#people think 5e is what roleplaying is

[lunasgayshit]

Absolutely throwing shade here because I'm tired of 5e's hegemony.

There is some serious learned helplessness with the way 5e poisons people's brains. I've actually had people tell me that people at their table cannot do math with numbers above 20. Which, y'know, happens to be where bounded accuracy "tops out" (except it doesn't, at all, of course, oh sorry I shouldn't be shattering the illusion like that). What an odd number to pick, wouldn't you say?

Imagine a person who only consumes Batman-related media. That is, they only watch movies and TV shows that have Batman in them, only read books that are novelisations of Batman media, only play licensed Batman video games, and so forth. This is not so absurd an idea; Batman-related media is sufficiently popular, varied and widespread that restricting one's media consumption in this way is completely feasible. However, I trust we can agree that if you actually do this, you will be left with very strange ideas about what popular media looks like.

The next step in this analogy is undestanding that if the only tabletop RPG you're acquainted with is Dungeons & Dragons, you have the same grasp of the tabletop roleplaying hobby as our hypothetical Batman Guy has of popular media.

[lizardsfromspace]

Do you ever get kind of interested in a subject where nothing weird has happened yet but you know something weird is going to happen?

Anyway, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It was originally a upscale resort community, and also still is: it's where rich people from Chicago kept their lake houses, and maybe still do. Its heyday was in the early to mid 20th century, where its status as a vacation destination was so set that Hugh Hefner even put the first ever "Playboy Resort" there. I haven't been there myself, so I may be wrong, but it doesn't give me, like, Pigeon Forge or Niagara Falls energy. The list of attractions online seems to be spas and parks and a few theaters.

But Lake Geneva is more famous now for its most famous son, Gary Gygax. Over the course frigid Wisconsin winters, he and several wargaming friends who didn't become famous developed tactical wargaming into the game Dungeons & Dragons in the early 1970s. He also began hosting a small gaming meetup in Lake Geneva, later called Gen Con, which outgrew the town by the late 1970s.

As I understand it, Lake Geneva didn't really embrace its status as the Birthplace of Dungeons and Dragons. When Gygax died, there were fan-funded tributes here and there, and fans created a new convention in his honor called Gary Con where they played games from his time at TSR, but D&D was still a niche hobby and not the thing you define a rich people resort town around.

Then, whoops, shows like Critical Role turned D&D into one of the most popular entertainment properties in the world! Now there's D&D-themed events popping up all over the place. Some of this is normal, like efforts to fund a more prominent memorial for Gary Gygax, and a Dragon Days Fantasy Festival. But some are going further. Because there are now at least two proposals to create immersive, D&D-themed LARP experiences in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, population 8,227

One is a large themed restaurant/bar/wedding venue (?) called the Griffin and Gargoyle, which is supposedly opening in 2024, though all the art is concept art and they're still looking for investors.

The other one is Giantlands, the proposed theme park where the tickets will be NFTs, based on a game no one's heard of developed by the son of Gary Gygax by a company that legally can't call itself TSR anymore, but tried anyway before rebranding as Wonderfilled, and who also tried to make old Gygax games even more racist? I can't even begin to explain this. I think they got dunked on years ago but they were still hyping up its Lake Geneva theme park that's definitely going to exist this week (this is from August 11th)

What's incredible to me here is that they're boasting that their LARP theme park will be from the makers of Evermore Park. Nothing says quality in immersive fantasy roleplaying parks like someone whose main claim to fame is making that other one that failed. Wonder how many real tombstones and haunted dolls they'll buy this time. And this one appears to have fighting arena

I seriously doubt these are the only two pitches. Everyone with too much money and a love for theme parks feels the little voice in their head saying they can do the Star Wars Hotel right. I think what gets me here is, nobody would put anything like this in Lake Geneva otherwise. It's small, it's located in Wisconsin so it'd have to be seasonal, and it's less than two hours away from Wisconsin Dells - an entire town of kitschy roadside attractions - and even closer to Chicago, which is Chicago. Its tourism niche is beaches and homes around a scenic lake. The only reason to place anything there would be to honor Gary Gygax, and uh, I don't think the younger people who got into D&D with 5E really care about him, or even necessarily know who he is. Gary Con and most Gygax-themed events are for old-school gamers, not the Critical Role crowd. And they especially don't care about whatever Giantlands is. Giantlands as a game is so old-school there isn't even a PDF of the book, it's physical only. They want to build a full theme park around a game you can't even buy on DrivethruRPG. Anyway I hope all this open bc it would be funny

[ladytabletop]

Lady Tabletop's Primer for Getting into Tabletop Roleplaying Game Design Philosophy

Sam Dunnewold over at the Dice Exploder podcast has posed a fun question to his discord server: where would you tell people to start if they wanted to know more about TTRPGs and design?

First and foremost, I'd tell people to start with @jdragsky's article about Systems of Relation.

With the benefit of hindsight, I can now understand that the games we played on the playground were identical in nature to the tabletop RPGs I would grow up to play and help design.

Next, check out Thomas Manuel's analysis of the Axes of Game Design over on the Indie RPG Newsletter.

So the basic exercise is trying to figure out the standard axes or spectrums on which every game can fit. The idea is for these axes to be as descriptive and objective as possible.

Thirdly (and lastly for the purposes of this blog - it's entry-level, not comprehensive), check out this reddit thread about lonely fun.

The Lonely Fun is all of the stuff you do as a part of your hobby away from the table, in any way you might engage. For D&D 5e players, this is usually building complicated and elaborate characters on the page, pouring over the books for new races and subclasses, figuring out fun new combinations, and carefully crafting characters.

Read those? Now check out BALIKBAYAN: Returning Home by @temporalhiccup

Will we be able to outrun our Masters and those who hunt us down? Can we use our magic to bring about the rebirth of the city and all Elementals? ill this be our RECKONING or our HOMECOMING? That’s what we play to find out.

Why I make these particular recommendations below the cut.

All of these recommendations are hopefully all entry-level. I tried to stay away from any essays, blogs, or articles that reference game movements you may not have heard of or that require tons of reading before you can even read my recommendations. Some do have links to other stuff, and if you're enjoying the writing, definitely go down those rabbit holes! These are a tiny, tiny portion of my "TTRPG Homework" folder where I save essays, podcasts, etc that have helped me in my own game design journey. I'm always happy to share more, just ask!

The essay on Systems of Relation put into words something I had been thinking about the more I got into indie games/design: I've been playing my whole life, and ttrpgs are just another piece of that. I think it's crucial to break out of the framework of people trying to define play and games into neat little categories. Will I ever write a game as good as the ones I played in the backyard with my siblings? Probably not, but I'd like to find out.

Now that I've told you to stop trying to categorize games, we have an article about trying to categorize games. But I do like Thomas's assessment and examples of using game design axes. I think as designers it's important to figure out the things the game is trying to do and communicate, so that we can make sure it does those things well.

