#i dont post a lot about the ttrpg im in but this is my The Expert character :)

[hotsugarbyglassanimals]

Sayer at the carnival

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for writing fanfics shipping two characters from a TTRPG campaign?

submitted: 1/25/24

this feels like a complete non-issue, but oh my god am i anxious. please dont be mean. everyone in the story (including characters) are adults. many unimportant details omitted bc the gm is on tumblr and if he saw this i think i would turn into dirt.

im in an online campaign and we've been playing for a couple months. my character has become my Actual Son and i love thinking about him all the time. the other night, me and two other players were chatting in a channel on the discord about our characters. it was simple things like how our characters view each other, and it was all in good fun.

we were analyzing one of the characters because their player (O) made a playlist based off their life, and the other player (B) joked about my character and playlist character being involved romantically. it was silly and the O said anyone was welcome to try romancing their character, we made a silly ship name and joked that B was the first official shipper. i replied and said i might be one too and we kept joking about it.

however, my brain has been rotating these two characters in my head for hours now and i want to write my own personal headcanons/shipping fics for them. they've both interacted a lot and have quite a bit of lore they've experienced together in the campaign and its angsty and i cannot stop thinking about it.

i have a password protected writing blog on tumblr where i would be posting them for private archival and otherwise i wouldnt tell anyone about it unless our characters actually started behaving romantically.

reasons i think i could be the asshole: im worried this will affect my roleplaying with this character, im also worried i misunderstood how much of the conversation was joking, im also not sure where the whole group stands on characterXcharacter romance and worry about making people uncomfortable

reasons i dont think im the asshole: the writing will be kept privately for my own enjoyment, my ttrpg character has grown into more than just my tabletop character and i've been fleshing out a life story for him, the law of 'do whatever you want forever'

so, would i be the asshole for writing ship fics between these two characters?

What are these acronyms?

[anachronistic-falsehood]

EPISODE 22 TRIVIA:

- "hey bizly can we fight an alligator next episode. i just wanna see who would win" "the hilarious thing is that we would LOSE because theyre MORE POWERFUL THAN US" i told you there would be more of this . theres a REASON im including it but also its just so fucking funny

- charlie: "my whole scale for this campaign now is alligator based. while we were getting shot at i kept thinking 'man i wonder how an alligator would deal with this'" alligators are power level 7 btw.

- yakko: "they should just replace all low level superheroes with alligators in costumes" "prime defenders becomes alligators and its like penguins of madagascar"

- "do you think william wisp could beat an alligator in a cartoon beatboxing battle" "no. i dont think alligators can beatbox but william would still lose" i love a loser boy

- theyre trying to get bizly to tell them what power level wavelength is and he wont tell them so they said "put it in alligator terms"

- grizzly wants to pick up a new character quirk for dakota: having one consistent bit per episode and then dropping it at the end of the epispde and picking up a different one next time (like the psychic thing) . yakko was like "its like he sees a new hobby and thinks its gonna be cool and then gets bored of it in like a week" dakota adhd king

- LIZARD UPDATE: crocodiles are power level 8. a crocodile has almost as much charisma as william wisp

- theyre looking at the page from the rulebook now . "youre telling me a komodo dragon is power level 6??? look how dumb that thing looks thats how powerful we are."

- THEY POSTED A PICTURE OF THE PAGE FROM THE BOOK. ITS ALL LIZARDS. WHY DOES THE SUPERHERO TTRPG NEED SO MANY DIFFERENT LIZARD STATBLOCKS

- yakko: "look at the komodo dragon. thats how i feel every time i play prime defenders"

- "MARK IS PART LIZARD. what type of lizard is he. thats how we figure out his power level."

- on this topic, yakko goes: "wait ashe doesnt know marks lizard stuff was from experiments maybe he thinks its genetic. what if next episode he goes up to mark like 'so like am i gonna get lizard powers when i grow up'

- "bizly your silence during this discussion is speaking volumes. can we level up." ".... SURE. NOW YOURE AS POWERFUL AS AN ALLIGATOR"

- PRIME DEFENDERS POWER LEVEL 7. YIPPEE

- i fucking love the lizard discussion its so funny. this isnt trivia but like they have BARELY talked about the episode its all lizard power levels

- the angel that ashe summons to heal people is not a literal angel its just a spirit that happens to look like that

- williams suit was built with all kinds of mystery solving stuff in it!! there were a couple things mentioned in the episode but they specifically say here it has a feat called Always Rolling which gives him a bodycam that records everything they do

- back to the alligator situation. there is a statblock for "army soldier" that is. power level 4 (or 5? they dont say specificially) so now theyre back on this again "YOURE TELLING ME. all the training and shit they go theough and theyd still lose to a fucking gator? THEY HAVE GUNS."

