#maybe this is a sign for a new ttrpg character | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fiabex · 3 months ago

Text

Let's Talk About Gift Mediums (In This Exchange)

Alright! It is time for me to talk to you about one of the most unique aspects of this exchange, now that we're in nomination season. It's a 10k exchange, which you already know, and it has the mysterious "swaps" (which will be explained in a later post), but the other unusual thing FIAB does is the medium rulesets.

In this exchange there are literally over three hundred different mediums that people can opt into, and we add new ones every year. They have all been carefully worked out to figure out a specification of an art form that complies with Ao3's TOS, that someone might want to get as a gift, and that would be equivalent to one thousand words (the increments the exchange works in). You match to a person like a normal exchange, and then you can either give them fic (the baseline assumption of all sign-ups), or you can give them one of the mediums they opted into, working up to a 10k of your art form or of a mix of art forms. If you know that you definitely want to create for a specific medium— maybe you're not a writer but you are an artist— you can email the mods, and they'll make sure to match you to someone requesting that medium, as long as you still have ships in common.

Want some examples? Click through to see some of the 300 different options to our name!

You want to create art? Awesome. Art is one of the opt ins, that's easy! But there are also way more specific opt-ins, for example:

Medium Opt-In: Art - Book Cover

Medium Opt-In: Art - Conspiracy Board

Medium Opt-In: Art - A Softer World style art

Medium Opt-In: Art - Costume Design

You want to go even more niche? There are options for people to opt into:

Medium Opt-In: Art - In-Universe Magazine Spread

Medium Opt-In: Art - Floorplan/Architectural Style Drawing

Medium Opt-In: Art - Propaganda Poster

And honestly so many more, like I said, 300 different medium options.

Maybe you work in audio? We've got a ruleset for you. People can opt into all kind of audio gifts, check out a small sampling:

Medium Opt-In: Audio - Song Parody

Medium Opt-In: Audio - In-Universe RPF

Medium Opt-In: Audio - Tarot Card Reading

And yes, you can opt into Medium Opt-In: Audio - Podfic

You're a poet? Why look at that, there are poetry rulesets.

Medium Opt-In: Poetry - Haiku Series

Medium Opt-In: Poetry - Sonnet

Medium Opt-In: Poetry - Bredlik

Medium Opt-In: Poetry - Alliterative Long Line

is your art set more physical? You can give someone instructions

Medium Opt-In: Instructions - Cocktail Recipes

Medium Opt-In: Instructions - TTRPG rules

Medium Opt-In: Instructions - Spell or Ritual Instructions

There are even unique rules for even more out-there gifts, some of which are already beloved tumblr art forms:

Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Map: Country

Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Sheet Music - Arrangement of Music From Canon

Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - In-Universe Spreadsheet - Expense Report

Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Online Dress-up Game

Medium Opt-In: Unique Rules - Gifset

Are you a writer, but you love form pieces or pieces that push the boundary of what "fic" is?

Medium Opt-In: Writing - Creepypasta

Medium Opt-In: Writing - Bureaucratic Paperwork

Medium Opt-In: Writing - In-Universe Textbook

Medium Opt-In: Writing - List of things (character) is not allowed to do

Medium Opt-In: Writing - Non-Linear Narrative

Medium Opt-In: Writing - Reddit: Highly Upvoted/Gilded Reddit Comment And The Comment's Context

There are SO MANY different mediums that you can opt into, both when you consider what gifts you give yourself, and what gifts you might receive! And if you are looking at the list (in the the tag set) and you think "you know what, I would love to give a gift that is kind of in this line, but it's not on this list, I bet I could figure out a definition of my art that is equivalent to one thousand words," you can go over to the medium nominations post and suggest it, and the mods will probably add it to the tag set! Check out the medium ruleset for the existing specifications for unique rules, and you can cruise the tag set to see what different types of mediums are already defined and ready to request!

Join us! 10k fic* exchange! It's fun! :D

*you may not be giving or receiving fic. Depending on what you opted in to, you might be getting poetry, music, gifsets, knitting patterns, logic puzzles, tarot cards, maps, spreadsheets, or much, much more.

Questions?

For more information about medium rulesets, signing up, nominations of fandoms, relationships, or medium forms, swaps, or much more (questions about how pinch hits work? we have documentation about that), check out the dreamwidth blog!

If you have questions, feel free to ask them here, check the dreamwidth blog, email the mods, or join our discord server. The discord server has a lot of experienced participants happy to answer questions, and you are also welcome to join just to hang out!

Note: you must be 18 or older to join FIAB.

Links

Email: [email protected]

Ao3 Collection (sign up here once signups open)

Tag Set

Dreamwidth Blog

Discord (includes question channel)

#Fandom exchange #fic in a box #fiab

26 notes · View notes

nelithic · 1 year ago

Text

　toa annifoursary (hehe) munday.

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

---

Name: rai

Pronouns: anything

Birthday (no year): may 17

Where are you from? What is your time zone? us east coast, so est

Roleplay experience: .................. i have to count every time. i think around 18 years now?

Got any pets? nope

Favorite time of year: autumn! november especially

Some interests and things you like: rping is 75% of my life so it embodies most of my free time. otherwise, running and playing ttrpgs, playing games, reading

Some funfacts & trivia about you: i can shake my eyeballs

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? genshin impact, pokemon, i might sign myself away to hsr tomorrow. i'll give just about any good old turn-based jrpg a try when it comes out

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: flying & raichu ---

How did you get into Fire Emblem? had to have been right before graduation from undergrad, i walked into gamestop and saw fire emblem: fates had just released. decided to give it a shot on a whim. my best friend at the time had played awakening, so i decided to get into the series. binged the rest of it just about straight through from there, starting with fe6

What Fire Emblem games have you played? all except ( ree forgets this every time ) the jugdral games HAHA also still halfway through new mystery

First Fire Emblem game: fe fates: birthright

Favorite Fire Emblem game: fe6: binding blade

Any Fire Emblem crushes? probably endless ksjnglskg. nishiki is maybe the closest i think. oh and lucina.

If you’ve played the following games, who was your first S support? - Awakening: lucina. i don't think i ever s-supported anyone elSE - Fates: nishiki - Three Houses: uhhhhh was it felix? or was it dimitri idr. i think it was felix - Engage: gregory

Favorite Fire Emblem class: NOMAAAAAAAAD

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class? i've been told mage > dark knight which seems to check out with the fact that my boss insists that my d&d class would be warlock with eldritch being as my patron

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? probably black eagles tbh

If you were an Engage character, which Emblem would you Engage with? i'm not sure what qualifier this is based on ksjlskgml i'd like to believe leif? but probably closer to veronica or soren ---

How did you find TOA? well.

Current TOA muses: caeldori, nel, rosado

Who was your first TOA muse? If you don’t have them anymore, could you see yourself picking them up again? felix. for a while after i dropped him i thought i had run the gambit with him in terms of narrative i wanted to explore and figured he was going on the top shelf. but the last half year or so he's been wanting to come back...

Have you had any other TOA muses? YIKES, have i. felix, sety, idunn, volug, leif, yuri, kurthnaga, ephraim, lucius, etzel

Do you think you have a type of character you gravitate towards? most common ones are probably the Sad Sack Sages ( hi etzel, sety ), fiery boys with hearts of gold ( felix, leif ), and dark paladins ( nel, felix ). i also really like chaotic neutral trickster types, but aren't usually confident enough in my ability to write for them haha

What do you believe you enjoy writing the most? action scenes for sure. any scene where there's external momentum driving things forward and giving a sense of momentum and urgency. also just anything that lets me worldbuild or exploring facets of worldbuilding hehe

Favorite TOA-related memory: that's a hard one. probably the final week of arcadia, our first lore event. all the teams ended up in boss battles, but they weren't the guaranteed staple of lore event endings like they are now. it just kind of happened because that's where the stories ended up. the collaborative scene-building and sense of camaraderie in the fights against gricenchos and gofannon are still unmatched for me to this day. they felt like dynamic scenes right out of a lord of the rings movie

How do you pronounce TOA? as the letters haha tee-oh-ay

Got any delusions that didn’t see the light of day in TOA that you’d like to share? i have constant delusions. i've been saying since ferp that i want to play eltshan someday and never have LOL. bringing lester into toa. bringing zeiss to toa. i have a url saved for lyre. it kind of feels wrong not having a single muse from either jugdral or tellius HAHA

#——— ⟢　𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒎 】₊　out of character.#this is super cute neffi thank you!!#man trip down memory lane...........

19 notes · View notes

ultimavela · 1 year ago

Text

The promised ones – 4. Who The Promised Ones are.

As I told you in the previous post, a few months ago I came up with something more robust as a base from which to explore what I wanted to do with this game –this sort of simple and flexible system that I already created for Summer Myth Hunt (to which, as a side note, I will add a map and a Spanish version in a couple of weeks)– and also I had an idea for a setting and its cosmology as I vaguely sketched on the first post of this game design log.

But with these two things now settled as ground, I still had to answer the question, “What is this game about?”.

