#I'm like a dnd player

[kdval]

I wanna know about Roland? Tell me about him🫣

Hello, Mara! Thank you for asking!

Oof, I'll try to be brief. can't promise tho muwahaha Roland is one of the main POVs in my fantasy/teslapunk novel that takes place in an alternative world, set in ~1900. Once I decided to recreate him in CP to show him to our dear @imaginarycyberpunk2023 (and ended up with creating Lara as well bc they're inseparable in my head and I need to feed my brainrot lul)... so here we are!

In the novel he's a beast hunter, an orphan raised by non-human beings — Presences (you probably know one of them already — Ha'al). Actually, in his youth, he started with hunting people on Presences behalf (only bad people, I promise!), but then they decided he's not suitable for this kind of job and made him a beast hunter instead. At the beginning of the story Roland's been hunting for 20 years and is preparing for the early retirement. He's a captain of a small squad – only three people currently. He's convinced that he's good for nothing but hunting (since it's the only thing he has done his entire life). So his whole arc is basically about him finding a new purpose in life (which ends with meeting Lara).

Roland is stern, stoic man who only opens up with his friends. Despite this he's very talkative, philosophical even. He's from poor village family, and although Presences taught him manners, he can be rude, sharp-tongued and doesn't bow before aristocracy. Roland is an exceptionally good gunslinger, who has some little but useful non-human skills. He's also a one-lady type of guy, and he and Lara are... well, basically they're soulmates (it's a bit more complicated in the novel but let's call it like this for now).

I've been working on this novel for five years already so I don't quite remember where exactly this character started... But I would say Roland is a wild amalgam of different fantasy and non-fantasy characters. He has the dignity and loyalty of Aragorn; the reflection and thinking of Erich Maria Remarque's character; some details in his behavior, appearance, and facial expressions are from H. Jackman’s Wolverine (maybe even his Van Helsing too yeah I love this guy). And some other little details from typical western heroes.

As for his PrEtTy PuPpY fAcE... I designed him long before CP, here's this crude piece of "art" (haven't finished it yet):

Keeping in mind these type of characters as the prototypes:

Not completely sure what I'm gonna do with him (and others) to fit him into CP setting tbh... Either I'll try to make an AU to my novel or simply continue... just shooting pics 🤔

I tried to be as comprehensive as I can but feel free to poke me for more info if you want 🙃

[lesbicosmos]

one of my friends watched dead boy detectives after i spent weeks rambling nonsense about it so here's a collection of his commentary on each episode

(update he got tumblr @typhoidrat)

ep1:

ep2 and 3 he got so into it he forgot to text so this was all i got

ep4:

ep5:

ep6:

ep7:

ep8:

[heybiji]

ialso love playign superhero ttrpgs can i ask what the Masks ttrpg is? i love finding neww hero themed ttrpgs ^-^ yay!

Ohhh!! Hey! i love getting to talk ttrpg stuff thanks for the question!

MASKS: A New Generation is a superhero ttrpg about teenagers all trying to figure out who they are in a world filled with people constantly telling them who they are and how the world works. It's less about the powers and the fights and more about the emotional journey of the PCs with mechanics that support that. It's a really narratively driven game!

tldr: try it out! it's fun! it's simple! and it's low-prep (apparently, just not for me, but i'm always just gonna do Too Much). you want a system with mechanics that revolve around telling a story? around your character's emotions and how they view themselves? this is the one for you! it's great and i've really been enjoying it!!

First of all, it's a fail-forward system, so the way your character levels (advanced) is by missing rolls. I like this a lot.

There are ten core playbooks that are essentially the classes you can choose from. They each come with their own powers, some intentionally more impressive than others, but it's not about the powers; it's about the core conflict that comes with each of the archetypes. Here are a few playbook examples:

The Delinquent: You've got these cool powers. But everyone keeps telling you how to use 'em. You know what they need? Someone to give them trouble, to make sure they don't always get their way. And hey! You're the perfect her to do it.

