for these player actions, as it wasn’t enough just to say they are well-trained space machines who can shoot guns and bash in skulls. What the player needed was actual character, which brings me to my emphasis on roleplay. I started thinking about archetypes, the typical cogs within the wheel that is a squad of marines, and I looked at The Regiment, a TRPG based around modern warfare and marines. Using the typical soldier archetypes and morphing them into sci-fi variants laid the first stone to what would be the final five unique playable characters.

In my next post, I’ll be delving further into the development of these characters and more insight into Metal Taste’s no-holds-barred style. Prepare to meet Rhino, Rampage, Dynamite, Phoenix, and my personal favourite, Voodoo. 

[nitroxylin]

A Collection of (Not So) Nitoral Opinions and Questions regarding dungeonmemester’s TOF

DISCLAIMER: Opinions from this collection might not match those of yours. I’m in no way a game designer, I just read rulebooks and sometimes play and run games of roleplaying variety.

Not that I’m doing RPG reviews, and not that I know how to make them right, but here’s a curious example that’s being posted as teasers and musings: Project TOF by @dungeonmemester, also known as @wearenecromancers. A homebrew project? On my dash? My reaction is more likely than you think, and so I present this set of opinions on various parts of this project, organized by posts I react to.

GENERAL GOALS (the post)

[THAT POST IS DEEMED OUTDATED BY ITS AUTHOR. OPINIONS AND QUESTIONS ABOUT IT MIGHT BE OUTDATED AS WELL]

Good old attempts to fix D&D once more.

High degree of character customization that rewards players for taking the time to learn more about the system

This one is definitely going to be tricky (you can accidentally repeat the ivory tower design of 3.pf with options designed to be bad), especially if you’re also listing this:

Easy to play in practice, not just on paper 

Given that the project is based on 3.pf and 5e, it should be noted that these systems definitely are not easy to play with their inconsistent mechanics and lots of stuff to be aware of.

Individual characters are not good at everything, and probably have flaws/things they’re bad at - not just things they’re good at and thing’s they’re average at

I’d like to dispute that, but I’m afraid that I don’t have enough knowledge and experience to explain my position. I can presume that this point is aimed first and foremost at almighty casters and similar archetypes – correct me if I’m wrong here.

Don’t hide all the cool stuff behind irl years worth of play time, let the game be cool now - things where made to be enjoyed

Now this one is absolutely right, and I fully support that notion. If a player wants to play a char who can do A Thing, that char should be able to do That Thing from the get-go (yes, this includes level 1, if we imply level-based progression). An example - magic-wielding knights are not an uncommon archetype, yet in 5e you need at least two (if multiclassing) or three (if taking the Eldritch Knight route) levels for that. This obviously reduces variety.

Make medieval fantasy less Euro-centric 

I don’t oppose de-eurocentrizing fantasy, but I have concerns whether it’s truly medieval in anything but outward appearance; however, I might be unable to explain that position further, especially given that this point and its subpoints are less about system design and more about worldbuilding.

Challenge the Tolkienesque norms of contemporary medieval fantasy 

(another unexplainable opinion of mine: it’s far more D&Desque than it is Tolkienesque; again, this is worldbuilding and thus not directly tied to systems, but I should probably note that just taking species known from D&D and rebuilding them into versions specific for your game’s default setting isn’t exactly challenging the norms - especially if we take gnomes, who were made kinda popular with D&D; you’re just replacing one set of assumptions with another set)

Make a transparent system that is easy to add balanced new content to, as the ins-and-outs are readily available to DMs who want to make new classes, creatures, spells, etc. 

This might seem like a solution to inadequate variety... if you’re used to classes and other prepackaged character building blocks. While class-based systems have some advantages in form of players being able to skim their options and just pick a package of abilities, be it class, race, or anything else, they often cannot support concepts that aren’t prewritten as classes (or anything else) – and this issue should be taken into consideration. You can make guidelines for making new stuff, but going away from strict 3.pf/5e-style classes might help even better, like Stars Without Number (Revised)-style broad classes or charbuilding of generic systems without classes and levels.

[OUTDATED PORTION ENDS]

HIGH FANTASY AND ITS POWER LEVELS (the post)

A repost of an interesting observation by @prokopetz that hopefully represents the TOF’s designer’s views too. Going equally big whether the char in question casts magic spells openly, forges weapons, or is just very, very good at fighting is a thing I can get behind. (And yes, 4e tried to fix that (not without results), and people were angry enough to spawn Pathfinder - maybe some of those who play 3.pf play it not despite this issue, but because of it?) ASKING FOR OPINIONS ON 3.PF and 5E (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/163834841809/project-tof-dd-edition-reviews; for some reason, Tumblr doesn’t allow me to embed this link)

Asking people about their experience with systems the developers are trying to fix is definitely good. That said, I should probably respond to this post with a separate reblog.

