#it’s fantasy dnd religion but still

[northlight14]

Dr. Neo Stillsun

(Picrew used here)

Basic Information

Pronouns: he/him

Alias’: unknown

Relatives: unnamed parents, Fosco Stillsun (older brother), Mary Stillsun (sister in law), Mia Stillsun (niece)

Affiliation: unknown

Occupation: “doctor”, druid

Personal Information

Eye Colour: green

Hair Colour: dark brown

Height: 3 1/2ft

Gender Identity: cis man

Sexuality: aromantic, asexual (sex indifferent)

Species: halfling

Marital Status: single

Status

Age: 26 (24 in human years)

Star Sign: Leo

Date Of Birth: 20th august

Place Of Birth: unknown

Status: alive

Background Story

Neo was born as the second son in a family of clerics and naturally grew up religious. On the whole though, Neo’s upbringing was pretty standard and good. He did however find himself sticking out a bit when it came to his family. Neo was never disrespectful when it came to his family's religion but as he got older, Neo began questioning his faith more and eventually became a fantasy version of an atheist (essentially someone who obviously acknowledges the existence of the gods but doesn’t really subscribe to religion, faith or practices, instead just viewing them as yet another magical force in this world).

Neo was always a very naturally gifted person, being perceptive and picking up on things quickly. This had a few side effects, one being Neo rarely had to actually try at things in order to succeed which led to a very strong lack of motivation. And two, Neo found a lot of life to be utterly boring, feeling unchallenged and mostly just surrounded by religious practices he didn’t believe in. This over time led to Neo looking for things to keep himself entertained, learning about the plants and wildlife around his home, playing pranks on his older brother with wildshape or planting insects. As Neo got older, he began recognising different plants as having some more unique properties which led to Neo using them for drugs, something he quickly found to be a cure for his boredom.

As this went on, growing up Neo’s brother, Fosco, developed a one sided rivalry with Neo. This stemmed from Fosco also being intelligent but having all the work ethic and non of the natural talent Neo had. Eventually, Focso became a cleric and doctor. Neo watched his brother treat patients and quickly picked up how everything operated, even if he didn’t have his brothers magic.

One day, Neo was out in town when he saw someone having a medical emergency. Neo came over and helped out using the knowledge he’d gained from watching his brother. The person repayed Neo for his services and that’s when Neo realised he could make a profit from this, meaning he could move out and also get more drugs and various other substances. And so after that, despite having zero actual medical training, Neo became “Dr”. Neo Stillsun, keeping the part about his lack of medical training to himself.

Personality

Neo has a lot of brains but just none of the willpower and motivation. He is very much a free spirit just going through life carefree and stumbling upon things to keep him going. Sometimes that’s something productive, like helping people with medical needs. And sometimes it's just drugs and alcohol.

He is definitely a chaotic person and likes taking risks, seeming on the surface like a total idiot. And in some respects he is a bit of an idiot but academically he is brilliant. He also has a bit of a mischievous side to him, using his shapeshifting abilities as a druid to prank his brother growing up. That said, Neo is still very caring with the people he loves like family and friends and, despite appearances, does his best to be a good friend to them, even in his own unique way.

Neo’s biggest problem is that he ultimately is lazy. He knows full well he could get a proper education but he doesn’t because he can’t be bothered to and he prefers just learning on the job.

Appearance

Neo has peach skin with some light stubble and snakebite piercings. Due to being a halfling, his ears are larger and he has multiple ear piercings. His hair is dark brown and fluffy, and his eyes are hazel but usually covered with sunglasses.

Dress sense wise, Neo keeps it pretty casual with pants that are a little worn out, shirts or sweaters, and a black jacket. That said, he is capable of cleaning up and looking nice when he wants to, he just usually doesn’t.

Trivia

Neo is an “athiest” in the sense that obviously in this fantasy setting, gods exist but he just doesn’t believe they’re anything worth worshipping and doesn’t see the appeal of religion. He does, however, respect anyone who does.

Neo is usually at least a little bit high.

Neo has never gotten a doctors licence, but none of his patients know that.

Not a lot of things get to Neo, but his brothers rivalry with him is one of the few things that genuinely upsets him because Neo looks up to Fosco.

Even though Neo is aro/ace, he’s not sex or romance repulsed. So while he doesn’t look for that sort of thing, if someone hits on him and he’s feeling it, he’ll go with it- he has no gendered preference when it comes to this and is arguably pan oriented aro/ace.

His MBTI is ESTP

He likes sour things like lemons

Alignment is probably chaotic good

[stacy-fakename]

Rat Grinders:Don’t do anything to the Bad Kids until antagonized, and it’s later revealed that their bad actions were a result of being groomed by one of their teachers for years and then murdered and possessed.

Intrepid Heroes:Fuck you, sending you to hell and you can’t be revived.

[j-esbian]

i feel like there is so much to be said about drizzt do’urden’s religious views and how he’s a stand-in for culturally christian atheists. he grew up in a corrupt religious society and has religious trauma, so as a result he views all religion as bad. at first it seems like he’s going to have a “pagan finds jesus” story but he eventually rejects mielikki too, and imo, it always felt out of character that he followed her in the first place so i wasn’t surprised when he changed his mind. he was looking for a name to label his preexisting system of ideals, which feels very much like christians who claim “all that matters is that you live by the bible and live in a godly manner”. many religions are about teachings and traditions as much as they are about “just being a good person and following god’s vibes” (which i feel like is INCREDIBLY standard in american protestantism)

i think a lot of it comes down to the fact that the forgotten realms (and a lot of fantasy tbh) treats the gods as just Very Powerful People instead of the forces of nature personified (and again this is to be expected from a christian culture, where jesus was Just A Guy)