Although I had this vague idea of a world scarred by a calamity (where the remnants of it created regions of ever-changing reality) what focused the idea was an experience I had as a player that I found myself falling into every time I designed or thought about games; the archetype of the outsider, the cursed one, the one who has been bestowed by a sign that others look at with a certain wariness, suspicion, and even fear (perhaps having had my first ttrpg experience with VTM is to blame).

In fact, I fall into these themes over and over again, and they are present in both of my games, SMH (Summer Myth Hunt) and The bookworm Circle –one about hunters of the myths created by the imagination of humans who have to be careful of being caught by the human-world, and the other about a group of birds that take human bodies to infiltrate human society and to stop the destruction that humans will cause to their native forest.

But for The promised Ones this idea began to grow from one of the strokes of the setting sketch I already had on my mind; that the remnants created by the calamity were pockets of reality ruled by some kind of being or deity.

From there the train of thought began; what if these beings can give favors? Maybe the PC (player characters) had their favor? No, wait. What if the PC's progenitors took the favor of these beings, and what they gave in return for their gift was their unborn child?

That's how The promised Ones manifest themselves, and what they will do in the game, or in a more precise way, what players will do as promised ones, is what will ultimately answer the question “What is the game about?”.

And this is when setting, characters, and character sheet began to merge, to form new things.

I saw from the character sheet (and its slots to collect things from the world) that PC's could “hunt” for something (as characters in SMH did), and then characters came into play, to show me that this hunting was a task entrusted to them by the being they were promised to, and then setting presented itself, telling me that “this” they are entrusted to hunt is something that was a consequence of the event that created the pockets of realities that these beings govern.

Yes, I know this whole thread is a bit chaotic, but I just wanted to try to convey to you how these ideas became something in my mind and in my notebook, how things blend and stick together to become something new.

But maybe it's better if I show you the first page of the game, so you can all see the result (It's still in the process of finding its right shape, which will probably take a little more time because I want to give this game time to develop on its own, and me to find nooks and crannies and depth within it).

So here it is, the first ideas, maybe the basis of what this game is about. I hope you found something interesting in here, perhaps something that inspires you, or at least makes you want to see what else is in here. In the next post I will show you how the character sheet evolves and what other interesting things I have found along the way exploring how the setting, the character sheet and the character interconnect and enhance each other.

#ttrpg #roleplaying game #tabletop role playing game #indie ttrpg #fantasy #ttrpg community

2 notes · View notes

foxypiquero · 1 month ago

Text

Macro-Monstrosities of Whitehack pt.1

A brief preface: Whitehack is an indie TTRPG built off the original edition of The Most Popular Roleplaying Game(tm) but doesn't let that limit it. It's genre agnostic (to a point), incredibly simple, and incredibly powerful. I heavily recommend it if you want a light-weight rules system. This will deal with a singular aspect of the game.

Alright, hear me out: maybe using macro-characters could help make RPG mass-combat viable again (not a PIA). Think about it, that where the hobby started after all, and individual combat is just an intersquad fight. But what happens when you want to get bigger? Well we have macros and scale for one and we also have officers. So lets break it down.

The scale:

If you have your character at the head of a squad of ragtag followers it's probably just better to break down combat into phases (ex: declaration, magic, ranged, move, melee) but what happens when you have say: a platoon or company? We'll follow this wizards and muskets world just for variety.

The standard organizational level on the field should be a scale 0 macro, got it? Good. Why is it randomly generated? Reasons can be anywhere from officer competency, to disease, to how well they were first supplied. Congrats now all you have to do is adjust the scale of combat time and map scale and there you go, easy 1x1 army groups as macros.

But what about wizards and the wise? Now this is where things get weird. On the individual level, our little platoon is a 10x2 enemy that has 1 attack at turn that does 10d6 at say 150ft range. Think about some popular spells from other games, even some of those really big spells only really threaten half that group. For the wise to be using magic they should be their own battle group of wizards firing volleys or pooling their health together to upcast a mass sleep spell (and this is why an individual player may be small to bug size in the face of 100 angry fellas.)

Officers:

Now here's the tricky part. Officers aren't usually the best, they're either born into it or buy into it, for these guys roll a save after a crit to see if they fall in battle. But what about you? This is honestly up to the GM, at platoon level it might be a more powerful attack, maybe d6+2, at the company level? Not so much (￣￣|||) (yeah I know breaking this to players sucks.) PCs are assumed to fall or be captured last, if you want to be more deadly about it assume you can get downed by that lucky shot from earlier.

Troop quality is also dependent on level. A higher level unit is made of veterans and, at lower levels of organization at least, have more competent and wizened officers and NCOs. They should have a morale score or make a charisma or will save of some sort in case they meet a situation that calls for it like damage or mass illusions. Money at this level is handled in thousands so keep that in mind if a PC is fronting the cash for upgraded gear; 2000 cr just gives a platoon the muskets going by ROW.

Special Abilities:

This is where good judgement needs to be practiced. How does cavalry move? Can they do a passing attack? Can they do a split-move ranged attack? How do they get stuck in? Eventually you will get questions like this that the standard classes will no be able to cover and the GM will have to make a call. Whatever they decide here will be a new rule going forward so please workshop the rules first.

And that's it. :P Well not really, this is just humanoid v. humanoid and not Giants & Guard Regiments. Eventually something will get me to think at this scale again! So uh good luck with the rest of that till then!

Piqu signing off ∑d(°∀°d)

#dnd #indie games #indie rpg #whitehack

1 note · View note

ori-cami · 2 years ago

Photo

Welcome to the Oricami Collective!

Hi! I have many different passions and refuse to give any up, for better or for worse, so here is an easily navigable post for you to find what you’re interested in! (Or maybe something new!)

Discord - The discord is also a mix of everything, but it is categorized so you only see the parts you want! Hope to see you there!

Commission Status: Open

I draw fantasy items, monsters and characters. You can check out my prices here!

Fill out this form, message me on Discord (theoricamicurio) or email me ([email protected]) to discuss!

TTRPG Homebrew

My partner and I make homebrew content for D&D 5e! From Magic Items to Monsters we have plenty of fully illustrated content! The Oricami Curio - This is the blog where I post all our homebrew. It is a bit behind in content but I am trying to post daily to catch up! You can find the most updated collection on my Instagram

Ko-fi Shop - Here you can purchase map asset packs, micro setting leaflets, D&D related merch, and more! You can also sign up for one of the tiers to get early access to my homebrew, shop discounts, and even more rewards! Drawings and Dragons - On Tuesdays @ 9PM EST I stream with my friend @loreofmars. We talk out our personal TTRPG campaigns, and love to hear about yours! All the while I am drawing the homebrew items for the week.

Comic

My friend @loreofmars and I make a webcomic called Outcaste! It updates every other Monday! Read it on Webtoon

Folding Planets - This is the main blog for @loreofmars and my partnership. It will have the most updated information on the comic and any other projects we end up working on.

Comic Corner - On Tuesdays @ 8:00PM EDT @loreofmars and I stream the comic art and talk about the comic creation process and answer your comic related questions!

General Art

I post mostly OC related content, but there is also a mix of fanart! If you like more character focused art and semi-anthropomorphic designs my art might be for you!

Art Blog - This is where you can find the conglomeration of just my art, as I don’t reblog any other content there.

Gaming

@loreofmars, my partner Dylan, and I play games (mostly visual novel types) and generally goof off. If you like that sort of thing you should check us out! 2 Aces & an Attorney - We stream our play throughs of visual novel games (mostly Ace Attorney). You can join us for the live experience where you can see all our goof ups and blunders and force me to let Mars and Dylan rest. YouTube - If Live Streams are not your thing, or you just can’t make the sessions, you can check out our YouTube channel, where I post long form, edited videos of the streams so you won’t miss out on the fun! These videos are a bit behind what we streamed that week, but you can find daily shorts of last week’s session there as well!

I hope you can find something you like over in this little corner of the internet. I look forward to it!

#pinned post

0 notes

zolf-loadsahitpoints-smith · 2 years ago

Text

ok since everyone else is doing it i’m gonna throw my hat into the ring with my own completely unfounded, vibes-based tma theory that’s probably not right but would be cool as hell:

a magnus archives ttrpg!