KAIJU CREATURE TYPE (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/164012592174/i-cant-believe-i-didnt-think-to-add-a-kaiju; same as above - seems like Tumblr has a limit on embedded links)

Is that type really needed though? Fantasy has its own giant monsters of various sorts, it has dragons. Tarrasques as some weird singular unkillable creatures surely seem like a D&D invention.

ON SPECIES AND DIVERSITY, pt. 2 (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/164200250854/why-diversity-is-good-for-dd-from-a-mechanical)

I’m singling this one out for its mechanical considerations. Having characteristics not set in stone (”all X are like this, no exceptions”) is definitely better than the approach of 3.pf (and 5e, to a lesser degree). Some of the listed elven features, however, are still based on D&D stereotypes, but I hope this would be fixed.

ON SPECIES AND DIVERSITY, pt. 3 (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/164203248404/why-diversity-is-good-for-dd-from-a-mechanical)

In a class-based game with significant reliance on characteristics (which D&D is), being able to combine any class with any species and not be penalized for that choice is definitely good, but there is one more thing to consider: minmaxers are still going to pick the best species for their class statwise, and being best for them is having bonuses to that class’ core characteristic, be it Int for wizards or anything else; not having penalties is good for them, but not good enough as having bonuses.

With such ties of required characteristics and classes that make use of them, I present an option that might seem insane: drop any stat modifications from species; instead of that, just give classes the exact stats they need.

ON CULTURAL DIFFERENCES (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/164807722979/more-on-writing-the-sentient-creatures-of-your)

This post (which, for some reasons, doesn’t come up by tag in its author’s blog) raises a completely valid point, which I’m not arguing with, and also further defines the project’s approach as “species are for biological traits, culture comes separately“. That said, it’s weird to see an optional species trait of longbow proficiency (doesn’t sound as a biological trait, does it?) in the writeup for elves. I hope this would be fixed as well.

Looking outside D&D would certainly help; Stars Without Number (especially its Revised version) treats background as a thing completely separate from your biology, which can give you stat-ups and skills that might directly help your role or become useful secondary abilities - and I’m not even suggesting classless and levelless generic systems!

ON ALIGNMENT (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/164320489559/re-working-alignment-for-project-tof-is-getting)

Given the eternal wars around D&D alignments, I would like to see your reasoning on keeping it as a concept in general (also, alignments and other cosmic forces of similar scale definitely are setting assumptions).

ON ENCOUNTERS PER DAY (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/164641801274/encounters-per-day)

“Recent statistics show that more and more DM’s are running story-driven campaigns with only one or two of what Matthew Colville aptly describes as “set-piece battles” per day. His Reddit post aligns with a lot of my own thoughts around the rise of narrative-driven entertainment and the consequential fall of old-school, combat-driven D&D.” (Tumblr seems to have a limit on certain tags per post. Hmm.)

This looks like something I would like to discuss further, but not with my current knowledge and experience. However, this point...

“This will most likely involve re-working how magic and spells-per-day work. I’d also like to avoid the pitfall that 4th edition D&D fell into, where the classes where balanced simply because they were basically all just re-skinned wizards. While mechanical balance across a variety of games is important to me, it is also important that each class be unique.”

...raises a question from me; what do you mean by saying that all classes of 4e were wizards? Because of activated abilities for everyone? Because of limiting their daily use (again, nobody calls 3.pf barbarians with their rage X times per day wizards, not does anyone call 5e battlemasters wizards, although their superiority dice are limited too)? And what makes you think that classes of 4e are not unique?

ON TOOLS OF VIOLENCE (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/165206628533/weapons-damage-balance)

This approach is simplistic and definitely viable, but if you’d like to hear about alternatives, OGL-based Legend RPG has absolutely every weapon set deal the same baseline damage; the differences come from qualities (and players definitely can pick enough qualities for their chars’ weapons) and pure flavor (the rulebook explicitly says that your char can be fighting with a sword... or with two swords... or with twenty swords at once - just pick qualities that represent your view on how it works).

