#mass effect 5e

[firestormrebl]

“I knew you were in there Pretzel.”

“I was never gone Pip.”

Words cannot properly express how happy I am with my commission from @commander-sarahs-art of my space twins from my Mass Effect 5e campaign! They finally got some time to be siblings again in our last online session, and I’m both sad and excited to resolve their story in our epilogue session that will be in person!

The date hasn’t been set yet, but I can’t wait to share more about what they’ll do now that the Reaper War is over and they survived it. Hopefully they’ll get to go home to Vancouver and spend time with their dad, and Piper will get her well deserved N7 designation and rank promotion…but only time will tell 🤞

Thank you so much again Sarah! I look forward to hopefully working with you again soon! 💙

[royalrogue]

Sorry I've been so dead recently! I've got a little project going on that's taking up my art time. Hoping to unveil it soon!

In the meantime, here's my new OC! I made her for a Mass Effect DnD group I'm joining! Her name is Raina Akiyama, she's a human engineer that abandoned her smothering military life to explore the galaxy, settling on Illium following the Reaper invasion.

You can read the full backstory under the cut:

Raina Akiyama was always destined to join the Alliance Military. From the day she was born on an Alliance ship to two parents with a decent military ranking, she spent the majority of her formative years on various Alliance ships or bases following wherever her parents were stationed.

At the time, she could count how many times she has been to Earth on one hand. Her father was from Japan and her mother was from Britain, so she had been to visit family members that she doesn’t remember the faces of. Her upbringing was lonely at times, her parents were busy working and other children were not that common. However, with the absence of people, she found her love in the mechanical instead.

She could always be found tinkering away at some piece of tech she found, sneaking into the engine room to look at the inner workings or pelting the engineers with all sorts of questions. And the Alliance were happy to support these dreams of hers, educating and pushing her towards a career as an Engineer.

There was just one problem, Raina didn’t like the way the Alliance ran things. She was never a fan of the authority, of the training exercises and the expectation to give it everything she had, with instructors and crew members who were always a bit too strict with a child, most likely already seeing the soldier she would become. She always felt trapped, forced into enlisting, because where else would she go? She was raised here, with a line of family all expecting her to join as the next generation as they once did, and she knew very little of the habited planets that dotted the galaxy.

Eventually, when she turned 18, she enlisted officially as an Engineer, continuing her training and enhancing her skills. If there’s one good thing she can say, it’s that the Alliance provided her with almost unlimited funding to tinker with whatever gadgets were put in front of her. She became intimately familiar with both the massive hardware of the Alliance vessels to the weapons and armour the troops relied on. She never fully felt like she belonged, but she could at least surround herself with the things she loved.

Things changed about 2 years later. She was stationed on a small base with an equally small squadron. Something that was meant to be safe, somewhere to train her and other recruits. For the first time in her life she felt like she had friends, people she could rely on and actually talk to, who had her back. Things finally started to fall into place, and she started to feel that yearned-for feeling of belonging.

Then, the raid happened.

A group of bandits attacked the base in the night, where there was minimal activity. They wanted the equipment that they had in storage. It wasn’t even very much, they most likely saw them as easy pickings, and they weren’t entirely wrong. Almost all of her squad was killed in the incident, though in the end Raina’s squad managed to barely win. During the scuffle, a confrontation with one of the assailants left her scarred after they slashed her face with an omni-blade. When she came to in the medical wing of an Alliance vessel, she found herself blind in her left eye.

Her entire world came crashing down. Almost all her friends were dead, that belonging ripped away from her in an instant. She was back to the cold, sterile vessels with people who saw her as little more than an asset, who wanted her back up and running as soon as possible as if a great tragedy hadn’t just occurred. As soon as they were able, they installed a cybernetic eye in the one she lost, patching her up like a broken piece of machinery.

Not even her parents were here. They contacted her as soon as they knew she was awake, but neither of them could leave their post to see her. Something in Raina just snapped. She needed away from this place, away from the military. She expressed her concerns to her parents, but they disapproved, encouraging her to just get better and push on. This was the family way. That just made the need to leave even more prevalent.

She was able to push for her to be medically discharged, quoting physical trauma and PTSD. She sent one final message to her parents telling them she was leaving and not to contact her. She grabbed all her belongings and money that she saved, grabbed the first civilian shuttle she could and started exploring the galaxy.