JUST THINK ABOUT IT!

how cool would it be to have a system where players can choose between being the archivist, an assistant, an avatar, or even just a victim! aligning yourself with the powers gives you certain abilities and weaknesses as does working at the institute. i imagine it would be a very lethal system. most characters will die and every time someone fails a roll against a malevolent force they come closer to being claimed by one of the powers.

all the characters have two meters kinda like honey heist, human and monster. every time they make a connection or reject power they gain a point in human. every time they break a bond or give in to darkness they take a point in monster. if a character maxes out human they are saved from the powers and can be retired into safety. if they max out monster they lose their humanity and are now under the gm’s control. i imagine it would be a cross between powered by the apocalypse and call of cthulhu. they would probably also set up a game with cast members to promote it, maybe on the main feed or a new one (which could be what “the magnus archives 2” is referring to).

some possible class options

archivist: you know but do not understand. automatically eye aligned. you have the power to compel people and to read minds. you have a reputation within the avatar world whether you’re aware of it or not and they will do favors for you. you are dependent upon the Eye for continued survival and will slowly lose your humanity unless you can do something about it.

assistant: you didn’t sign up for all this. you have research skills and a secret that motivates you to keep going. however, you don’t have the notoriety of the archivist and it’s your job to keep them grounded. you are also very easy to kill.

avatar: you fully signed up for this. depending on your alignment your powers could range from invisibility to being a human candle. you are vulnerable to the archivist and possibly something mundane like fire extinguishers.

monster: i am not a who archivist, i am a what you remember very little about who you were before you were what you are now, if you ever even were anything else. you have more powers than the avatar but you are even more vulnerable to the archivist and if you are somehow cut off from your power you will cease to be. (i think it’d be so fun to play as the not-them personally.)

i also think it’d be fun to toy around with the idea of being a monster hunter, cultist, messiah, victim etc but i need to stop now cuz i have work to do and if i don’t cut myself off i’m just going to create my very own magnus rpg right now

evidence

•jonny and sasha literally run a ttrpg company

•alex is a gm who loves hurting his players in new and exciting ways (source: literally all of rqg)

•a lot of the main cast/crew are otherwise involved in ttrpgs and would probably be totally hyped for this

•it would be fucking awesome

#the magnus archives #tma #martin blackwood #jonathan sims #magnus pod #statement remains #rqg #rusty quill gaming #ttrpg #dnd

56 notes · View notes

thedungeondoctor · 3 years ago

Text

How to Write A Great Plot-Hook for Your TTRPG!

You've decided to run a new TTRPG game for your friends, and you want to get them engaged with a great plot hook from the start. Whether you're new to running the game or you have some experience, plot hooks are something a lot of people struggle with. You can search online for long lists of hooks on various websites, and sometimes that's all you need, but now you want to write them on your own. Maybe you want it to be original or maybe you have some unique conditions to your game that don't fit with other prompts.

The path to writing a great hook doesn't change depending on what TTRPG you're playing, what the conditions of your world are, or what type of players you have. A great hook is about making a connection with the characters and not using a specific event that may or may not fit in your world. In the very beginning we all learn the most basic hook of all and that is to drop word of someone needing help, which is an obvious sign that says, "start here." This really only works because the players use their meta knowledge and take the hint. What you want is a hook that captures the characters themselves.

Let's look at the three best formats to create a plot hook! Each of these has hundreds different ways to be executed.

1. Make something happen to your characters.

This is my absolute favorite way to start any campaign. It's the most engaging way to start, it gets player's hearts pumping or minds turning. There's no wondering if they will take the bait, you don't have to struggle with whether you made the clues obvious enough, or if they will run off in different direction. It's almost full proof.

Let your characters put their foot into some trouble, or have some phenomena happen to them, or let them come face to face with a natural danger. Anything that requires immediate action from the players works. There are many different forms this can come in and you're bound to find one that can link to your larger campaign ideas.

Here's 5 examples to kickstart your brain:

A. A ball of chain lighting strikes the party from the skies and leaves X effect.

B. Mistaken identity leads to the players being hunted down.

C. A sickness befalls the characters, and they must find a cure.

D. While traveling the characters fall into underground ruins.

E. Someone in a tavern accidently sets off a magical (or technological) item and does X to the characters.

2. Use consequences to engage players and characters.

This is my second favorite way to hook players in. This is not putting consequences directly on your characters, as in making something happen to them. In this format, you present a problem to them that has significant, even profound, consequence. Often, players will want to be a part of these events. The juicier the consequence the more engaged they will be. Remember when Luke Skywalker came across the message from the princess with the Deathstar plans? Remember when Frodo was told evil would come and threaten the Shire if he didn't leave with the ring? Present your characters with an opportunity to play a role in something larger than themselves and they will almost always jump at the chance.

Here are 5 examples to kickstart your brain:

A. An unassuming NPC is being hunted and their death would bring dire consequences to the area/town/nation etc.

B. Players discover documentation that holds terrible secrets. They may need to be exposed or hidden, but the consequences will shake those in power.

C. While exploring an abandoned structure (or any location), players find a mighty hero dying and they pass along their quest to the players.

D. Players accidently disturb a powerful enchantment (or technology) and if it cannot be fixed it will have terrible consequences.

E. Players discover something archeological (or of another nature) that turns scholarly knowledge on its head. It will shake the world as your players know it and people will definitely kill to suppress it.

3. Mystery!

This is perhaps the most fun choice, but sometimes the most difficult to do. When we think of mystery, we all usually think of a who-dun-it situation. This classic can be a great hook, but you need the characters to be invested in discovering the truth. There are two ways I like to use the classic who-dun-it scenario. My go-to is doing a murder mystery with the players trapped in the location with a group of people, and the killer of course. Your characters should want to know for their safety, and the players usually love the fun of it. The second way I use that scenario is with a murder at a public event that the characters have attended. This will usually spark everyone's interest.

While a who-dun-it is always a grand time and is the easiest way to present a mystery, there are even better ways to use mystery as a plot hook. I like to use mystery when my main story arch involves extraordinary events and highly powerful figures. The best ways to use mystery are to defy what characters know to be true or possible, present truly bizarre events or behavior, or use strong consequential implications. No matter what you want your mystery to be, here's how you should hook your players: create a sequence of events (or pieces of evidence) that the players have ample opportunity to stumble over that are instantly mind boggling and difficult to resist. A great example of this is the beginning of the old sci-fi movie Sphere (give it a quick google).

There are so many different ways to begin, but I highly suggest not starting off with subtlety. Shove a mystery right in their faces and let them get that spark of interest and imagination.

Here are 5 examples to kickstart your brain:

A. Through gossip, business, or investigation, players realize that an individual has been spotted in two places at the same time.

B. A letter is delivered to your characters from them in the future.

C. Players discover that huge amounts of money have been disappearing unnoticed.

D. Several NPCs were seen carrying out the exact same actions at the same time, but none of them have any memory of it.

E. Players come to a town where everyone refers to leaders that don't seem to exist, but their stories are all consistent, and players cannot catch anyone interacting with these entities.

I promise, if you use these three formats and put some creativity into your plans your players will always be hooked at the start of your campaign. If you have any questions or need help with your planning, feel free to contact me. Remember, I do offer to write components for your game such as hooks, towns, characters, cultures, governments, gods, religions, a story arch, and anything else you might need to run your TTRPG! Message me for details.

#ttrpg #rpg #dnd #D&D #roleplay #Fantasy #Scifi #plot hook #writing #gaming #DM #GM #Dungeon Master #Game Master

30 notes · View notes

dailyadventureprompts · 1 year ago

Text

I know sex sells but I've always found that "casual sexualization" so odd particularly because there's a faction of older comic/videogame/ttrpg fans who treat it almost as a sort of safety blanket, like if their inner adolescent isn't being constantly titillated it's suddenly a sign of the end times (insert clip of that one weird 40yo complaining that the new she-ra isn't hot enough).

Maybe it's because I had my sexual awakening in the era of the internet but I don't need my media to be porn, I have porn for that, whether it be original smut or lewd fanworks for non lewd properties. I don't understand the prurient desire to muddle the two especially in the case of works that aren't intended to get the audience horny.

This is mostly from the perspective of someone who's had to wade through wayyy too much uselessly sexy elf art while looking for good sources for image prompts, as well as having to deal with a number older players who were VERY insistent on letting the table (especially any women who happened to be present) know that their characters (and they) were interested in sex at any opportunity.

Every so often (okay, mostly when I'm reading a r/hobbydrama post) I open a page of some mainstream superhero comic with a female protagonist, and do genuinely have a moment where I look at the costume and character design and wonder if I somehow accidentally opened a porn parody instead.

700 notes · View notes

changeling-crafts · 2 years ago

Text

Character and Runes

Maybe you're negotiating with a dragon, fighting off a horde of zombies or piloting a spaceship. Instead of rolling dice to determine the outcome, you will toss runes out on a flat surface and if the number of upright ones surpass the upside down ones then you succeeded! The difference between upright and upside down is the degree to your success or failure, 4 upright is just succeeding and 7 upright is a total success.

Each character gets 7 runes and each rune will connect to a character trait. Good traits to put on runes are the sort that can make your character's life easier OR harder depending on the context. If you are familiar with the game Fate, this is similar to their concept of aspects.

For my first character in this world I used a handy dandy tarot spread to get me started.

In addition to player characters, this spread is great for any NPCs you might interact with a whole bunch, like rivals, team mates, the big bad evil guy, or even your best friend!

"Melody" used to be one of the performers from a small theater troupe, who is now on the run after debt collectors demanded that they pay all their debt immediately or be strong-armed into working for them. They hope to make enough money to pay off their debts so they can rejoin their troupe, while staying under the debt collectors radar. They also want to fulfill the promises they made before coming back. Some of these promises include making an elaborate costume for one of their friends, writing a short play, and learning how to play a new instrument. Currently they are on the road to the nearby city of Finas, to hopefully make some new friends and earn some money.