The Legacy: You're the latest in a storied heroic lineage, a family that shares a name and a cause. Now, everybody is watching and waiting to see if you've got what it takes to uphold that tradition. No Pressure, right?

The Nova: You're a font of power. Channel it, and you can remake the world into exactly what you want. Unleash it, and you can do miracles. It's wonderful... and terrifying. Lose control for even a second, and other people get hurt.

Your stats are your Labels. They're how you see yourself, and how others see you. The Labels are DANGER, FREAK, SAVIOR, SUPERIOR, and MUNDANE. Different stats help with different Moves/rolls, so for example a high DANGER stat helps you Directly Engage a Threat, while a low MUNDANE stat makes it harder for you to Comfort or Support Someone. Your Labels are constantly being shifted around throughout the game as your character's self-image changes (and that self-image changes a lot, basically the NPCs are just label shifting machines).

The mechanics are fun! Instead of traditional damage, the PCs have Conditions that they take on, and what conditions a character has affects their rolls. The Conditions are Afraid, Angry, Guilty, Hopeless, and Insecure. So if you're Angry you take -2 on your roll to do the move Comfort or Support Someone, if you're Afraid, it's -2 on Directly Engage a Threat, etc. There are multiple ways to clear your conditions but the most straightforward way is to take a particular action, so if you're Angry you have to hurt someone or break something important, and if you're Afraid you have to run from something difficult. These actions lead to some awesome and surprising story beats!

There's some other stuff as well, but that's the gist!

Coming from DND, it took me some time to adjust to something so wildly different in terms of the system, but I've been enjoying it! I haven't gotten to play it as a PC, but running it has been an interesting challenge. I think it's a pretty simple system to work with, and I at least hear it's low-prep (again not for me tho lol). It's mechanically looser than the only other ttrpg I've played (dnd) and requires a lot more decision making from the whole table, so I think in a way it asks more of its players in that way. And the GM role is constantly on in a specific way, because it's up to the GM to listen and call out when a Move is being triggered and a roll should be made based on what the characters are doing in any particular scene.

anyway I can always have more to say but MASKS has been fun. I recommend giving it a shot! And then you should tell me what you thought about it!!

[the-wizard-synonyms]

you ever just see a super niche piece of d&d advice (idek if this is the right word for it) and feel an itch in your bones to make an entire zine that's effectively an essay talking about how much you dislike it and the ableist implications of it being enforced at tables but it's just for you because you don't share your thoughts with other human beings that'd be wild and you don't particularly feel like being told it's not actually ableist and you're just oversensitive and can't take a joke today. no just me never mind dw about it

[hellishfig]

just finished www #23: on your way, and i have many thoughts. all of them make me want to cry.

ame knowing as soon as she got back to the cottage that her actions had burned a bridge, not just with the citadel but with one of her best friends, and yet still needing to complete her tasks as the witch of the world's heart. the spirits she awakens so as not to leave the cottage untended or unprotected, and the way she asks and does not take. the note she leaves, should her friends make it there.

eursulon in the fire, followed by the man in black, who is a brother in the way all spirits are brethren, but not the sibling eursulon seeks. leaving through the burrow, fighting monstrosities, and seeing the citadel raze cities to ruin beside a jungle of rot. finding the tree. his tree. the tree that is emblazoned on his shield, his coat of arms, what he fights to protect. and inside... his sister. a family she made for herself.

and suvi. hurt but still afraid that ame will die if she stays. determined to not let that happen. conversations with steel where she says that another wizard said that the wizard sly lied, or did not tell the full truth. commiseration, but suvi holds back the full truth, and suspects steel of doing the same. an airship to fly north. to protect ame, yes. but the mage armor mean that no creature or spirit or witch will ever be able to touch her again. broken trust, if not broken love.

and through it all, the thread that the citadel represents a threat to the world's heart itself, and to all spirits beyond. the council of elders wishes to neutralize that threat. grandmother wren did not.

questions moving forward: what is the true purpose of the war on gaothmai being waged by the empire? why does kalaya's family look like suvi? is suvi going to have a villain arc? i have my theories, but i'll get into those in other posts.

thank you to the worlds beyond number cast and crew for giving us this incredible story. i'm so excited to see where you take us next.