Lastly, I know 5e gets a bad rap (and it's gotten it from me, too!). But the concept of lonely fun has stuck in my craw since I first saw this thread. It's why some people prefer to GM (and therefore why GM-less games might not work for some people). Not all games are going to have lonely fun, but the ones that do are still going to appeal to people! This thread was key for me in terms of considering that no game is for everyone, and it shouldn't try to be, and also helped contextualize the enjoyment I get from the occasional high-prep game.

Balikbayan as a recommendation was a no-brainer for me. I'm not going to say it's the most elegant or tight of Rae's work, but it's the one with the most heart for me. The story this game wants you to tell is so clear, and as an introduction to "Belonging Outside Belonging" as a system/concept/design philosophy. This game really sings in its character concepts and emotional play.

If you've read this far, congratulations! I've been enjoying the DE podcast (even when I don't agree with some of the takes) and the discord has been a cool (if at times intimidating) place to hang out. I've had a hell of a game design journey this year and I'm so excited to keep learning, and to see what media other folks participating in this blog carnival recommend!

To sign off: my best advice to designers, especially those starting out can be boiled down to three things:

When in doubt, simplify or make it silly

The two cakes theory is your best friend - game design is not a competition

Not everything has to be finished. Not every part of the creative process is fun. Find the balance between these two truths (you're going to have to do that every day).

Best,

LT

[maximumzombiecreator]

I think that dungeon crawling is to TTRPGs what shooters are to video games. It's a structure that has been around since almost the beginning of the medium, that persists because it fundamentally works, and it fits well with the affordances and limitations of the medium. And like shooters, its ubiquity leads to a certain amount of backlash, some of it warranted, and a lot of it less so.

Looking at it from that perspective, people who denigrate dungeons as not being real roleplaying or storytelling feel a lot like the gaming nerds of the mid 2000s, sneering at bros who play Gears of War and Halo, and insisting that they play real games.

Except that those nerds were, at least somewhat, responding to the state of the video games industry as it actually existed. And, notably, they were actually playing the non-shooter games that existed.

By contrast, the dungeons-aren't-roleplay 5e players feel like if those gamer nerds were on their "all shooters are brainless pablum" bullshit now, in a world where some of the most praised narrative games of all time are shooters, and where shooter mechanics have been used to make wildly inventive puzzle games, horror games, speedrunning games, roleplaying games, etc.

And instead of playing any of those amazing shooter games, or even any of the fantastic non-shooter games, they were insisting that real gamers who care about narrative make Halo machinima.

[starfieldcanvas]

But as the article notes, the fact that D&D's playerbase is growing increasingly progressive and roleplay-focused is not something supported by the actual 5E ruleset (or even the 3.5 ruleset if I'm honest.) "Stapled on by the DM" is the reality of the situation. If you want a game that helps you make good story happen, play a different game.

[theoutcastrogue]

I've come across many posts on tumblr claiming or taking for granted that there's a d&d 5e play Culture™ out there where the dm is expected to do all the work, to the point of players NOT being expected to learn the rules, not even how their own characters work mechanically.

This is several light years away from my personal experience. Of course, I'd never generalise or extrapolate anything at all from my personal experience, so I'm not presenting this as anecdotal evidence to the contrary of the claim. But I would ask for (similarly non-anecdotal) evidence to the support of the claim. Who THE FUCK are these people who think it's normal to not even try to learn the rules of the game they're playing? Where do they congregate? Are they somewhere online?

The 5e-related online spaces which I visit from time to time (roleplaying forums, reddit, etc) are, broadly speaking, Not Like That. Sometimes they're the opposite, and there's a lot of rules-lawyering going on. Sometimes there'll be a story about a Problem Player who refuses to learn their own character's abilities, but, and this is very important, it isn't presented as a norm, as THE Culture™. It's presented as a faux pas, a deviation from the norm. And I've NEVER come across such a story told from the Clueless Player's perspective. Like, I've never seen anyone go "lol my DM expects me to know what my character can do, that's your job, stupid!".

But just because I haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Perhaps the internet is full of stuff like that. So I ask all of you, and especially those who do consider this phenomenon "a 5e culture", where is it? Where do I find it? (I'm curious!) Are there like discord servers dedicated to celebrating your own ignorance at the expense of your poor dm?

Or do we have scattered anecdotal evidence and personal horror stories here and there, which somehow led to the theory that this a whole-ass 5e Culture™?

Note: I'm assuming we're talking about deliberate ignorance. No one should expect a first-time player to know and remember everything. Rules mastery comes over time, with experience. Even the most experienced and engaged player/dm will occasionally forget, misremember, or misunderstand the rules. (It's d&d! There's a fuckton of them!) Some rules slip through the cracks because the books aren't well-written (the best feature of the 2024 PHB is undoubtedly the Rules Glossary). And if you don't play regularly, if there's a long gap between sessions, if you're very busy or distracted or stressed IRL, of course it's more likely to forget things. So I'm not talking about any of this, I'm only referring to stories about players who clearly think it's not their job to learn the rules of the game.

[im-an-anthusiast]

Who, me? 

Pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'm Anthusiast, Ant, or perhaps Felix. Not as far as legal documents are considered, but what are you, a cop?

Yours truly is a queer and a minor in a homophobic Hellhole, so, yes, I am Gay AND European. I'm a he/they/it bisexual with some gender fuckery going on. You can honestly tell all this simply thanks to the fact that I look like the mafioso of the Alphabet Mafia if it was a real Mafia.

I'm a writer (with a Masterlist) so I either talk like this, this being the most pretentious Fuck to grace this Plane of Existence, or like God's silliest, most pathetic, whimsical plaything. I tend to monologue, rant, or both.

I have quite a few obsessions interests!

Writing! I write poetry and about my WIP. I even have a Masterlist!

Blood, flesh, and the cannibalistic, anthropophagical consumption of it.

Insects, especially ants!

Roleplay and acting. I also highly enjoy Systems, so I adore TTRPGs. Pathfinder 2e and DnD 5e are personal favs.

bideo bames. I hold a special love for RPG and FPS games. My favs include Warframe, Baldur's Gate 3, and Fallout: New Vegas.

Visual Novels and Interactive Fictions. Cove my beloved.

Mythology and folklore are wonderful. I'm especially big on Greek mythos, but I love all of em. Japanese folk tales might be the most immediately concerning. The Farmer and the Badger, man...

I quite enjoy reading.

My beautiful flower!!! My gorgeous husband-to-be!!! My amazing boyfriend!!!! My very favourite, my @irishfry

I enjoy some Media

Books

Grew up on the Skulduggery Pleasant series

A Monster Calls is my favourite ever book. Made me bawl.

Love the Mistborn Series

Absolutely adore the Godkiller series. It legitimately feels tailored for me

Magnus Chase

Demon Road

Shows/Podcasts

Dimension 20

Game Changer

dropout.tv content as a whole

Red vs. Blue (where do you think I got my name?)