The runes I've chosen for this character and what they represent are as follows

Sun – ambitious, unfulfilled promises, very optimistic view of their future (despite the circumstance)

Mouth – friendly, making new friends, keeping in touch with the old ones through letters, hates to be disliked

Butterfly – impulsive, good at improv, often improvises their music, irresponsible with money

Shield – stubborn, ashamed of needing to run away, won't resort to theft no matter what, stand up for their friends

Star – restless, always starting something new, can't stand boredom

Mask – performer, just a tad melodramatic, music, acting, costume creation, prop creation

Coin – in debt, trying to save up, on the run

Since I wanted to have a whole bunch of characters I could switch between, I chose to make around 20 different generic runes that I could pick from to represent each character's traits. As for the actual physical runes themselves,the options are endless. So long as it has two sides and has roughly equal chances of falling on both sides you will be golden. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Formed from salt dough or air dry clay

Coins

Buttons

Cardboard box segments

Flat stones

Bits of wood

Folded and glued book pages

Cut and sanded popsicle sticks

Shells

The symbols on each rune can be whatever you want so long as you can tell them apart. J.R.R. Tolkien's fancy schmancy elf letters? Go for it! Different road signs? Why not! Original symbols lovingly designed by you? Absolutely! If you want some inspiration for simple generic symbols I highly recommend looking at Rotate Bird, a ttrpg by David J Prokopetz, @prokopetz which has a big ole list of lil symbols for its own game mechanics. By whatever method you come up with the symbols the next thing you gotta do is write down what they mean to your character.

Here are a few ways to document rune meanings

Draw each rune in the center of it's own page, journal and draw about what it means

A strip of paper folded into zig zags, a rune described on each section

A portrait of your character, with the runes appearing in their design, arrows pointing them out and describing what they mean

A pop up, like a waterfall card

Written in an origami fortune teller

Just write the meanings on the backs of the runes themselves

The road to Finas is not empty, though. Ahead on the trail is another traveler dressed in clothes that more resemble pajamas than they do daywear, walking alongside an incredibly scruffy looking creature. Being the sort of person Melody is, they will do their best to introduce themselves in a friendly manner. (I toss the runes, the sun, mask and shield are upright. Based on which runes are face up I decide that Melody came off too strong.) Eyret offers her name but not much else, she seems intimidated by Melody’s over the top introduction. Oh dear, not the best start to making new friends.

Tomorrow we will talk about strain

#fortunes path #indie ttrpg #solo game

2 notes · View notes

megabuild · 1 year ago

Text

i don't think i'd hate him at first but i don't think we'd really get along like he probably works at a coffee shop or a game store or something locally i go to a lot and the first time we meet i'm asking if they have like a limited edition copy of a game or a pre-order set or something and he isn't unkind but he sort of scoffs and tells me i don't have any hope of getting it now like i'm some sort of idiot or beneath him. and that pisses me off so i'm like well can you go to the back and see if you have any copies please and he does but i can see him like idling just beyond the door pretending to look and i get mad and leave. but we end up meeting more times because the shop is super convenient and we get to chatting about my purchases because it turns out we have a lot of shared interests and eventually one time he's like hey my shift ends in like ten minutes want to grab coffee and i'm like okay i never really thought it would go like this but sure you're not that bad a guy, and we get along fine and he makes me laugh and we end up agreeing to meet again. and this is all well and good and we're both pretty happy but things start to go wrong. like he has this ttrpg group that he's super invested in and tells me about and he loves it so much but when i'm like oh maybe i could come listen in or get involved in another campaign or something trying to appeal to his interests he gets all cagey and weird about it so i end up just dropping it. or one time i go over to his apartment which is sort of messy but like he's made the attempt at least to clear it which i appreciate and i'm going to the bathroom but i can't find it and i end up in his bedroom and he has a floor to ceiling glass cabinet with various funko pops which is a bit scary in itself but when i get closer i realise these are all like custom paintjobs of people i don't recognise not even celebrities or characters just regular people like, maybe store patrons or some shit, and tango comes in behind me and frowns and is like "y/n what are you doing here" and i apologise and laugh and i'm like i didn't know you did this sort of thing haha cause secretly i'm like oh this guy is a freak freak but he's kinda cute so i try to go along with it but he doesn't bite and doesn't want to talk about it so i drop it again and we go back through and eat the greasy ass pizza he ordered in after saying he would cook tonight while watching like idk fucking. you on netflix. and we have loveless sex afterwards but on top of that all the funko pops are still in his room staring at me and the entire situation unsettles me so badly that we start to drift apart and i start going to a different store that has a wider selection of games and i end up with a new boyfriend and the whole fling is like an unpleasant memory but one day i go back to the old store just for convenience and i just so happen to overhear his coworkers talking like hey what happened to tango? we haven't heard from tango recently and i learn he hasn't been showing up to work and they can't get a hold of him. and i'm worried because deep down i don't think he's bad just a bit odd so i go to his flat and the front door is unlocked and something compels me to go straight to his bedroom where all the funko pops are and my heart is pounding and i open the bedroom door and. there is a long police investigation after i don't come home that is inconclusive and neither of us are ever found and there's no signs of foul play no blood or damage to the walls, if i left i wasn't taken forcefully, and they don't suspect tango at all because he has no record. but maybe, just maybe, a week after the investigation is closed my boyfriend gets a knock at the door and when he opens it nobody is there but there's a small box. and when he opens that box there are tiny replicas of me and tango with square heads and blank lifeless eyes

sometimes i feel like people assume when i make big long rambling posts that make no sense but are vaguely funny that i'm like trying to be funny or off the wall on purpose to get notes. but i just had a really long vivid daydream about what it would be like to have a summer fling with c!tango that ended in both our demises so rest assured i'm just like this

#mine

87 notes · View notes

bardicknowledgeblogger · 5 years ago

Text

Critical Story Beats

While it’s not really an aspect of the rules anymore, a lot of us who play D&D and other similar TTRPGs like to make use of the Nat 20 = Auto Success, Nat 1 = Auto Fail rule with varying degrees of success and excitement.

I’ve seen people post their stories of Nat 20s and 1s resulting in hilarious and ridiculous moments as a DM allows the player to get away with something they probably shouldn’t have been able to, or failed horribly at something that really should have been easy to accomplish. I’ve read posts from frustrated DMs trying to keep players with godlike luck from just auto succeeding encounters they shouldn’t be able to waltz through like this. And in my own games, I’ve simply seen Crits be... well, not much. You succeed or fail in a way that doesn’t really make much of a difference from a normal success or failure.

Obviously everyone runs their games a bit differently, and there’s not anything wrong with having silly story moments or more low key interactions at your table if that’s what works for you. But lately, I’ve been trying to challenge myself to make moments in my stories more engaging, and that includes handling Critical Failures and Successes. So I wanted to share a few different ideas, philosophies, etc... on how to handle these rolls! Hopefully you find some things to apply to your own games as well!

(This is mainly on how to make the most of your Nat 20s and Nat 1s - if there’s interest I will make a different post about how to handle problems with it, such as succeeding the impossible and how to curb that without players losing “faith” in their Crits)

Everything below the cut because it’s a tad long...

Making Things Interesting

This has been a guiding philosophy for me lately in all of games, as I strive to make sure that every choice made, while still narratively coherent and satisfying, is also as interesting and intriguing as possible. I want my players to feel enraptured with every moment, and that idea has carried over into my narration of critical fails and successes.

In the past, I wasn’t very good at handling Crits, especially the failures. In a combat, if a player rolled a Nat 1 for their attack, my response was often to have them just.... drop their weapon, or a spell just failed to cast. It wasn’t very interesting and proved to just irritate and frustrate the players because it was a minor inconvenience that resulted in a wasted turn and nothing more. Similarly, Nat 20s in many non-combat situations were the same as usual successes with the added flourish of “You do it flawlessly” Which was.... fine, but not very exciting. This year, I started to try and change things.

When a player rolls a Nat 1 or a Nat 20, I take a moment to pause as I think “What would be the most interesting thing to happen in this situation? What bad thing could completely shift the tide in this one moment and introduce a new conflict/what amazing thing could shift everything in their favor and create a satisfying and exciting moment for all?”

A recent example I’ve had of this - My players were navigating through a massive underground cavern, and were entering a larger room that was pretty dark and had some unique traits that had been different from the rest of the cave system. I had my players roll Perception, to see how many of these details they picked up on, and one of the players rolled a Nat 1. Now, in the past, I would have made some joke about them being too busy watching their feet to make sure they didn’t trip that they didn’t notice anything happening around them. But this time around, after some consideration, I decided on something different.

What if instead, they were so focused on trying to see something, trying to see anything, that they started seeing and hearing things that weren’t really there. Many of us have been in that position before - it’s late at night and you get an uncomfortable feeling so you look around in the dark of your room, and suddenly you feel like you definitely saw something move out of the corner of your eye, or heard a shuffling noise. So that’s what I did.

While the other players started to get details about how the cavern was carved out, signs of drawings on the walls, etc... the player who rolled a Nat 1 became convinced that they could hear whispers and shuffling in the darkness, could see dark shapes flitting about just at the edges of their vision. They started to panic and nearly started blind firing spells in an attempt to chase whatever it was off and had to be coaxed the rest of the way through the cavern.

Instead of a forgettable moment, it become a defining experience for this player as they navigated through the cavern - an experience that has shaped them in some way. And that’s the goal.