- in order for ashe to summon things he has to say an incantation AND physically have the book open to the right page! so he cant just memorize things he actually physically needs to have the book

- "dakota is so endearing i love him so much" ME TOO

- a lot of the way grizzly plays dakota is inspired by beast boy from teen titans ... i love this about him

- "tide's being stupid and now we have to go save him so he doesnt die"

bizly: "no, tide's not being stupid. he knows fully what hes getting himself into, he just loves his family and would do anything for his family" :(((

- they had this whole discussion about how sad it is that tide was trusting them to make a choice and actively inviting them to a thing that he probably knew was gonna be dangerous and how they betrayed him by making the choice to go with mark instead and it sort of starts to turn into a nuance argument and charlie shuts the whole thing down by going "actually i think tide is an alligator" and thats where they fucking end it

- vyncents fisherman class is not real its just for a bit/for flavor but every day i wish it was

OK I SHOULD HAVE ANSWERED THESE BEFORE I STARTED S2 BUT OH MY GOD THAT LIZARD PAGE. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY LIZARDS. WHO NEEDS THIS MANY LIZARDS IN ONE CAMPAIGN. the fucking alligator oh my god it's insane that overlord is actually a fucking alligator. thats so fucking funny. oh my god

ASHE'S HEALING ANGEL ISN'T ACTUALLY AN ANGEL IT'S JUST A SPIRIT THAT LOOKS LIKE THAT AND SAYS SHIT LIKE "BE NOT AFRAID" I LOVE THAT. prime defenders silliest ttrpg campaign ever

knowing that grizzly plays dakota with beast boy in mind makes soooo much sense. that is beast boy right there!!!!!

vyncent's fisherman class should have been real and canon </3 in my mind it is in fact canon. what would the fisherman's name be..... that is the question

[quark-art]

got a lot of art from various ttrpg campaigns im in that i just never posted? so heres just all of it

campaign / character info under the cut:

1: thats milly! shes my character in a middle earth campaign i recently joined. shes a hobbit warden, which is basically a bard minus spellcasting. shes talky

2: atmos is a poppet kineticist (air/water) in a pathfinder 2e rp server i joined, theyre nonverbal and filled with rage

3: ACE-9, an autognome (flavored as a different race called "cairnicks") warlock/wizard (hexblade/war magic) i made for a one-shot. despite being a warlock/wizard, she was the tank of the party bc she had crazy high AC, which drove my dm crazy (hi @arclundarchivist <3). she ended up sacrificing herself to save her AI patron

4-5: ive posted about zaltus before, hes my leonin cleric, the other guy in those doodles is andanan, the paladin in the party, who zaltus has a weird crush on bc he reminds zaltus of his wife (seen in 8)

6: zaltus got wasted one session and was super normal

7: zaltus is a sub. moving on

8: zaltus's wife was super hot but shes dead now bc zaltus got zorped 600 years in the future. sad

9-11: buoy is an owlin barbarian character ive got prepared for a campaign way in the future that im still playing with the design for

12: joey is my backup character for another campaign the same DM is running, shes a human ranger and she loves pokemon!

13: jacob is an npc from that same campaign, hes a conspiracy theorist who is unfortunately uniquely incapable of seeing supernatural stuff

14: same campaign, these are the folks in the highschool dnd club joeys in. the witches think they have magic and dont, the hunters think magic is real and are right. they hate each other

15-16: a scene from another campaign from the same DM, in the same universe as zaltus! ive posted about chomphuphan, my ursine cleric, and the other character is jengen, the barbarian in the party whos sorta choms father figure now

17: chomphuphans adoptive brother is named onkhot and he broke his leg protecting chom from bandits. theyre angsty

18: jengen had long hair and i didnt know this when i drew him initially. anyway he and chom are friends and jengen drinks fire resistance potions to bang fire giant ladies

[fatmaclover]

12, the whole gang. would love to hear every head canon you have tbh!!

oh gosh thats gonna be a lot. im gonna be excluding anything that would make this blog more personal or less tame than i want it to be but you really arent missing much there

well. first and foremost UNFORTUNATELY its a hc that im a joyce kelly truther. shes so unbelievably transfem to me at this point its hard to see her as much else. genuinely forget its not canon sometimes. oops

i also must say all of @pariskim's joyceverse tag is canon in my mind and i really recommend you go through it even if you dont see joyce the same way i do, genuinely some of my favorite fan content to consume period. yes i am also sending you over there to become a joyce truther. go.

honestly if mac and dennis could be responsible pet owners (theyll never be.) i think theyd LOVE having a snake. i know theyd go for a ball python because theyre more stereotypically "snake" than some other pet trade species, but frankly i think theyd do best with a hognose. theyre pretty social (with humans. dont keep hognoses together in a tank) idiots with huge attitude and they look god damn adorable. hognoses would also be great for them because they tend to be more food motivated! its also good for snakes to just take them out and like. set them on your bed n just chill or talk with em for an hour or so. thatd be great for mac.

