celticteddy

[celticteddy]

Actually considering writing two versions of the same story for my players. One is the smut book one has, and one is the true story of what happened that the smut book is based on. ><

This is why you don’t give me a month and a half off from a campaign.

[celticteddy]

I have had an NPC traveling with the party for several months OOG and about a month IG, and last night he had to take his leave of the party and when he left one of the party members who has been making and handing out these little feather pins that stand for being members of their group, handed one to him.

I legit almost started crying at the table when he got one. 

[celticteddy]

Let trans men be as feminine or as masculine as they want

[celticteddy]

Captain Marvel (2019) dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

[celticteddy]

Any tips on spicing up combat? My encounters tend to devolve into scenes of players standing around an enemy or enemies just beating them to death, or getting knocked out.

This is a timely question, as I recently experienced a very exciting combat encounter, and so I’m full of ideas!  Here are some suggestions:

Spicing Up Combat

1) Use a Variety of Enemy Types

This means several things.  Obviously you want to be picking interesting opponents who will provide a challenge for your players.  But don’t feel like you have to only limit yourself to creatures who are the same level as them.  Taking down a big bad monster is fun, but so is one-shotting mooks.  You can use different kinds of enemies within the same encounter to provide variety for your players and to force them to make more interesting tactical decisions.  

2) Give them a Goal Beyond Just Killing

Maybe they need to rescue hostages or retrieve an item from the enemy.  Maybe they need to defend a location.  Maybe they need to capture an opponent.  Maybe they need to gain some intelligence.  Maybe they need to be stealthy.  Maybe they need to make as big a distraction as possible.  Maybe they need battle the elements or some sort of natural disaster while they battle with their foes as well.  Maybe they need race against the clock.  Maybe they need to make a daring escape as they fight for their lives.  

Give them something to do besides just chipping away at each other’s health and you’ll force your players to use both their brains and their character’s other skills.  

3) Use Your Environment

You can make your encounters unforgettable by engaging with your setting.  If your players are in a dungeon with all sorts of traps and hazards, have their opponents actively make use of those traps in the middle of battle.  If your players are in a vehicle such as a ship, consider all the problems that could occur (missed swing puts a hole in the hull, a fire spell sets the vehicle ablaze, the motion of the vehicle forces PCs to roll checks to stay in control, etc.).  If they’re in a jungle, have them attacked by enemies in the treetops who can use vines to swing from tree to tree.  If they’re in a ruin, have the battle possibly affect the structural integrity of the building.  Maybe they’re in a technological setting and punching a hole in the wall leads to venting plasma or oxygen.  Maybe rough terrain forces them to be careful about where and how they move. 

Don’t just give them living opponents - have your players fighting the world itself!

4) Make Your Players Move

Nothing gets stale faster than a combat encounter where they just stand around exchanging blows.  Force them to move!  There are many ways you can use the environment to accomplish this (see number 2).  You can also accomplish this by having the enemies move around.  Have enemies attacking from multiple elevations (from the air, from rooftops, from below, etc).  Have enemies use flanking tactics.  

If you find that you’re reluctant to have enemies move because you’re afraid of players getting attacks of opportunity, consider ways to mitigate that.  Also consider: is it better to have a long, boring battle, or a short interesting one?

5) Give Your Players Toys

When all you have is a hammer, your problems all start to look like nails.  Give your players interesting loot that isn’t weapons or armor and see what they do with it.  You’d be surprised what they might try with an immovable rod or a tanglefoot bag or a decanter of endless water.  And if they come up with an idea to use their gear that isn’t necessarily spelled out in the mechanics?  Let them do it anyway, if it’s interesting.  This is why they’re playing a tabletop RPG instead of a video game or a board game.  You as the DM can roll with the punches and let anything happen.  Use that!

6) Encourage and Reward Creativity

To encourage your players to be creative, you can use NPCs to model the types of things you’d like to see.  If you want to see more interesting tactics, have their enemies use interesting tactics.  If you want them to role-play more during combat, have their opponents emoting and using more dialogue.  

More importantly, reward them for being creative.  If your players spend time preparing or coming up with a plan, let it work - to an extent.  Sometimes as a DM, your instinct is to always think of ways to oppose them.  For example, if they plan to sneak in somewhere using Invisibility, you may think to yourself “Okay!  I’ll give their opponents guard animals with a strong sense of smell so that they won’t be able to sneak.”  But that just makes your players feel disempowered and like planning is a waste of time.  Instead, give them the satisfaction of success before throwing other unexpected wrenches in their plans to keep things interesting.

Hope some of this was helpful.  Thanks for the question and good luck with your campaign!

[celticteddy]

NEW STUFF has arrived in my shop! 

Equipment Screen Tote Bag – A screen printed tote bag designed for displaying pins! A divider sewn into the bag protects the pin backs from the rest of the bag’s contents. Made with recycled canvas, measures 14x12" (conveniently the perfect size for tabletop books.)