Over the next few years, she moved from planet to planet, exploring and experiencing and just living. She met so many new people, made new friends and went on her own adventures. She used her skills for work, either taking on odd jobs or temporarily joining a crew, which improved her abilities even further. She began to discover herself more as a person, get better at social interaction and just breathe for the first time. Life was good.

Then, the Reapers arrived.

Once more her world came crashing down, but this time it was different. She wasn’t alone. She had been staying on Illium when the news spread, and it wasn’t long before the Reapers made their way to them. Raina sprang into action, helping wherever she could to help the planets militia fend off the invasion, as well as help the people who had been displaced and evacuated to the planet. It kept her busy, and when the Reapers eventually fell, her positive presence put her on a lot of people’s radars as someone who was reliable.

Following this, she decided to take up a more permanent residence on Illium. They may have fended off the attack, but there was always work to be done. Plus, as a mercantile hub, other planets more affected turned to them for aid. She never found herself short for work, and she was keen to continue to improve her skills with the variety of machinery and tech that passed through. She dreams that one day, she can open her own mechanics shop, and make her role on Illium that much more permanent. Because she belongs.

[nhaelm]

Rusomia Acacian, turian

Medibang

[thatbiologist]

Mass Effect 5e Alignment Chart

Here's my homebrew alignment chart for Mass Effect 5e. As I believe they variants of alignments reflect the mortality of Mass Effect games.

Emotional. The character follows their heart instead of their head. Their passion be it anger or sympathy drives their actions and decisions.

Logical. The character follows their head instead of their heart. Their pragmatism drives their actions and decisions.

Casual. The character is relaxed and not worried about much. Their laid-back attitude drives their actions and decisions.

Professional. The character is doing a job, and they want to complete it with minimal complications. Their formal demeanor drives their actions and decisions.

[justaloreaddict]

Heh, so I wrote this a while ago and while I'm still fairly proud of it I feel a little silly about writing it in the first place.

A passing reunion

Maxwell stepped onto the station dock behind his superior, glancing around furtively in his helmet. The dock was abuzz with activity as people of all species unloaded and loaded ships also docked at the station. He followed his superior up the dock and deeper into the hive of activity.

“I���ve got some business to attend to elsewhere, meet me back here in four hours.” His superior stated, gesturing to a standing map a few feet ahead.

“Yes ma’am.” Maxwell nodded once before striding off into the crowd to look around, removing his helmet as he did so.

There were quite a few shops lining the streets as he wandered, but none of them really struck his fancy. Mostly businesses selling various goods he wasn’t in the mood to buy. He’d been saving up for some better armor anyway, so it was best not to spend too much.

As he was passing a tacky souvenir shop, he noticed a familiar outline amongst the shoppers. As he walked closer he recognized the voice. Immediately he smiled and entered the shop, quieting his footsteps a little out of habit.

“Castor?” He asked, surprised.

The man turned his head, a large and familiar crooked grin spreading across his face.

“Maxwell!” Castor straightened from viewing some of the colorful wares.

“Castor! Dude, it’s been years! How’ve you been, man?” Maxwell grinned, opening his arms and pulling his old friend into a firm hug. Castor clapped him on the back then they released each other.

“I’ve been good! Not much to complain about really. You?” Castor nodded his head as he spoke.

“It’s been…a lot. But hey! What brings you here?” Maxwell asked.

“Oh you know, gotta resupply somewhere.” Castor shrugged. “Hey, why don’t we go catch up over a drink?” He gave a friendly slap to his friend’s left shoulder.

“Sure.” Maxwell shrugged, nodding his head. “I’ve got a few hours to kill.”

“Great! I know a place with some interesting drinks.” Castor gestured for Maxwell to lead the way out of the shop.

Maxwell obliged, then fell into step on the left of his friend as they forged their way through the crowd. They talked a bit about what they’d been up to since they’d last seen each other, interspersed with Castor pointing out shops of interest or to avoid for one reason or another. That one has terrible customer service, that one’s sorta illegal maybe, that one’s got an owner with a great personality, that one has killer deals but trashy products, etc, etc. Finally they reached their destination; a smoothie stall with a flavor list compartmentalized by species.