How Do You Want To Do This?

If you’re a fan of Critical Role then you’re familiar with this line and the excitement it can summon up. This is something you can carry into your games as well in regards to Critical Successes.

Now obviously not everything is going to be something you can give any player control over. But allowing the player the opportunity to really bring the vision of their character to life for an exciting conclusion to an encounter, or for any epic moment really, does a lot to build hype and excitement in the game. It make players eager to see that 20 come up on their die, and gears them up for what is coming next.

The easiest place to put this into practice is in combat. Obviously this works incredibly well if they get a Critical Strike that finishes the enemy off, as you can give them full control of the narrative if you’d like. However, there are still ways to apply it in the combat even if they aren’t finishing it off.

I try to reward my player’s combat crits by turning the tide of the fight pretty drastically, allowing them to stagger or even cripple the opponent with their attack. If your players seem eager to engage with narrative and add their own flavor and flare to the actions of their character, this can be a great place to allow them to do so. You can tell them “Your attack manages to cripple the opponent’s arm - how do you want to do this?” And let them build their role in the story. It may not be quite as spectacular as you had originally imagined, or perhaps its something completely different from what you would have done - either way, it is likely to get your players more engaged, and way more excited for these strikes.

Extra Rewards and Penalties

Finally, and something I’ve already vaguely alluded to in the previous sections, you can handle Crit Fails and Successes with “extras”. Sometimes a player fails or succeeds a task where there’s not a lot you can do with it - Maybe they’re picking a lock, and they roll a Nat 20 to do so. There’s unfortunately not a lot they can get beyond succeeding to unlock it (unless you had planned additional traps or something that they can now bypass) so in these instances, I try to think about what extra they might get out of the situation.

Maybe as they re-positioned themselves to finish unlocking the door, they jostled a nearby potted plants and noticed that just in the dirt was a small ring of keys that may be able to be used on other doors or chests within this place. Maybe, if you were planning an encounter in the next room for a guard they were going to alert coming in, they find that guard asleep and you mention that the player was so expertly silent with their lockpicking they didn’t alert or awaken the guard, allowing the players to bypass him altogether.

Obviously there are still some limitations here, and it may not be the most exciting thing, but it can still elevate a success from “Yay, you did it just like you would have if you rolled one of the other 3 numbers” to being something special. This same principle can be applied with Nat 1s, if they fail at something that simple can’t have consequences.

I mentioned my Perception example above, but sometimes a Perception check simply can’t be twisted into anything more. So in addition to them missing out on whatever was going to be noticed, give them something extra to focus on instead. Maybe they trip over something and twist their ankle - not enough to have major mechanical effect, but enough to be frustrating and something to keep them preoccupied from the other information. Or perhaps they see something that is ultimately useless but stands out to them - a shiny pebble on the side of the road that has a strange green hue to it. If the player really plays along and even takes the pebble, trying to determine what it does, this is something you can potentially play with later. Maybe the pebble is a mark used by goblins to track potential people to rob? Perhaps the stone grows bigger every day until they start receiving movement penalties. They possibilities are truly limitless.

There’s obviously a lot more you can do, but these are the things I’ve been trying to incorporate into my own games. I want there to be magic to seeing a 20 come up on the die, and a sense of dread to seeing a 1. I don’t want it to be a minor annoyance, I want it to be a defining moment in the story.

As mentioned at the top - I will look at doing another one talking about how to handle Impossible Successes and Failures if there’s some interest!

#d&d #dungeons and dragons #rpg #dming #dm tips #critical success #critical failure #crit #crit fail

62 notes · View notes

faejilly · 4 years ago

Text

I was tagged by @la-muerta & @facialteeth & @thedivinemissema for the WIP/Title Game

rules: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and i’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

AND THEN by @shadoedseptmbr @msviolacea & @ravenclawnerd for the “stories you want to write... but for some reason haven’t yet”

so this will be a mish-mash of both? The WIPs will mostly have blurbs in this case (to fit the second meme) but you are still welcome to ask follow-up questions, if you’d like ;) Assuming you make it through the list, it is uh. Not Short.

Anyone who would like to play with their WIPs, please consider yourself tagged in either or both of these. :D

Misc Fic Folder:

“untitled document” - where I’m working on fictober fills so I have word-counts for my GYWO tracker. I am not working on these because Brains Are Dumb and also Going Back To Work Is Exhausting

I made a file called “YULETIDE!” which has nothing in it but I’m determined to finish this year so that is definitely technically a thing in the Unending WIP List of Doom worth mentioning. (Tho obviously that’s all I could say even if I had started, because anonymous.)

“coda-fics, rewatch!” -yes, that exclamation mark is important! it’s to keep me motivated! (it didn’t work). Much like untitled, this is for putting stuff so I can do word count tracking even if I don’t know what I’m doing. Currently I think it just says “MARYSE” because I was working on my SH 1x6 coda-fic and then got distracted and haven’t typed anything up yet. (Yay notebooks? Boo notebooks? Not even sure at this point.)

WNIP (works not in progress) Folder:

“TOG” - I had one vivid mental image of how Nicky & Joe met (blood-stained evil smiles?) but then no idea for a follow-up story and also the fandom is insane and I’m not sure I want to deal with all of *gestures vaguely* all that

“Shan Xia Notes” -for a TTRPG that never quite got off the ground; she was a semi-tragic selkie who was still in love with the evil queen/lady who stole her skin and I got to play her for like one session and she was surprisingly chaotic neutral, which wasn’t at all what I’d been expecting. But the game never really got off the ground, so I never had enough info to really delve into writing backstory fic

“post-Kruschev” -Kruschev’s List was the last episode of Scarecrow & Mrs King, and I was debating writing an epilogue in place of the s5 we never got, to try and tie up some loose ends, but the fandom’s three old-ladies in trench coats and I never quite worked up the gumption to get it anywhere

“Code Realize warm as silk sequel” -there is literally nothing in this file except “SEX! Only a little angst” because I wanted to write some “we can’t actually touch each other” smut but never actually did. 🤷‍♀️

BioWare (also all Not-In-Progress Anymore)

“seb/adelaide”, “Theia” & “DAI Erana” -these WIP folders were cannibalized for ficlets for the last few times I did fictober, and while originally I had ideas for longer epilogues for all three of them, at this point I don’t think any of the remaining bits could support a story any longer.

”whispers in the dark” -Maia Ryder never really got much fic at all; the cancellation of any further Andromeda stuff was really disheartening, and at this point I’d have to play the game again, and I don’t think I’m gonna manage that any time soon

”TSP” -a Mass Effect 3 Shepard AU collab project that kind of went off the rails, and our mutual brains/lives never quite seem to line up so we can try and rebuild it ”Ngaio & Tane” -my one truly ruthless Shepard (Alliance background, who romanced Traynor) whose father Tane Shepard was, I think, in PsyOps, and I wanted to figure out their complicated relationship but never really did know where I was going with it

”JE Zu & Yaling” -so I’ve rambled about my Tragic Sagacious Zu Romance Thoughts regarding Jade Empire more than once (#Icy Yaling should have most of it) but apparently I want to yell about it more than I want to actually write it? Whoops.

”CI sequel: 5 times fic?” -Cruel Intentions is a kinkmeme fill that I started and then it sat for like five years before I actually finished it, and I liked the ending, but it does leave a giant fucking question mark in terms of how those people got from there to where they are after the game, and I kind of wanted to write a proper h/c fic rather than just... leaving them wallowing in all that trauma?

But I didn’t. I don’t even remember for sure how I wanted to frame the 5/1 of it all, besides it being something sad about allowing people to see you or touch you in some way. (Prayers maybe, since I think there was definitely some Sebastian & Fenris & faith stuff going on in there.)

“candles” -Merribela prompt fill that I never was happy with? Not sure what I might do with it at this point, so it’s just sitting there all sad and lonely and neglected-like.

Shadowhunters

pt1: WIP LIST ONLY

“Persuasion” -so I keep trying to write Persuasion AUs in many fandoms because it’s my favorite Austen, but I think I like it too much, I have no real solid concept of how I’d transform it, and if I don’t have anything else to say about different characters within that framework, I have no push to actually write anything? Also this SH version of it suffered from MASSIVE scope creep when I started outlining and it got too big for me to handle so I like, killed it twice? Whoops. This one is really probably never gonna happen.

“oosdt sequel” -I wanted to write more about the Forest That Eats People and Magnus & Alec as Guardians Between Worlds, and also some background Magnus’ Found Family & Lightwood Family Feels (maybe some clizzy?) and I left a Madzie plot-thread dangling from the first one on purpose even but I think this one had too many ideas and not enough focus so it’s sort of sprawling all over a doc with a lot of “???” in it

“procedural-ish” -this was originally going to be a sex-farce. and then it turned more serious. and then maybe kind of copaganda which was uncomfortable in terms of the Everything That Is The News in 2020, and then maybe it was more a Mafia AU and at that point I had self-inflicted tone whiplash and I wished the voices in my head were a little more forthcoming about their plans so I stopped before I brained myself on my computer monitor in frustration.