i personally think that mac will only hook up with you as a fellow man if you a) can pass as older than him or b) look like dennis. yeag i think he, consciously or not, goes for people that have similar traits to dennis, physically or personality wise. if dennis let himself accept that he cares a bit too much about who mac is dating, that little fact would single-handedly make macdennis canon. dennis would tell mac to just date him if he wanted to date him so badly

not entirely a headcanon but i imagine almost all of the gang besides maybe frank has methods for getting dennis to regulate his diet a bit more instead of eating like 1 meal a day. i think mac can get dennis to eat or drink just about anything by just giving it to him in conversation. he'll just let dennis talk his ear off and continually hand him chips or fruit or even drinks or nearly any drug at all. having a small bite or drink or hit during conversation is such a reinforced habit that its natural to the both of them now.

i think dee does it by purposefully playing into her status of being "below" dennis. she'll complain about being too weak to open a peanut shell or something and he'll snatch it and do it to prove hes better and out of habit maybe has a little bite. though i imagine if theyre inebriated in any way its as easy as genuinely just feeding it to him. dennis will never admit it, because he hates his sister, but he trusts her.

joyce i think can get dennis to eat just by getting alone with him. she provides a bubble of decompression and a lack of worry for him. its also insanely easy for her to just offer dennis a huff of whatever inhalant shes been having fun with that day and i imagine that makes things easier as well

i think you could pretty easily get mac into nerd shit. just have some pretty boy be a little nerdy. get him to watch star trek itd be life changing for him even if i think a good amount of it would fly over his head at times. ttrpgs and roleplaying in general i think would be big for him

also bringing back my hc of him joining the philadelphia gay mens chorus ohhhhhh my god i need him to sing more i need him to embrace his love of singing

unngh thats not all of em but i my brains starting to lag a bit here. ill happily rb this post with more and make it a sorta masterpost for hcs eventually

[d20-lesbian]

🐈‍⬛🖤INTRO POST🖤🐦‍⬛

I'm finally making an intro post! under the break you will find everything from DNI to Hyperfixations/Interests, plus a new tagging system I'll be using so my blog isn't such a wasteland <33 Enjoy

alright lets start with some info!

My name is Onyx

I'm a non binary lesbian

I use they/xe/it and a bunch of neopronouns

I identify with a bunch of xenogenders!

I flip from hyperfixation to hyperfixation super easily but my special interests are musical theatre and psychology/mental illness. (2 very different things i know).

I'm 18 years old and Australian :3

before you follow !

I might spam reblog sometimes, but I'll have all reblogs tagged so you can mute that if you like.

I'm always happy to receive asks and such, anonymous or not!! please i want mutuals ;-;.

i might vent at times, nothing too serious of course and always properly tagged.

Just keep this in mind!

DNI IF:

- you fall into basic DNI criteria (homophobic, transphobic, racist, etc.)

- you're pro-ana or pro-sh as I'm in recovery for both of these.

- you're a proshipper

- you're under 12

- you're a Monika apologist (DDLC)

- you fake claim

- you're anti neopronouns/xenogenders

some of my triggers are ,

vomit, in any way, this is my biggest one!! i have very severe emetephobia and dont really even like the word.

IRL sans hoodies/blue jackets that look similar to that.

Sayoris death scene from DDLC

i love musical theatre, rock/metal music, LGBTQIA+ advocacy, mental health advocacy, psychology, dungeons and dragons/other TTRPGs and witchy stuff :3

I'm in a lot of fandoms, including !

DDLC, Dimension 20 (fantasy high), Danganronpa, Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel, Ride The Cyclone, SIX, Beetlejuice, Hamilton, Heathers, Vocaloid, Sanrio, Unus Annus, TBHK, MLP, FNAF, Marvel, NITW, Pokemon, Supernatural, Markiplier egos, WKM, ADWM, AHWM, ISWM, Jacksepticeye egos, Doctor Who, Starkid, The Hatchetfield Trilogy AND MANY MORE I CANT REMEMBER RN!!

this section will update every now and then with whatever I'm hyperfixating on !! right now its;

will wood/will wood and the tapeworms!!!

I kin !

Sayori (DDLC)

Kokichi (DRV3)

Angeldust (HH)

Jane Doe (RTC)

Fave characters are !

All kins <3

Ibuki Mioda (DRV2)

Emu Otori (PJSK)

Celestia Ludenberg (DRV1)

Ocean O'Connell Rosenburg (RTC)

Kuromi (Sanrio)

Kristen Applebees (D20)

Figueroth Faeth (D20)

im gonna introduce a tagging system to make my blog less of a messy hellscape!!

reblogs will be tagged with #onyx rbs

me yelling about fandoms will be tagged with #onyx fandom posting

vents will be tagged with #onyx sad

more serious posts will be tagged with #onyx serious

random shit/rambles will be tagged with #onyx is rambling

answering asks will be tagged with #onyx answers asks

heres some stuff that doesn't fit into any of the previous categories!

my favourite mutuals are @frogsareallgay , @elias-pluto , @tumbletryr and @teslapenguini !!

