#ttrpg edits are hard.

[screechingfromthevoid]

I made an Orym edit instead of writing or sleeping

[dicing20]

Weathers finally getting cooler so time to break out the Halloween dice 🎃

[goblinmixtape]

THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT COURSE CATALOG is a free solo journaling TTRPG by Max Alexander.

You are a grad student who needs to finish the last 10 poems of your thesis. Grab your typewriter, put Swift on shuffle, and get writing.

All you need to play TTPDCC is something to write with and a way to shuffle Taylor Swift's album THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT: THE ANTHOLOGY. Writing poetry is optional!

For each song that plays, find the corresponding prompt. Answer the questions and record what happens, then optionally write a poem inspired by the event.

I edited this game and it's some of the most funny writing I've read in a TTRPG.

[sunbeargames]

As a semi-professional homebrewer, the best advice I can give to get better at homebrewing is to live through a global pandemic just as you were getting into TTRPGs, then use homebrewing as a method of escapism during quarantine and to satisfy your fixation with the game while you don't have a group, so that your understanding of TTRPGs becomes inseparable from tinkering with rules.

[kiddphel]

sorry for the autism on my kissy blog but LOOK i found a copy of werewolf the apocalypse 1e today and im so happy this has been a want of mine for awhile!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[wittyno]

One of the great things about TTRPGs getting mainstream popular in the golden age of podcasting is that there are so many cool variations.

I just came across The Real Housewives of Dungeons and Dragons.

I haven’t listend to it but it sounds amazing.

[reygunsandreynbows]

i hate dnd so much

WHAT DO YOU MEAN i cant go home and read fanfic about these sad lil fuckers

HOW are these silly little people so fucking important to me and just like

...noone else has ever heard who they are other than the 7 of us

[anim-ttrpgs]

Help Save the World of TTRPGs and Their Creators.

Okay I’m being a little dramatic, but at the same time I’m pretty serious. This is a call to action, and the livelihoods of myself and lots of other people, many of them (like myself) disabled, are depending on it. This is a post about why, what you can do about it, and (perhaps least often answered) how.

This post is actually an accompaniment to another discussion by someone else. If you don’t want to listen to a 90-minute in-depth discussion of much of what I’m about to tell you, you can just keep reading. Otherwise, click here or here and listen to this either before or after you read this post. (They’re the same thing, just different sources.)

If you have ever made or reblogged posts urging people to switch from Google Chrome to Firefox, you should be willing to at least give a try to other TTRPGs besides D&D5e for much the same principle reasons. I’m not telling you you have to hate D&D5e, and I’m not telling you you have to quit D&D5e, I’m just asking you to try some other games. If you don’t like them, and you really want to go back to D&D5e, then go back to D&D5e. But how can you really know you won’t like other games if you have literally never tried them? This post is a post about why and how to try them. If you’re thinking right now that you don’t want to try them, I urge you to look below to see if any of your reasons for not wanting to try them are covered there. Because the monopoly that WotC’s D&D5e has on TTRPGs as a whole is bad for me as a game designer, and it’s bad for you as a game player. It’s even bad for you if you like D&D5e. A fuller discussion of the why and how this is the case can be found in the links above, but it isn’t fully necessary for understanding this post, it’ll just give you a better perspective on it.

If you’re a D&D5e player, I’m sure at some point or another, you’ve been told “play a different game”, and it must get frustrating without the context of why and how. This post is here to give you the why and how.

[The following paragraph has been edited because the original wording made it sound like we think all weird TTRPGs suck.]

Before that though, one more thing to get out of the way. I'm going to level with you. There’s a lot of weird games out there.

You are gonna see a lot of weird TTRPGs when you take the plunge. Many of them try to completely reinvent what a TTRPG even is, and some fail spectacularly, others really do even up doing something very interesting even if they don't end up being what a core TTRPG player wants. But not every indie RPG is a Bladefish, lots and lots of them are more 'traditional' and will feel very familiar to you, I promise. (And you might even find that you like the weird experimental bladefish type ones, these are usually ideal for one-session plays when your usual group can't play your usual game for any reason.)