[blujaydoodles]

sometimes you just gotta cover your guy in blood, you know how it is

[alliedn]

A little art I made for my homebrew'd CoS:Reloaded campaign! The result of Gustav Durst's first failed marriage, miss Ginevra Amakiir- and her beloved cat Gin, portrayed in a little oval frame.

For more info on Ginevra and the og painting, see belowww. Spoilers for the first chapter of CoS I suppose

Nowadays, they're a hag and her f- familiar :) my players know this since she's an old oc of mine, but their characters have NO IDEA what happened to that tiefling girl confined in her room. Rose and Thorn remember fondly their smart half-sister who secretly taught them cantrips- again, I'm mastering Dragnacarta's Reloaded CoS so they know cantrips- and her grumpy cat. She was way older than Rose, so when she turned 18 she packed her stuff and left the Durst house to go study magic outside of Barovia. She was a woman AND a tiefling living centuries ago, so you can imagine there were very few institutions willing to accept her despite her being rich. So yeah she left Barovia just a few years before Strahd ruined everything for everyone.

>Gin the cat: actually an imp Ginevra summoned herself at the age of 6. She was an academic prodigy, already casting simple cantrips at 4. Her mother Amelia cheerfully encouraged her studies, her loser of a father Gustav... not so much. "The practice of the arcane arts is an improper activity for a lady" he would say. Gosh I love making my players hate an npc so much.

>How did she get to Barovia in the first place? Her mother, Amelia Amakiir, was an officer during a great war of my homebrew setting. Ginevra was living in a girls' boarding school, in a completely different region, until that city came under siege. Amelia immediately had her daughter relocated to her father's house, in a safe valley in the north: Barovia. It was supposed to be a temporary solution, but unfortunately Amelia perished in battle soon after and Ginevra had nowhere else to go. Gustav was bound by the law to keep his daughter, and so he, and his new wife Elizabeth Wachter, resentfully did.

I was going through a bit of an ugly artblock when I wanted to make her portrait, so I literally googled Oval Portrait Girl With Cat and painted over one. It's okay, it's for a personal dnd game! I'm not even signing it. Here's full credit to the gorgeous original piece:

OIL ON CANVAS - American 1850s Portrait of Little Girl in a White Chiffon Dress & Coral Necklace, holding her tabby cat with crossed arms. Unknown artist?

Link of what I guess is the og painting: https://live.thomastonauction.com/auction-lot/oil-on-canvas-american-1850s-portrait-of-little_20F3EB6F4B

Link where I got the picture with the oval frame: https://madisonbayco.com/shop/painting-prints-on-canvas/primitive-painting-print-canvas/girl-with-cat/

[reksink]

Artworks of an Ambitios Luchador

[yael-art-den]

My last DnD hot take for now is that: I don't think "Problem Players" exist, and if they do, it's always a DM issue. I think they are a TTRPG boogeyman that has been blown out of proportion by reddit fake stories.

For context, I've been playing this hobby for 8 years now in friend groups, discord, and board game associations. More than half of those as a DM. I haven't once seen a "My dark ninja tabaxi unsheats his katana +4 of soul reaping" or other blatantly cheating characters at lvl 1, but I HAVE seen new players going "haha, yeah my ranger was raised by wolves" and older, more "veteran players" going pfft and overall being dismissive and very gate-keepy to what they thought was a silly concept art, to that player's face.