My favourite animals are black cats, crows/ravens, moths and bats! and i identify heavily with black cats specifically!! (im the real black cat gf sorrry not sorry >:3)

Some of the neopronouns i use are :3

glitch/void/moon/star/spirit/crow/moth/hallow/cat/kit/arcade/wisp

heres some links to my other socials !!

Insta: rock_lesbian

Twitter: Dnd_Lesbian

Discord: onyxjae

Pinterest: Onyx Jae

Carrd: Onyx Jae's Carrd

Spacehey: Onyx Jae

anyway, to close out, thank you for reading through all of this!! i hope you enjoy your stay on my blog !!! love yall <33

[intertexts]

HELLOOOO I COME BEARING GIFTS

EPISODE 11 TRIVIA:

- ashe being there surprised dakota so much it broke him somewhat out of his bad mood! in grizzlys words "if he wouldnt have met ashe right then, dakota would have been so much more angry and miserable at the beginning of this episode. he mightve just straight up left. got up and walked away."

- he didnt want to talk to william or vyncent at all, so ashe being there (however unwillingly) as a third party made things easier and almost softened the blow of vyncent yelling at him in the moment

- "why did i dream about william and vyncent being villains in the beginnign and killing summer" ".... i dunno" *cue entire party suspicious WHAT DOES THAT MEAN*

- "i dont trust your characters now" "you have ONE bad dream and our campaign turns into a game of among us"

- william: "hey ashe do you want to run away and write poetry with me?" emo/goth kid solidarity

- this is yakko's (ashes player) first time ever playing a ttrpg !!! fucking wild!! he feels like he needs more practice describing things

- FUN CHARACTER FACTS. I LOVE THESE MORE THAN ANYTHING. BIZLY ASKED EACH OF THEM WHAT KINDS OF MUSIC THEIR CHARACTERS WOULD LISTEN TO.

dakota: breakbeat, old school rap, 90s punk rock. also for shows he would watch it was "cartoons like atla, tmnt and codename kids next door"

william: "indie rock. and on a bad day, evanescence" (god hes just like me fr)

vyncent: "my character doesnt know what music is"

ashe: MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE . also apparently yakko made an ashe winters playlist on spotify and thats actually what they were playing in the episode. i have not found this yet and i desperately want to

- for the spirit world, bizly asked charlie to find him just random pieces of music that he could envision places for and thats how they came up with carnival of souls! there are a handful more places like that that youll see eventually :]

- yakko: "im glad i was able to bring wavelengths threat level down an entire tier just by calling him mark"

- charlie wants william and ashe to hang out in character more because theyre so similar and he thinks they would have a lot to bond over! i love this

- theyre all really excited that they get to go to the spirit world together and it wasnt just an excuse to split the party because they dont want to do that :] (<< i just rlly like this energy)

- grizzly is specifically playing dakota as "not being able to process emotions very well"

ALSO!!!!!!! i dojt know what site or whatever youre using to watch/listen so im hoping they have this on there BUT. the tide backstory oneshot was posted between episodes 12 and 13 so if u wanted to listen to that one now would be a good time !!! its called The Elementals :]

HIII YAYAYAYAYYY!!!! ohh fuck yes a little bowl of seeds for me :333

the dakota & ashe stuff is so goodddd u can rlly tell. it's like yeah you cant be mad and miserable and sulky in front of someone u don't know!! & ashe is just.... so unbothered... i loaf him... he truly did bring the threat level down so fast. went from terrifying supervillain in charge of the Evil Facility to an exhausted pissed off single dad in 1 minute.

+ALL THE MUSIC STUFF IS SO GOOD..... ITS SO GOOD. yelling. vyncent is going 2 end up having the weirdest music taste from hanging out with them. augh... awesome trivia thabk. the energy they have is so fun always....

[mell0bee]

tagged by @candiedjellybean thank u dude!!! im p sure ive done this tag sometime last year so will be interesting to see if my answers have changed

Are you named after anyone? unfortunately, st. brigid of ireland, but also apparently it's a name thats been in my dad's side of the family too? either way my parents knew of the name due to irish catholic reasons. yipee! though im cool with it bc st. brigid used to be the goddess brigid from irish myth, and also both of them were badasses <3

When was the last time you cried? .....genuinely i think the last time i cried was in like. early march when i watched the holdovers? i think? taking a break from college has greatly decreased the frequency at which i cry lmao

Do you have kids? no sir

Do you use sarcasm a lot? i guess yes? probably about as much as the average person (this is not sarcasm)

What sports do you play? i do not play any currently (though i probs should. i am built like a twig and a strong wind will knock me over.) but as a kid i used to play soccer which i hated and was god awful at and softball which i liked more but i was also god awful at and mostly spent my time hitting foul balls and playing with the grass in right field. but it was fun!

What’s the first thing you notice about people? uhhhhhh. uh?????? if they're wearing a cool outfit or have cool hair or smth? idk man. i guess i dont rlly think abt it?