ON WHAT GAMEPLAY TOF IS FOR (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/165214104839/gameplay)

The aim to make the system fitting for story-driven games is understandable, given that nearly everyone tries to fit some plot, but D&D has perhaps too many assumptions that inevitably inject combat and dungeon crawling in games on it (and if you somehow end up without it, why even play D&D? there are other systems that do stuff besides combat and dungeon crawling far better). If you’re going to base your system on D&D (and you seem to be going to), please, take this into consideration. For more examples, you can check Fate (Core or Accelerated) and/or other narrative-focused systems (which FFG SW RPGs are not, even though they have a somewhat bigger narrative focus than D&D has and mechanics to support on-the-fly story progression and twists), if you haven’t done so already. And yes, people try to make D&D do stuff that isn’t supported by it; this means that they need to be shown other systems that might suit their needs better - for many, D&D is THE RPG with no alternatives imaginable.

ON LIFESPANS AND MEASUREMENTS (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/165214307634/hey-when-its-not-past-midnight-on-a-sunday-night)

Regarding lifespans - have you ever experienced a D&D-based game (a module, a campaign, any length) where lifespans mattered as a gameplay factor? If so, please specify; in most cases, lifespans aren’t a balancing factor in any way and are just a flavor feature.

Regarding measurements - if you’re speaking tradition, then you can’t truly ask hobbyists to switch to anything (the lonely grave of 4e.jpg); an episode of their unwillingness to switch resulted in Pathfinder, and its upcoming second edition might become a victim to the same doom. Also, imperial measurements are widespread in tabletop gaming because of a single major reason: authors and publishers of the field’s cornerstone games (D&D and Warhammer) were American and British respectively. Feel free to write your game on metric, most of the world uses it.

ON ASSUMPTIONS (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/165230006029/gameplay)

and

ON TYPES OF MAGIC (http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/171399156842/magic-in-project-tof)

and

ON GNOMES AND ASSUMPTIONS

(http://dungeonmemester.tumblr.com/post/172633204994/wearenecromancers-i-can-think-of-a-few-gniches)

Yes, I’m still concerned. The project seems to take out one set of assumptions... to replace it with another set, and this sounds like a problem. You say that you want to make less setting assumptions, yet you write halflings as rabbit-based three-eyed creatures (I’ve seen something like that in your blog, correct me if I’m wrong), plan to have cosmic force-style alignments, and your definitions of rangers’ and paladins’ and warlocks’ and other classes’ abilities and flavor seem identical to (or very closely based on) those of D&D - that’s already a lot of assumptions about a given TOF-based campaign setting a GM could use, and more restrictive ones at that. Checking some systems that are less constrained in charbuilding blocks than D&D (especially the generic ones, where you can easily build your own elves and halflings) might help.

If any opinion or passage from this post seems unnecessarily aggressive, please comment and explain why. Feel free to comment anything else, I’ve started this post specially for civil discussions.

P.S. Holy gosh. Tumblr really can’t digest large posts.

[dailycharacteroption]

Soul Shepherd (Monk Archetype)

 In fantasy, monks, that is to say, the classic ascetic monks we know from roleplaying games that imply a bigger world with more than just the standard European medieval fantasy, tend to have a unique connection with their own spiritual side that you don’t see in most other classes. Certainly spellcasters, particularly divine casters have that element of mastery over the spiritual, but for the most part, their power focuses on the outside, rather than the inside.

Monks can do wondrous things with their control over their own life energy, both within and without, but what’s interesting is that for all that control, we rarely see the classic kung fu monk using that greater understanding of the soul to lay the dead to rest, at least, outside of certain martial arts movies where ascetics are blended thematically with divine magic.

Whether they are merely emulating them, or were directly taught by psychopomps, some monks master using their own spiritual energies to deal with the restless dead and take on some of the power associated with that breed of outsider.

Thus, these monks can be exorcists in their own right, often able to learn from the restless dead so as to find peaceful ways to help them pass on, rather than simply bash them into oblivion.

 The most iconic ability of these monks is their ability to channel their life energy through their fists, not to cause harm, but to temporarily abate the negative emotions of bodiless undead and haunts, causing them to become docile or at least non-hostile, allowing the chance for speech and learning between the living and dead, perhaps even finding a way to help them pass on.

Additionally, their conditioning hardens their bodies, granting them many forms of psychopomp-like resistances.

Further emulating the spirit guides, they can also use their ki to sense the life and death energies of the living and undead alike.

While undead are tragic, to these ascetics nothing is more abominable than holding a soul against it’s will, and they learn a powerful technique to attempt to destroy magical bindings that hold a soul from its final destination, be it a spell, item, or even a creature’s special ability.