I'm a firm believer in "meet your players where they're at", and if someone created an edgy backstory being raised by wolves and all that? Hell yeah! You wrote something for me; that's more than half of the regular players have done. If the backstory doesn't fit the theme at all, then is up to both of you to work it into something that fits the genre of the story (do a goddamn session 0), but as Brennan said on AA, it's all about redirecting energy. Don't squash a new player's excitement because you think, in all of your experience and glory in TTRPGs, that they have a "boring" concept.

Now, what do I mean of "they're a DMing issue"? Have I met only perfect people and players whom I've never had problems with? no. While most of the people I've met on the hobby are wonderful, I've had my fair share of players that go from un-cooperative and PvP heavy, to several flavors of -phobic and straight up trying to play particular kinks in-game.

It's a DM issue because NOTHING stops you from going "Hey. Stop" when a scene gets out of hand. Stop Yes, and-ing someone who's making everyone uncomfortable. If someone is being a Problem Player at your table, you have two options:

Talk to them as adults and understand where the issue is. Are they new and thought this was a competitive game? do they feel insecure and are using humor too much and de-railing the game? Whatever the case, treat them with respect and genuinely try to put yourself in their place and understand where they're from. Remove the Problem and keep the Player.

2. If they're just an asshole, bigot, or a bad fit in general at your group, they can keep being a Problem but definitely not a Player.

[royalsea-art]

the plot of my campaign? oh, you mean my player's theories that I've stolen and made them part of the story because they are way cooler than whatever I had in mind?

you mean *that* plot?

[curse-of-dming-strahd]

I decided to run a big combat in-person as a treat, because we normally play over zoom and I wanted to give my new players at least a sample of what the chemistry is like when we're all playing with tokens and hand-drawn paper maps in the same living room together

and my newest player had such a good time that they demanded we all sign the battle map so that they can frame it and put it up above her desk as a commemorative piece dfjsdkfls

THIS IS THE MOST PUREST AND GOODEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD JKFLDSfdkfsdj help me

[heybiji]

hi i found your page cause of your Masks art!!

imma be running a game of masks and was wondering if you have any tips

Oh hello! Very cool you're gonna run a MASKS game, it can be a lot of fun!

I'm not sure how helpful my advice will be since I'm still learning and am not sure how well I actually run the game haha, but for starters there's a whole lot of great advice on Reddit that will help with the mechanics and the structure of the game. In my opinion, the Principles section in the GM part of the core book is critical and succinct and is great advice for running ttrpgs in general.

my top advice is:

"We play to get the next issue picked up!"

Play the game like we want people to buy the next issue and not put the series down! Take chances! Make big choices! Make it interesting! Be bold!!

other things:

Theme. Establish the themes of your story early on. This will help you understand how the world and story should respond to the PCs. And make the themes interesting to you! For example, beyond the general coming-of-age story themes already built into the character arcs, I lean heavily into the concepts of fame, celebrity, and the 24-hour news cycle. And all the things that were going on in the early 2000s.

Be a Fan of the PCs. This is my favorite rule from The Principles. Make sure all your players soak this rule in. The MASKS mechanics mean characters will often make less-than-optimal decisions, so players must feel supported in their character choices. You should be a fan of the characters, and so should your players! They should want to help bring out every character's arc, not just their own.

Treating Human Life as Meaningful is what Makes Threats Real. This is another principle, but yeah, make the world's NPCs feel like they matter, and that will make the world worth protecting. Treat them as people. Give everyone Drives, not just your Villains. Mentally treating even non-villain NPCs as having Conditions can do a lot to help with characterization.

Condense. Condense your world, your NPCs, make the world feel smaller. In our game, for example, having the Protege's mentor also be the same superhero who saved the Delinquent years ago was a great decision.

Playlists. I have a bunch of different playlists for the campaign, from a big one of music of the time (our game is set in 2004) to playlists for important NPCs, to playlists I asked my players to curate for their characters. Music inspires me a bunch, a song can help create a villain for me, and I also like choosing a different "ending" song for every episode based on whatever happened.