[montreal-derogatory]

I’m expressing my religious trauma through the medium of DND by making fantasy Catholic flavored Christianity lol

Solicism, or the church of Sol, is by far the most dominant religion in Leonada. While not officially a state religion, it is practiced by the vast majority of anyone in power, and often laws are made in the best interests of the church. The church is exempt from taxes and bringing a donation to each sabbath meeting is highly encouraged, there also exist grants at the federal level that individual branches can apply for to build new buildings or other infrastructure and get protection for missionary groups. Solicists believe that all sentient beings are inherently flawed, and the only way to redeem themselves is to devote yourself in every aspect of your life to the church. Extreme guilt and often self-flagellation (either physically or through public humiliation) are required for repentance for wrongdoing in many sects of the religion, though guilt in some form is fundamental to the church, and is outlined in their scripture. They also believe that Sol is the one true god of the universe, looking down on the world from the sky and warming the earth in his glow, and any other gods that are brought up are not only false, but evil. Strict gender roles and relationship expectations are upheld, cisgender and heterosexual are the only acceptable sexual and gender identity in almost all denominations. Solicist worship is incredibly structured and is broken down into a predictable agenda each week. There is a spectrum of strictness in practice in Solicism due to its sheer size, ranging from cult-like fundamentalism to relaxed moral suggestions and non-mandatory/infrequent practice. The church of Sol holds a relative monopoly on the wine industry and real estate, especially in the frontier. The church often also partners with private companies to help develop new towns and finance projects like railroads, as long as they can place at least one meeting house near each stop, and the town that pops up around the stop. The Church of Sol is organized into the Holy Order of Rays, with Sliversun Priest as the bottom rank, and Celestius at the top, The Celestius is chosen by vote from a group called the Corona Conclave. The current Celestius is His Holiness Celestius Hugo Friello, he was fairly young when elected, and is pretty solidly in the middle of his reign. Followers of this faith are called Solicists or Children of the Sun. The motto for the church is “Under His Gaze”, often spoken as a call and response. I.E. Priest: “Under His Gaze”Congregation: “That I may prosper”

[dropoutconfessions]

Going into FHJY I had assumed Kristen (and by extension Ally) was going to be a very hard to watch character that ONLY acted selfishly and impulsively based on the multiple posts I had seen on tumblr basically saying as much.

Imagine my surprise when I realize that Ally plays Kristen in a manner that acknowledges that she requires a lot of growth and development AND recognizes she is supposed to be 17. The decisions made seemed completely in line for the character and the development was far greater than I would expect to see from teenagers in real life (having been a teenager and also working with them…very stubborn crowd).

What I think has happened is that many of y’all expected for Kristen to change from an impulsive, judgey teenager to a mature, well-rounded adult in the course of a year. When reality is often that teenagers are wishy-washy and might taken five steps forward and three steps back. Ally plays Kristen very intentionally, even the chaotic moments. And those chaotic moments are met with a significantly more grounded and realistic sense compared to Sophmore year.

—

Also, while this confession wasn’t a response to another confession…the shoe fits, being upset that Kristen/other players did not trust Kalina is so incredibly illogical to me.

First, in what world do you just forgive and become buddy-buddy with someone that tormented you and your friends for days (months even for some or you) and promised to kill you every time you took another step closer to solving the mystery. I need y’all to like really sit down and think if you would forgive someone who made your life a living hell, killed at least one of your parents (or your friends parents), and wanted you dead. Regardless of whether or not she’s supposed to reflect Cassandra why would they trust her?

Second, the players (and subsequently the characters) operate on the information they have (that’s is whatever they learn from Brennan before, during, or after the session). They will operate based on that information. This is how DND works. If the players know that a character has a violent past that involves the murder/attempted murder of their parent/friend’s parent and are being f told said character is reformed (but gets zero real opportunity to actually gauge it for themselves outside of vague clues) they are going to act in accordance with that knowledge.

Just because you the viewer have come to the conclusion that Kalina was meant to be good and reformed (there’s some irony there that Kalina gets to be reformed without any work and Kristen doesn’t) does not mean the players will. If you’re not at the table you don’t get to call the shots.

Also who’s to say Kalina is actually evil. Maybe she’s still rage starred. Maybe she has other plans going on. Maybe she felt bad for Buddy. It was never confirmed. Fantasy High has been the one series that’s pretty consistently said, “don’t trust everything you hear or see”.

—

Last part of the rant, a final response to that other confession about Kristen.

Why shouldn’t she judge a god that let her die on the first day of school? Why couldn’t he answer her question honestly? Why would she feel any care or love towards an idol that has only represented suppression and pain for her? Why should she be kind to the symbol of a religion built on lies, hypocrisy, hatred, and death? So what if he’s a little nice. Is being nice going to keep you alive?

-

[starful-emporium]

honestly, fantasy high changed the way I see religion for myself. I watched s1 when I was still unsure of whether to leave the church I was raised in, and not only was Kristen incredibly relatable, but her situation was so different.

she MET GOD. in dnd, there is real, true proof of not only the being's existence but also of their deity-hood. Kristen never questions whether Helio/Sol exists, nor if they have the powers they say they have.

In the finale Brennan asks "what is a god worthy of your worship?" and that's what her real question always was.

it's so different from how most people think about religion. in Christianity especially there's so much emphasis on *you* being worthy of God, and not God being worthy of your worship.

after watching fantasy high I asked myself, "if the god I was taught to believe in was real, would I want to worship him?"

and that made it a lot easier to walk away.

[alpaca-clouds]

What are Minstrels, Jesters and Bards?