Malevolent

In my life and work both I am plagued by these motifs, and thus mention them (too) often

Blood, flesh, scars

Self-harm, self-sacrifice, self-destruction and related tendencies

Gold, talent, being good enough

Ink

Obsession (itself)

God-hood

Sweetness

Familial trauma

I use tags sometimes btw

#signed; fa - writing tag

#Felix's Friends - dedicated poetry tag

#Felix's Fashion - outfit tag

#ant talks ants - insect rant tag

#my flesh eating son and #yeah albion; #maxwell minnhett my son and #maxwell my dear and #maxwell my beloved; #santi my dear thing; #erin my dear; #calixte my sweet little child; #thomas dearest. - oc tags. that I'll clean up. eventually

Lastly, though most importantly, these are the people whom I love with all of my heart

@irishfry!!! My beautiful flower <3

@magnoliasandarson! My winged victory <3

@the-lights-are-loud! My amazing mum <3

@squishykitty825! My dearest sister <3

@sleepy-boything-shit! My beloved brother <3

@rustycamo! My favourite author <3

@uwathebestgirl! My adorable puppygirl <3

@outlying-hyppocrate! My fraternal faggot <3

@118sexen! My melodious musician <3

@f4y3w00d5! My sweet hun <3

[theresattrpgforthat]

Any TTRPG recommendations for fans of Fire Emblem's gameplay? Specifically the lite-tactics combat and the class-change system?

THEME: Fire Emblem.

Alright, so I had to call in a friend to explain the class-change system you’re talking about in Fire Emblem. Based on his explanation, it sounds like this involves being able to switch your character class and carry-over some of your previous class abilities, but also experiencing a different style of play or strategy.

I’m not confident that the games I found do exactly what you’re looking for, but I have some thoughts about where you can start looking if you decide to play with mechanics a little bit to make an experience work for you!

Tacticians of Ahm, by Meatcastle Gameware.

Tacticians of Ahm is a tactical combat-focused tabletop roleplaying game in the corrupt3d fantasy world of Ahm. A bit-rotten blight has appeared in the Northern Sea and from it flows the Corrupt1on, fractured light and shattered shapes sowing chaos across the realm. As Tacticians, you alone are prepared to face the darkness spreading across the lands and reunite the scattered peoples of Ahm.

What I think you’re really going to like about Tacticians of Ahm is the tactics and combat - it gives you the thrill of moving your little guys around on the grid, but rules-wise it advertises itself as streamlined and fast. The game also definitely has classes, with abilities and attack patterns restricted to / defined by your character class. Your character is also definitely levelling up, with at least 4 levels in the game in its current iteration. I don’t think this game uses currently uses class changes, although it’s still in a non-final stage of development, so I’m not 100% sure what character level looks like.

Fabula Ultima, by Need Games.

FABULA ULTIMA is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game inspired by Japanese-style console RPGs, or JRPGs.  In Fabula Ultima, you and your friends will tell epic stories of would-be heroes and fearsome villains, set in fantasy worlds brimming with magic, wondrous locations, and uniquely bizarre monsters!

If what you’re looking for is diversity in character options, Fabula Ultima will definitely have something for you. Beginning characters must have 2 different classes at minimum, and after you level up a certain amount, your character is expected to take on a new class. However, you’re not leaving your old classes behind; your character is growing and expanding their skill set as you play. The fighting mechanics are also somewhat streamlined, with your hit and your weapon damage determined in a single roll, but I don’t think they’re as abstracted as, say, a Powered by the Apocalypse game or Forged in the Dark.

In terms of genre, Fabula Ultima is very much inspired by Final Fantasy, but not exclusively. I’ve heard Final Fantasy and Fire Emblem being mentioned side by side in various contexts, so I think if what you love about Fire Emblem is also commonly seen in other JRPGs, you might feel at home here.

Relics of Empire, by Prey Species.

Relics of Empire is a tactical skirmish ttrpg that takes heavy inspiration from Fire Emblem, Tactics Ogre, and Mordheim.  Best played with 1-3 people, Tacticians will develop their own Units and fill up their armies, while the Game Master develops a campaign and villainous factions for the Tacticians to tackle. Tacticians will level up their Units, unlock new weapons, and even discover secret Classes hidden behind locked missions.

I’m seeing some similar terminology in this game description, and the mention of unlocking classes as you play sounds like it might give you the thrill of discovering new ways to use your character in a way similar to changing classes in Fire Emblem. I noticed that the pdf attached to the storefront says 5e, but from the description, it sounds like the game designer is using a combat system and a role-play system, using terms that don’t feel like they match the stats and systems of D&D.

Heroes of Lite, by nattwentea.

A Tabletop Roleplaying Game created to emulate the Fire Emblem experience, Heroes of Lite takes inspiration from games across the entire Fire Emblem series. Most prominent are influences from the Radiance games, Sacred Stones, Awakening, Three Houses and the mobile game Heroes. Being that Fire Emblem games run a lot of math under the hood and that emulating that math in a TTRPG context would be both painstaking and time-consuming, Heroes of Lite streamlines mechanics when possible. The result is a game that is easy to play either digitally or traditionally.

Heroes of Lite uses a d20 system that might be familiar to folks who are acquainted with the rules of 5e, with detailed and crunchy character creation and combat that centres itself around different weapon types. The creator describes the rules system as “streamlined,” but the game certainly feels a bit more on the trad side compared to the rules-lite games that I typically surround myself with. There’s a few sign posts that make this game feel very tactical to me - your characters have movement types, which determine how they move (or don’t move) through terrain, and a heavy differentiation between different weapons types, meaning that you’ll likely have advantages and disadvantages for whatever you choose to wield on the field of battle.

When it comes to the themes of Fire Emblem, Heroes of Lite is probably the most on-the-nose out of what I’ve found, but I’m not necessarily certain that it’s the play experience that you’re looking for. Luckily the system is pay-what-you-want, so you should be able to check out the rules for free to decide whether or not it’s for you!

Cloudbreaker Alliance, by CJ Leung

Two thousand years ago, for reasons that remained unknown, darkened clouds fell from the sky to engulf the world. What followed was the near obliteration of all civilizations by rampaging monsters that lurked within the murky mist. That event came to be known as Cloudfall.

Cloudbreaker Alliance is a counter-apocalyptic tabletop roleplaying game about reconnecting with long-lost civilizations and uniting against the monsters that destroyed the world two millennia ago.

The Kickstarter for Cloudbreaker Alliance describes your class system as a mix-and-match system that expects you to create a unique character by multi-classing as you level up, or even take ranks in extra classes. It looks like you can switch your character classes out for something else, but judging by the levelling system (accumulating XP after every mission to gain levels) it doesn’t look like your character completely re-sets if they switch classes.

If you want to learn more about how this game works, you can check out this series of introductory videos, published on Don’t Stop Thinking’s YouTube Channel. (#6 covers multi-classing specifically!)