“They’ve got somewhere near one hundred and twenty flavors of smoothie. Twelve for each of ten known species. It’s crazy.” Castor mentioned. “The best thing though is to try flavors for other species. I’ve tried one or two flavors. I don’t recommend that one though.” He pointed to a flavor marked under ‘Volus’. “Makes your tongue numb and everything tastes like bacon.”

Maxwell laughed. “Doesn’t sound too bad actually.” He chuckled.

“You think that’s funny? No one could understand me for the rest of the day!” Castor laughed too.

“Maybe you should get it again.” Maxwell teased, playfully punching his friend in the right shoulder.

“Naaahhh, I don’t like bacon that much.” Castor shook his head, smiling.

“Fine. Which should I try, you think?” Maxwell glanced over the overwhelming list of flavors.

“Hmm… you try that one-” Castor pointed to one under ‘Turian’. “And I’ll try this one.” He moved his hand to indicate a flavor under ‘Elcor’. “Then we can swap and try both.”

“Sounds good to me.” Maxwell grinned.

Ten minutes later the two were sitting in a plaza area on the side of a step, sort of out of the way. It was a lot to catch up on, having not seen each other for five years. Three hours flew by, and Maxwell shot up when he noticed the clock on one of the columns.

“What’s wrong?” Castor asked, standing as well.

“I totally forgot! I gotta go. I’ll get in trouble if I’m not at the sign by the docks in ten minutes!”

“Shoot! Uhm… Quick! This way!” Castor indicated a direction with his head before taking off at a light jog.

Maxwell followed, a little confused but relieved that Castor was trying to help. They wove between main roads and back alleys, getting spat out at the docks seven minutes later.

“Thanks man. I owe you one.” Maxwell clapped Castor on the shoulder.

“See you later man. Hopefully soon.” Castor said a bit sadly, catching his forearm. They gripped one another’s forearms for a second, then Maxwell ran off towards the sign, shoving on his helmet as he ran.

[blanska]

Megint beindul a D&D csatornánk, méghozzá egy Mass Effect one shot-tal :D

[justaloreaddict]

"... Ma'am we have been fighting alien invaders in our halls for three weeks, please give the crew some slack. It was through their courage and resiliency there's even a ship for you to inspect, and on schedule no less." Maxwell overheard Captain Tyrson talking to the visiting Commander Tu'soni.

He was scrubbing at his armor at the time, with plans to assist on the walls and floor of the cafeteria and kitchens as soon as he was sure it was clean in all the areas he could reach. Once the galleys were good to go they'd been told they could boil anything needed in designated pots for sanitation, which many people were eager to help set up.

It had been a hard three weeks. The hold where the attackers had appeared from had been emergency evacuated into space and left open, sealed off in an attempt to keep it from being a congregation point. Half the survivors were paranoid now, and almost everyone was traumatized to some level. No one had survived unscathed. Even Captain Tyrson had his arm in a sling.

It was sickening.

For three weeks everyone had been forced to adapt and fight for their lives from whatever unholy parasite had caught a ride in the last shipment. Thankfully they knew the ship much better than their attackers, and had been able to use the ships remote door locks to coral the creatures as needed. Any vents that couldn't be closed fancy-like had been barricaded or otherwise semi-permanently sealed until they could hope to asphyxiate anything trapped inside. The ship still reeked, and even though a few vents had been opened there were no plans to restart the air circulation cycle until it was confirmed the vents were clear of all waste.

Maxwell didn't envy the people who'd volunteered or been voluntold to search the vents in whole, close spaces weren't his ideal. They did get priority on gas masks and oxygen helmets though, in case they did encounter something. The rest of them had been making do with some compact air purifiers in strategic locations and sleeping in communal rooms. Lucky for them, some of the mechanics had been able to re-hook the air circulation system to pump fresh air into canisters for careful release if sensors ever read an area as dangerous.

Captain Tyrson had been a brilliant leader during that time, earning the deep respect of the whole crew. Maxwell wouldn't be surprised if everyone else would vote for him to be put in a higher station. He'd kept them alive, and they were grateful.

So who was Commander Tu'soni, coming in and immediately docking everyone because they managed to survive a massacre? It was infuriating. Maxwell scrubbed harder at his armor then gave up and threw it down. Taking his brush and rags, as well as bucket he stood and stormed towards the galley. Likely they'd be almost done by now, but just in case people needed a break.