Keeping it up with me rambling about the middle ages and fantasy, let me talk about one of the things that seems to confuse a lot of people - especially because most fantasy media just kinda mixes this one up. The difference between Minstrels, Jesters and Bard. Given that all the words are so often used interchangably. But, indeed, there is a big difference, if we look at it from a historical perspective.

The very, very basic differentiation is like this:

A Bard was a Celtic song writer and storyteller

A Minstrel was a medieval travelling singer, poet, acrobat and storyteller

A Jester was a medieval singer, poet, acrobat and storyteller working at a cort. In the late medieval time they were more acrobats and people telling jokes though.

Also there is Troubadoures, who were mostly singers and storytellers at the courts.

Let me talk a bit about the different groups in detail, though.

Bards

Bard as a word comes specifically from the Gaelic word for "poet", which basically tells us most about them. as with so many things concerning the celts, the early history of them is not very well known. We do know, though, that they played a certain role within the Gaelic and Welsh societies both in keeping the oral history of the societies alive, as well as celebrating chiefs and warriors with their songs. Other than other aspects of Celtic societies, the bards did remain for a long while into the medieval period, though how the societies treated them did vary a lot by region.

While in some areas due to their connection to the Celtic (and hence indigenous) religion and culture, they were seen as "second class poets" in some areas - especially in Ireland - with the true poets being connected to the church.

Never the less: Whatever we still know about the Celtic mythology of the British isles is all only known thanks to bards. Because bards kept those oral traditions alive at times till the late and post-medieval period, allowing them to be written down.

Mistrels

Minstrels developed a lot in what their role was. In the early medieval period they were often still bound to courts of kings and lords, where they would perform a wide variety of things. Songs, poems, theatre, acrobatics and dance being most among them. But in the high medieval period it became more and more common that the courts would employ jesters and troubardores, who were more specialized. With those a lot of minstrels became travellers. They would travel the lands and always remain in cities and villages for a while, collect stories, perform their arts and then move on. As such they helped to spread stories throughout the lands - though people could not always be sure whether the stories they told and sang were true or not.

Minstrels often had close networks among each other, though. Exchanging stories and songs they had written and collected. As such they often had a very wide repatoir that they could share with the people.

It should be noted that while there were people like this throughout the entire medieval world, minstrels as we would call them were most common in Medieval France and England, with some also being around in Germany (that is the Holy Roman Empire). Travelling singers and songwriters in the rest of Europe had a bit of a different background, often being closer to the celtic bards.

And yes, minstrels are very much the closest thing here to what bards in DnD are displayed as.

Jesters

Among those noted here, jesters are probably the one occupation people have the best idea of, given that they are fairly big in even modern popculture - even outside of fantasy. I mean, in your standard deck of cards the "Joker" usually is portrayed as a jester.

Jesters were fairly interesting. While they also would at times do poetry and songs, they often were more acrobats, joksters and magicians, who most of the time were bound to the court of a lord, duke or king. In these positions they did however often serve a very important role, as they were allowed to hold a mirror to whoever they served and give them the truth. Basically: They were allowed most of the time to criticize even kings. (Which does not mean that they always got away with it - but usually they got away with way more than most people.) As such a common idea of a jester was, that they were supposed to be wise and also act as a sort of advisor to whomever they served.

Interestingly enough there is a lot of historical evidence that often enough this specific roll was filled by disabled and disfigured people, who could not work in other rolls. Which in hindsight is interesting especially because it gave some disabled people a very important role within the society.

Troubadours

Finally we have the troubadours, who were most of all singers and poets working at the courts. Their art was seen as more "high class" than the work of the normal minstrels. They often would entertain nobility during their feasts and on festivals and celebrations. While they were not the same as jesters, they often were however allowed to parody and do satire of the lords, with that also reflecting on their actions.

So, yeah. There is a difference between these words. While there definitely were bards that served as troubadours, and troubadours who ended up becoming minstrels... It was a bit of a difference between those roles.

The fact that the bards were so tied to celtic cultures is especially a fact that so often gets overlooked.

So, there you have it. xD Maybe some food for thoughts for my dear fellow bard players.

[papermonkeyism]

Been pondering the Arcanth setting, and turns out keeping fantasy races... well, existing, is surprisingly hard if you remove "Wizard Did It" method of worldbuilding.

I'm trying to steer away from DnD style worldbuilding. While magic is a thing in the setting, in a way, it's more of a force of nature, and less a flashy effect show one performs by casting spells, and I refuse to have any sort of One True Religion in any of my settings (hate it. So bad.) so there won't be a "these gods created these races" excuse to it either, and it's proving surprisingly hard to justify keeping different races distinct considering people tend to people.

Considering real life people and our history of interbreeding (I know I have few percent Neanderthal in me courtesy of being European). Like how do you prevent love stories from happening enough to keep things separate?

Arcanth's people and goblins can stay separate by being very distinctly different species far enough removed to not belong to same clades as hominids. Well and good enough...

(Arcanth's people come in three different flavours, one of which got separated enough to be a distinct species in another continent and the other two being separated by basically humans into different ends of a larger continent, though still with enough gene flow between to keep them technically same species. Goblins used to come in myriad of different localised flavours, but they travel a lot and have no issues with mingling with each other so goblins can be basically whatever within the goblin parameters wherever they happen to pop up in.)

Dwarves I guess just have hard time crossing with the other people. Like dwarf/elf crosses CAN happen, but it's more like horse/donkey kind of deal. I can see dwarf/human setup being more likely to function beyond the first generation.

Orcs are technically just human/elf mix people with some magical background radiation enhancement to give them distinct flavour. (They are a people with relatively recent history of basically a bunch of human and elf sailors discovering an uninhabited Iceland island, habiting it for a millenium or few and several generations later are now their own thing.)