Terra Machina, by rollbard.

Over the course of millennia, what began as a world of fantasy and myth advances beyond its ages of primitivity, agriculture, conquest, exploration, and industry. It is now an age of technology. Life transpires on the spectrum of science and sorcery. It is a world where the gods of the machine coexist with the gods of the natural world. Welcome to Terra Machina.

Terra Machina is a tabletop RPG that imagines a fantastical world where time has passed to the point where technology is just as powerful as magic. Taking inspiration from Japanese roleplaying video games of the 32-bit console era, it is a unique experience that hopes to combine the best elements of fantasy, science fiction, and action.

Another d20 game with an XP-leveling system and a concept of character classes, Terra Machina feels unique on this list mostly due to the way you improve your character. You spend your experience points bit by bit to gradually improve your character sheet, choosing a single improvement every time. These improvements might be stat or skill bonuses, but you can also choose to gain a new skill from something called a Class Crystal, or to gain a new Class Crystal alogether. You can multi-class in Terra Machina, but you have a class cap of three - if you want to take on a new class after the fact, you must swap it with something you already had.

Since levelling is incremental, I think you might get that experience of improving stat bonuses (and keeping them) while switching out class abilities when you tire of what you have. Unlike a few other games on this list, rather than choosing from a list of weapons, it looks like you can design weapons from scratch, with outlines as to how expensive it should be to create that weapon, and what kind of modifiers you can add to make it unique.

Theme-wise, I don’t think Terra Machina fits with the genre or setting of Fire Emblem, other than the fact that it’s inspired by JRPGS. Then again, when I checked the rulebook, most of what I saw was rules and stat blocks, and little to no lore, so it’s possible that you could take the game rules and play with them to fit a setting that works better for you.

Other Thoughts..

Funnily enough, if you dive into a completely different side of design, I think Powered by the Apocalypse games can do a little bit of what you’re looking for, because while you can keep a few stats and abilities when you take the “choose another playbook” option that is present in so many PbtA games, your character class can change quite drastically when you choose a new playbook. Typically I’m playing PbtA games to explore different character journeys, so I don’t know if there’s a game out there that’s as tactical as you like, and I don’t think that you’re going to see the difference in character competency as you play in the same way a levelling system will give you, but I do think it’s kind of neat that switching playbooks can give you a different play experience even though the rules feel a lot simpler. You might also be interested in Lancer and games that branch out of it from a mechanical standpoint, even if the genre is far afield from what you're looking for. Each time you gain another license level, you can choose to either upgrade your current license or spec into an additional license - and you might be able to rule that players can dump the license levels they took previously in a system they no longer want in order to upgrade a different license level even further. You can still hold onto stat bonuses that are attached to your character though, since your character is separate from their mech.

[thydungeongal]

Hi! Been following you for a little bit now and your takes have made me think a lot about intent with gameplay in my own games. I was wondering if you have a recommendation. I have a homebrew 5e campaign that I've run before (it fell apart bc of player times conflicting) that I'm looking to revamp, but maybe a new system might be better to invest in. It's a story driven campaign with a defined end point. It's very much a traditional fantasy story. I love working collaboratively with players and have a heavy focus on roleplay and character development and sometimes find what 5e offers outside of combat lacking. I also find 5e's combat kind of monotonous. I also find the exp system kind of lacking as something rewarding for players, but haven't been able to wrap my head around alternatives.

Thank you in advance!! <3

I would personally check out Fellowship:

Fellowship is a PbtA fantasy adventure game about a fellowship consisting of the free people of the fantasy world going up against a big old evil overlord. The game very much supports a type of campaign play with a defined end-point (the defeat of the overlord) but with the players free to pursue various directions to come about that goal.

It's lighter on the crunch and heavier on characterization and mechanics that tie directly into characterization than something like D&D, and it also encourages various ways of overcoming obstacles. Characters can also build connections with the world and its people which actually manifest concretely and mechanically.

(also sorry for taking my sweet time to reply to this message, the past month has been a mess)

[toaarcan]

Every now and then I see the Capitalism Ruined Tieflings post float past and my brain just goes "Skill Issue."

For context, this is a popular post that states that in D&D's second and third editions, Tieflings had a huge variety of appearances and then in 4e they were homogenised into generic devil-people because Hasbro was calling the shots and demanded that Tieflings all look relatively the same because that way it was easier to sell minis of them, and now Tieflings are ruined forever because you can't make one with greasy skin that smells like farts.

But here's the thing: You can absolutely still just do that.

"But the book says-"

Fuck the book! This hobby is 50% improv and the highest authority you'll ever have to deal with is most likely going to be your friend Jim, when it comes to pure roleplay things, there is literally nothing stopping you. The D&D Police aren't going to kick down your door and haul you off to RPG Jail for the crime of not playing a Tiefling like they're described in the PHB, because there is no D&D Police.

The PHB is great for telling you what you get mechanically (or the "crunch") and can be entirely ignored for everything in terms of lore (or the "fluff").

I've been playing 5e for something like seven or eight years now, and during that time, across all those groups, we've used vanishingly small amounts of official lore, one official setting, and precisely zero Hasbro miniatures (largely because all of those games have been online).

If I had gone to any of those DMs, both the good and bad ones, and said "I wanna use the Planescape Tiefling tables for my character's appearance", I don't think any of them would've said no. Now, that's not something I personally would ever do (I'm not leaving my character's design up to the RNG that hates me), but I don't doubt that the option would exist if I wanted it.

Additionally, people have always broken from the official limitations of the books with these things, and a few really obvious ways.

Per the books, Tieflings have the full range of human skin tones, plus varying shades of red. Now, how many people actually keep to that limitation? I've seen blue, purple, orange, green, yellow, bone white, grey, black, pink, etcetera. Even the Planescape table only gives you red, green, and blue, random 5e players going "What if it was purple!" and disregarding the PHB is fully and openly accepted.

Hell, two of the most prominent Tiefling characters in the current era of D&D are Jester and Molly from CritRole's second campaign, who are blue and purple respectively. "Tieflings are just red" says Hasbro, and "No they aren't" says literally everybody else. Even Hasbro themselves don't care too much about it, there's an official Lego D&D Tiefling minifigure coming out this year, and they're orange, not red, when Hasbro could easily have demanded that Lego make them red.

Additionally, the book says Tiefling eyes are a single, solid colour, with no visible iris, pupil, or sclera. Yeah that one gets ignored a whole lot too. In fact, that one gets ignored more than it gets followed. I've made at least ten of these fuckers and one of them followed that rule, and only did so after her Sorcerer bloodline activated, and nobody, DM or player, has ever called me out on it.

The book says nothing about them having weird legs, I've still seen plenty with varying forms of digitigrade gait, whether it's with hooves or something else at the end of them.

If you want to make your Planescape Tieflings, then you absolutely still can. And if your DM says no, then they're probably just still in their Rules Stickler phase. Give 'em a little time and they'll loosen up, it happened to most people in this hobby.