As he walked he passed Tyrson and Tu'soni, glimpsing them out of the corner of his eye. Maxwell kept his gaze straight. He knew his clothes were covered in blood and that his uniform was improperly worn, but he was working dangit. At that moment he made up his mind to not stop helping until either everything was spotless and sanitized or Tu'soni was gone. They'd all been through hell, and hadn't given up. That should be worth something.

"Look at this place, there's blood everywhere. I'm going to have to file a complaint with HR."

[mcgeeki]

🚀 Mass Effect DnD Campaign – Players Wanted! 🎲 Hey Spectres, N7s und Spacers!

We're officially launching a Mass Effect-inspired DnD campaign set 100 years after the Reaper War, and we're opening the airlock for a few more brave souls to join us aboard the SSV Revenant — a classified Alliance ship with a mysterious mission and even more mysterious crew.

🧬 All species and backgrounds are welcome 🛰️ Dice-based storytelling with strong roleplay & custom lore 🎭 You can bring your own art, headcanons & chaotic energy 🧠 Character-driven plot and a GM who may or may not also be playing 🤖 EDI is in development and might be watching you 👀

📅 We’re planning to start in June and will coordinate a time that fits all timezones. 💬 Hosted on Discord – chill, queer-friendly, story-focused vibes only. 🎲 If you're curious, message me here or comment, and I’ll send you the relay coordinates.

Because the stars have gone quiet again… and someone needs to find out why.

[archivecreators]

🚨 Last Call to Join! 🚨

We're putting together a Mass Effect-inspired DnD campaign over on our Discord server—and we're just about ready to launch! This is your last chance to jump aboard the SSV Revenant before we set off. ✨🛸

🔹 Homebrew classes & backgrounds based on the N7 world 🔹 Biotic, tech & soldier archetypes 🔹 A story-driven campaign with roleplay, exploration & optional romance 🔹 LGBTQIA+ friendly, 18+, no NSFW content 🔹 Looking for players who enjoy immersive storytelling and character moments!

🎲 New to DnD? No problem! 💬 Interested? Leave a comment or DM me for an invite!

Let’s explore the stars together. 🌌

[briannafrostgirl]

Campaign memes, pt 3!

In honor of us having played this campaign for a truly mind-boggling 4 years without missing a week

Credit to my whole group for being incredibly funny on the cards one

[anim-ttrpgs]

Why I Dislike PbtA Games, and How Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy is Their Opposite

@tender-curiosities

It is no secret that I hate PbtA games.

Though due to a recent misunderstanding regarding another post, I’m going to preface this post by saying that this is going to be a very opinionated post and

I do not seriously think that PbtA games are inherently bad, though I may sometimes joke about this.

While I do often question the taste of people who make and play PbtA hacks, I do not think poorly of their moral character.

While I am going to call for PbtA to be used less as a base for games in the future, I’m not saying that the whole system and all games based on it should be destructified. It’s good for what it’s good for, but unless you’re doing that, I really think you should use something else.

Now that that is out of the way, here’s what I have to say about it.

My first experiences with PbtA games were pretty rough. Monster of the Week was not the first, but it was one of the first ‘indie’ TTRPGs I played after having previously played mostly only D&D3.5e and 5e. I really appreciated that the use of 2D6 over a D20 meant that the dice results would be more predictable, and I really liked the various “classes” I was seeing. (At this time, I didn’t really understand that they weren’t really “classes” at all, though I think I can be forgiven for this because many people, even people who like PbtA games, still talk like “classes” and “playbooks” are interchangeable.)

I was very enthusiastic to play, until it came time to start actually “making” a character, and found that I couldn’t “make” a character. I wanted to make a nuanced, three-dimensional PC who was simultaneously stereotype-affirming and stereotype-defying, with a unique backstory and dynamic with the other characters—but when I went to actually fill out the character sheet for basically any “class”, I found that most of the backstory and most of the personality for my character was being set for me by the playbook. It felt like the only thing about the character I really had a say in was their name, and that two PCs of the same playbook would actually turn out to be almost identical characters. At the time, I thought this was very restrictive and very bad design.

Later, now that I understand the design intent behind it, I still think of it as very restrictive, but I think of it as very bad design for me, not inherently bad.