But I didn't make my elves eternal and immortal, and they're more distinct from humans by being naturally nocturnal and having harder time tolerating extreme cold and extreme hot environments compared to humans, but they're still hominids. There's nothing really stopping them from mixing with humans wherever they coexist, and why wouldn't they coexist? I'm not really into having large scale eugenics programs in my headworlds either.

I guess 100% "pure" human and 100% "pure" elf are just extremely rare things to happen and most people are just varying degrees of mixed in between?

[roadandruingame]

RAR Musings #28: Swords And Ladders, and when the fun begins

As I continue to lose my mind over dice mechanics, I struggle to quantify a simple question:

>At what point does using dice to gloss over the intricacies of a potentially infinite number of variables make sense?

And, the follow up,

>If a game is merely going through logic patterns and using dice to gloss over intricacies, at what point does the game simply become an infinite parade of randomly generated numbers? A Snakes and Ladders, where there is no meaningful input from the player themselves?

I recently theorized about exactly what people were looking for in class design. I'd realized many of my listed classes had overlap, not just with one, but sometimes two or three other classes, and debated having a "build a bearbarian" class system where players simply created the class features out of root traits, like Combat Trained or Politically Fluent, similar to my "build a bugbear" system for creating a unique monster. The idea was criticized by someone who wanted ready-made, easily recognizable fantasy archetypes, like Rangers and Wizards. While there's nothing stopping me from simply providing a set of ready-made classes, built using the Build A Bearbarian system for the sake of consistency, it did make me stop and wonder what exactly people get out of these recognizable archetypes.

It's not like I didn't understand it. I personally favor rangers, rogues, and warlock/necromancer types, (and elementalists, if I could find a game that did it right). But if I hadn't played the game yet, what pushed me to choose those character classes right out of the box? Simply that I find them cool?

Probably.

The way I see it, there are three major reasons why someone might pick a class archetype in a game:

Because it's cool. They enjoy the themes and imagery, and while they might find that THIS new version isn't actually cool, they're willing to give it a chance because of bias based on prior experience.

Because it's fun. This requires them to have actually taken the time to experience THIS version, and while some can be convinced that something is fun simply because they find it cool, whether something is actually fun is the true marker of how long they'll commit to doing this activity.

Because it's tactical. Meta-chasers will often mistake "doing it right" as having fun, and will continue to run treadmills and pick options they've long since soured on, if they ever truly found them enjoyable or cool at all, but for many, simply being 'the best' is cause enough to make a choice.

So when my friend demands that a ready-made, easily recognizable fantasy archetype like a ranger be available, it's because they find rangers cool. They may, in practice, discover that playing this variant of ranger isn't actually fun, but it'll give them a jumping off point to get into the game and harness their preconceptions of what they're supposed to do, and how they're supposed to do it.

Arguably, "building your own class" was what I was attempting to do by splitting off all the archetypal skills from DND's classes, so that you could purchase them by preference and create your own class, and classes were simply meant to be a lens through which to filter specific archetypal concepts. But what was I actually attempting to achieve by including classes? Was it just that DND had them? Or did I enjoy the concept of a class itself?

From the beginning, I'd wanted Road and Ruin to have classes, but that the benefits of each one would only be felt five levels at a time. A character would move through phases in their life, and have the opportunity to either continue to commit to their archetype, or be given the chance to evolve, and change. A soldier might find religion and become a paladin, and then later a cleric, or the reverse, a paladin becoming jaded and disillusioned, turning to darker powers with more immediate, faithless benefits. I still want the game to have this kind of storytelling component, so I think it's mostly just a question of how I present the option.

But back to the topic of dice.

It feels like every day, I see somebody new posting about how to handle social mechanics. "Social combat" is the generally-held attitude by many; that a conversation is something to be defeated, to be attacked and inflict damage, such that you finally get your way and 'win'. It's a laughable outlook, truly, and probably the main reason why social mechanics haven't been successful as an alternative to play in most ttrpgs.

But like actual combat, we find ourselves at Swords and Ladders: if the situation is resolvable by simply adding your character's modifiers and rolling a die, the same die every time, can the whole game not be foretold by generating an endless string of random numbers? What part of the game actually demands human interaction or intervention?

For many, social encounters are a way to flex their acting chops, the most widely acceptable form of meta-gaming in the hobby. "If you can make a good argument, and act it out, you get advantages toward winning". This, of course, shatters the 'immersion' when, despite this acting, a dice rolls a 1, and whatever vision you had of this conversation goes up in doritos-scented smoke. The same principle holds in combat, when players attempt to "roleplay" their victory pre-emptively to actually confirming it with dice, for much the same kind of results, but at the very least, attacks To Hit and taking damage represents a gradual loss or victory; "social combat" is often one-and-done with a single throw.

But back to dice: What exactly is attempted to be gained through using random number generation in these scenarios?

For one: the separation of player, from character. In order to prevent a player's foreknowledge, acting skill, or other such meta-benefits from influencing the game, dice are used to determine outcome instead. This goes both ways: if a character has been set up to be fluent in a particular skill, one that the player doesn't have themselves, the character, and game, will still be able to function. But, again, if the game and it's characters can simply play itself, through an endless string of random numbers, what exactly is the player's role in all this?

Two things occur to me:

If the game is not a challenge, a puzzle for the player to figure out and attempt to win, then perhaps the game is an experience; a rider has no influence on the operation of a rollercoaster, yet ride it they do, for the sake of the enjoyment the experience of doing so provides them.

If the game and it's story has the ability to go off the rails and crash, perhaps some mechanics are necessary to allow the players to force it back onto the tracks. They understand the concept of the consequences that'd occur if they failed, and can see it happen in real time, but are given the tools to, sometimes, if they're careful, make it right again.