You're also going to probably see a lot of very bad games, and man have I got some stories of very bad games, but for now I'm just saying to make sure you read the reviews, or go through curators (several of which will be listed below), before you buy.

Now that that is out of the way, I’m going to go down a list of concerns you may have for why not, and then explain the how.

“I don’t want to learn a whole new set of rules after I already spent so much time learning D&D5e.”

Learning a new set of rules is not going to be as hard as you think. Most other TTRPGs aren’t like that. D&D5e is far on the high end of the scale for TTRPGs being hard and time-consuming to learn and play. If you’ve only played D&D5e, it might trick you into thinking that learning any TTRPG is an overwhelmingly time-consuming task, but this is really mostly a D&D5e problem, not a TTRPG problem as a whole.

“D&D5e has all of these extra online tools to help you play it.”

So what? People have been playing TTRPGs without the help of computers for 50 years. To play a well-designed TTRPG you won’t need a computer. Yes, even if you're bad at math. There are some TTRPGs out there that barely even use math.

“I’m too invested in the narrative and characters of my group’s current ongoing D&D5e campaign to switch to something else.”

There are other games, with better design made by better people for less money, that are the same kind of game as D&D5e, that your current characters, lore, and plot will fit right into and do it better. And no, it's not just Pathfinder, there's others.

“I can’t afford to play another TTRPG.”

You probably can. If you’ve only played D&D5e, you might have been made to think that TTRPGs are a very expensive hobby. They aren’t. D&D5e is actually uniquely expensive, costing more than 3x more than the next most expensive TTRPG I can think of right now. Even on the more expensive end, other TTRPG books will cost you no more than $60, most will cost you less than $20, and a whole lot of them are just free. If you somehow still can’t afford another TTRPG, come to the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book club mentioned below, nominate the game, and if it wins the vote we will straight up buy it for you.

(By the way, if you had any of the above concerns about trying other games besides D&D5e, that really makes it sound like you are in a textbook abusive relationship with D&D5e. This is how abusers control their partners, and how empires control their citizens, by teaching you to think that nothing could ever get any better, and even though they treat you bad, the Other will treat you even worse.)

“If I don’t play D&D5e, which TTRPG should I play?”

That’s a pretty limited question to be asking, because there will be no one TTRPG for everything. And no, D&D5e is not the one TTRPG for everything, Hasbro’s marketing team is just lying to you. (Pathfinder and PbtA are not the one system for everything either!) Do you only play one video game or only watch one movie or only read one book? When you finish watching an action movie like Mad Max, and then you want to watch a horror movie, do you just rewind Mad Max and watch it over again but this time you act scared the whole time? No, you watch a different movie. I’m asking you to give the artistic medium of TTRPGs the same respect you would give movies.

“I want to play something besides D&D5e, but my friends won’t play anything else!”

I have several answers to this.

Try showing them this post.

If that doesn’t work: Make them. Put your foot down. This works especially well if you are the DM. Tell them you won’t run another session of D&D5e until they agree to give what you want to do at least one try instead of always doing only what they want to do. This is, like, playing 101. We learned this in kindergarten. If your friend really wants to play something else, you should give their game a try, or you’re not really being a very good friend.

If that doesn’t work, find another group. This doesn’t even mean that you have to leave your existing group. A good place to start would be the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club which will be mentioned and linked below. You can also go to the subreddit of any game you’re interested in and probably meet people there who have the same problem you do and want to put together a group to play something other than D&D5e. You might get along great with these people, you might not, but you won’t know until you try. Just make sure to have a robust “session zero” so everyone is on the same page. This is a good practice for any group but it is especially important for a group made of players you’ve just met.

“I only watch actual plays.”

Then watch actual plays of games that aren’t D&D5e. These podcasts struggle for the same reasons that indie RPGs struggle, because of the brand recognition and brand loyalty D&D5e has, despite their merit. I don’t watch actual plays, or else I would be able to list more of them. So, anyone who does watch actual plays, please help me out by commenting on this post with some non-D&D5e actual plays you like. And please do me a favor and don’t list actual plays that only play one non-D&D5e system, list ones that go through a variety of systems. The first one I can think of is Tiny Table.