“I had rather a rose than live forever” -I started a reverse!verse Malec (Shadowhunter!Magnus, High Warlock!Alec) for bingo last year, and I couldn’t quite get it together in time, so I made a moodboard inspired by the bits I’d started instead. I may see if one of my prompts from Bingo this year help me finish it?

“fall fright fest (practical magic au)” -exactly what it says on the tin! almost exactly a year old & neglected! IDEK ANYMORE (I talked about this one with the WIP meme last time tho: here)

“priest!kink theology?” -I thought it was gonna be smut? I like priest!kink. I have made other people like it and yell at me even! But then I kept diverging into demon!Magnus thinking about Priest!Alec’s faith and as usual, IDEK ANYMORE *laughs*

(If they’re remotely canon-adjacent or divergent, a bunch of these are in here because I need to rewatch the show to get the pacing/timing/tone right and I haven’t, and I don’t know why, because I enjoy the show, but BRAINS! Are Dumb! So I guess that’s it?)

“I do” -I have tried to write this damnable Malec arranged marriage fic like six different times. I have signed up for fic exchanges and bangs with it, I have rewritten massive sections, trying to change tone or structure or POV or whatever, and it basically comes down to they like each other too fast and I keep not gutting it enough to get back to a useful pace, but by the time I realized that I was on take six and kind of sick of it. I may get back to it eventually

“wing!fic” -canon divergent in early s1, trying to deal with the consequences of Simon’s kidnapping as the Truly Serious Event that it should have been. It uh. Got heavier than I expected with those consequences (considering it was originally just supposed to be Alec’s wings flirting with Magnus) and also see above re: rewatching for pacing.

“2x20 aftermath/date night/pandemonium porn“ -yes that is the actual wip title. It used to be “spite fic” because I was originally inspired by fighting against a lot of fic!Alec characterization that was clearly based more on the books and ATG syndrome than the Alec in the show, which is the Alec I know and like and want to read about. BUT, pacing and etc. again, I think. Also I have somehow entirely lost my knack for writing porn, which makes it difficult to finish something originally intended to be smut!fic. Or even teasing almost!smut.

“rubbish heap” -so this is about three different fics that I realized complemented each other really well so they’re now all in the same file as I try to turn them into the sequel of “with an if in its soul”. It includes amnesia, parabatai lore shenanigans, a s3 rewrite, and some truly awful Owl adjustments that make me wince in horrified authorly delight and pain. BUT, as with the other ones in this file, the scope is large and I normally write short-fic and I kind of just threw up my hands in exasperation. I may have to break it back up into the three different fics instead, if I ever actually want to write it. Them? But also I need to take better notes on s3 to make sure I have what I need in here.

SH Pt 2: Started posting or not yet in hiatus because it’s actually almost ready to be a thing in the real world! maybe!?

“kisses (firsts)” -I actually started publishing this one, a “series of firsts” that was supposed to be kind of relationship milestones and kind of an excuse for smut, and then there wasn’t that much smut and I lost momentum and also dear lords & ladies the timeline is stupid, wtf. I may not ever add to this one, tbqh. It doesn’t stop in a terrible place, and they’re all ficlets so they stand alone all right.

“clizzy epilogue” -this is blank atm, it’s more a reminder for me to keep poking away at my “girls who can’t breathe air, only fire” collection BECAUSE I WOULD LIKE TO ACTUALLY GET TO THE CLIZZY AT SOME POINT

"mer!alec" -pts 2-4 of a series, but apparently having an actual plan gets in the way of me *writing* the thing, and I haven't managed to throw the half an outline far enough away from my brain to be able to write again. Or something like that.

"ibhww" -if broken hearts were whole is a soulmate fic I started a million years ago, and purposefully set aside to finish some other WIPs because I thought they'd be quick, and now it's just buried under two and a half years of regret and shame so it's hard to get back to it

"iafy" -i am for you is a delightful & frothy semi-epistolary fluff piece that also just lost momentum because Life & 2020 & etc. It's far and away the most popular thing I've ever posted on AO3, which also makes me feel weird sometimes, and I feel like the fact that there's no grand conclusion planned, just a bit more fluff and settling in, might end up being disappointing? Basically, it's the first time I think I've psyched myself out about reader expectations, and until I get over that I'm going to have trouble finishing the last couple chapters. (There really are probably only two more chapters though. IT’S SO CLOSE, I wish I could just... write it. And yet?)

“fake-hating” -I do not like fake dating as a trope that much, I just do not get it, but I love outside POVs and arranged marriages and there’s this delighful tumblr post about how they wished there was more fic about people who were together but had to pretend they werent’, and uh. This may be that? Eventually? I’m not exhausted by my failure to finish it yet, so it’s still in the regular folder rather than the hiatus folder, even though nothing’s been posted for it.

AND I THINK THAT’S IT?

Not as terrible as it could be, but still. MANY WORDS THAT MAY NEVER SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY. Posting the equivalent of one’s old ratty sketchbook is always a weird feeling. :D

#on writing #writing memery #unending WIP List Of Doom

14 notes · View notes

astriiformes · 4 years ago

Text

Finally doing a tag meme that @dromaeocore tagged me in like a month ago because time has lost almost all meaning to me. (But thank you for the tag nonetheless, friend!)

Zodiac sign: I put exactly zero stock in astrology and if I needed proof, the fact that I’m supposedly a Scorpio (which is opposite me in every way) is.... telling. I do laugh about it sometimes though. I defy you, stars!

Height: 5′4,″ which mean my claim to fame is being Marty McFly height

Last movie I saw: Song of the Sea a little while ago! I love the Cartoon Saloon movies, their style is really fantastic and unique. And the movie was very cute, I loved the interplay between the kids and ancient myth. (Plus I was very excited to recognize some of the Irish in the movie)

Last thing I googled: “flying squirrel,” for a TTRPG character I’ll be playing tomorrow -- we’re doing a little oneshot of a game called “Squeakeasy” where the premise is you play the staff of an EXTREMELY ILLEGAL UNDERGROUND BAR FOR RODENTS (the game’s words themselves)

Favourite musician: Picking just one is hard so this is more of a “at the moment” thing but I’ve been listening to a LOT of Delta Rae lately

Song stuck in my head: Been listening to too much music today to have an entirely honest answer, but the other day it was“Anchors of the Soul” by Skipinnish, particularly the chorus

Other blogs: Ah. Too many. My D&D group has two blogs that I co-mod, mostly just for us to collect all the art we draw in one place/session recaps and make jokes (@friendshipcampaign and @incorrectfriendshipcampaign). I’ve also got a semi-defunct Gravity Falls aesthetic blog (@weirdnessmagnetism), a blog for my filk group (@astrisoni), and a language-learning blog (@iul-oidhche), and a few other old ones that I should really clear out at this point, but you know. I’ve been here for seven years. These things happen.

Following: 56 blogs, which is actually way up from where it was for a while because I followed some language-learning blogs as part of my goal to work on more of that this year. Some of those are also sideblogs of certain friends whose mains I follow also, I tend to keep my dash small.

Followers: 3,667, apparently, which is wild. I had a much higher rate of people following me back when I was actively creating fandom content, it baffles me a little that I still see a fair number of new folks coming in these days.

Do I get asks: I DO and I’m BAD at answering them. If you ever send me an ask and don’t get a reply it’s about a 50/50 likelihood that either tumblr ate it or I froze when I tried to reply and then it vanished in my mind. It’s absolutely not personal, I love when people want to chat.

Amount of sleep I get: A LOT MORE THAN I USED TO. I was a horrible 4-6hr of sleep gremlin in my teens, and then crashed hard as I entered my twenties. I think there’s a chronic fatigue (or at least chronic illness) component to it but hey, it also looks more like an actual sleep schedule so like, tradeoffs I guess. Anyways there’s an aesop for all you teens following me: get in your reckless nights while you can.

Lucky numbers: I was a contrary kid who liked lightly spooky stuff and decided to use 13 for everything I could, so I still have a fondness for it.

Dream job: Oh boy. Anything where I can be both a research scientist and a scicommer to be honest? Being a museum scientist would probably be the dream. I just want to be able to explore things through science and then share that joy and wonder with other people. I think I’d also like to be a science writer on top of whatever I do.

Dream trip: I’ve wanted to go to Iceland for years, so that might be my answer. I want to go so many places though, something big and road trip-style might be the best -- whether in the US, which is an adventure in and of itself, or another continent where it’s easier to country hop.

Favourite food: This is always the WORST question because I’m so picky, but maybe gyros? I have also discovered, on moving to Minnesota, that I am unfortunately taken with cheese curds. (Like, BADLY.... the midwest got me good with that one). And any discussion of my favorite foods would be remiss not to mention my ongoing adoration for black licorice, yes, even the salty stuff.

Instruments: Viola mostly. I used to be a half-decent pianist but I’ve lost almost all of it (though we have a keyboard now and I want to fix that!) Theoretically I have a guitar too but uh. Chords. Chords.

All this ignores the most important instrument I own though, which is more an instrument of chaos than a musical instrument and is “inflicted” more than “played,” which is my beloved electric kazoo that debuted to a room full of intense laughter at OVFF last year. God I love that thing. Best gift ever.