These are difficult conversations. Part of the reason why dice are so antithetical to telling a good story, is because a good story follows reliable and predictable patterns, while a die, by nature, introduces the possibility of chaos. This all means that if you design a game for realism, realism says that in accordance with the odds, you will fail; when you design a game for storytelling, there has to be mechanics that turn those failures into successes, guaranteed. 'Balance' isn't simply modifying the realism components until they're unrealistic, but more fun to experience, it's about providing JUST enough get-out-of-jail-free cards that the players can spend them in pursuit of a good story, without having so many cards that it trivializes having to roll dice or the realism mechanics altogether.

But if the game is designed with difficult, crunchy realism as it's base, even if it's glossed over by narrative-driven, roleplay-enabling GOOJF cards (I need a better acronym...), there still begs the question of what degree of granularity is expected, or allowed for. If the system ALLOWS for the addition of small, granular advantages, then it either makes winning without them impossible, makes them so weak as to be not worth keeping track of in the first place, or limits the number of advantages applied to prevent blowout, thus making stacking of multiple advantages a waste of time.

As a ramble, what if advantages were spendable? I'd been operating on the idea of things like proficiency and specialization as being persistent advantages, with gear being a situational advantage, but things like spells physical actions costing magical and physical exertion if you didn't have ways to blow their statistics for failure out of the water were ways to "bridge the gap" and secure victory, but not in every situation, and not repeatedly and forever. Most would say the idea of spending proficiency or specialization on a per-day basis would be dumb, those are permanent and persistent advantages, but also: shut up, this is a game.

At that point, "spendable resource" at least challenges the player with admin authorization, "are you sure you want to spend this resource?" It enables the RPers to gloss over failures, to a limit, while also challenging the player to be aware of their available resources and not do anything stupid. But it also means that the capabilities of a team are dependent on how many characters, and thus how many resources, they have to spend. Bringing along an army of fresh-faced goons would mean infinite resources, so there'd need to be mechanics, such as 'fear of death' or 'waste of time' that discourages characters from joining such a venture.

The other possibility is tiers of difficulty, octaves where monstrous entities and characters with specialization can operate, with minor fluctuation that's glossable at cost, but that are so wildly unlikely that it'd prove unreasonable, perhaps even dangerous for someone of lesser aptitude to try it, but, importantly, not explicitly forbidding them from doing so. To make the odds so outrageous, and the consequences for the range of failure so severe, as to make most players dismiss it as a possibility and try to find a way around it. Potentially, by finding a specialist, or enlisting the help of a monstrous entity.

As another concept of spendable resources: What if proficiency, as a spendable resource, included the equipment needed to do it? That 'Medicine' as a proficiency, with 3 dots, meant that you not only had the skill to address three-dot injuries, but could spend those 3 dots to solve the 3-dot injuries, while also having the freedom to solve three 1-dot injuries? A location like a supply depot filled with medical supplies might be considered to have three, five, ten dots worth of Medical Supply, allowing you to spend those supplies instead of your resource dots. This handles the idea of micromanage-y supplies as well, by making the supplies needed to perform an action, the skill needed to do the action, and the physical, intellectual, and spiritual energy needed to fudge the results through improvisation or brute force, all operate on the same wavelength, while still being decidedly different variables.

If only some of these resources, like Medicine or Strength, recovered while resting, it would push players to decide what activities take priority, both rewarding and discouraging minmaxing, as effective characters can do the same action all day, but diverse characters can handle a wider array of tasks, switching from one to another as they become exhausted, over the course of sometimes days. Perhaps resting only rewards a number of points, and you choose which proficiencies you want to top up.

Finally, since story beats as a trope-powered predictable event are counter-intuitive to the notion of dice, why not make it a spendable resource too? That performing quests, looting items, making friends, earned you these GOOJF cards, these universal 'exertions' that brute-forced the story?

What if class mechanics also provided GOOJF cards, but only for mechanics that the character could have contributed to? "I wanted to move these boulders, but I don't have the strength," "Well I'm spending this Strength card to give you extra resources, because, you trained with me and the power of friendship." These cards would be spendable in a narratively-cohesive way, and only on allied actions, promoting teamwork, heroic moments, and, importantly, contributions from beyond the grave, if the player in question happened to die while still possessing influential cards.

The question still remains; is spending resources, and having to do bookkeeping for the remaining points you have left, actually fun to do? Perhaps. I'd hope so. It drags the player into the thick of things, deciding what's meaningful to do in the moment, and what's worth saving for later. It opens the door for different players to take the spotlight, for even activities that multiple characters are proficient in, and forces them to get creative regarding the use of their off-brand proficiencies. It helps define some limits on what a character can expect to do in a day, which should be a strong foundation in the development of a balance formula, which still carries with it the risk that a new player not understand when to push a roll and when to leave things be, but at least that consistency will make it easier to pick up than if everything was completely random.

It's definitely something I need to create a test case for. Determining the threshold of skill, in how it affects the likelyhood of a character having to exert themselves vs getting to perform certain actions for free, would be an important step, but also considering how character growth and skill purchase options could take a character into that territory is an important marker as well.

[urtranspuppyboy]

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AGELESS, MINOR, ECT.

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You can call me whatever you want idc, my first name is River/Miles? and my middle name is Atlas. I’m still debating on names, however, so if you think another one might fit me better go for it and call me that instead.