What’s your eye color? brown

Scary movies or happy endings? uh. both? am p sure my tolerance for horror is a lot higher than most people and im always down for a tragedy but i also like happy endings too. though from a writing perspective happy endings are significantly easier to pull off than sad ones (& more common. hero's journey and all that).

Any special talents? uhhhhh im double jointed in my thumbs. also i can put my foot behind my head. is that a talent? im also working on my sudoku time, i think my lowest time for master difficulty is around 6 mins 30 seconds? which is uh. above average?? i think???

Where were you born? idk apparently they cloned me in a lab somewhere

What are your hobbies? lately playing a lot of video games, writing (mostly fanfic), art stuff (mostly drawing but am learning how to use watercolor), uhhhh.... ttrpgs but i havent gotten to play in a while sadly

Do you have any pets? dog!!!!!

How tall are you? 5'3

Favourite subject in school? science

Dream job? ahahahah funny you should ask that, i say, having been doubting my choices in career aspirations and my post-undergrad 5-year plan that i've had since high school for the past 7 months, (please send help. but. for a serious answer. i think i still want to do science research? just maybe in a softer science like psych even tho my undergrad is bio & neuro???? idk. unsure.)

tagging uhhhhhhh candiedjellybean already tagged most of the ppl i usually tag sooo @halflingkima ? i think i tagged u last time too lol. & anyone else who wants to do this!!!

[nettlewildfairy]

Tumblr made that big long post and a lot of people are angry reacting to some like surprisingly reasonable suggestions that solve widespread long time  complaints

i dont know how they plan to solve everything just yet but as someone who knows some things about the industry and jargon here are my 2 cents

Here is a link to the referenced post

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr

in an age where most social media sites are making it aesoteric and difficult to share posts offsite /app tumblr is considering making it easier to do

yall do you know how hard it is to link a long tumblr post with like a comic or funny string of replies to share with my friends who arent on tumblr? i have to take like 15 screenshots every time. IF staff is priorizing making it easier to share posts that would be so much better oh my god 2 High quality content on launch.  the pessamistic assumption is that this could mean a mandatory algorithm but if you read carefully you’ll notice they never fully say thats even remotely what they are going to do. This seems to be a suggestion that the default new user experience will change. 

If you like me made an account 10 years ago this looks like it won’t affect your experience whatsoever. 

but like trying to sort through tags to find blogs and curate my own feed actively took like over a year to get to a place where i’m happy when i did it in 2011/2012

if feeds and tags Worked that would be good. the for you page and exploration features on tumblr do, admittedly suck right now. there SHould be easier ways to find and search for stuff on tumblr. if their search worked better and finding stuff you wanted to see was easier that Would improve the experience for most people on this site.  3. facilitate easier user participation in conversations folks if replys could be threaded in some way it would be 1000 times easeir to have convos with them. like i do not get what people are upset about here. like a person shouldn’t have to reblog their own post 15 times in a row to reply to different people about the same thing. they could make this so much better.  4. Retain and grow our creator base

 it IS hard for art to see and get seen. if i had a nickle for every time i saw a post begging people to reblog art i’d have like so many nickles.  I would like to see more art. and ttrpg creators. there’s like stuff i have to go to twitter for and its small time ttrpg, art, writing, and literary magazines because even when those folks are on tumblr its extraordinarily difficult to find them with the systems currently in place.

 like i don’t know that tumblr has a good plan to make this kind of thing easier but if they did figure it out it would rule. and its good to know that this is a priority for the company 5.  Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr

throttling notifications rules. i have commented on tumblr staff posts dozens of times for like 5+ years asking for this, thank GOD. if you reblog a lot of posts you get a lot of notes even if you have like 15 people regularly interacting with your stuff on 100 posts a day thats like 1500 notifications. it collapses some by post or interaction type but that is NOT enough and the notification bar always says 99+ unless i checked it less than a minute ago, im dying please make notifications meaningful and not overwhelming. 

6: Performance, stability and quality

this is generic and means very little obviously anyone making an app wants it to crash less often.  bonus: ive seen people get upset at the implication that they are instituting a mandatory algorithm but the site has had an option algorithm for like ages, it doesn't imply its mandatory anywhere or that they're taking away our option to turn it off. there are already artist showcase things on the dash on the regular, if you have adblock on you can’t see some of those, but they've had them for fully years. 

its highly unlikely that they would get rid of one of the main selling points of tumblr.com they’re like a real company thats done bare minimum market research, like folks no one other than musk would do something that boneheaded

[bellshazes]

could i ask the reasoning behind your dungeons and dragons dislike? is it with the format of the game, the general playerbase, the material, or something else? i dont play and i always think im missing context when i read your posts, but appreciate them nonetheless

haha so for specific context it's probably important to disclosed my first ever job was teaching board games & i did that for ten summers from age 14-24ish. so i have a particular exposure to/long-running beef with certain parts/aspects of the games industries which are both serious & well informed but also kind of inside jokes to some degree with my fellow GMing friends.