When I play a TTRPG, I want more freedom in who my PC is. That doesn’t mean I want less rules, in fact having more rules can often increase freedom, but that’s a different post. I want to create original, unique characters, that I won’t see anywhere else. If it’s a class-based system, I want that class to barely touch the details of my character’s backstory or personality, so that I can come up with something original and engaging for why and how this “Fighter” fights. This means that two level-1 Fighters, despite having almost the same mechanical abilities, will potentially be very different people.

PbtA games don’t let you do that. In a lot of PbtA games, you’re not playing your own original character, you’re playing someone else’s character, that every other player that has picked up the same playbook before you has played. It’s more like “character select” than “character creation.” I think I could liken it to playing Mass Effect or The Witcher. Every player may pick a few different dialogue choices in those games that change the story, but we’re still all playing Shepherd or Geralt. No one is going to experience a new never-before-seen story in Mass Effect or The Witcher, which is very much a factor of them being video games and not TTRPGs, and therefore limited to the amount of code, writing, and voice-acting that can go into them.

This anonymous asker who sent a message to @thydungeongal seems to feel pretty similarly to me about PbtA games, and @thydungeongal's response is a very good response about how people find this appealing.

I have more respect for PbtA now than I did, but I still don't like it because to me it seems to play so much against what I consider to be the strengths of TTRPGs as a medium, much like how video games like The Last of Us and David Cage games play against the strengths of the medium of video games, and I will never like it. But other people clearly do, so to each their own.

Then another reason I don’t like it is because I think it’s oversaturating the TTRPG space. I’ve referred to PbtA before as “indie D&D5e”, and i do think that’s a reasonable comparison, because in much the same way that you always hear “D&D5e is a system that can do everything”, I think a lot of people seem to be under the impression that the PbtA system is a system that can do anything. It’s kinda the système du jour for indie TTRPGs right now, and many iterations of it make it clear that many designers do not consider how PbtA differs from more traditional TTRPGs, and how it is specialized for different types of TTRPG gameplay. Just like how I feel PbtA isn’t playing to certain important strengths of TTRPGs, I think that many—maybe even most—PbtA hacks don’t play to the strengths of PbtA. But this isn’t really PbtA’s fault, that comes down to any individual indie TTRPG developer on a case-by-case basis. And the cure for that is something I’m always saying: If you are going to be a writer, you have got to read lots of books. If you are going to be a director, you have got to watch lots of movies. If you are going to be a video game developer, you have got to play lots of video games. And if you are going to be a TTRPG designer, you have got to read and play lots of TTRPGs. That and you have to understand that TTRPGs are specialized. Even "agnostic" systems like PbtA are somewhat specialized, and therefore might really not be a great fit for the game you’re trying to make.

That and, to get more subjective again, there’s like an ocean of them, and I don’t even like the ones that are actually good.

Now that I’ve talked about how I don’t like PbtA games, I’m gonna talk about a game I do like: Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy. Obviously, I like it because I’m the lead writer for it, but I would also like it even if I wasn’t the lead writer for it, because it’s just my kinda game. Eureka is the opposite of a PbtA game. I wrote it to play to what I feel are the strengths of the TTRPG medium.

Eureka’s character creation uses personality traits as a mechanical element of the character, but it does so in a deliberately freeform way. You build your character’s personality out of a list of traits, so who your character is is very much linked to what your character can do, but we aren’t just handing you a pre-made character.

Eureka is designed to incentivize organic decision-making by the PCs, most often by the mechanics of the game mirroring the world they live in. Every mechanic aims to create situations wherein “what will the PC do next?” is a question whose answer can be predicted - it doesn’t need to be ordained by a playbook.

One of my favorite examples of this is, rather than a “Fear Check” forcing the PC to run away if they fail, or “Run Away from Danger” being a “Move” on their character sheet, Eureka opts for the Composure mechanic. The really short version is that one of the main things that lowers a PC’s Composure is encountering scary stuff, and the lower a PC’s Composure, the more likely they are to fail skill checks, and the more likely they are to fail skill checks, well, the less brave they and their player probably feel about them standing up to this scary monster. So if the PC has low Composure, they are more likely to choose to run away. The lower their Composure, the better idea that will seem.

