#a lot of the time it's the gm had a specific end scenario in mind and the characters didn't do what would bring it about

[utilitycaster]

Something I really like with actual play is that even when I think a story doesn't succeed, it's a really fun exercise to figure out why that happened because it's improv and as a result there's often a specific failure point. I also think it's almost always either an issue of session zero (are these the right characters for the GM's intended plot and vice versa) or a case of the characters making an unexpected choice and the GM failing to pivot away from their original plans. It's like an investigation - I want to know why this didn't work and what the GM originally intended!

[5eforgemaster]

Conversion Kit: The Assassin

Continuing my Conversion Kit series of articles, we discuss the Assassin subclass! Turn any character into a master of ambushes and terribly efficient killer with just three levels of Rogue.

Below the readmore, you can find Additional Support for this kit, as well as Pitfalls and Character Suggestions.

Kit Overview

Investment Type: Multiclass Dip

Minimum Investment: Take 3 Levels of Rogue, selecting the Assassin archetype at level 3.

Overall Impact: Your character now has the mechanical backing to follow through on clever schemes with lethal force.

Investment

Much like our last conversion kit, once you select the Assassin subclass, you can immediately set off to do what assassins do best. Once again, you'll need to satisfy the multiclassing requirement- just a score of 13 in Dexterity, plus a score of 13 in whatever attribute your other class of choice requires.

You don't necessarily need a Dexterity higher than this, but remember that your bonus to Stealth rolls keys off of it. You can mitigate the problems of a low Dexterity score by taking proficiency in Stealth and using the Rogue's Expertise feature to double your proficiency bonus.

Truth be told, you can abandon Stealth entirely if it doesn't fit your concept. However,  you'll want to keep in mind that the assassin's primary feature requires Surprise. While by the Rules as Written, Stealth is the only way to gain surprise, many GMs will allow betrayals or sudden strikes to grant surprise.

Perhaps you can take advantage of Deception or Persuasion to lure your target into a false sense of security, or use a spell like Dimension Door or Invisibility to suddenly appear behind (or even before) a foe and strike them down.

All that said, regardless of the method you'd like to use, you're very likely to want stealth proficiency. It's the least reliant on GM interpretation and applies to the greatest variety of situations.

Narrative Impact

Though the most apparent Narrative for a character using this kit is that of a professional murderer, it is by no means the only route you can take.   Your character is now mechanically incredibly reliant on first strikes. Hunters-turned-warriors (such as most rangers) gravitate to this approach to combat by default, but characters lacking the stomach for battle might turn to this path to end fights quickly. Elite warriors might prefer ambush tactics, and even certain paladins may find a swift death to be all that their foes deserve. In truth, you could utterly ignore this kit's narrative impact and carry on as if you had never taken a single level in another class. However, I'm inclined to see that as something of a wasted opportunity to set your character apart- where did your character learn to fight dirty? Do they see it as a necessary evil and regret their actions, or do they believe they're justified as there's no justice on the battlefield?

Mechanical Impact

From a mechanical perspective, the Assassin offers lethal first-strikes. Whatever your method of attack- a greatsword, a spell, thrown dagger- your Assassinate feature guarantees you a Critical Hit, as long as the attack hits a surprised target.

I cannot emphasize enough how unbelievably good a Guaranteed Critical Hit is in Fifth Edition D&D, and believe me, if I had a way to highlight that bolded, italicized, underlined phrase I would use it. I thought about including a gif of someone slapping a desk. I need you to see those words and realize what they mean.

A critical hit multiplies all of your damage dice. If you can find bonus dice, you're going to hit incredibly hard. If you have multiple attacks, they will all be critical hits. A critical hit on a Paladin's Smite or Rogue's sneak attack is a lucky break. A full round's worth of critical hits on a Fighter's attack routine or a Wizard's Scorching Ray is a dream. Get the drop on an enemy, and that dream is your reality.

The simple truth is, the Assassinate feature alone is enough to enable ambushes as a tactic.

Kit Support

There are several feats you can take advantage of to make this kit more effective. However, even if feats aren't allowed in your game, or all of yours are already accounted for, you're not out of luck. If you keep some rules of thumb in mind, you'll find yourself faring better than someone who approached their build haphazardly.