Wizards of the Coast have so many problems i don't know where to start, but the recent licensing changes suck for all the poor folk who have cared enough to try and fix their crappy system, a lot of the lore is racist, and I'm friends with MTG fans but not qualified to start explaining what the fuck is up with all that. but even disergarding that, D&D itself has gone through so many evolutions thru its editions that even hardcore fans will disupte which ones are good and which ones are total shit. (the intersection of "catholic priests who are intense about church canon" and "3.5E diehards" is really funny for instance, in my overly specific experience.)

but honestly my beef is that in the wake of the truly absurd and evil fearmongering of the stanic panic, generations of nerds have clung to D&D as the end all be all of TTRPGs to the point that total newbies are told it's a good entry point for the medium which ???? it's not ????

the only reason D&D is a good "first ttrpg" is because it's the most likely be something people you know already know how to play. it is a self-sustaining monster that gobbles up impressionable people curious about this weird, kind of cool hobby. and watching people homebrew D&D to be the game they wish they were playing in total opposition to the core, fundamental design principles of the system because they have been told it can be anything they imagine.... even when the mechanics hinder that. D&D was a dungeon crawler that took over the world, it's a combat game, it can be PLAYED narratively-focused but if that's what you want, you can do so much better i prommy. i think modding games (video or ttrpg) can be its own joy, but D&D isn't even particularly friendly to it without turning it into a different thing! & at that point, you're better served tweaking something else!

it is no individual person's fault. but please for the love of god play ltierally any other game: you can give your money to a passionate indie creator instead of WOTC, it will cost you less, you can work much less hard to get the gameplay you crave, there's something for everyone, there are less complex-to-start/explain systems, etc. noooooooo don't play d&d your so sexy lol <3 and here's beau @beeelderly's RPG training wheels doc for ideas on where to start!

[grimfey]

it's been forever since i had a pinned post or anything and my about page is just a little goof. so i guess here's my pinned:

im grim (short for isengrim), im rapidly approaching 30 and i write and make art. if you want to see my art, check out my art tumblr. if you want to see my writing, check out my ao3. that thing is extremely messy but it exists.

i like a lot of stuff. i like fantasy novels, ttrpgs, and ive been watching some variety of mcyt since like 2012.

i have twitter and instagram but i don't use them. i have a mastodon.art account but it's really chill over there so i dont hand it out. call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me.

[elftwink]

so this is from someone who also actively plays in and dms campaigns with other systems but personally i love dnd partly because i like the number of arcane rules. i think part of what it is, is my table experiences have been so combat-lite that for me the system has just become tools for solving puzzles and situations. encounters are so few and far between with my usual dm that they become very intense and scary when they do happen, and you can maybe say well that's dnd guy cope to say that this combat sim is better without the combat, and that probably is true. the best version of dnd for me like if i were writing 6e would be to shift the game's mechanical focus away from combat, increase the prominence of utility/ roleplay oriented spells and skills, and encourage DMs not to rely on combat to fill space in the game

yes!! ik im being a hater in my posts rn but i also love dnd, and especially the magic and spell system. it's not perfect obviously, but i have yet to find a ttrpg whose magic system is as engaging to me personally as dnd is. idk it's like exactly the right amount of rules to feel very bound by them while still leaving wiggle room for creative magic choices (either by way of flavour which is whatever you make of it, or by way of doing something that is Technically covered by the spell but probably not intended, which almost always fucks extremely hard).

& also i agree that dnd is kind of too combat focused, and i actually do think it would be better with less (although i suspect that given theres a pretty large contingent of dnd players who play mostly or solely combat, i dont think this is a universal opinion lol), or at the very least if it didn't feel like it dominated the meta decisions you have to make. like when i take new spells i often have to deliberate between the cool utility spell i actually want to take that has no damage component, and the damage based spell that will keep me viable in combat. i wish often these choices were less at odds with each other, or at least if you had a character who needed to be carried through combat that they would have more utility in non-combat scenarios instead of just kind of feeling like dead weight (now i sound like someone who should try another system, lol. but its more varied spells in the existing dnd system that i want!)

also i kind of think dnd has a problem esp at the mid level with keeping combat high stakes and genuinely scary, which is a whole other post where i could ramble lol, but honestly in terms of per table solutions "do combat a lot less" sounds like actually an extremely good way to deal with it. the worst thing in dnd is when combat starts to feel repetitive and like a slog. if it happens rarely it just so so so much easier to avoid that. i could say much more about this but ive already been typing this ask for a gazillion years but the point is i'm stealing your dms tactics for next time i run a game

also to contextualize my baseless haterism posts, i just want to clarify that i don't care in any way if someone plays only 5e/dnd and refuses to play other systems. this is whatever. what annoys me is when such people insist this is because every other game on earth is worse than dnd at everything, somehow, even though they do not know the full rules of dnd and are not super interested in learning. there's a lot to be found there in dnd but you have to like, engage with it. your dm cant read it for you. & its always more fun to be at a table where everyone knows wtf is going on than with players who barely know enough to scrape by and treat the DM like a rules dispensing machine

anyway. your 6e ideas sound awesome, especially more utility spells pleaseeee wotc. life could be so beautiful