“I can just homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e.”

Even though I want to, I’m not going to try and argue that you can’t actually homebrew away all the problems with D&D5e. Instead, I’m going to ask you why you’re buying two $50 rulebooks just to throw away half the pages. In most other good RPGs, you don’t need to change the rules to make them fun, they’re fun right out the box.

“But homebrewing D&D5e into any kind of game is fun! You can homebrew anything out of D&D5e!”

Firstly, I promise that this is not unique to D&D5e. Secondly, then you would probably have more fun homebrewing a system that gives you a better starting point for reaching your goal. Also, what if I told you that there are entire RPG systems out there that are made just for this? There are RPG systems that were designed for the purpose of being a toolbox and set of materials for you to work with to make exactly the game you want to make. Some examples are GURPS, Savage Worlds, Basic RolePlaying, Caltrop Core, and (as much as I loathe it) PbtA.

“I’m not supporting WotC’s monopoly because I pirate all the D&D5e books.”

Then you’re still not supporting the smaller developers that this monopoly is crushing, either.

Now, here’s the how. Because I promise you, there’s not just one, but probably a dozen other RPGs out there that will scratch your exact itch.

Here’s how to find them. This won’t be a comprehensive list because I’ve already been typing this for like 3 hours already. Those reading this, please go ahead and comment more to help fill out the list.

First, I’m gonna plug one of my own major projects, because it’s my post. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club. It’s a discord server that treats playing TTRPGs like a book club, with the goal of introducing members to a wide variety of games other than D&D5e. RPGs are nominated by members, then we hold a vote to decide what to read and play for a short campaign, then we repeat. There is no financial, time, or schedule investment required to join this book club, I promise it is very schedule-friendly, because we assign people to different groups based of schedule compatibility. You don’t have to play each campaign, or any campaign, you can just read along and participate in discussion that way. And if you can’t afford to buy the rulebook we’re going to be reading, we will make sure you get a PDF of it for free. That is how committed we are to getting non-D&D5e RPGs into people’s hands. Here is an invite link.

Next, there are quite a few tumblr blogs you can follow to get recommendations shown to you frequently.

@indierpgnewsletter

@indie-ttrpg-of-the-day

@theresattrpgforthat

@haveyouplayedthisttrpg

@indiepressrevolution

Plenty of podcasts, journalists, and youtubers out there do in-depth discussions of different systems regularly, a couple I can think of off the top of my head are:

Storyteller Conclave (I’m actually going to be interviewed live on this show on April 10th!)

Seth Skorkowsky

Questing Beast

The Gaming Table

Rascal News

Lastly, you can just go looking. Browse r/rpg, drivethrurpg.com, indie press revolution, and itch.io.

Now, if you really want to support me and my team specifically Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy, our debut TTRPG, is going to launch on Kickstarter on April 10th and we need all the help we can get. Set a reminder from the Kickstarter page through this link.

If you’re interested in a more updated and improved version of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy than the free demo you got from our website, there’s plenty of ways to get one!

Subscribe to our Patreon where we frequently roll our new updates for the prerelease version!

Donate to our ko-fi and send us an email with proof that you did, and we’ll email you back with the full Eureka prerelease package with the most updated version at the time of responding! (The email address can be found if you scroll down to the bottom of our website.)

We also have merchanise.

[indie-ttrpg-of-the-week]

Trans made TTRPGs

Due to… recent events that I would rather not talk about, today's post is a highlight of different tabletop games made by trans peeps! These games are fantastic in their own right, of course, but you can also know that they were made by incredibly cool and attractive people

(Also, these are flyover descs of the game, they'll get more in-depth singular posts later, this is because I am lazy)

Perfect Draw is a phenomenal card game TTRPG that was funded in less than a day on backerkit, it's incredibly fun and has simple to learn hard to master rules for creating custom cards, go check it out!

Songs for the dusk is fucking good, pardon my language, but it's a damn good post apocalyptic game about building community in a post-capitalist-post-apocalypse-post-whatever world. do yourself a favor and if you only check out one game in this list, check this one out, its a beautiful game.