This list is in no particular order. This is not an optimization guide, and I don't want to commit to the math necessary to rank these options, nor do I want to limit your creativity. That said, as an Assassin, you want to look for:

More attacks. These are easy enough to get: engage in two weapon fighting, pick a class that has the Extra Attack feature, or find a way to get Haste applied to you.

Extra dice for your attacks: Smite and Sneak Attack are good examples. If you have your eyes on a higher level Rogue feature, the extra sneak attack dice will help with this (if you're using an appropriate weapon).

Similarly, spells that grant multiple attack rolls such as Eldritch Blast or spells that have large dice counts like Chaos Bolt. Both of those can be picked up by classes that can't normally access them using the Magic Initiate feat.

You might also consider certain feats, depending on your build and game:

Alert gives you a large bonus to initiative. Depending on how your GM runs Surprise, you may need to win initiative to take advantage of Assassinate- Alert all but guarantees that you'll move first, especially if your Dexterity is already high.

Lucky adds some reliability to your assassination attempts by letting you try again when you roll poorly. Lucky is good to the point of being considered 'cheese' by the community, and many games ban it, but there is objectively no better way to ensure you don't ruin your big moment.

Skulker is somewhat similar to Lucky for ranged characters, though not as effective. If you're a ranged Assassin, this keeps your position from being revealed. You'd be hard pressed to convince your DM that the enemy is still surprised, but maybe you can retreat and try again. The other miscellaneous stealth bonuses are a nice plus.

Spell Sniper doubles your range for attack roll based spells- it'll be easier to surprise foes from a couple of hundred feat away. As a bonus, you ignore all but total cover and even get access to an attack roll based cantrip if you didn't have one already.

Actor might improve your odds of pulling off a social skill based assassin, just check with your GM to make sure they'll rule in your favor before you invest too heavily in the approach.

Pitfalls

There's not a whole lot you can do as a player to make this kit go wrong. Your biggest obstacles are overspecialization and, potentially, your DM.

In the first case, there will be times when Assassinate will fail you. Perhaps the situation isn't right, perhaps you missed your attack, maybe the enemy got the drop on you. None of that matters though- just keep in mind when making choices about your character that not everything needs to improve their critical damage. Dealing hundreds of points of damage with your first strike only matters if you pull it off.

In the second case, some DMs are combative. You might have a DM that feels as though you're somehow "cheating" by assassinating big threats and coaxing your party towards ambush tactics. Some DMs will simply grumble about it and you may need to back off somewhat.

Others will attempt to sabotage you, either by presenting scenarios that make assassinations difficult or impossible, overwhelmingly pitting you against foes that are impossible to surprise or are immune to critical hits, or, in the most egregious cases, abusing their power and arbitrarily depriving you of surprise when you should have it.

The best thing you can do here is keep a level head and talk to your DM. They likely don't actively want to ruin the game for you, and perhaps they have a reasonable motive- maybe you're taking the spotlight away from other players or even making the game less fun for the DM themselves (believe it or not, this is a reasonable concern for the DM- they should have simply been honest with you in the first place, but berating them now won't help either of you).

Whatever your DM's reasons, you can likely compromise if they're honest with you. If your DM gives you any variation of "this is your fault for picking a specialized feature" or "it's just the way it is", you may need to ask if you can rebuild, as they're unlikely to sympathize with your position. Ultimately, your playstyle may just not align with the DM's or group's. There are hundreds of articles about conflict resolution, some specifically tailored for D&D groups, so for the moment I'll table the specifics and perhaps update this article with a link to a quality one at a later date.

A Few Suggestions

I don't want to leave this article on a low note, so I'll close with some classes you can combine with the Assassin subclass for some exciting (if somewhat obvious) character concepts:

Way of Shadow Monk: This monk path offers several supernatural abilities relating to darkness, silence, and hiding- not the least of which is the ability to teleport between patches of shadow. If that doesn't scream "ninja" to you, I don't know what will. The monk also has access to Flurry of Blows, which can make your assassinations quite potent.

Oath of Vengeance Paladin: The Paladin's Smite might be the easiest on-demand way to take advantage of your Assassinate feature. Very few of this Archetype's features synergize with this kit, but access to Haste and Hunter's Mark doesn't hurt, and the narrative of an avenger fits well with the style of combat you'll be employing. If you liked Pathfinder's inquisitor class, this may be for you.