[aplpaca]

why is having your ocs be your special interest unfortunate? please tell us about them!! (curious, friendly tone)

It's unfortunate bc theres not content for them that exist without my own effort 😔(outside of a couple friends) so i cant reblog posts about them like i would for like critical role or something. ive got a variety of "main character" ocs and most of them started out as ttrpg characters that then got their own non-rpg "canon" in a story universe im making with some friends that may or may not end up turning into a series of books. (overarching "plot" of it is that the birth of a new deity ends up connecting people and politics of several planets in different universes)

so like my "main" characters for that are vyma, claysen, and yianni. vyma also has an equally canon ttrpg incarnation for a game thats still ongoing, but claysen and yianni started out as ttrpg characters but now their "canon" is just their storyverse incarnations. i put actual character descriptions under the cut

ima talk about vyma's storyverse incarnation for this, since theres Spoilers for her ttrpg canon that players who follow me dont know yet (but like, the core personality is the same between the two so yeah). but anyway, her full name in storyverse is Vyma Bapp-Matieyepa sip-Sabapak, which is kinda long bc cultural naming conventions include familial last name, chosen/official clan affiliation, and familal-but-not-official clan affiliation (if someone has that). She's one of the unofficial leaders of a revolutionary/resistance group (other leader is one of @cosmemery's characters Naki) that funnels political prisoners to freedom and tries to counteract the imperialism of the country that subjugated theirs and the harm from their own gov that tries to meet the imperialists in the middle. Vyma is pretty tall, pretty butch, and pretty ace. She's got lowkey disabling hyperempathy, but this gets paired with an autistic flat affect that makes her come across unintentionally blunt, monotone, and insensitive at times. she's kinda overcompensated for social issues by using her hyperempathy and just general problem solving to get really fucking good at reading people/figuring out how people are feeling. this unfortunately does not make her any more conversationally adept, and in some cases makes her kinda preachy instead. her flight response (like the trauma response, not just the general fight or flight) is through the fucking roof and she would and prob will grind herself into dust in an attempt to make what she considers a positive impact. she's chronically sleep deprived and refuses to talk about her feelings in a way thats not dodging the question. she likes to bake, but hasnt been able to in a while.

Claysen Hishari (birthname Jarren Claysen Vidravalsh) is like lowkey highkey kinda of A Lot in terms of stuff he's got going on. id like to think i do a decent job not being Edgy (TM) with him but like,,yeah. He's a formal noble who escaped his shitty dad after his mom died and ended up being blackmailed into becoming a spy/assassin. He also technically has emotion/identity-influenced magical power equivalent to at least a minor god, but hes repressing that and its only almost killed him once. His appearance is altered via illusion magic almost constantly. He's more visibly autistic and uses a trade sign language to talk fairly frequently. When he's not signing, he has a very specific speech pattern, and often pauses in the middle of sentences while he figures out how to make words work. At the start of the story, he basically hasn't had goals or ambitions or strong personal convictions for A While, and a lot of his growth is Growing A Fucking Spine and Learning To Act On Things. A lot of his other growth is self acceptance stuff (both autism and the whole emotionally volatile magic thing bc por que no los dos). He has a pretty fuckin codependant relationship with @cosmemery's character Kay, and even before they actually become romantic, theyre platonically flirty with each other to a kinda obnoxious degree. hes bi, super reserved but has a certain air of competence/force of presence to him despite that, and has a special interest in spiders and bugs in general

And apparently tumblr has a word limit for asks or somthing bc it wont let me add my last characters paragraph onto this so im gonna just reblog it with yianni's stuff in a sec

[moonie-presence]

canvas, wardrobe, & alternate for the oc ask game ?? any character(s) of your choice!! :3

omg hi!!! Ty

canvas: Does your OC have any scars, piercings, tattoos, or other markings? Do they display or cover them up at all?

Du Vide, unless im misremembering, is my only oc with tattoos. They span his entire body, neck to toes, and he did them himself, sewing needle stick n' poke style. I doubt he'd have trusted any one else to ink them.

Since du vide is an upcoming ttrpg character and my fellow players follow me i wont go into detail regarding why he has them by he definitely has them for a reason, relating to his work in experimental machinery/technology. Any good mad scientist tests things on themselves first, obviously.

As for covered up or not, he doesn't make any real effort either way, due to the size of the tattoos. he's usually pretty covered, but he doesn't care if they get seen, theyre not secret. as for why they don't show up in the art usually is because i hate drawing them. weeps

wardrobe: How big is your character's wardrobe? Do they wear things threadbare, or can they afford new clothes often? Are they any good at mending and repairing their own clothing?