Flying Circus is set in a WW1 inspired fantasy setting full of witches, weird eldritch fish people (who are chill as hell), cults, dead nobility, and other such things. It's inspired by Porco Rosso primarily but it has other touchstones.

Wanderhome is a game about being cute little guys going on a silly adventure and growing as the seasons change, its GMless and very fun

https://weregazelle.itch.io/armour-astir Armour Astir has been featured in here before but its so damn good I had to post it twice. AA demonstrates a fundamental knowledge of the themes of mech shows in a way that very few other games show, its awesome

Kitchen Knightmares is… more of a LARP but its still really dang cool, its about being a knight serving people in a restaurant, its played using discord so its incredibly accessible

https://grimogre.itch.io/michtim Michtim is a game about being small critters protecting their forest from nasty people who wish to harm it, not via brutal violence (sadly) but via friendship and understanding (which is a good substitute to violence)

ok this technically doesn't count but I'm putting it here anyways cuz its like one of my favorite ttrpgs of all time TSL is a game about baring your heart and dueling away with people who you'll probably kiss 10 minutes later, its very very fanfic-ey and inspired by queer narratives. I put it here because its made by a team, and the expansion has a setting specifically meant to be a trans "allegory", so I'll say it counts, honestly just go check it out its good shit

https://willuhl.itch.io/mystic-lilies

Mystic Lillies is a game inspired by ZUN's Touhou Project about witches dueling powerful foes, each other, and themselves. Mystic Lillies features rapid character creation and a unique diceless form of rolling which instead uses a standard playing card deck.

https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/141424/nobilis-the-game-of-sovereign-powers-2002-edition I… want to do a more general overview on Jenna K as an important figure in indie RPG design, but for now just know that Nobilis is good

https://temporalhiccup.itch.io/apocalypse-keys Apocalypse Keys is a game inspired by Doom Patrol, Hellboy, X-men, and other comics about monstrousness being an allegory for disenfranchisement. Apocalypse Keys is also here because its published by Evilhat so its very cleaned up and fancy but I love how the second you check out the dev's other stuff you can tell they are a lot more experimental with their stuff, this is not a critique, it is in fact a compliment

Fellowship! I've posted about this game before, but it is again here. Fellowship has a fun concept that it uses very well mostly, its a game about defining your character's culture, and I think that's really really cool

Voidheart Symphony is a really cool game about psychic rebellion in a city that really does not like you, the more you discover for yourself the better

Panic at the Dojo is a phenomenal ttrpg based on what the Brazilian would call "Pancadaria", which basically means, fucking other's people shit up. Character Creation is incredibly open and free, meaning that many character concepts are available

Legacy 2e is a game about controlling an entire faction's choices across time, its very fun

remember to be kind to a trans person today! oh also don't even try to be transphobic in the reblogs or replies, you will be blocked so fast your head will spin

[rockdwarftv]

So, you wanna play a Pokémon TTRPG

But you don't have the time to manage 1K entries in a book? Well, I'm working on the thing for you! PokéD6.

Now that I've show you my character sheet concept, let me break down some of the things on it. The biggest thing anyone will notice right away is the lack any numbered stats. This system converts existing BSTs (Base Stat Totals) into a 6 point grade. Above, each black diamond (✦) represents one point of that stat's grade. And any pre-existing pokemon can have it's BST quickly converted by simply dividing any given stat's total by 36 and rounding up, to a max of 6! Each grade also has an associated number of dice, which are always equal to the grade itself, and an associated modifier. A stat's modifier is equal to it's grade plus it's IVs. IVs, represented by the hollow diamonds (✧), have also been simplified down into a single dice roll per stat. So, whenever you capture a new pokemon, roll 6d6. Like with stat grades, each diamond represents the IVs value. IVs cap out at 3.

But, you may find yourself asking, what do Stat Dice and Stat Modifiers even do?

Currently, they're for combat! While the attack itself determines how much damage it can do, the pokemon's stats determine if the attack hits, it's minimum damage, how hard they are to hit, and even how much they can reduce the damage! When attacking, say with a Physical Move, the attacking pokemon rolls 1d6 + their ATK Modifiers against the defending pokemon's DEF Modifier + 3. If the attack hits, roll the move's Power and add any bonuses given. Such as Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) or type effectiveness. The defending pokemon rolls their DEF Dice, subtracting their result from the Power roll.