Fiend Patron Warlock: Eldritch Blast is always good, but you have an extra edge with it. Honestly, there's not much too this other than having an easy on-demand ranged damage option, but something about being a contract killer for your Patron seems like an exciting narrative. Works just as well for other patrons, but the fiend seems most likely to employ contract killers. You can take the Blade Pact Boon and Eldritch Smite invocations if you want to step on the Paladin's turf.

With some examples out of the way, I'll take my leave. There's near limitless potential for this kit, as there's some synergy to be had with nearly every class, so you can experiment with confidence.

[collapsingstars-nova]

Dreams.

I wasn’t sure where to write this down, here or the goals blog, but I’m just gonna put it here. 

I keep having two dreams, one of which is a nicer dream, and then the worst dream ever. 

The Nicer Dream: 

I wake up early, on a breezy summer day. The sun hasn’t quite fully risen which means everything’s still cast in that early morning gray light. I love that lighting. I pull on regular clothes and go down to my garden. I’ve got a backyard that’s much bigger than the one I actually have, and a huge three-tiered box garden that’s right outside my second-story window, scaling up the hill. 

It’s not all hunky-dory. On the top tier on the right, I’ve got unnamed plants growing, tomatoes in the middle, and corn stalks on the left. In the dream I turn on a water system, that cascades down the from the top of the hill to the bottom to water everybody. My tomatoes were having a hard time, but they are growing nicely now, and I’m supremely pleased because it’s hard to grow tomatoes, especially in Colorado (which IRL is true.) Whatever on the right is good, and the corn is good, but some nasty weeds have gotten in the way of their healthy growth, and I spent a lot of time in my dream there, pulling out nasty black weeds that look like the corn, but aren’t. Every time I have this dream, the weeds get bigger, and there’s more of them. But they don’t touch any other plants, in fact, there aren’t any other weeds in my garden I’m aware of. Just when I’m starting to feel accomplished for pulling those weeds, I notice something has gone wrong with the watering. The sprinkler system is failing, and the second tier of the garden, which sometimes I remember as spinach and sometimes as carrots, or both, is absolutely flooded, and it’s going to destroy the plants. These plants are pretty hardy and so I tun the water off and let it drain, hoping the sun will dry up the excess and the carrots and spinach which are sprouting will survive, and I resign myself to hand watering the garden until I fix the leak. 

The bottom row of the garden, I never touch, I never take care of or explore what’s there, and when I wake up my curiosity always peaks and I can’t help but wonder why that is, and what’s there. I also know on the far left side on my backyard is more planted, but I never explore it either. The only other thing I explore is tucked away in the corner right. I’ve got a chest-high wooden fence, and behind it are garbage cans. Some are open and some are not, and inside all of them are full of dirt with one random gourd plant growing on top. I can’t count how many are open and closed, in the dream if I do, I immediately forget. And it always ends here, after I’ve checked the gourds, and I am satisfied. The sun never rises anymore than it had when I woke up. 

I’ve had this dream six times since the beginning of February, and it always falls into the same groundhog day scenario, except the weeds in the corn are bigger and more numerous, and I’m aware of that. Sometimes realizing that about the weeds, I become aware I’m dreaming, but I can’t seem to change anything until the dream is over and I become unconscious after the gourds, or I wake up. 

It doesn’t bother me very much, in fact, I enjoy the dream, because I do like to garden, but I’m bothered by how precise and exact the scene and scenarios are every time. 

The Worst Dream Ever:

In this dream, I’ve got long hair. The length changes, sometimes below the shoulder, sometimes around my eyes and chin, but it always is long enough to cover the back of my neck. It always starts with me in various scenarios. In the eight times I’ve had this dream in the past two weeks I’ve been 1) twice at the gym with it tied up, 2) once I was dancing with someone, 3) three times someone has been playing with it and running their fingers in it (which I enjoy IRL) 4) once I was sleeping and finally 5) once I was gardening, which is important and I’ll get to that. I’m watching myself do stuff from the third person, and then it switches to my POV, and someone is pulling on my hair, hard, hard enough to drag me. I end up in the dark, floating in a featureless dark room, and I get a reprieve for only a moment before that same person grabs it and takes dull scissors to it. It hurts enormously, and then when they’re done I’m thrown back into my room, at night, and I’m curled up underneath my window with my hair chopped close to my scalp and in pieces around me. 

This dream makes me anxious enough that I’ve had to wake up and throw up almost every time. The last three times I was expecting it, and ironically enough two of those three was someone playing with my hair, and the third I was gardening. 