This system really really shines when it comes to monster PCs in Eureka. Most monsters benefit a lot more from having high Composure, but have fewer ways to restore Composure than mundane PCs. Their main way to restore their Composure is by eating people. The rulebook never says “your monster PC has to eat people”, but more likely than not, they’re going to be organically steered towards that by the game and world itself. Sure, they could decide to be “one of the good ones”, and just never eat people, just like you reading this could decide to stop eating food. You technically could, but when your body starts to fail, how long would you? (This is a big part of the themes of Eureka and what it has to say about crime, disability, mental illness, and evil. People don’t just arbitrarily do bad things, it is often their circumstances that leads them down that path until they see little choice for themselves in that matter, and “harmful” people are still just as deserving of life as people who “aren’t harmful”, but that really deserves its own post.)

It has been said that Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually arrives at much the same end as the PbtA game Monsterhearts, and I actually don’t disagree, but it gets there from an entirely different starting point and direction. The monster PCs in Eureka are very likely to eat people and cause drama, but it won’t be because they have “Eat People and Cause Drama” as a “Move” on their character sheet.

Monsters in Eureka have a lot of abilities, which they can use to solve (and create) problems as the emergent story emerges organically.

(Oh and Eureka is about adult investigators investigating mysteries, and sometimes those investigators are monsters, not about monster kids in high school, to be clear. The same “end” that Eureka and Monsterhearts reach is that of the monsters being prone to cause problems and drama due to the fact that they are monsters, though this isn’t the sole point of Eureka, just one element of it.)

You can pick up the free shareware version of this game from the download link on our website, or the full version for $5 from our Patreon.

And don’t forget, Eureka is fundraising on Kickstarter starting on April 10th, 2024! We need your support there most of all, to make sure we hit our goals and can afford to make the best version of Eureka we can make!

Interested in branching out but can’t get your group to play anything but D&D5e? Join us at the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club, where we nominate, vote on, and play indie TTRPGs, all organized by our team with no strict schedule requirement! Here's the invite link! See you there!

We also have merchandise.

[wayward-engineer]

I made this a long time ago, but forgot to ever post it. This is Atul vas Luma, a quarian sentinel. I made them for a Mass Effect 5e one-shot I did a while ago.

[sprintingowl]

Changed Stars

More TTRPG reviews!

DieselShot sent me a copy of their big full-featured scifi TTRPG Changed Stars, and it was both polished and modern and a trip down memory lane to the mechanically robust heartbreakers of the 90s and early 00s.

I'll put the full review below, but if you like stuff like Farscape and Mass Effect and the Expanse, you should give this a look.

--

Changed Stars is a space opera TTRPG about a universe where humanity tried to colonize the galaxy and got quickly set to rights by the other reigning powers of space. Instead of simply backhanding humanity into their home gravity well, these powers took on humanity as a project---could they make us less like violent children and more like proper citizens of space?

The PDF is 306 pages, ​with small, dense text in a professional layout. This is an old school style full featured TTRPG, and it packs in information and art and mechanics. Everything is bookmarked and hyperlinked, and it feels relatively easy to navigate.

Writing-wise, both the ideas and execution are solid. The text feels compellingly told, and the geopolitical situations the book sets up feel chewy and interesting. Most of the conflict comes from humans falling back on old human atrocity-doing, and I think Changed Stars get a lot of mileage out of positioning us as the galaxy's work-in-progress disaster.

In terms of character creation, things are decently granular without being overcomplicated. There are four stats, twelve skills, quick and slow hp, and a decent spread of species to choose from. Classes are loose, and come with some attribute and skill bonuses, a couple feats, and a unique gimmick called an Edge Break where you can go all out in a class-specific way and then fall into a coma. To round things out there's a robust equipment section and a big chunky drones and vehicles chapter. Ships are quite detailed, and come with a wide range of things for crew to do in combat and while exploring, hitting a very gameable sweet spot in between "5e spelljammer" and "this game is now entirely about ships."

Mechanics-wise, Changed Stars uses a d6 pool. Sixes are hits, one hit is enough to succeed, additional hits can be used to "yes and" the success. Players have decent control over the dice with Edge, that same thing from the Edge Break I mentioned earlier. You can use it to nudge regular rolls too, taking smaller consequences in exchange for goosing the dice a little. Combat, survival, healing, and other tabletop staples are all at about the same level of complexity, but feel fully fleshed out.  Violence feels dangerous, and its consequences feel life threatening, but you can absolutely go loud and have a hero moment without dying.