I’m 22

I am trans masc and pre-everything (not out to anyone except my sister and my therapist)

Never been in any kind of relationship or even been close to doing something sexual/sensual with anyone irl

Uh, I mayyyy post my face/body but don’t count on it, so for that reason here’s a bit about what I look like:

Shoulder-length blonde hair, septum piercing, chubby (not confident about it and trying to motivate myself to workout more so I can be big and strong :]), 5’ 4, Depends on my dysphoria if my body is shaved or not but I don’t shave my legs a lot, I have a Jackalope tattoo on my forearm (has no meaning I just thought it was cute) and desperately want more tattoos when I can afford it, and I have light green eyes

I like reading, writing, art, making music (not good at it and not doing it currently), Roleplaying, Want to get into dnd but don’t really have any friends to do things like that with, cosplaying but not currently, Fantasy shit, Greek Mythology, Food, Shushi, ect.

Asks and dms are completely open…as of now.

Send me whatever you want on asks, however in dms pls be respectful orrrr I’ll have to close dms.

You can be as icky, disgusting, weird, friendly, funny, disrespectful, degrading, praising, mean, rude and condescending as you want in asks.

Anons so far…

❤️‍🔥👑, 🦴,🐟, 📼

here’s some things i’m into (consensually and theoretically ofc):

Guide: Absolutely 100% | I’m not completely sure yet | No. No. No.

Religion kink (aka priest type vibe)

Scat

CNC

Doctor kink

Forcemasc

Detrans kink

Somno

Mask kink

Knife/gun play

Voice Kink

Kidnapping

Vomit kink

Blood (I wanna a bloody mess for youuuu)

Orgasm control

Bondage

Military kink

Biting (both me biting you & you biting me)

Blackmail

Prince x Guard

Degradation

Sex slave

Praise

People who act like they hate me (even though i’ve been nothing but nice to them) and then fuck me like they want to kill me/use me for their pleasure only (but don’t actually hate me)

Both praise and degradation at the same time

Soft dom + Hard dom x Me (a good boy)

Gangr@pe/bang

Pee? (just not on my face or in my mouth aka pee on me/ in me literally anywhere else)

R@pe threats

Free use

Being completely controlled

I’m a masochist

And much more that I can’t think of at the moment

[dont-give-money-to-jkrowling]

some reactions to the first episode of fantasy high junior year

i haven't really looked at other fan reactions yet, this is all fresh shortly after watching!

starting in media res was an amazing idea, the night yorb thing arc still gets to shine while showing off how much the bad kids have progressed and their new combat abilities. as someone who is not a frequent dnd player though i do wish we got just a bit more info on what those new abilities were though, bc i spent the first ten minutes trying to figure out what silvery barbs were. although i think the battle episodes are always more enjoyable for the audience who does know more about dnd, so nothing really new here.

the introduction of the new disposible NPCs was also really funny. rip squeem, i can't believe he's gone so soon after all that he and gorgug went through. ecaf is fucking creepy though, im getting romaence pärtner flashbacks.

adaine has so many fucking companions now?? almost an overwhelming number, but im sure we'll learn more in the following episodes. it's really sweet that she has elementals like aelwyn now though :) curious about what we would have seen from her if she had stayed alive for the entire episode.

nothing more fabian than immediately failing a roll and being far away from the action for most of the fight. he's consistent. but he grew in confidence over the summer and it looks like he's not gonna catch pneumonia over it this time! we love growth.

not much to say about fig, gorgug and riz, seems like they were faithful to themselves and not too different from the last time we saw them. highlights included: fig stating being ayda's paramour is part of her identity now, gorgug being a Concerned Van Owner, and riz trying to look like a cool dude in front of balthazar (RIP)

uhhh really not taken with kristen's whole thing in this episode. yeah it wouldn't be realistic for her to immediately have solved all of her problems with religion, but this really felt like fhsy part 2 with little to no change, except that kristen has graduated to philosophy bro to gym bro. i hope she strays further from her previous seasons arc in the next episodes.

and that's it! overall still super hype, can't wait for the next episode bc i feel like that's when we're getting the real Start of the Story. i always cared about individual character arcs more than broader plot and combat when it comes to d20 (i think that's quite a common opinion) and i think we're going to see something really fun from the players :)

[ac3-silvers]

Is it weird for me to be worried about my latest hyperfixation/plot bunny?

Below the cut is an explaination.

Tl/dr: added a bunch of like pagan themes and my version of “western fantasy” and found family tropes and species bending to a Xianxia/Wuxia setting (MXTX triple fusion) and I’m worried people will find it problematic if I post it. All pagan stuff is also “weird” bc it’s my flavor of it and I add more bits when I write it for stories of any kind. Main guy mostly just acts as a dad and is always running around trying to avoid people who he doesn’t want to find him unless he needs to trade for certain things like fabric because everyone is suspicious of him and it gets worse when they learn he’s an “alternate type of cultivator” and actually foreign and stuff. Like, it’s HIM being assimilated and not the other way around even if he’s sharing like a couple crafts, what he grew up speaking and writing, some recipes and stuff you’d learn if you lived in the wilds and had an arborist-holistic doctor-type for a mom figure.

Edits: added more clarification, main concern is white savior and I’m doing as much as I can to avoid that bullshit but I’m still worried as fuck bc I don’t want to seem like an asshole or something.

Like, I tend to have phases for fandoms, sure, but I also have them for tropes/concepts I like to write.

So I’m in a MXTX/Danmei phase fandom wise, and I’m in a general “fix it before the shit can go south” phase, and now I’m layering on my paganism-in-everything phase once again and writing a “what if all MXTX novels are in the same world… and a very powerful druid-witch dude happens to stumble onto our favorite red-and-black boys and a (good number of) handful(s) of other fucked over kids… which activates his horrible, horrible dad instincts and he adopts every last one of them” thing.