I have some premise for this one I can identify IRL; I have had my hair cut in a short pixie since high school, for various reasons. It’s easier to take care of; I’m in an ever ongoing, quiet, gender and sexuality identification crisis; my mom wasn’t ever around to teach me how to take care of it or do anything with it, and I didn’t have any sisters or other femme role models either; at the time it was a load off my mind. And I loved it, and strangely enough, since I did it, it’s become one of the things that helps me to stick out in people’s minds, in a good way. My hair and expressing who I am have become intrinsically linked. But now I’m curious and want to feed that curiosity. I can understand being anxious about it. But to the point of being anxious enough about it, that I keep having this same dream, and it’s incredibly violent toward me, is upsetting. 

...

I figure if I boil it down I’m probably just anxious about some life things. 

But the reoccurrence, specificity, and pointed notes my brain continues to make in these dreams are more than a bit odd. Especially since last night. I had the gardening dream again, and it had been awhile, and as I was weeding, someone grabbed my hair, and it swung right into my hair dream. I had a physical headache when I woke up and spent a good chunk of time coming down from an almost panic attack. 

The combination has been enough to keep me up since early morning, and I’ve spent all day taking care of whatever adult things I’ve been putting off to stave off whatever anxiety is plaguing me, to see if it will help. It feels good but at the same time, I can feel it’s not these things that are wrong. I am just kind of at a loss. I also sat and tried to identify if there was anything in my life that I did regularly that my brain would keep bringing up, but I ingest media, look for a job, and go to the gm. I don’t even listen to the same music over and over. It’s the worst of winter in Colorado right now, I’m not even gardening. 

I’m already aware I need some therapy, but while I’m battling that uphill battle, I thought I’d write something down somewhere. I’ve got a mess of each of these dreams in my notebook and typing things down helps me to sort out messy journal notes. 

And because I’m a glutton for attention/punishment, I thought I’d post it on Tumblr. If someone’s got a better idea as to what the fuck my brain is doing, feel free to hit me up. If not - they’re quite curious dreams anyway. 

[toasttz]