Languages: I can really only claim English. I was decent at Mandarin in high school but the program lapsed halfway through and it’s been enough years that I can barely read characters any more. Currently I’m working on getting my German back up to a high-beginner level -- which I managed once upon a time but then also lost -- and trying to immerse myself in Scottish Gaelic as much as possible, although I’m still very beginner with that one.

So yeah, English, but you know. I’m working on it.

Favourite songs: Another question that’s almost impossible to answer so let me preface that this is not at all comprehensive, but a sampling: Don’t Carry It All, by the Decemberists, Sax Rohmer #1 by The Mountain Goats, These Are the Things by Trials of Cato, Kitchen Heroes by Talis Kimberly, The Mary Ellen Carter (pretty much any version), Spaceman by the Killers, Oh the Places You’ll Go and Shit’s Gonna Be Okay by I Fight Dragons, Dance in the Graveyards by Delta Rae, Dawson’s Christian (PARTICULARLY the Vixy & Tony version), The Show Starts Now by Cloud Cult, Only Satellites by VNV Nation.... listen just. just so many. I love music

Little low-spoons for tagging other people right now so consider this a blanket one -- join in if you want to!

24 notes · View notes

ryqoshay · 4 years ago

Text

Tri-Arame: RPG Night

Primary Pairing Trio: YuuAyuSetsu Secondary Pairings: AiRina, Shizu??? Words: ~2.8k Rating: T’ish for some fantastical violence and a mildly suggestive ending Time Frame: First year of college? Maybe second? Dunno yet Story Arc: Stand Alone (for now... I may indulge more in this later)

Author’s Note: This may be my most self-indulgent chapter yet; doing a crossover of sorts with my own unpublished work and even bringing in my screennamesake. And trying a new formatting style to boot. But after Setsu’s Bond episode revealed she liked TTRPGs, I couldn’t stop thinking about this. Well, except to get sidetracked by writing two other scenes...

Anyway for those who are unfamiliar with my D&D story - read: at least 95% of my readers, probably more but that's the cap for a d20 - names may get a bit messy and confusing. Most of my OCs have a given name, family name and a call sign. And several have nicknames. I’ll give a list of who is playing who here at the start, but for a bit more information on the in-game characters, please refer to the notes in my Followup Post.

Player - Character Call Sign - Character Name Setsuna - Dungeon Master Yuu - Ryqoshay - Rebecca Bouteillevoix Ayumu - Yozakura - Hakumei Yaiba Rina - Nullsilver Luna Ai - Recipere (Rx) - Rachel Ira Xaviera Shizuku - Lady Sanguine - Vivian Sexton / Sanguine

Ryqoshay couldn’t help a smirk as she took careful aim. It didn’t matter that her bodyguard, Yozakura, was engaging her intended target in close quarters, in fact that was a boon. The girl knew her best friend’s fighting style better than anyone, so it was merely a task of picking the right moment. The bandit wouldn’t know what hit him.

Dodge. Feint. Parry. Strike. Now. She released her arrow.

“Nice! A Nat 20! Roll to confirm your crit. Perfect. Now for damage and don’t forget your bonus.”

“Yatta!” Ryqo cheered as the bandit collapsed, clutching his throat where the arrow had struck. The man was dead before he hit the ground and the raven-haired archer scampered toward the blonde ninja. “Yoza-chan! Thanks for keeping him distracted for me!” she threw herself into a tackling hug.

“Y-Yuu-chan?” Yoza stammered. “What are you doing?”

“Yuu-chan?” Ryqo cocked her head to side. “Who’s that? I’m Ryqo, remember?”

“Are you guys talking in character or OOC?”

“O-Oh… uhm, sorry Setsuna-chan… I meant Ryqo-chan.”

“Ne, Ayumu, would a super serious girl like Yozakura really use -chan?”

“Aren’t they childhood friends?”

“Well, yeah, kinda like you and me, but…”

“Honestly, are you two in or out of character?”

“Sorry, Shizuku-chan, we’re still learning our characters.”

“It’s alright. Maybe we can talk more about things after this battle is done?”

The DM cleared her throat. “Anyway, Sanguine, you’re up.”

A manic bout of laughter from nearby caught their attention.

“That’s the last of ‘em!” Lady Sanguine practically shouted as she stood over the bodies of several bandits, her two longswords coated in almost as much blood as she was herself. “Too easy! You guys are a hundred years too early to think you could defeat me. And look, your blood has barely sated my blades. Pitiful! More! I demand more bloodshed!”

“Were we not to leave at least one alive for interrogation?” Recipere made her way over to the redheaded barbarian, healing magicks already gathering around her hands.

“Woops…” Ryqo chuckled, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, while refusing the remove the other arm from around Yoza. “I was just caught up in watching Viv-ne-chan take down all those bad guys that I didn’t want to be left out of the fun.”

“Woah, I got you, I got you, Vivian.” The blonde cleric said as the barbarian collapsed into her arms.

Vivian mumbled something unintelligible as her rage subsided and her personified bloodlust retreated into her mind.

”What’s up, Setsuna-chan?”

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t worry about it.” The DM’s giggles betrayed her words as she read something from her phone. “I’m awarding Inspiration to Vivian Sexton.”

“Thanks.” Shizuku responded with a smile. “This Vivian/Sanguine persona switching thing is turning out to be quite interesting.”

“Ne, Luna-chan!” Ryqo called over to the team’s artificer. “Was that really all of them?”

Nullsiver Luna held a finger to her lips as she stared at some device in her hand. Silence reigned in the roadside clearing for almost a full minute, the local fauna having long since been scared off by the sounds of the battle that had finally ended. Suddenly, the orange-haired girl pointed and a moment later, an anguished cry sounded from a stand of shrubs a short way into the woods. From the sky, something dived into a nearby tree while something else scampered across the road into the brush.

“Race you there, Yoza-chan.” Ryqo let go of her bodyguard and made for the bushes.

“Y… Ryqo, wait! It’s dangerous, let me go first!”

“Nope!” The archer cried happily over her shoulder. “If you wanna get there first, you gotta be faster than me!”

Yozakura couldn’t help releasing a frustrated grumble before she followed her charge. With her training, however, she easily caught up to and passed the other girl, but remained annoyed as the two approached the scene.

“What in Karla’s name are these things?!” A young man, not much older than the two girls cried, his eyes shifting rapidly among several gathered devices.

“They are my familiars.” A blue-haired artificer stepped into view.

“Wait, Rinari, wasn’t Luna’s hair orange earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Huh…”

“Itov Altiui, to me.” Nullsiver held out her arm, upon which the bird-like contraption landed and stood like a well-trained hawk. “Moxt Tonash, Weyog Kornari, maintain your positions.” She instructed the cat-like and spider-like automatons.

“Where did you come up with names like those, Rinari? I love them! You have to tell me what they mean!”

“I’m interested as well, Rina-san. I was intrigued when I read them in your character bio and would love to work something into a future campaign.”

“… I can send it to you two…”

“Thanks, Rinari!”

“Yes, thank you. Anyway, where were we?”

“Those don’t look like any familiars I’ve seen.” The bandit continued.

“I made them.” Luna responded simply.

“Well, now that we have your attention,” Rx suddenly appeared from the direction of the road, a fully healed Vivian in tow “we have a few questions for you.”

“I’m not telling you anything!” The young man practically shouted.

“Oh ho?” The redheaded barbarian grinned, slowly drawing her swords.

The bandit flinched, but otherwise remained defiant.

“We just want to know where your boss and the rest of your gang is hiding.” Ryqo spoke up.

The bandit spat towards the girl’s feet.

“Take me to your leader!” The archer demanded.

“Yuu-chan…”

“What’s the matter, Ayu-pyon? That was hilarious!”

“As amusing as that was,” the DM interjected “I’m afraid neither of your Intimidation checks were successful. Would someone else like to try their hand?”

“Like I said, I ain’t telling you guys nothing!” The bandit insisted. “The boss will kill me if I gave away our hideout’s location.”

“You realize, of course, that we’ll kill you if you don’t.” Rx stated, matter-of-factly.

The young man glanced among Vivian and Yozakura’s blades, Ryqo’s bow and the three automatons. “You guys ain’t got nothing on the boss.”

“Tell me.” The artificer began. “When you cried out earlier, was it because Weyog Kornari bit you?”

“You mean this thing?” He kicked at the spider, which dodged with ease.

“Yes.”

“What of it? It didn’t hurt much.”

Luna raised an eyebrow but did not attempt to dispute the claim. “I believe I should inform you that you have been poisoned.”

“Yeah, so?”

“You may not feel much now, but you will. Soon. Everyone reacts a little different, so you may notice some blurred vision, shortness of breath, chills, perhaps some perspiration despite the chills…” She spoke in an almost unnerving monotone as she continued to list potential symptoms of the toxin.

The bandit held a hand up and stared at its visible shaking.

“Ah. I see. That would be your nerves being attacked at the chemical level.”

The bandit suddenly convulsed.

“It will hurt. A lot.” Luna continued to explain solemnly. “Until it reaches your heart. Then it will hurt more.” She knelt beside him and held out a tiny vial for him to see. “This is the antidote. Only this can save you as I have ensured my poisons cannot be cured by magical means.”