It’s 3 chapters deep, has a bunch of random shit ranging from discussion of languages and their quirks, basic Irish lessons (bc teaching myself off and on for YEARS), pagan/wiccan shit (obviously), handicrafts, hunting, practical foraging and ultra-sustainable farming practices, how major religions stamp out smaller or “bad” ones…

It’s basically just what I write for my Og stuff but I’m not holding back at ALL and it’s MXTX. Main plot is MDZS but Binghe and Hua Cheng are the frustratingly ridiculous older brothers of the family that the dad-character is just sick and tired of listening to them pine and suspicious as hell about who they’re going after despite not wanting to even THINK about his boys being in romantic relationships with ANYONE.

Just… goofy happy but dramatic family shit and cute kids and teens bringing a shitload of foreign mythology and pagan culture and a hefty dash of my personal style of fantasy into the Xianxia/Wuxia world.

I just worry I might get flack for like destroying the culture and setting with… what I write about for the most part outside of like the vast majority of my fics.

Am I going nuts, or is this okay?

Edit for a clarification: I’m worried, as someone mentioned, of a white savior trope problem. I’m mainly trying to get out of that corner I seem to have driven myself in, but generally how it’s going so far is:

- cultivators are suspicious of foreign guy who’s apparently not just some weird merchant, this causes issues

- OC is more just trying to keep the kids he ends up running around with from doing stupid shit like pulling stupid stunts to be with people they declare their soul mates after like one brief interaction (and he fails a lot and gets all “I’m not mad I’m just disappointed. Now eat your dinner and go take a bath, you stink and are too thin again.”)

- major difference for whole setting is just some one off things here and there being introduced and made more common in a warped timeline (mostly just like fiber arts and some recipes and minor things that aren’t as obvious right off the bat like how ginkgo trees are in the same family as poison Ivy and stuff like that)

Generally the entire fic is just very done dad yelling at stupid teenagers for being stupid teenagers and having to dodge people who don’t like the weird wild man and judging him for not being able to read Chinese well and stuff.

Yet I’m still worried about white savior issues… because they’re an issue.

[heralds-bah-commune]

can I claim dnd wizard, sorcerer and fighter?

-🐺

sorry for the wait! here's some fun d&d guys for you!

a new flower has blossomed! 🌹

masculine wizard, androgynous sorcerer, masculine fighter ... [LVL 4 PACK]

══════════════════

name(s) ;; percival, percy, stephen, eldin, ohan

pronouns ;; he/him, shade/shades, star/stars

age ;; 50

species ;; human

gender(s) ;; demimasculine

orientation(s) ;; gay

role(s) ;; [some options...] academic, work alter, stress holder

source ;; brainmade (inspired by the world of dungeons and dragons)

sign-off(s) ;; 🔮 ; – Wizard ; 🔮📖

══════════════════

appearance ;; 5'8" and average build. light skin with wrinkles. black hair with grey hairs, pulled into a bun. indigo eyes. dark academia style. see below for picrew.

personality ;; cautious and academic. he is philosophical and existentialist, always wondering why the world is the way it is. incredibly polite and against vulgarity.

══════════════════

likes ;; reading, wiki surfing, libraries, world religions, overworking

dislikes ;; cursing, headaches, needing to rest

possible front triggers ;; going to libraries, studying, paperwork

══════════════════

cisid(s) ;; school of divination, cloistered scholar background, english accent, white, clumsy, left handed

transid(s) ;; transHeight (shorter), transJewish, silverAmian

kink/fetish/para(s) ;; podophilia, cheirophilia, macrophilia

══════════════════

name(s) ;; lucky chance, chance, clover

pronouns ;; they/them

age ;; 20

species ;; tabaxi

gender(s) ;; agender

orientation(s) ;; pansexual

role(s) ;; [some options...] sexual alter, battery, chaosnaut

source ;; brainmade (inspired by the world of dungeons and dragons)

sign-off(s) ;; 🔥 ; – Sorcerer ; 🔥🐾

══════════════════

appearance ;; 5'5" and lanky build. short orange and white fur. pale eyes. earrings on triangular ears. silk & satin fantasy clothing. see below for picture.

personality ;; teasing and noncommittal. confident in their abilities and courageous. they have solid street smarts. they are relaxed and flirtatious.

══════════════════

likes ;; sushi, stage magic, flirting, alcohol

dislikes ;; boredom, sitting still

possible front triggers ;; flirting, needing energy

══════════════════

cisid(s) ;; agile, ambidextrous, urchin background, wild magic sorcerous origin

transid(s) ;; transRoyalty, transAlcoholic, transRogueMulticlass

kink/fetish/para(s) ;; anthrophilia, hybristophilia

══════════════════

name(s) ;; sazall, the destroyer, saz, scar

pronouns ;; he/him, he&/him&, they/them

age ;; 35

species ;; half-orc

gender(s) ;; cisgender man

orientation(s) ;; bisexual, demiromantic

role(s) ;; [some options...] protector, guzzler, dissociation experiencer

source ;; brainmade (inspired by the world of dungeons and dragons)

sign-off(s) ;; 💪 ; – Fighter ; 💪👥

══════════════════

appearance ;; 6'4" and heavyset muscular build. blue-green skin covered in freckles. yellow eyes. short black hair. doesn't wear much clothing. see below for picrew.

personality ;; loud and dumb. the epitome of a himbo. when he's performing as his gladiatorial persona, he becomes reserved and quiet, a complete flip on his usual personality.