Power has now been converted into d6s, to find a pre-existing move's Power divide it's power by 25 and round up! With the exception of very high damaging moves, most moves deal 1d6 to 6d6 damage.

So a move like Tackle deals 2d6 damage.

I could go on, but for now I want to leave this here and just see what people think! I've enjoyed working on it and am pretty close to being able to do a simple beta of it. So, have a copy of the pdf and lemme know what you think!

EDIT (4/20/24): Yo what if I just suddenly dropped even more rules in this post? Yea? Yea! So here's how trainers work!

Trainers are divided into four Careers; Field Researcher, League Challenger, Contest Coordinator and Pokemon Breeder! These careers determine starting gear, recommend a set of skills (more on those later!!!), and determine how the player can make money. Field Researchers are basically the intern equivalent of a Professor's Aide! They go out, encounter as many new pokemon as possible, and get paid a weekly salary! They can even earn bonuses for finding odd pokemon, such as ones with unusual movesets~! League Challengers are pokemon trainers like in the games! Beat gyms, get badges, take on the champion. Easy as! They get paid based on the trainers they defeat, which can be picked up at a PokeCenter or just given to them immediately. Contest Coordinators focus on training pokemon for Gen 3 style'd Contests! They make money by winning contests, with each rank paying out higher rewards! And lastly, Pokemon Breeders! Like the name says, they make their money by breeding and raising pokemon at the requests of the Pokemon League or other trainers. The more specific the request, the more money they earn for it!

Trainers also have skills! These work a lot like Stat Grades, but they don't have an associated modifier. When making a trainer, a player picks 6 skills out of 12. Players then have 18 points to distribute however they want into those 6 skills, up to a maximum of 5. The other skills are left at 1. The skills available are: Archeology, Cheering, Climbing, Cooking, Fishing, Foraging, Knowledge, Nursing, Riding, Sneaking, Spotting and Swimming!

I'm currently working on reformatting the doc so enjoy the new tidbits for now! See you again when I've finished the doc!

[ss-aquarium]

SDV Bachelors + Fatherhood >--)))°< (PT.2)

●☆○°☆ How the Bachelors are as Fathers ☆°○☆●

|| Paring : {Elliott, Sam, Sebastian x reader}

|| Wordcount : [852]

|| Tags : (Fluff, slight Angst, Headcannons, Established Relationship)

|| Warnings : *Spoilers for Sam’s 14-heart event*

Elliott

Develops an entire children’s library in the nursery, might try to name your kid after a character from a novel he likes

Starts drafting children’s books with your kid as the main character; incredibly proud if your kid wants his stories read at bedtime

Teaches them to read at the speed of light, that kid’s AR levels are through the roof, might self-assign summer reading once they’re in school

That kid has incredible English and writing grades, Elliot probably gets tricked into editing papers when he gets frustrated with revision and might cause a call home about potential plagiarism (why is this 2nd grader using words like “robust” and “forlorn?”)

#1 hair braider, would love a little girl to doll up and practice different hairstyles, very willing to be dolled up for tea parties

Extremely sentimental and marks every single milestone, has too many photo albums, celebrates every graduation, cried uncontrollably when your kid took their first steps

Is definitely the type of parent to leave handwritten notes in you kid’s lunchbox

Wants a large family because he spent so much time isolated and pretty lonely before you moved to the valley, doesn’t pressure you but drops a lot of hints that he wants more than 1 kid

Takes your kids to the beach, will play mermaids, will ask you to play mermaids with them 

Beach day ends in campfire stories around the pit outside his old cabin, maybe “camping” in the cabin 

Likes to play piano for your kids, very proud if they developed musical interests

Literally over the moon if your kid is a bookworm/writer, will not stop recommending authors and series or asking to read their latest works- very supportive

Sam

Resident “cool dad” 

Super lax but strict when is counts, big brother-ing heavily influences his parenting style in a “don’t tell ‘mom’” way, meaning he’ll let them get away with a lot as long as they don’t go telling on him