The young man tried to reach for the vial but ended up clutching at his chest before convulsing again and curling into a fetal position.

“Tell us the location of your base of operations.”

“Alr…” The bandit began before choking off. Despite his entire body shaking now, he managed to make what appeared to be a nodding motion.

“Recipere, Lady Sanguine, please hold him.” Luna requested of her guildmates.

“Right.” Rx replied, moving forward, alongside Vivian.

Once the spasming man was secure, Luna pulled the cork from the vial and upturned it into his mouth. Within moments, his shakes began to fade until he lay still completely.

“Is he dead?” Ryqo asked, poking at his arm with the end of her bow.

Vivian delivered a quick backhand across the bandit’s face. His eyes snapped open and he gasped.

“Ready to talk now?” Ryqo leaned over the bandit with an all too cheerful grin. “If you’re really that worried about what your boss might do to you for spilling the beans, let me assure you we’ll be taking care of him as soon as you tell us where he is. Then you’ll be free to run along and join some other bad guys and we’ll meet again when some other town hires us to get rid of you. Sound like a plan? I think it sounds fun.”

The young man stared up in confusion at the archer. His gaze drifted over to Luna, then to the spider automaton and back to the artificer. With a sigh he began to reveal the location of the hideout.

“Alright, that seems like a good place to call things for the night.” Setsuna said, glancing up over the top of her DM screen. “But before I forget, Rina-chan, Nullsilver was the one to get the bandit to talk and your performance was quite chilling so I’m awarding her Inspiration.”

“Mm.” Rina confirmed with a nod.

“Rinari, that was amazing!” Ai marveled, leaning over to throw an arm around her girlfriend and pull her close. “It honestly sent shivers down my spine.” She giggled as she nuzzled the younger girl’s cheek. “Who would’ve thought you could be so evil.”

“Not evil. Just not good.”

“Rina-chan’s right.” Setsuna nodded. “You’re from a guild of mercenaries, technically none of you are good; you’re all Neutral on that scale. Sure, you’re currently contracted with a town that’s more good leaning, but you could just have easily been hired by the bandits instead.”

“Oh dear, is that the time?” Shizuku sighed as she checked her phone. She looked across the table at Ai and Rina. “We’ve missed the last trains of the night.”

“You guys can stay here if you want.” Yuu offered.

“That’s not the problem.” Shizuku lamented. “She’s not going to be happy…” She started typing something on her phone.

Ai laughed. “Just tell her to join us next time.”

“Next session would actually be the perfect time for a new player to join.” Setsuna pointed out. “We can work it into the story that you guys sent for another merc from your guild to assist in the raid of the bandit camp. And I can adjust the threat levels of the encounter as needed.”

Shizuku nodded. “I’ll be sure to ask her again…” Her phone chimed and she frowned upon checking the message. “I know I’m about to get an earful, but I’m going to call her.” She stood up.

“You can use my room.” Yuu said. “If you’re good with a couch, you can use that, otherwise Ayumu will have to help me find our guest futon.”

“Thank you, the couch will be fine.” The younger girl nodded and excused herself.

“Yuyu, you still don’t have an actual bed?” Ai asked.

“I like it.” Yuu shrugged. “Though I suppose there is one bed I prefer these days.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder to indicate Ayumu’s bed behind her.

“Of course.” Ai turned to Setsuna. “So, does that mean we’re to take your room, Setsu?”

“Yes.” Setsuna nodded. “Everything is clean because, well…”

“Because you sleep here.” Ai chuckled.

“Y-yes…”

“Honestly, I’m surprised you all fit.”

“It’s actually quite comfortable.” Ayumu spoke up, somehow managing to sound less embarrassed than the dusting of red on her cheeks would have otherwise indicated.

“Well we’ll leave you to it, then. C’mon, Rinari.” Ai stood and took the pink-haired girl’s hand.

“Mm.” Rina affirmed, allowing herself to be led out of the room.

“Setsuna-chan!” Yuu threw herself at the raven-haired girl as soon as the door closed.

“Yuu-san? Wha…?” Though the behavior was by no means out of the ordinary, it still surprised Setsuna.

“I’m sorry!”

“Huh?”

“I spent the entire night flirting with Ayumu.”

“You mean your character flirted with hers.”

“Yeah.”

“But, that was perfectly in character? I figured you two would act that way based on the bios you gave me for them.”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t want you to feel left out.”

Upon realizing what Yuu meant, Setsuna laughed lightly. However, she stopped when she felt herself being embraced from the other side as well. “Ayumu-san?”

“Yuu-chan is right,” the redhead said softly “we don’t want you to feel left out.”

“You guys, I…”

“Hey, I know!” Yuu interrupted. “There’s a bunch of other mercs in the guild, right? Why not write up a character of your own to join in the campaign?”

“That’s a good idea.” Ayumu agreed. “I’d like to see what kind of character Setsuna-chan might play.”

“And then I could have my character flirt with Setsuna-chan’s in-game as well!” Yuu concluded.

Setsuna’s mind spun through several possibilities. But as she glanced back and forth between the faces of her two girlfriends, still snuggled in close, something snapped. “Impossible! I can’t!” She cried before a wave embarrassment washed over her from the outburst. “I mean… I…” she fumbled to explain “I have enough to do as DM running the game. It would be too distracting to try to play a character on top of that. Especially if…” She trailed off.

“Especially if…?” Yuu pressed.

“… Especially if you two were flirting with me…” Setsuna admitted sheepishly.

Yuu laughed. “Don’t worry, Setsuna-chan, it would probably be just me doing the flirting, I don’t think Ayumu knows how.”

“I do too know how to flirt.” Ayumu stated, reaching across Setsuna to punch Yuu lightly in the arm.

“Pouting isn’t flirting, it’s just cute.” Yuu pointed out in an amused tone.

“Mmph...” Ayumu puffed her cheeks.

“Case in point.”

“Ayumu-san was indeed very cute tonight with her reactions to Yuu-san.” Setsuna recalled, thankful for a moment’s respite as Yuu focused on Ayumu. “You played your characters well and were in perfect sync in battle. I’m really looking forward to our next session.”

“We did good?” Yuu blinked.

“Very much so.” Setsuna nodded. “With the exceptions of the occasional name slip and confusion about in or out of character talk, but those kinds of things happen in many games. So, honestly, if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have guessed this was the group’s first session together.”

“Oh…”

“Huh?”

“Well, it’s just I thought I wasn’t doing as good as the others because I never earned any Inspiration awards.” Yuu explained. “Ayumu didn’t either.”

Setsuna replayed the night’s game in her head, scouring it for memories of each award. She had recorded them in a document on her laptop, but with her girlfriends hanging off her arms, she was unable to confirm with certainty.

“I know!” Yuu suddenly spoke up, excitement in her voice. “Maybe if we get you some of your favorite snacks for next time, that will earn us a few points?”

Setsuna shook her head. “Sorry, no. Actions taken outside the game like that shouldn’t have an effect in game.”

“Maybe I can give you a massage?”

“That’s even worse.”

“Even though you love me?” Yuu cooed.

“Yuu-san, it is because I love you that I need to take extra precautions. I refuse to participate in the impropriety of playing favorites, or even giving the impression that I am. It would be unfair to the other players and jeopardize the enjoyment of everyone.”

“But is it fair to ignore her completely?” Ayumu interjected.

Had she really not awarded any Inspiration to either Yuu or Ayumu? Setsuna tried to recall again.

“Shizuku-chan was awarded Inspiration for making you laugh with inner dialogue acting.” Ayumu continued. “But Yuu-chan also made you laugh multiple times with her antics, yet…”

“Hrm…”

“Rina also earned some for her great acting and giving us all the chills. And while I don’t think Yuu-chan’s character could do the same, she certainly entertains in other ways.”

Setsuna sighed. “Perhaps I was being too cautious.” She conceded. “I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” Yuu said with a smile before craning her neck so she could press a kiss against Setsuna’s cheek.

That was quick. Then again, it was Yuu. Still… “I can’t fairly grant awards via retcon, but I promise I will try to be more fair going forward. I really do want everyone to have fun with this game.”

“We are having fun.” Ayumu assured.

“It was even obvious that Rina-chan was having the time of her life.” Yuu pointed out. “And maybe Shizuku-chan can convince a sixth to join. And if Ayumu and I weren’t having fun we wouldn’t be so excited about the next session.”

Setsuna smiled. “Thank you. So long as my players are interested in continuing, I’ll do my best to DM a good game for them.”

“We know.” Yuu’s tone changed a bit. “And all that hard work deserves a reward, right Ayumu?”

Setsuna gasped as a hand slipped under her sleepshirt to push fingertips past the hem of her shorts and graze across the skin near her bellybutton.

Yuu giggled. “I think Ayumu’s getting a little impatient to issue your reward.”

Whatever Setsuna was about to say in response was cut off as Ayumu covered her mouth with her own.

Author’s Note Continued in Followup Post

#YuuAyuSetsu #Takasaki Yuu #Yuki Setsuna #Uehara Ayumu #Tri-Arame #Love Live Nijigasaki #fanfic

3 notes · View notes