That's the great thing about playing D&D. Most of the time, you really can just do whatever the hell you like as long as it doesn't futz with the mechanical side of things (and sometimes you can do it with that too).

Capitalism didn't ruin Tieflings. Sure, you can argue that it tried, but the only thing letting it succeed is a lack of imagination and an unwillingness to go "Hey, can I just do X instead" on the part of the players.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go make a character that's mechanically a Tiefling and lore-wise a completely different species, because nothing can stop me doing that.

[tumblrisweird]

Crash Course on Lancer, the best TTRPG

I've been obsessed with Lancer lately, so I thought I'd put together a quick and dirty crash course on the key aspects of the system so people could see if it interests them.

Basics:

Lancer is a ttrpg system "centered on shared narratives, customizable mechs, and the pilots who crew them"

It is co-created by the author of the webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons, who also provides some of the official illustrations

The mech design is primarily inpired by Titanfall, but there is a wide variety and plenty of options available to suit your taste.

Mechanically, it's most similar to D&D 5e, but with major improvements (imho).

The game and community are super inclusive of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people.

Lore:

Lancer takes place in our universe, but several thousand years in the future

in the near future, human society collapses due to all the shit going on. ten generation ships are sent out to colonize space, but contact with them is soon lost as everything on Earth goes tits up and humanity enters a dark age for almost 5000 years

Eventually, humanity on Earth comes back, creates Union, and returns to space and tries to contact those generation ships, a few of which have founded new civilizations in deep space. Relations with these civilizations doesn't go great.

Union also finds a weird super-robot-mind-thing old humanity built on Mars, which lets them predict the future. After about a thousand years, it ends up producing a sort of super-AI called RA (I will get into this later).

The above event also lets Union develop FTL tech (using something called Blinkspace).

In the process of expansion, humanity runs into its first (and so far only) sentient alien race. Things go bad very quickly. The people in charge do very bad things and for this end up being overthrown. This is also when mechs first start getting used for combat.

A new committee in charge of Union takes over and has a strong anti-colonial, humanitarian ethic. This however is harder to reinforce the further you are from Earth (now called Cradle by some)

Some of the still independent civilizations and mega-corporations get in some fights. Union tries to keep the peace. This is where we are now.

AI

So there are two different types of AIs in Lancer.

The first kind are regular AIs which can act human but don't really have free will. They can be found all over the place.

The second kind are called NHPs (Non-Human Persons). These (mostly) came from that super-AI called RA I mentioned above. Their basic consciousness is "paracausal" (i.e. magic), so they have to be "shackled" to be able to even think like a regular human. They can often do really powerful things. They are hard to get and heavily regulated because they become really dangerous if they get unshackled.

Player Characters

Character creation in Lancer is incredibly fun. There's two main aspects of a character: the pilot and the mech

Pilots

The pilot is who you control during narrative scenes. While they can do combat, they generally are not suited for it, especially against mechs.

You can choose a background for your character, but this is purely flavor.

You get some "triggers", which are different skills you get bonuses in to use in narrative scenes. Default triggers include things like "lead or inspire", "read a situation", "apply fists to faces", "hack or fix" and many others. You can also create custom triggers (with your GM's permission). These are what you use for narrative scenes. You start with +2 to 4 different triggers and get another +2 at each level

You also get to choose things like armor, pilot weapons, and three pieces of equipment.

One expansion also adds a mechanic called "Bonds" which are like character archetype powers. These encourage you to roleplay more.

Mechs

You also have a certain number of "Talents" which help in mech combat. Each talent has 3 tiers and focus on things like using certain weapons or fighthing certain ways (e.g. grappling, spotting, hacking, etc.). You start with three tier-1 talents and get another tier each level.

Levels are referred to as "License Levels". You start at LL0, but this doesn't mean you can't do anything. You have access to the starter mech frame, which is a very good all-rounder. You may also have access to two more if you have certain expansions.

Mechs have two main sets of health: actual HP and "Heat". You get heat mostly by being hacked or using heat-generating weapons. Each player mech also has 4 points each of Structure and Stress, which correspond to these two sets of health. When your HP hits zero or your Heat goes above its max, you lose a point of Structure or Stress, respectively. You will also suffer other consequences like status effects or losing parts of your mech. If either hits zero, your mech gets destroyed (though this doesn't necessarily kill your pilot, and you can rebuild your mech). Also having 50% or more of your max heat means you're in the Danger Zone, which may let you do certain things.

Mechs will have a certain number of SP (system points), which you use to add different systems, equipment that gives you abilities and bonuses.

You also get to put points into 4 different "Mech Skills": Hull, which affects HP and physical stability, Agility, which affects speed and evasion (the thing enemies roll against to hit (most of the time)), Systems, which affects hacking ability and SP, and Engineering, which affects Heat management and ammo. You get another point each level.

There's other stats as well like Armor, Sensors, E-Defense, and Save Target, but I won't get into them now.

Mech's also have a certain number of weapon mounts, which determine what kind of weapons you can attach to it. The four weapon sizes are Auxiliary, Main, Heavy, and Superheavy. Most of the mount types match a specific weapon size. The only exception is Flex, which lets you mount one Main or two Aux. Also for a Superheavy, you need a heavy mount plus one other mount.

Player mechs come in 4 sizes: 1/2 (basically a suit of power armor), 1 (just big enough where a person could sit in the chest cockpit), 2 (much bigger than a person, about the size of heavier Titanfall mechs), and 3 (fucking huge, though maybe not quite as big as the mechs in Pacific Rim). NPCs can be even bigger. :)

This set of memes is a great way to get the idea behind several mechs.

While most mechs have a default appearance, they're highly customizable, and there are a couple of exceptions. Most Horus mechs have no default appearance, and the starting mech, the Everest, has no canon appearance, meaning it can look however you want.

EDIT: forgot to mention, every mech has a Core Power that you can use once per mission (usually). It typically gives you access to a really cool weapon or ability or otherwise powers up the mech for the rest of the scene.

Levels/Classes

Ever notice how in 5e, multiclassing kinda sucks unless you have a very specific thing in mind? That's not at all true in Lancer!

In addition to the stuff mentioned above, each LL you get to gain one level in the license for a certain mech! You can think of these as similar to classes.

Each level gets you two specific pieces of equipment from that license, generally either weapons or systems. Additionally, at the second level for a license, you get access to the mech frame.

Each license only has 3 levels to get, so you are very much encouraged to mix and match. Additionally, you gain levels at a more even rate than in 5e. Basically it's a milestone system I will explain later.

There are 4 manufacturers to choose from, each with a default of 7 licenses to choose from (more with expansions). ISP-N mechs are sturdy, reliable, and mundane. Smith-Shimano mechs are sleek, agile, and precise. Harrison Armory mechs are powerful and good at dealing with/using Heat. Horus mechs are extra weird and fucked-up.