You’ll have to parent for 2 in the beginning cause Sam’s not used to so much responsibility but he’ll catch on pretty quickly, proud of himself when he starts taking the “dad” role seriously

Vincent was super excited and was one of the first people who got to hold the baby, brags to Jas that he’s got lots of responsibilities as a new uncle

Sam probably likes showing off on the half-pipe and teaches your kid how to skate, very proud if he you guys raise a sk8ter like him

Styles you kid’s hair if they ask, then you’ll have 2 super saiyans around the farm with hair full of rock-hard hair gel

When he got his kid's show gig he ran a lot of drafts through Vincent and your kid, both were super excited seeing him on TV, both bragged about it for weeks and acted like superstars

Loves taking your kid to concerts, both of them decorated headphones for your kid to wear, definitely headbangs to the mildest children's songs to make your kid laugh

Very proud band parent if your kid decides to do band (would prefer band to orchestra cause he can't yell in concert halls)

Jodi is a very proud Grandma and enjoys seeing Sam so mature and responsible; her baby has a baby now

Kent is a little slow on the uptake but is still loving towards his grandkid, will attend veteran's day at your kid's school

Sebastian

Least likely to want children but really loves your kid, finds parenting as a way of healing his childhood trauma (reparents himself)

Very supportive dad and never belittles your kid's achievements or decisions, doesn't want to stifle them like he'd been

Buys motorcycle helmets for the kid even if you say no to him taking them on rides, it's the thought that counts to him

Creates family campaigns for you and your friends to try and get you kid into ttrpgs, will buy/use your kid's toys as minifigs

Would love a lil computer nerd he talk shop with, probably teaches your kid to code once they're older

Obsesses over frog-themed baby clothes and toys, likes to play leapfrog with your kid but will stop after like 2 hops cause he has a bad back from poor posture at his computer (probably makes dad noises even though he's in his early 20s)

Would rock the baby by bouncing it on his leg while he has the coffee shakes coding late at night

Aunty Maru pt.2 cause she will love this kid so much, she'll make little science experiments to teach them about chemistry and robotics

Robin LOVES the kid because Sebastian's finally out of the basement and has a family to care for; basically all she's ever wanted

Demetrius cares for the kid, might chastise Sebastian's parenting but tries to be respectful about it, also makes science experiments about ecology and takes your kid on field study trips

This kid is definitely going to be valedictorian like this is the prime environment for a little nerd

Sebastian would probably let them get a tattoo as a graduation present, might even get a matching one

[pandiongames]

Our brand new apocalyptic mystery TTRPG has launched on Backerkit!

Substratum Protocol is a solo+ survival mystery TTRPG utilizing step-down dice and card draw mechanics, Substratum Protocol is playable as both a solo game or guided by a GM.

If you are familiar with our Hints and Hijinx system (Waffles for Esther, Hamsters and Himbos, etc) then this multiplayer mystery will feel familiar!

Make sure to check out the campaign to get the free preview PDF!

The preview includes the first 38 pages of the book. It contains all the rules and how to play, but does not include any of the information about the mystery, clues, knowledge questions, the sectors' events and descriptions, or the character folios.

With players taking on the role of Earth's best remaining scientists, Substratum Protocol is our entry into the Deep Delving Mystery genre (like Subnautica and In Other Waters). 

On their grueling journey to the center of the Earth, members of the Substratum Expedition will overcome challenges, gain clues and knowledge of the interdimensional portal, discover creatures, aliens, cosmic horrors, and ultimately assemble their final hypothesis to overcome the apocalypse looming before them.

The game intertwines hard science fiction with the inescapable, unknowable horrors of an interdimensional portal tearing apart reality.

Features

Purpose-built for solo and multiplayer mysteries

Unique dice and card draw resolution mechanics

Take special Actions whose outcomes can chain together

Collect beaten cards during Skill Checks to power your suit's abilities

A self-contained story, with unlimited possibilities and outcomes

Quickly build unique and interesting characters at the table

36 unique clues to discover, 36 questions to answer

10 sectors to explore, each one stranger than the last

120 events and encounters to surprise and stump your players

Build the Last Hypothesis: When they have learned all they can, the scientists must pour over their knowledge of the portal, construct the Last Hypothesis and enact their plan. Will it be enough?