For GMs, there's a huge worldbuilding section plus general advice, safety tools, a bestiary, and a starter scenario. Nothing feels missing, but also I don't know that anything in here will fundamentally change the way you GM if you've been doing it for a while.

For visual readers, the art by Patrice Danielle Long is excellent! It's a mix of black and white and color, and it does a very necessary job of anchoring the descriptions in the text to something immediate and tangible. The xenofauana looks nice, and the playable species have a lot of charm to them.

I think the folks who might bounce off of this game are those who are looking for something mechanically simple. Changed Stars isn't complicated for the sake of being complicated, but I'd also say it's at about Shadowrun complexity level. A 4--6 player group that's been doing TTRPGs for a while should be able to tackle it with ease. 

Overall, I'm glad games like this are still being made. A GM who clicks with the setting can spin a robust tale inside Changed Stars' universe, and a group who plays in it will get to make detailed characters, get into space hijinks, and more than likely shoot their way out.

[cdsillylilyposting]

The random camp events are important for character and relationship building?

That's a huge part of the camp? How do you miss that?

Idk

She just didn't like the companions' stories about victimhood and betrayal in various forms

Gale being... well you could say groomed by someone in a powerful postion over him or lovebombed by Mystra depends on how you look at it really

Wyll's abyse at the hands of Mizora

Astarion's by Cazador

Shadowhearts at the hand of a brainwashing cult

Karlach by Gortash and Zariel

Lae'zel by another cult (paralleling shadowheart)

Take that as you will from CD-Call/Lily Orchard an alleged rapist

Probably why she complained about their stories coming up then

She wanted the story she grew up with but more; she wanted to her OC Bhaalspawn (literal child of destiny) who gets no consequences from the implications of that to fight the same problems as the previous games, in the setting left as she left it in bg2 with hardly any time passing, bg1&2 could be broken by the fact it was an older crpg that only was based of some of d&ds mechanics, even though ill be the first to admit 5e and bg3 both are significantly easier systems to both play and wrap your heads around

Also she cannot play turn based games girl has no patience

To add to this and double back on one point i made earlier

i dont even really believe in the idea that evil should be "easier" I also think the whole evil being an option in a game especially a game like bg3 where it expects you to more or less be playing a good guy making the evil & good just the selfish and not selfish options is fine? Like the grove/goblin camp sequence aside, obviously they should have different story implications, but the difficulty didn't NEEED to be different to be interesting still...

I think much like Mass Effect weather your a goody two shoes or a renegade buricratic nightmare machine, you can't side with the reapers.

Like the MOST evil ending of Tav (not derg) is arguably taking over the world and using the elder brain as your own weapon and you can side with Orin or Gortash, but you can't side with the BRAIN itself

Spoilers

I think the game suffers a bit from the whole as Yatzee would put it Endingtron 3000 syndrome where you could be entirely good pick every altruistic option the whole game and still just heel turn in the end but thats a different issue that larian had with this game allowing you to metagame to hard obviously implementing a tracker so it could halt certain options throughout the game is interesting but HARD to properly implement and make feel fair but still im not about to knock points off because I IMAGINED a better system that appeals to ME inparticular

[justaloreaddict]

Maxwell and Castor random details

- Maxwell's last name is Helix, after the Helix nebula.

- Castor is named after Castor and Pollux, twins from Greek myth associated with the constellation Gemini.

- Brothers from another mother

- They grew up in the same port settlement and for all their childhood they were a package deal, the closest of friends.

- They signed on with the army, and were both able to get Biotic implants. [Only relevant for their class, Sentinel]

- They have matching tattoos of compasses on opposite shoulders.

[des-no9]

I'm going on Anon because i'm a bit shy about this but, I've seen a lot of Githyanki official art and fan made stuff and i was wondering if Githyanki can be fat? I supposed that since its a warrior race genetically engineered (twice!) to fight that they probably wouldn't have a high fat to body mass ratio However i *really* wanna make a fat githyanki oc Is there a way i can justify it in universe? Thank you!!!

Hey anon and thank you so much for messaging me about this. I'm so touched and happy to answer this!