Stories. Okay, here's the thing. I don't really care much for superhero stories. Why did I choose to run MASKS, you ask? Because of the emotion-based mechanics. That's my shit. But anyway, I don't take in much superhero media... But I do LOVE movies and television and stories in general, and I think taking in a lot of "short stories" is helpful to develop an instinct on how to pace a story, make a character or moment memorable, etc. And because MASKS has an episodic nature, this is extremely important! The sheer amount of movies I've watched has helped me a whole bunch, since they have to get the Beginning, Middle, and End done within such a short time frame.

Don't Wait. This is an instinct I've picked up from some of my favorite media. Don't wait for The big important moment. Make a lot of big important moments, and make the characters have to make a lot of important choices, and keep the momentum going. Paint yourself into a corner and then force yourself to think of ways out! It makes the story more interesting. (this may not apply to everyone, I get this kind of mindset from shows like Breaking Bad and Succession, which for your story could be too much haha)

Everyone Works. Okay, I am not a benevolent, sweet GM, I will not smile with tears in my eyes and quietly work away and accept that without complaint. no way. I make my players help me a lot. I'm gonna whine. Guys I'm doing so much work! Guys this is hard! Weeehhh! MAKE THEM HELP YOU. RUNNING A GAME IS SOOOOO MUCH WORK OH MY GOD IT'S SOOOOOO MUCH WORK!!! Ask them to take notes! Ask them to treat the world with sincerity! Ask them to make NPCs! Ask them to play NPCs! Ask them to help fill out the world! Ask them to tell you what their character wants to do next so you have extra time to consider it! Ask them to make playlists for their characters to help you figure out how to engage with them! Don't let them just show up on playday!! I'm a "you get what you give" kind of GM. You're a player too and you deserve to enjoy the game as well, and having the other players help you helps a BUNCH. PUT THEM TO WORK.

what else. uh. visuals help a lot with engagement so i subscribed to a bunch of modern battlemap patreons. i run using Foundry which lists the rules upon every roll which is great for me, someone with horrid memory. if you're lucky and favored by god, you'll have a benevolent player that will be the scribe for your sessions and log everything down so they can be referred back to (again, great for someone like me with a horrid memory). remember to give focus to the PC's out-of-costume lives as well. make NPCs in response to your PCs (superheroes, villains, touch on something of a PC in the creation process). be silly. be serious. be sincere.

i'm still figuring out how to run the game, maybe i'll have better advice on a later day, but i hope this can help some! sorry this is longwinded and more a stream of consciousness than it is succinct.

[buzzfella]

good evening open wide its time for weekly sunderfolk propaganda.

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?

you: omg so excited to have my dnd party over!! theres 6 people,, so its hard to get everyone together!

lo! all but two people arrive! 3 of your friends are in your home!

the other two people: heyyy i have to cancel last minute because of (work/drive time/family/excuse)

WHAT DO YOU DO?! YOU CANT CONVENIENTLY WRITE OUT TWO CHARACTERS THIS SESSION!!! enter SUNDERFOLK!

you and your three friends go and play this epic ass rpg instead and its like woah. this is epic. and theres a story. our forever dm gets to strategize as a player!!!!

also the art and story are cute.

[jade-efflorescence]

three cheers for getting over yet another guy that doesn't like me back i guess

[screentunes]

what the hell is blappel??

it's a state of being

[six-improbable-things]

I had to open the ship combat rules doc I made for Rook's campaign the other day, and man, that thing was (and still is tbh) my fucking magnum opus. I put so much effort into creating rules for a type of combat that dnd doesn't naturally support, and it was SUCH a fun challenge. I'll admit it's not perfect, but it works for our campaign, and everyone seemed to like it during our one test so far, so that's good enough for me.

I think between the stat blocks, the rules themselves, and the maps of the ships, I spent easily 48 hours total on making this sailing arc happen. (No, I'm not the DM, I just like homebrewing shit, and also happen to be the one who decided to play a pirate and make that involved in the story.)