Made by an All-Star Team of Creators

We've assembled a fantastic team to bring Substratum Protocol to life, including the group behind the wildly popular dwarves in space TTRPG, Stoneburner by Fari RPGs

Illustrations by Galen Pejeau

Editing by Eric Lazure

Developmental Editing by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas

Layout Direction from Tony Tran

Writing and Design by Andrew Boyd

Promotion by Alex from Backerkit

[utilitycaster]

hm. in the process of doing some informal research re: Kollok I found this line on Polygon:

"One of the show’s gimmicks is that players who subscribe to the channel on Twitch can then make their own characters and are then allowed to embark on a freeform text-based role-play via Discord."

And I gotta ask but has anyone from the Polygon TTRPG/Actual Play writers every been on social media because I'm like, pretty sure any fan of any show can make up an OC and do text-based roleplay on a Discord server; it just might not be an official Discord server. I really do increasingly feel like Polygon capes so hard for Kollok and the heavily film-edited D20 seasons because they don't actually have a good grounding in basic actual play and fandom culture and are honestly a little embarrassed by it. Unfortunately this also means that they're like "Gadzooks! What are these Incredible New concepts like Text-based Roleplay and Longform Campaigns Of Undetermined Length!" and overall it gives off the vibe of a not terribly bright and profoundly stoned college sophomore trying to appear knowledgeable about music by acting like the guitar was invented in 1995 by Oasis.

[therpgconnoisseur]

One of my most enduring pet peeves regarding ttrpg design is hard role designation for character archetypes. I'm a contrarian asshole who enjoys playing against type so i enjoy games that have the flexibility to let you play a character in a way that is different to the standard way presented at first blush especially if this adds to the narrative of the character. The most clear example of this is my most detested dnd class: Clerics. Clerics have been given the role of support healers from way back in bx and have been restricted in that role much more than any other class. With the exception of ADnD 2nd edition and the spheres of influence (aka when clerics didnt suck ass) which allowed you with a little bit of work to make clerics of religions that weren't support healers, some setting books made use of this to flesh out their religions and it added so much to the game feel. Fuck domains, bring back spheres.

[iraprince]

it's here!!! the official japanese edition of my fake marriage ttrpg, 'eyes on the prize,' has launched!! it's licensed through the games publisher malström: you can check it out either via their twitter or directly on their store page!

thank u so much to montro-san + the entire malström translation team for all their hard work, and to all of the players who showed interest in EotP when montro-san first introduced it!! i've felt that my work has been in good hands every step of the way :D

[cripplecharacters]

I have a character with chronic migraine (migraines?) who is an alchemist in the dnd 5th edition forgotten realms setting. Curing his migraines as the main reason he got into alchemy. He has other motivations, but he’s always tinkering with a concoction to help ease his symptoms. Does that seem like a reasonable motivation? If it helps, he also has other interests (language translation, poetry, other alchemical projects) and a vibrant life alongside his disability.

Hi asker,

I'm a huge fan of the setting!

Now for the real answer: When it comes to pain, whether it's migraine or anything else, it's hard on the body and often exhausting as well. Generally, people don't want to be in pain, and they go to various different methods to see if they help. Some do, some don't. Most chronic conditions aren't cured.

So, this does seem like a reasonable motivation, that part of why he gets into this field of combining technology and magic is to help with his pain. If I thought alchemy could cure my pain, I'd try it!

But you are right in that it does help that he has other interests aside from just curing his pain. When it comes to cure-related motivations, what often happens is that the Cure (tm) ends up being the character's only motivation and almost entire personality. So the fact that you've accounted for that and have given him a vibrant life is great!

Side note: depending on what your goal is for the character, you might want to speak to your GM/DM on if you want the character to actually achieve the cure. A TTRPG campaign can be a little different than other types of media because it's for just a small group of people, the players, unless it's being recorded and posted. And since it's collaborative in that way, you can talk to the other players to have your motivations and hopes all set so you're all on the same page.

I hope this helps,

– mod sparrow