From the Tabletop #3

If I don't do this with some haste, I'm going to forget important details, so let's get the party started. At this point, we had a GM swap, Valentinian being excused out of the plot due to something that, upon having it explained to me, I thought sounded a lot like the World of Light scenario in the latest Super Smash Bros game (which was brand new at the time of this swap). That's largely unimportant, though, as it was just an excuse to shuffle GM in and player out. We then welcomed Gwyn, a Solar Sorcerer and a dangerously savvy and competent individual who Scarlet quickly took a shine to. Gwyn: You only want me for my mind, don't you? Scarlet: No, I totally want your body too. Gwyn: Not helping. Next, we sailed out of the Wyld and we ended up docking in, uh, a bathhouse in WhiteWall. No, I don't know how exactly we managed this. The Wyld, it's a hell of a drug. Anyway, with Maxwell now having kicked his oxygen habit, we needed to inform his next of kin. A little somebody you might have heard me mention named Taiga. We were successful in finding her, and Volkenstein almost got his head punched off for it. After talking her down and explaining that they were merely the messengers of the bad news, Volkie went over to a fighting arena. Whereupon he decided to pick a fight with the biggest badass of the lot. While this was happening, we followed some rumors that lead to the town square where a little god was requesting strange items in return for miracles. Turns out this was a Solar Sorcerer named Malgigi the Violet. He was a total G, and threw in with us with minimal prodding once Scarlet name-dropped Valentinian. Back with Volk, the badass in question began using very specific fighting moves - what people who actually read the book would know as Dark Messiah martial arts charms. This is somewhat forgivable, on account that - really, how would he have known? - but it kind of set up a problem later on that he really should've known better, but I'll get to that in a little. Short of it was, he had the balance of his Four Humors (look it up) thrown into discord, resulting in his poops being cursed. Afterward, Malgigi assessed the situation and created a means to remove the curse, using acupuncture. Suffering only pins and needles (tee-hee), he was soon back in fighting form. Taiga also helpfully informed us that the next key to the One Piece was hidden in a massive vault, heavily guarded and under lock and key itself. Scarlet insisted she could not leave without it and the party, Taiga in tow to assist departed. By the way, there was this huge to-do about "how can you put a key into a safe?" and this honestly took longer than it should have for the party to parse. But since our current GM knew full well our greatest weakness was overthinking (on account Maxwell was dead and Volk wasn't used for intelligece tests), he got his chuckles. The funny part being that the puzzles he gave us in this weird-ass haunted bank... place... were either solved instantly between Gwyn and Scarlet or set us back an hour in real-time, no in-betweens. On our way out was when we really ran into trouble, because one of those aforementioned "Rivals of Volkenstein" appeared for the first time. Thing is, he arrived as an Abyssal, so Volk couldn't immediately recognize this fellow calling himself "The Jackal". The Jackal was kind enough to exposit his backstory for us, telling us how Volkenstein scarred his face by violently tearing off the mask of "El Amigo Grande". When he explained this, Volkenstein immediately agreed that was how it went down. Just a reminder: this guy continued to insist he was a Face. Gwyn and Scarlet knew there was trouble when The Jackal was absorbing the necrotic essence from the surrounding area, and both petitioned to run. At this point, however, The Jackal busted out his signature move - La Cucaracha Espada - which Volk decided he would just tank. Head-on. For those who aren't super steeped in Exalted lore, let me explain. Necrotic essence is bad for living tissue. This lead to an age-old addage "Curse my poops once, shame on you. Curse my poops twice, you're a fucking dumbass." Having dropped like a sack of potatoes, Volk was out of the fight. Gwyn conjured a warp spell, which Scarlet assisted in dragging Volk closer for the escape (but only after suggesting that they could use Volkenstein as a sled to flee). The spell succeeded and we arrived back in front of Malgigi, who was deeply disappointed in a certain poop-cursed wrestle-man. Malgigi explained that the first curse-breaking ritual wouldn't work on something of this potency, and that the ritual required would involve a daicon radish being firmly inserted into Volkenstein's anus. And left for several days. He also recommended that Volk stop drinking, as the damage could be too much for his system to handle. This caused ol' Volkenstein to more or less just lay on his back and vomit for several weeks after. This was probably for the best. Because we needed to pursue the next potential key: the frozen north! Or, what would be the frozen north, but it was the Emerald Labyrinth of the Hazlanti League. Then all Hell broke loose. Because then we got out fourth member, Maxwell's successor, Magpie. I don't even remember Magpie's full name. Or even if she had one. Because that's not what we called her out-of-character. To us, she was Stockholm Dino Maiden: worst of all the punchmonkeys. The thing with Magpie... well, they were legion. To start, her backstory made no sense. She was supposed to have been raised by Arilack. For those who don't know, just imagine a big, predatory, dumb dinosaur. She's the patron of dinosaurs and reptile beasts. Alien, ancient, and not particularly a fan of humankind. For some reason, she found this little kabob of a human child and decided to do what anyone with a ham sandwich would do - teach it multi-variable calculus! So, that's the first problem. So with a backstory that makes no sense, she also had stats that made no sense: she was a Zenith caste with stats that of a Dawn caste. She was supposed to be playing a stupid barbarian but had Lore 3 (one higher than Scarlet, who actually DID have a formal education), dots in medicine (Why, though?!), was a tomb raider with a love of artifacts (WHY, THOUGH?!), was a gourmet chef (BUT WHY THOUGH?!), and the list goes on. In fact, I even gave Magpie an easy "out". I suggested she should be the little sister of a Lunar I made back in 2e, Victorious Carp of the Sky, who actually DID have a familial draconic motif. The character was well-liked and even made a cameo appearance in the previous campaign in one of Hell's arenas, where he battled a fellow fighter to a standstill (the only draw of the tournament which ended in a pair of new drinking buddies), and his mother had a draconic theme as well in her own right. It would've gone together like bread and butter and better explained her stats. So, naturally, her player rejected it outright. Gwyn wanted to venture into the woods to find a figure he called "Grandfather", an ancient and wizened entity who was held in high regard by Gwyn's people. He did find him too, but that didn't particularly go anywhere. Scarlet, Volk, and Maggie (brought along for metagame reasons, which I later rationalized as Scarlet wanting more "dumb muscle") had a narrow head-long collision with a massive, black, cylindrical, metal object that raced across the area. Things got a little hectic, and my memory of the next few events are... fuzzy. Consulting with Valentinian's player I am able to continue. Next, we met a powerful Lunar who acted as guardian and de facto leader of a small village, Esha Mae. She tasked us with retrieving a particular book for her, leading us back to town. Long story short, we obtained the book (which was a series of deeply politically satirical and pornographic cartoons) due to an exchange with a mysterious woman who looked a lot like Scarlet - it's important for me to mention at this point that Scarlet was raised by her uncle, Vermilion Mountain, as her parents (Verdant Wind and Azure River) and most of her extended family were killed when she was about 8 years old due to a sudden flu-like disease that ravaged her hometown in the Caul - who called herself Alabaster Albatross. No prize for guessing the relation, but that plotline never actually went anywhere anyway. Long story short: we did give Esha Mae (nicknamed just "Mae" by Scarlet, as she was wont to do) her book, but then the Albatross attacked using a massive steam cannon weapon. Upon firing, Magpie and Volkenstein managed the one (1) unambiguously awesome thing they pulled off the entire campaign and body-blocked the projectile. Scarlet battled with the Albatross, who was just way, way more powerful and upon dealing just the most glancing of blows, Scarlet was burdened by a large, dead bird lassoed around her neck. Alabaster Albatross taunted Scarlet and wished her the best of 'luck', which the albatross (lowercase) signified the opposite of. Then Magpie did something spectacularly dumb and summoned a Lord of Beasts, which ultimately sent Albatross (uppercase) and her weapon Team Rocket'ing over the horizon line. Then the Lord of Beasts basically told us to fuck off and blocked our number from his phone and stormed off, mumbling about the "kids these days". Consulting Malgigi once more for Scarlet's new predicament, he had us cobble together what amounts to a "Good Luck Potion". Managing that, Scarlet felt the need to 'test her luck' by... well, getting lucky. Which she did. With Mae. The next morning, Scarlet awoke to see Mae presenting her with an egg and declaring it their baby. Fucking Lunars, man, how do they even work?! Anyway, Scarlet charmed Mae into coming with them as a non-combat role on the crew and Scarlet began a new life as an engaged woman. Whew, this has gone on entirely longer than I expected, so let's stop here. Join me next time for: Valentinian dies in Boiling Magma and goes to Hell! Scarlet brutally murders yet another of her cherished circle-mates! Magpie is useless! Volkenstein becomes a thrown weapon! See you next time! *Quick note: Last time I screwed up "letter of MARQUE". I don't even know how I managed it, seeing as there's a sail charm with it right in its name. Ugh, I am so stupid sometimes.