I wanted to preface this first of all with:

you never need a reason to make, or have, a character fat. They just can be!! Because you want them to!! Fat isn't a bad word, just a descriptor. And I hope after this you can happily make a wonderful, gorgeous fat githyanki character who I can't wait to see!

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Okay. Now, moving on to lore and narratives and in universe reasons - it can absolutely be done.

As a detail orientated writer, I am a stickler for: consistency believability (doesn't have to be REAL or something 1:1 from our world just believable IN world etc)

NOTE: D&D has many different versions and inconsistences in lore, and my narrative consolidates in the BG3 5e verse, while taking parts from older versions I like and fitting them to make sense in my verse that I'm creating and expanding from BG3.

Much ramblings and answers under the cut :3 enjoy

TW: talk about bodies, fatphobia (kinda), genetic engineering

Okay so, we know at least in all verses that githyanki were genetically engineered twice (illithids first, then Vlaakith(s) with the change to eggs, and streamlining their race to become superior, powerful etc), and their race as has been documented and described by others in universe, and in source books, is tall, thin, long limbs, bony, and they seem in similar strucuture to illithids.

This makes a lot of sense in the way that the illithids were probably breeding them to become perfect hosts for their tadpoles and ceremorphosis, from what they see their bodies turn into. And we know that illithids have specific body types they seek out for their own perfection, whether we like it or not.

Vanquish is fat. It doesn't hinder her whatsoever. In-fact Voss is drawn to her a lot because of it and finds such beauty in her fatness and the softness of her skin. This does allude to fatness not being common in githyanki and something he likes about istik and her. And yeah, you can make it uncommon in githyanki! That's fine! But it still CAN happen in githyanki.

So for lore reasons to have a fat githyanki character I think there are many ways you could easily do it:

1: Independent githyanki. This githyanki could have, for example, been raised by non-githyanki, and therefore has not had a life subjected to their stringent training, diet, routine etc, and eventual life between Material and Astral which would and does effect things like their digestive system. Having their body adjusted from birth to a different environment could start to alter their body's stubborn pre-disposition to a low body fat %. Also, not constantly living in a kind of hypervigilance and violence the githyanki seem to live in may just let the body relax.

2: Different creches and planes Coming a little from the above idea - and from my genitals HC about variance in their bodies - I think that their can be and IS differences in their bodies depending on the creche they were born in, and also plane.

For example, being nearer to void magic, in a volatile climate, low gravity, colder climate etc. For a githyanki growing up in a colder climate, having more body fat would be better for them (if we take into account OUR biology, but they are aliens and their bodies probably work differently to ours. For instance they are SO strong even being so very thin dkfjdf etc). But honestly, it doesn't matter the reasoning. Some creches could just give variance in body type because they CAN and this is magic and magic does shit like this and for the past hundreds and thousands of years this is how the bodies of githyanki from Creche An'vak are, like the ears from those from Creche Ishk often split at the end.

They just are.

3: Genetic anomaly If you like the theory that their low body fat and frame is deeply bred and genetically engineered etc into them, this works. Because genetic anomalies happen all the time, so githyanki being born and retaining body fat and getting fat, much fatter than we see them as, could definitely just happen.

Depending on how cruel you view the githyanki as a whole, or that particular creche, or even if that githyanki wasn't raised in a creche etc (lots of possibilities), once the varsh sees that their body is developing different to how they 'should' be, then they may be discarded as a liability, or you can work many different and creative narrative ways into how and why they survive. (For example, once they see that their body doesn't hinder their ability to fight, then why dispose of them?)

I'm sure there are many, many other ways I'm not thinking about, but these are some of the main ways that I would probably write about and would come up in my narratives.

4: Wild Card! Githyanki/istik child. This also raises several other complciations and questions of how githyanki and other races could reproduce (that's for another huge post LOL) but, since in the future Vanquish and Orpheus have a kid (an heir, technically) it would be remiss of me to not mention this. And well, a mixed githyanki kid, too, could be fat!

Also, depending on the part of their timeline I'm writing in (for example, during their enslavement, directly after, now) the reasoning and frequency of fat githyanki can be different to me in the narrative.

I hope this helped a lot, anon. If you have any more questions or want to ask anything else, please, please let me know! This was a LOT of fun to write. Thank you! x