══════════════════

likes ;; WWE, battle bots, soups & stews, action anime

dislikes ;; being hungry, bright lights, headaches

possible front triggers ;; dissociation, anything related to pro wrestling

══════════════════

cisid(s) ;; entertainer background, scottish accent, gladiator

transid(s) ;; transPlural, transProgrammed, transDeltaProgram, permaAnnoyed

kink/fetish/para(s) ;; size difference, autohypnophilia, autobiastophilia, autosomnophilia

[floof-writes]

Sorry, frightened anon.

Thanks for sharing the whole rant with Sephie/Sam, I couldn't agree more. I'm trying to stay out of The Seven tags for spoilers so I didn't actually know she was a fan favorite. But I have to say Sam/Sephie are my least favorite at the table. Sam being outright antagonistic about Antiope/Penny's things is really upsetting and immediately put a bad taste in my mouth. Her "why are we celebrating?" In ep 3 was another small moment. I'm only at ep 6 so maybe she brings it back and apologizes to everyone, but I don't know if that'll really make up for it.

I couldn't put it into words before but I think I have the same problem with Sam/Sephie taking bits too seriously, with both the fast food celebration and the viral video thing. Also I never feel like we see Sephie smiling/laughing along with the others? Or at least we super rarely do. Sam's whole thing just feels super "main character syndrome" to me. I don't know Sephie outside this but it feels like the assignment that comes with DND was kind of missed to me? Like everyone's the main character, this is an ensemble cast, that's how it works.

Those are my thoughts on the whole thing

God I'm so glad someone else agrees!!! As far as 'fan favorite' goes, I've just noticed that in the tag Sam seems to get the most stand alone art, and quite a few headcanons in relation to non-7 characters. This is at least partially due to the fact that she appeared more extensively in Fantasy High than any other PC member of the 7, but she definitely gets people's brains spinning. "Main character syndrome" is a great way to describe it concisely! And Sephie has a very calm resting face that she rarely breaks for sure, which makes it hard to connect with her. (The problem with 'knowing Sephie outside of this' is that D20 was her first credit. I checked, because I wanted to see what industry she came from, figure out if she's just better at something else. But she had no work in/on the internet, box office, or television prior to The 7. She must've worked on stage or something? She's been in a few other actual plays since.)

I don't want to hate it but I still haven't finished episode five because of how much it bugged me. I've heard great things about (MINOR SPOILER)(****) Ostentatia's religious arc serving as a great foil to Kristen/D20's other takes on religion and I was excited! I love Erika and wanted to see more from Aabria before I watch MisMag and CoFaF. Becca was fucking killing it as Penny, in character every second!! And I loved TaleSpire! There's only 5 more episodes but I hate that I'm going to have to 'get through it' instead of enjoying it.

[chronurgy]

Fan fic assumptions: Fictional political & power structures are your bread and butter (I still think about Vesper's lecture to their wayward cult, oh my god)

Damn another one that's really dead on! I love fictional political and power structures they're just such fantastic playgrounds for trying things out in. I love trying to backtrack to make things make sense. Like my current dnd game takes place in a country that is bureaucratizing and wealthy (partly to justify why they've just managed to put together the fact that all these various aliases are actually just one guy) and I came up with far more backstory than anyone actually cares about to justify why because I enjoy that sort of thing. And with fantasy religions I like to think about how the ruling entity of an area would interpret the gods for their own benefit and how that gets passed on and down to the lower classes (this is probably why I'm not a fan of gods that are very present - they keep showing up and talking to people and telling them things and ruining my fantasy church politics dammit!). This lets me have the goddess of the moon be trapped in an eternal war against the hordes of the night in an expansionist empire and be associated with tides and change in a seafaring pirate enclave because of course religion is bent to the purposes of power!

Um okay so that got a little tangential there but yeah, you're absolutely right, I love that shit. Also I'm !!!!! at the fact that you still think about that!!! I had a lot of fun thinking about what they'd say and how they'd go about bringing the cult back under their control (because a that point they believe they're going to reclaim their old position) and what they need to do to ensure that this doesn't happen again because they're well aware that they need to come in and secure their rule here.

[maddilynmuse]

I feel like many authors go through this, but does anyone else have massive regrets about a book? Things they wish they’d done differently?

I’m a weird case. I wrote an indie fantasy adventure, my first, and I’m getting my first few real readers and some of them dislike how little detail Asha’s (my main character’s) world gets…

And I used to have far more, but my developmental editors HATED it and wanted me to cut and cut and cut and eventually just wanted her to be from our world. Which I understand now why so many isekai protagonists and other people from portal fantasy are just from our world, it lets you pre-suppose a lot, but I had something pretty specific in mind for Asha. I wanted her to be an adventurer in a world where that’s a career path, albeit a dying one.

She still is, but so much reference to her home life and home world got cut out. Asha used to have her own religion, there used to be more references to things she’d done in her world, more references to how it worked there and stories she’d been told, but my editors eventually outright said “you can’t worldbuild two worlds at once” and had me keep cutting…

I eventually found out I’d somewhat been duped. They mostly worked in historical fiction, not fantasy adventure. Real talk, this is partly on me. One of them was a personal friend who I played dnd with, so I trusted her when she said they could do this. And I will say that despite these gripes, they really did help a lot with overarching plot issues and my bad tendency to keep in “artifacts” of past drafts/ideas that no longer made sense and just bogged down the story. I never really got much guidance as to how to improve things though and at the end basically got told that one of the two editors outright hated it.

So yeah, does anyone else have massive regrets? And what do I do at this point? I eventually need to get to book 2 (originally this whole story was going to be one book, but the pacing was terrible and I realized it needed to be multiple), but now I’m starting to feel like book 1 maybe wasn’t ready after all. Should I pull it? Or maybe come back after the story’s done and release a new edition. But this is my debut and I don’t want to botch it…

(Crossposting to Reddit)