[theconnectingrod-blog]

1988 Honda Prelude Si

Before we get stared I have to thank my buddy Rick Ruiz for being so enthusiastic about this project of mine, he jumped at the opportunity to help and was more than happy to have his Prelude be the first car featured. 

The prelude has always been an interesting car to me, not the car itself but more rather where it fit into Honda’s lineup. Honda had the Civic, Crx, Prelude, Accord, and Integra, all Front wheel drive, all had 4 cylinder engines, all of them had a two door variation. So why did Honda feel the need to produce this 2 door sport coupe if the CRX and the Civic were currently being sold? My guess is going for a traditional coupe style, the 2-door Civic and CRX came in hatches, and in the states hot-hatch culture was still in its infancy, so perhaps hatches weren’t appealing to the masses. Although, then I become confused, at the same time Honda was also selling the Accord, which came in more configurations, coupe, hatch, and sedan, the mid trim levels came with the same engine as the Prelude, and the coupes had extremely similar styling. So why would anyone buy a Prelude, when you could get an Accord with the same performance, more practicality, and more features? Simply put; marketing, the Accord was marketed as Honda’s mid-size family car with all the bells and whistles that you deserved, while the Prelude from its inception was marketed as a sports car, and oh what a sports car it was. At the time, Honda hadn’t revealed the NSX yet, so the prelude was the most powerful and most advanced car they had on offer. (Unless you opted for the base model which had a sad carbureted SOHC B20.) Under the hood of this Prelude sits a B20A5, a DOHC 2.0L 4 cylinder making 135 hp which was Honda’s biggest engine at the time. If you ever google search a third generation Prelude, one of the first things you’re bound to see is “1988 Prelude Si 4ws” 4ws, you’ll see it everywhere, 4ws is the Prelude’s most notable feature, a four wheel steering system, being the first ever in a mass produced passenger car. Four wheel steering systems were seen as the future in passenger cars in the 80s, but never quiet took off due to them being expensive, heavy, and their improvements subtle. They haven’t completely faded from existence though, up until 2005 GM tried using it on a few of their pickups and SUVs and currently BMW and Renault seem to be trying to reintroduce it. (Heres a link to an Autoweek article if you’d to know more about four wheel steering systems and how they work http://autoweek.com/article/car-life/four-wheel-steering-demystified ). The true advantages of a four wheel steering system were mostly felt at a track, were it would give you greatly increased maneuverability at high speeds, the biggest advantage most owners would feel is a smaller turning circle at low speeds, saved tons of people from doing 3-point turns I bet. While the handling advantages were seen as subtle, they were felt when in 1987 a Prelude with four wheel steering beat out true sports cars like the Corvette C4 in Road & Tracks slalom test. The 4ws wasn’t all sunshine and roses, it added a massive 500 pounds to the curb weight of the car, substantially impacting acceleration. I’ve been droning on about this four wheel steering system for long enough, sure its interesting but this Prelude doesn’t even have it. Why not? Well because the 4ws models were damn expensive, $17,945 MSRP, that is roughly $40,600 today, compare a Prelude to what you can buy today with forty thousand dollars and maybe it’ll be more clear why not everyone opted for the 4ws.