Health/Mana/Stamina Potions (enamel pin set) – A 3-pin set of health, mana, and stamina potions. This is my first time designing something with transparent enamel – they turned out real cute. 

shop.emilycheeseman.com

[celticteddy]

I’ve compiled every raw ass quote from tumblr shitposts into my phone and i’m gonna use every single one of them in my campaign at some point.

[celticteddy]

I have a Paladin to the Raven Queen who was training as a medic before his goddess recruited him. I have a Cleric to Hanali Celani who was a soldier known for killing before his goddess recruited him.  Yeah, no. That totally makes sense. ><

[celticteddy]

[celticteddy]

Life magazine, July 1923

[celticteddy]

Broke af?

But still interested in feeding yourself? What if I told you that there’s a woman with a blog who had to feed both herself and her young son…on 10 British pounds ($15/14 Euro) per week?

Let me tell you a thing.

This woman saved my life last year. Actually saved my life. I had a piggy bank full of change and that’s it. Many people in my fandom might remember that dark time as when I had to hock my writing skills in exchange for donations. I cried a lot then. 

This is real talk, people: I marked down exactly what I needed to buy, totaled it, counted out that exact change, and then went to three different stores to buy what I needed so I didn’t have to dump a load of change on just one person. I was already embarrassed, but to feel people staring? Utter shame suffused me. The reasons behind that are another post all together. 

AgirlcalledJack.com is run by a British woman who was on benefits for years. Things got desperate. She had to find a way to feed herself and her son using just the basics that could be found at the supermarket. But the recipes she came up with are amazing. 

You have to consider the differing costs of things between countries, but if you just have three ingredients in your cupboard, this woman will tell you what to do with it. Check what you already have. Chances are you have the basics of a filling meal already. 

Here’s her list of kitchen basics. 

Bake your own bread. It’s easier than you think. Here’s a list of many recipes, each using some variation of just plain flour, yeast, some oil, maybe water or lemon juice. And kneading bread is therapeutic. 

Make your own pasta–gluten free. 

She gets it. She really does. This is the article that started it all. It’s called “Hunger Hurts”.

She has vegan recipes.

A carrot, a can of kidney beans, and some cumin will get you a really filling soup…or throw in some flour for binding and you’ve got yourself a burger. 

Don’t have an oven or the stove isn’t available? She covers that in her Microwave Cooking section. 

She has a book, but many recipes can be found on her blog for free. She prices her recipes down to the cent, and every year she participates in a project called “Living Below the Line” where she has to live on 1 BP per day of food for five days. 

Things improved for me a little, but her website is my go to. I learned how to bake bread (using my crockpot, but that was my own twist), and I have a little cart full of things that saved me back then, just in case I need them again. She gives you the tools to feed yourself, for very little money, and that’s a fabulous feeling. 

Tip: Whenever you have a little extra money, buy a 10 dollar/pound/euro giftcard from your discount grocer. Stash it. That’s your super emergency money. Make sure they don’t charge by the month for lack of use, though.

I don’t care if it sounds like an advertisement–you won’t be buying anything from the site. What I DO care about is your mental, emotional, and physical health–and dammit, food’s right in the center of that. 

If you don’t need this now, pass it on to someone who does. Pass it on anyway, because do you REALLY know which of the people in your life is in need? Which follower might be staring at their own piggy bank? Trust me: someone out there needs to see this. 

[celticteddy]

I haven’t eaten in three and a half days.

Every time I try it takes like ash and then I get sick. Can’t keep anything but liquids down.

My head feels like it is about to explode and I just want to curl up and die

i honestly dont care anymore about the show, or dnd or any of it...i just want to know hurt any more.

[celticteddy]

Hear me out You need to try reincarnation Just Die But dont stay like that

Doctors hate me for this one simple trick

[celticteddy]

you know how most of the things humans use as spices are poisonous or repellent to most other mammals? and you know how anything vaguely d&d inspired has dwarves being way more poison resistant than even humans?

dwarf cuisine shouldn’t be bland, it should be unimaginably spicy and potentially harmful or fatal to humans. like green potato and rhubarb leaf salad with a festive garnish of yew berries and deadly nightshade berries, that kind of thing.

[celticteddy]

D&D is a wild experience when you’re invested, you’re simultaneously playing a game, creating a narrative, and become a fandom??? so you and your friends can talk for hours about your characters and theories while guarding character secrets to not spoil anything and then think ‘i can’t wait for the next episode’, while knowing you’ll actually be collaboratively generating content, but are still like ‘i cant believe my dumbass child did that’

[celticteddy]

reminder to:

straighten your back

go pee goddAMN IT STOP HOLDING IT

go take your meds if you need to

drink some water

go get a snack if you havent eaten in a while

maybe wander around the house/stretch a little if you’ve been sat at the computer a while (artists especially: sTRETCH THOSE WRISTS)

reply to that text/message from earlier you’d forgotten about

maybe send a nice lil message to someone having a bad day?

[celticteddy]

·Non Binary Hufflepuff·