Even though this archetype is focused primarily on the undead, there’s enough things useful outside of that purpose that I can recommend this archetype for normal play in a more general campaign. That being said, the calm spirit spell that they can emulate presents a big change to how characters normally deal with undead. I could recommend lots of different builds to go with this archetype, though a more social build could help with dealing with the dead peacefully.

 Monks are lawful in nature, while psychopomps are more loose with their interpretation of laws when approaching their duties. As such, most of these monks may be lawful neutral, and may even border true neutral at times. That being said, the philosophy is an emphatic one, seeing the struggle of the undead and taking pity on them.

  Found in a strange metal star that fell from the sky, Enphima was taken in by the School of Parted Veils, who were delighted to find her proficient in manipulating her ki despite her mechanical nature, and she now serves as an exorcist in the haunted mists of Janau. However, when an outbreak of spirits whose spectral forms wear the strange padded armor and glass helms she was found in, she drops everything to investigate, but she could use some help.

 Hoping to manufacture allips, a necromancer has taken to hanging prisoners in cages in a den of chon chons, those strange aberrant flying heads, hoping to drive them over the edge into suicide with their insane babbling. Following a paper trail, the local guards have contacted adventurers and soul shepherds alike to put an end to this.

 In a way, due to her nature, Master Jin Ashii is just as much a prisoner as she is a teacher. Dying a painful death to protect the land and monastery, she continues to teach her style as a ghost. However, occasionally she slips into undead rage, and she must be calmed by the technique she taught her students.

[fic-dreamin]

Wrong printing; full of errors, starting with the cover. The product listed is not correct. The cover is for the second printing of the book. If your copy reads "Pathfinder Adventure Path," it is the first printing, which has 19-20 pages of errata on the Paizo.com website. The corrected second printing has a cover that reads "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game." I will amend my review once a legitimate copy of the book arrives. Go to Amazon

Overall this book gives a lot of excellent options, and makes certain character concepts much easier ... Overall this book gives a lot of excellent options, and makes certain character concepts much easier to play. Most of the classes are well-constructed and fairly balanced. Specifically, the martial classes have a lot of advantages over their more generic parent classes if you want to play a specific concept. I do find that the classes themselves are somewhat limited in that they fill pretty specific roles, and will have a bit of a problem getting away from that role. However, as these classes are intended to supplement rather than replace the Core Rulebook classes, that is a fairly minor concern. Go to Amazon

If you want to approach classes differently or have very creative players this book will assist them. If you have grasped all the basics of the core books and want to try some new class ideas that are unusual this book could be for you. If you are world building from scratch or from a beloved series but you need a class that's not represented yet, you can build a balanced one with the materials. If you're running a campaign with a low number of players, some hybrid classes can fill multiple roles (at reduced effectiveness of the core classes). There are a few new styles and archetypes for existing classes but a bulk of the book is for players looking for something different in their class options. understanding that it's my opinion that it's not a necessary book but what it sets out to do it does well. Go to Amazon

Take your Pathfinder character to the next level Great supplement to create richer, deeper and more interesting Pathfinder characters. Go to Amazon

I'm glad I have this book! I'm glad I bought this book. The new classes add a lot of interest to the game. I've been having fun with my skald, a hybrid of the barbarian and bard classes - great for role playing just like a bard, but still OK in combat. I haven't played many of the other classes yet, but they all seem to be well thought out and have good balance to them. Go to Amazon

A few problems but I don't regret buying it. This book from what I can tell is pretty good. I'm personally not a big fan of investigator since it's fairly similar of inquisitor: now with grit! and I feel that slayer is a little too good but I've never actually seen them played before so take what I say with a grain of salt. A lot of new archetypes, feats, and magic items available for new and old classes. I gave it four stars because the book comes off as unpolished, there are more typos than usual that I've noticed and for some reason they slapped adventure path on the title for no readily apparent reason. Go to Amazon

Fairly big publisher error See, this book is great. Absolutely fantastic. But the copy I got had a publisher error. It jumped on several pages — for instance, the page after 32 was not 33, but rather page 69. And this happened on several pages. I ended up having to return it. 3/5 stars because if not for the publisher errors, it would have been a great addition to my collection. Go to Amazon

Great Help Great explanations. Easy to read and understand. Go to Amazon

Five Stars Happy with item it's like all paizo products... good content, but the book binding sucks. You have to be very gentle with these or the pages c Five Stars It's a good source book for the Pathfinder RPG system Four Stars Five Stars Unnecessary, but nice Great shipping Good Book