Each session will generally consist of a few different "scenes", often including one combat scene. There may also be one "downtime" scene (usually at the beginning or end), which is sorta like a short rest. You can make limited repairs and change out equipment, as well as pursuing personal goals. A few sessions together constitute a "mission". After a mission, you get a level and can do a full repair, which is like a long rest. Get all your resources back and can completely rebuild a destroyed mech (or make a new one).

Action Economy

Each turn the player can take the following actions:

One Protocol (generally granted by a system, only at the beginning of the turn)

A standard movement, which can be taken in part or all at once.

Two Quick Actions or one Full Action

Quick Actions are things like Boost (take another full movement), Skirmish (attack with one weapon mount), Hack, Hide, Grapple, Ram, and Lock On.

Full actions are things like Stabilize (clear all heat or heal HP), Disengage, and Barrage (attack with two mounts or one Superheavy mount).

One Reaction, which can be taken on other characters turns when activated. The two default reactions are Overwatch (skirmish against an enemy that starts a movement in your threat range, which is 1 by default but more with some melee weapons or CQB weapons) and Brace (reduce damage from an incoming attack and be harder to hit, at the cost of losing actions on your next turn).

One Overcharge, where you take increasing amounts of heat to get another quick action.

There may also be certain systems or talents that grant certain Free Actions under certain circumstance

Combat

Combat in general is very fun, though a full round of turns may take half an hour or more. In my experience, most combat scenes are over within 8 rounds.

Using your systems and abilities in cooperation with your teammates is very important to surviving.

Of note is that getting advantage on a roll is much rarer than in 5e.

Much more common is Accuracy or Difficulty. Each point of Accuracy is an extra d6 you roll to add as the accuracy bonus. You pick the highest of your accuracy rolls to add as the bonus. Difficulty is the same except you are subtracting the number from the roll instead of adding it. For example, Lock-On lets you add an accuracy to a roll, but soft and hard cover add 1 and 2 difficulty respectively. Also points of accuracy and difficulty cancel each other out, which reduces the amount of rolling you have to do. So if your weapon has +1 accuracy but your target is behind hard cover, you roll the attack with 1 difficulty.

Resources:

you can get the core rulebook (minus npc info and detailed lore) for free here

here's the official fan-run discord server. it is very helpful for finding games that are looking for players and talking about the game.

You can use the official app called COMP/CON to build and manage characters. I fucking love making character in this. It makes things super easy and fun. You can also download .lcp files for various expansions to play around with the stuff they add as well. These are available for free for the official expansion, meaning players can play with extra stuff from expansions without needing to buy them.

In conclusion, Lancer is a great system that you should give a shot to if any of the above sounds appealing.

[bunchashapes]

whadda ya really like about pf2e over 5e? i personally haven’t been able to really get into it like i have dnd.

(really long answer sorry) i started playing dnd back in high school when 3.5 was around. i did enjoy it a lot but i think many agree that it was very over-complicated. i then played and enjoyed a lot of 5e as both a player and dm but i eventually sort of grew tired of it since it was TOO simple in some cases.

(to be clear!! i think that simplicity and ease of play is great, it helped get a ton of people into tabletop games that probably otherwise wouldn’t have tried them, and it’s overall a great vessel for player-weighted fantasy roleplay. 5e still has a place in my heart even if i never play it anymore)

i had several reasons for switching to pf2e. the first was that my friends started a 2e campaign in 2019 (maybe 2020?) to try it out and i wanted to play with them (and however many years later we’re still playing it! (and not even halfway done lol)). jumping in with a group of friends that you already play with makes it much easier

the second is that i think pf2e perfectly straddles that middle distance between 3.5e and 5e in terms of mechanical density. the 3-action combat system is awesome and i think more games should have it, but it also has what i like to call “handwave” potential like 5e. if you don’t like how a certain rule works, just do whatever you want! my friends and i barely use the exploration actions like Seek, we just enter a new place and do perception checks like you’d do in 5e

the final reason is very important: 5e is too safe. in standard play (assuming your dm isn’t being especially cruel), it is really really REALLY hard for players to die. most people would say this is a good thing and i agree that most tables enjoy this aspect about it. pf2e, on the other hand, is FAR less safe. it’s very balanced in that you’re usually strong and capable but it is VERY easy to get really fucked up if you’re not careful and that’s great! the thrill of potentially losing your character is (imo) a very important motivator for games like this. some players may not see it the same way but me and my friends that i play with relish that danger.

[lutethebodies]

"Nobody Cares About Your Original Characters"

CW: earnest middle-aged bewilderment

For a blog allegedly dedicated to my BG3 Tavs, there's a lot of companion- and/or NPC-related content here, because like any rottenbrained fan of this game, I find several of its characters compelling, well written, and frankly hotter than a fireball in Avernus.

But I want to focus this thing back on my Tavs/OCs, because that's why I like D&D and by extension BG3: the game allows me to create my own heroes and play out their stories as if they were as epic as Link's or Aloy's or any other famous franchise hero. Some of these folks have been TTRPG characters of mine for over three decades, so I've lived with them for quite some time and they're as real to me as I'm sure yours are to you.

However, in my brief (and therefore probably unrepresentative) experience with this blog and a few other places, nothing I post about my OCs resonates with very many people. (If it has, thank you and you're very kind). And while being creative for myself (whether in fiction, music, cartography, whatever) has always been about doing it regardless of attention, I'm at a loss for how to do it in this case.

So I'm throwing a few questions out to the ether for the sake of received wisdom and, say, interesting stuff about characters that (mostly) nobody knows about. Help an aging roleplaying fan feel relevant, won't you?

When you find an original character compelling, what usually hooks you?

Once you're interested, what else do you want to know about that character?

I'm guessing researching characterization in general will help, but specifically for this platform, what helps? I was thinking well-made or well-captured images, sure, but also maybe:

their in-game builds/profiles/gear

their backstories (brief, I promise)

their playthrough highlights (romances, unique events, etc.)

their original 5e incarnations (because they're all from my time playing D&D 5e or even 3e)

I'm laughably mid at fic (my only self-published novel is old and likely problematic), I'm passable at "art" (I'm a creative professional but I've never been a "real artist" the way Tumblr probably defines it), and my favorite creativity related to these characters has been music and maps, which probably won't resonate here.

So what should I do? What would be interesting? Seriously.

[indierpgnewsletter]

What Is A Cinematic TTRPG?

(Originally published on the Indie RPG Newsletter)

So let’s talk about the term “cinematic” when it comes to roleplaying games. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot and I’m not sure I’ve read someone actually explaining what they mean by that. So I’m going to try and explain what I think the term cinematic should mean when it comes to TTRPGs.

Now this isn’t something I normally do. Normally, I am a kind of descriptivist - I just try to describe what other people mean when they use a word. But in this situation, I’m going to be more of a prescriptivist and propose what I think this word should mean.