Courtland is a notable character wardrobe-wise because i designed him to be so unredrawable due to my madness

pictured: madness

Courtland's wardrobe is relatively large but most of his clothes look the same. The clothes he's wearing up there are his work uniform, so it's what he's usually wearing day to day with a few changes.

however he does have other clothes in line with what you'd expect from an aristocrat, like day clothes, outing clothes, outrageous party clothes, etc. Courtland's got *very* extravagant party clothes. he doesn't get the opportunity to wear them often and isn't very fond of them anyway.

as for when his clothes get fucked up, he's very good at repair. sewing and the like is one of his favorite hobbies!

here's him under all that fabric;

alternate: What would your OC's alternate universe look be? If they're a fantasy character, what's their modern look? If they're sci-fi, what's their fantasy look? What AU would you want to see your OC in, and how would they dress themself? Bonus: Prompt an AU!

when it comes to AUs, the one i end up landing on a lot for the earthshakers is the classic "what if it all never happened"/"what if they lived"

theres exactly one post on here (or the art blog i dont remember) explaining what the deal is with purgatory so heres a quick rundown: In the spaces between realities exists a vast, wild, metaphysical plane referred to occasionally as purgatory, which is a roiling melting pot that chews people up and spits them out as fantastic monsters. getting there is extremely difficult, but the hands down easiest way is to die, and fall through a weakness or crack in your reality when transitioning from life to afterlife.

Since the creatures in purgatory are always changing to suit their needs and there is no true ceiling for what can happen to you, occasionally a particularly strong-willed individual will grab unmatched, omnipotent power and become something called an earthshaker, the highest most feared echelon of purgatorian life. not gods, but damn well close. The earthshakers i've designed are Wellium (aka Lux, or the White Light), Videns, and Seleen.

(psa: this is a creative project? headworld? thing? ive been working on for literally upwards of 6-7 years now. I consider it my special interest, but its kind of nebulous and wordy and i get Too Excited about it so i end up rotating it around in my head a lot instead of talking about it)

Each of the three come from wildly different places/settings, and each has a grisly death, leading to their conquering of the endless voidplane. It's a fun thought to think about, about where they'd be if they just never died at all.

Wellium was once a soldier, a test tube baby/experimental weapon used in an intergalatic war. Eventually after a life of training to kill the unfamiliar, her life was considered inconsequential enough to be selected to guide and activate an experimental bomb to attempt to wipe out their enemy. Videns was a child born with select supernatural powers, and out of fear and superstition was drowned in a river by a mob of villagers after a life of living on the run. Seleen, a magician, was born with too much magic, and died when her body couldn't handle the strain anymore.

like. Videns could have found a place where she couldve flourished and been accepted. Seleen couldve pursued other paths in life instead of obsessing over her own impeding death and the use of the very thing that doomed her. Wellium couldve gone home.

their deaths are tragic, but theyre what set them on the path to kinghood and make them the creatures they are now. however, due to the way their universes work, there are realities where they did live, and lived full lives. got the chances to become people. its fun to think about!

what is and what was.

again ty soooo much for the ask! sorry that this post is dashboard destroying lol

[calocera]

What are your biggest interests/fandoms (besides the obvious of Trek and Jojo)?

ERM

i love starlight express obv, also dune, the dear hunter, golden kamuy, and theater (some of my fave shows are cats, lsoh, spongebob the musical, cabaret, sweeny todd, a lot of starkid stuff i love) i wouldnt really call mushc of that "fandom" interests though. i just recwntly finished dorohedoro so definitely that, doom patrol and to a lesser extent the (non mcu) spiderman stuff. im into mdzs but i dont talk about it much bc fans are insane, also tbh im not super into jojo anymore its just by far one of the most mainstream things im into so when i post about it it sticks out :0 also i <3 horror media i watch at least 3-4 horror movies a week

outside of media i really love clowning and circus stuff (esp its history and etymology), i like ttrpgs but its been a while since ive played any, my fave is deadlands (though it needs some homebrewing to make it good tbh) also fungus and mycology, biology and botany in general! also kittycats and moths :)

[maplemouse-warriors]

hi im mouse

im thinking about the cats a lot. i make a lot of AUs about it!

accepting hypokit requests! (i dont do much art but ill include a personality and description of a litter containing 1d4 kits) hypoparents as well

Ongoing AUs/Rewrites

Twin Flames Rewrite: an ongoing rewrite where Rusty and Princess join WindClan shortly before they are exiled. it has its own blog - find it here! Clans of the Wild: a very self-indulgent AU post-OotS

Single-Post AUs

Old Growth AU: in which i played a game to see how i could shuffle the arcs around and make TNP as late as possible. check it out here!

Stormleaf AU: hypoparent AU of Stormfur and Leafpool being the parents of the Three, and Squirrelflight and Crowfeather being the parents of Ivypool and Dovewing. Check it out here!

Personal Projects:

Path of the Clans: a 'Powered by the Apocalypse' Warriors TTRPG

CascadeClan: my ClanGen blog! Follows the life of Pebblepaw as he grows up in a newly-formed Clan. Check it out here!