The first thing to note is that the meaning cannot actually be too specific. Cinema isn’t one thing. So when we say “cinematic”, we usually mean a specific type of cinema - which you might have to deduce from context. Someone can describe their game as cinematic and mean “Hollywood action movies in the 2000s” and someone else could describe their game as cinematic and mean “like Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings”.

Okay, to me, when I describe a game as cinematic, I mean that:

the shared imaginary space (the thing we are all imagining in our heads) looks and operates like a movie of appropriate genre

the speed of the game can be compared to the speed of those same events in movies

So by point one, I mean that cinematic games are ones that lean on the look and feel of movies as you play them. Players might frame and imagine the game as a movie - describing camera angles and so on. (“The camera cuts away to reveal…”) They might also expect the game to feel like a movie in terms of logic. Like in a cinematic action game, we might expect action movie logic, i.e., the hero can only get flesh wounds from no-name bad guys. Or hey, maybe, in this game, you can leap a car off a building into another building. Or smash a helicopter with a car. Or take a car into space?!Are we doing Fast and the Furious logic? Got to be explicit about that stuff. How else can I know if my car can fly or not?

And by point two, I mean that cinematic games are also talking about how fast they play. A game that promises cinematic fights should be judged by how long those fights take, compared to fights in movies. In that sense, we could compare D&D 5e to the recent D&D: Honour among Thieves movie and say that the game doesn’t have particularly cinematic combat because of the obvious difference in time taken. If you’re making a martial arts game inspired by the movies of Bruce Lee, well, most Bruce Lee fight scenes are around the 5 minute mark. SoI think if a game says it’s cinematic in that sense, it better at least try to get close to that number!

Like all definitions, I expect this can be torn to pieces. So let me know what you think! Have games like Feng Shui got a better definition that I missed? Let me know!

[literary-lesbian]

sorry ik this is really random but whats hell or high rollers? im looking for a new ttrpg podcast to listen to and your posts have intrigued me but i've never heard of it before.

hello!! so hell or high rollers is a DnD podcast (dnd 5e i think) about four characters who died and ended up in hell together and basically they have to work together to escape the nine layers of hell because they all believe they were good people and don't deserve to be there.

it's very much focused on the characters and making the game funny rather than strictly following a storyline i guess but i would definitely recommend if you want a laugh! the characters are so so delightful and it's just very lovely to listen to a group of friends enjoying a game so much. plus because they're all actors/writers from an improv background the roleplaying is very vivid imo

(for context it's done by 5 members of mischief theatre who are a comedy group that i was already a big fan of but you don't have to know them to enjoy it or anything)

do let me know if you give it a listen, i'd love to hear what you think :)))

[bloodpotency]

Homebrew V:TM 5e Humanity Track

Hey everyone, just for fun I decided to completely rework the Humanity levels in Vampire 5e. The goal of this homebrew is to take away the “moral-goodness” assigned to high humanity ratings in the original VTM 5e version. This will theoretically give the player more roleplay and gameplay freedom for their character to behave how they want them to instead of equating being a “good” person with being of high humanity, and being an “evil” person equating lower humanity. Instead, I have tried to emphasize a closer connection with one’s beast to the descent down the track. This, I think, makes the Humanity Track more compatible with Sabbat PCs. Any other changes are my own personal preference, like how I think it’s pretty dumb that vampires can only rouse their blood to resemble humans if they are “good” people (and thus cant have sex if they are “too evil”?). This also is designed to give lower humanity vampires some actual gameplay advantages- which I think makes the decision for a PC to remain a good person more compelling as they must resist the temptations of tangible buffs to their stats. Enjoy!

Humanity 10: A great deal of effort is required to achieve this state of unlife, and the storyteller and player must come up with a story event that can allow their character to reach this level. Your beast is entirely in check, almost never a problem except in your absolute darkest moments. Many Kindred pursue this level of humanity in hopes of achieving Golconda- a nirvana-like state of complete peace between the human and monster within. 

You are able to eat and drink all human food and process it without having to throw it up- although it does not sate your Hunger.

With the beast within you so thoroughly leashed, you require significantly less blood to thrive. You get a pool of 4 dice to rouse your blood at the start of each night, and still only require 1 success to avoid getting hungrier. 

No matter the circumstance, your control of your beast is stronger than it could ever be over you. You do not ever have to roll for Frenzy.

You take only halved superficial damage sunlight every turn when exposed to it.

You heal Superficial damage as a mortal, in addition to vampiric mending.

You are capable of dreaming while in Daysleep.

Torpor Length: 12 Hours

Humanity 9: Most humans do not rise any higher than this level on the humanity track. You do not let the harsh sting of your Beast's hunger control you, and through steeled principles you are a master of your own actions. The beast rarely gets through to you, and if it does, you are able to keep it in the back of your mind while you feed.

You are able to eat and drink all human food and process it without having to throw it up- although it does not sate your Hunger.

With the beast within you leashed, you require much less blood to thrive. You get a pool of 3 dice to rouse your blood at the start of each night, and still only require 1 success to avoid getting hungrier.

The allure of spilled blood does not affect you as much anymore. You have a +2 dice bonus to Frenzy checks when you smell blood at Hunger 4 or higher.

You take only superficial damage to sunlight every turn when exposed to it.

You are capable of dreaming while in Daysleep.

Torpor Length:  24 Hours

Humanity 8: Many good-intentioned and philanthropic humans are at this level. Most Kindred at this level are freshly turned and the seductive whispers of their Beast haven't taken over their subconscious yet. You remember what you used to be and what you can become if you stop caring about your convictions. To remain at this level takes good self control and strong principles… or guilt. 

You are able to drink wine and process it without having to throw it up- although it does not sate your Hunger. 

With the beast within you leashed, you require less blood to thrive. You get a pool of 2 dice to rouse your blood at the start of each night, and still only require 1 success to avoid getting hungrier.

The allure of spilled blood is easier to resist. You have a +1 die bonus to Frenzy checks when you smell blood at Hunger 4 or higher.

You are capable of dreaming while in Daysleep.

Torpor Length: 3 Days

Humanity 7: This is the average level of most humans. You have a good sense of what is socially appropriate, and enough care in your heart to at least do right by the people around you. As a Kindred, your Beast gnaws at the back of your mind, an omnipresent reminder that you can never be truly satisfied unless you act selfishly. 

You are able to drink and stomach wine as if you have Eat Food activated, however you must throw it up by the end of the night.

You are capable of dreaming while in Daysleep.

Torpor Length: One Week

Humanity 6: Most humans do not sink any lower than this level. You are motivated mostly by your own interests and interests that serve your closest friends. It is easy to make it a habit to satisfy the Beast's urges, so long as doing so doesn't backfire on you later. What's the harm in indulging once and awhile? 

You are capable of dreaming while in Daysleep.

Human logic often eludes you when faced with your kind's greatest fears. The difficulty of Terror frenzy checks is +1.

Torpor Length: Two Weeks 

Humanity 5: Honestly, who cares what others think anyway? You know what you're doing, and your instincts are often right. It's often difficult for you to put the needs of others before your own when you are hungry. You find yourself needing to sate your beast before you can clear your head and make the "right" decisions with careful thought. 

Your dominance over your natural prey is absolute. Mental disciplines always succeed against ordinary humans (even if they are not unsuspecting) if your dicepool for the roll is greater than their counterroll by a margin of 4.

Human logic eludes you when faced with your kind's greatest fears. You always Terror frenzy when taking damage from sunlight or fire.

Torpor Length: One Month

Humanity 4: The Beast is difficult to deny. It takes a great deal of mental fortitude to put off opportunities to feed, and much more to make sure your prey is comfortable when you do. It's easy to slip into selfish habits, ignore the feelings of others, and become a monster- especially when doing so only harms others rather than yourself.

Your dominance over your natural prey is absolute. Mental disciplines always succeed against ordinary humans (even if they are not unsuspecting) if your dicepool for the roll is greater than their counterroll by a margin of 3.

Human logic eludes you when faced with your kind's greatest fears. You always Terror frenzy at the sight of sunlight and large fires.

Torpor Length: One Year

Humanity 3: It is nearly impossible to look at humans and not see walking sacks of blood. Every moment of consciousness your blood tells you to indulge, or otherwise feed your deepest desires… and only the threat of societal and social consequences for doing so stops you.

Your dominance over your natural prey is absolute. Mental disciplines always succeed against ordinary humans (even if they are not unsuspecting) if your dicepool for the roll is greater than their counterroll pool by a margin of 2.

Your beast is attuned to the aroma of blood humans carry. You have a +1 die bonus to rolls attempting to locate specific humans you've either fed from or detected the Resonance of within 24 hours by utilizing their scent. The area you can track within is no larger than a single average room (human noses simply aren't that good).

You have a reckless ferocity befitting a rabid animal. You have a +1 die bonus to Athletics, Brawl, and Melee rolls.

Embracing your inhuman qualities, disciplines are easier for you to use. When using disciplines that require rouse checks, you can roll 2 dice instead of 1, and still only require one success in order to avoid getting hungrier. 

More monster than person, the traditional banes of vampires are more effective against you. You take +1 more aggravated damage from fire and sunlight every turn you are exposed to it. 

Human logic eludes you when faced with your kind's greatest fears. You always Terror frenzy at the sight of sunlight and large fires.

Torpor Length: Ten Years

Humanity 2: Very few Kindred reach this level of humanity under the jurisdiction of the Camarilla, as the utter lack of shame and self-awareness characteristic of "humanity" is gone by this point. Powerful individuals at this level are rarely negotiable and only act in their own self-interests. Only Touchstones are able to break through to you at this level and keep you in check if those interests are harmful.

Your dominance over your natural prey is absolute. Mental disciplines always succeed against ordinary humans (even if they are not unsuspecting) if your dicepool for the roll is greater than their counterroll pool by a margin of 1.

Your beast is well-attuned to the aroma of blood humans carry. You have a +2 dice bonus to rolls attempting to locate specific humans you've either fed from or detected the Resonance of within 24 hours by utilizing their scent. The area you can track within is no larger than a single spacious room.

You have a reckless ferocity befitting a rabid animal. You have a +2 die bonus to Athletics, Brawl, and Melee rolls.

Embracing your inhuman qualities, disciplines are easier for you to use. When using disciplines that require rouse checks, you can roll 3 dice instead of 1, and still only require one success in order to avoid getting hungrier. 

More monster than person, the traditional banes of vampires are much more effective against you. You take +2 more aggravated damage from fire and sunlight every turn you are exposed to it. 

Human logic eludes you when faced with your kind's greatest fears. You always Terror frenzy at the sight of sunlight and small fires.

Torpor Length: 50 Years

Humanity 1: Barely holding on to humanity, only the most desperate pleas from loved ones can prevent you from giving in to your Beast's overwhelming urges. Kindred at this level often don't survive unless they are powerful enough to fight against attempts to slay them- Hunters or otherwise. As a PC, it is often wise to invest EXP in raising your Humanity level at an appropriately cinematic moment when the raw power of this level is no longer needed.

Your dominance over your natural prey is absolute. Mental disciplines always succeed against ordinary humans (even if they are not unsuspecting) if your dicepool for the roll is greater than or equal to their counterroll pool.

Your beast is highly attuned to the aroma of blood humans carry. As a well practiced stalker of prey, you have a +3 dice bonus to rolls attempting to locate specific humans you've either fed from or detected the Resonance of within 24 hours by utilizing their scent. The area you can track within is no larger than a single building. 

You have a reckless ferocity befitting a rabid animal. You have a +3 die bonus to Athletics, Brawl, and Melee rolls. 

Embracing your inhuman qualities, disciplines are easier for you to use. When using disciplines that require rouse checks, you can roll 4 dice instead of 1, and still only require one success in order to avoid getting hungrier. 

More monster than person, the traditional banes of vampires are especially effective against you. You take +3 more aggravated damage from fire and sunlight every turn you are exposed to it. 

Human logic eludes you when faced with your kind's greatest fears. You always Terror frenzy at the sight of sunlight and fire, no matter the size.

Torpor Length: 100 Years

Humanity 0: A Wight- Kindred who have fully embraced the beast and lost all semblance of their former selves. Wights are impulsive, monstrous vampires who operate entirely on an overwhelming desire to feed. They are capable of pretending to be human by rousing their blood and using higher-level problem solving skills, but this often serves to make them more terrifying assailants. Due to the drastic nature of this level, a fitting story event should be discussed between the player and Storyteller before a character reaches it.

PCs who reach this humanity level are no longer controlled by their players and effectively become hostile NPCs with all the gameplay buffs and debuffs of Humanity 1. 

Characters at this level may raise their level back to Humanity 1 if they are at zero Hunger, and a touchstone attempts to "bring them back"- an action which the Storyteller may decide the difficulty of. 

Wights are not often able to articulate intelligent thoughts. They cannot use Dominate disciplines other than Compel.

Torpor Length: 300+ Years

Thanks for reading and let me know if you like it or even if you want to use it for a game! I hope it made the descent to becoming a wight specifically make more sense. (How does being comically evil at Humanity 1 transition to mindless animal at Humanity 0?) Additionally, I hope this makes wights seem a little bit more threatening and impactful to potential narratives. Imagine a Humanity 0 vampire passing as a human in the sole pursuit of feeding to kill. Pretty scary! The dichotomy I was going for was high humanity makes it easier to live a "normal" human life that doesn't need to do much vampire stuff, while low humanity makes it easier to be a terrifying threat to humans.

Also, please forgive any grammatical or formatting mistakes, I wrote all this on a separate document and tried to copy paste it onto the mobile web browser version and you know how that goes.