What about the styling? Well, at a quick glance, you can clearly tell its a late 80s Honda, might have to quint or look at a badge to tell if its a Prelude, Integra, or an Accord, but you at least know its one of those 3. Seriously google all those from 1988 and take a look, what was Honda thinking making them all look so incredibly similar? I know nowadays car companies give all their models the same basic grill or front end, but at least you can easily tell the difference between a Charger and a Dart. But back to the Prelude, look at its side profile, its body line, the top of the fender lines up perfectly with the bottom of the windows, and then the rear window curves up and gently tosses your eye along the trunk line. Its gorgeous and simplistic, none of the lines dart away in jagged directions to try and create a body line that isn’t there. The rub strip goes around the entire car, from wheel to wheel, bumper to bumper, and even on the wheel arches, because you’re gonna use this car, and you need that rub strip to protect all 360 degrees of you from shopping carts. Side note while we’re on the topic of shopping carts, holy hell the trunk space in this car is surprisingly massive. I wasn’t able to get a picture that properly captured how large the space was, but looking at it from the outside, the truck is about as deep as the rub strip on the bumper and goes all the way to the rear seats, it huge, bigger than you would expect. 

Another surprise of the trunk is actually the trunk lid itself. The trunk lid and quarterpanels are molded to create a very subtle lip on the trunk of the car. That feature alone does more to promote this cars sportiness than fake vents or aggressive lines ever could. Although speaking of vents, this car does have a pair and for awhile they puzzled me quiet a bit, both from a aesthetic and function point of view. You see the Prelude has these funny little vents or channels on both rear tail lights, they appear to have some depth to them so I’m gonna go ahead and assume they serve some function, and my best guess is for cabin air circulation. 

I could be 110% wrong but that is my best guess and I couldn’t find anything specifically related to them online that told me otherwise. The Prelude’s exterior has one more very interesting quirk/feature. Look at the hood and you’ll notice a piece of plastic, that looks very similar to the rub strips circling the car, laying horizontally a couple inches from the windshield. Yeah, that is a built in bug/wind deflector, in my mind one of the coolest features of the Prelude, sure it was marketed as a sports car but that doesn’t mean you can’t have some utilitarian features as well. The last thing to talk about on the exterior of this car is the wheels, everything about them screams 80s and I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that these were actually super rare Mazda Rx-7 wheels. Having a triangle design like that makes me think of a rotary more than anything.

Moving on to the interior. The interior has a nice balance of sports car styling and utilitarian features. The dash board, the center console, and the door panels all sweep forward giving that cockpit feeling seen in more aggressive cars like the Supra. But it counters that by having a large tray in the dash spanning from the glove box to gauge pod, allowing for lots space to set down any loose items.  It has a pod around the gauge cluster with lots of buttons on it similar to whats seen in cars like RX-7 and 300ZX. A humorous feature to me is the seat belt warning light mounted on the ceiling above the rear view mirror. I believe Saabs or Volvos have a similar feature, acting like a “fasten lap belt” light that you would see in an airplane. I find it hilarious to have that in this two door sports car where chances of you always having a full cabin were slim, but Honda gave it to you anyway so you’ll never have to tell your rear passengers to buckle up.

Perhaps this next part is nothing new to some people, but I personally have never come across a system like this before. The seat belts are 100% mounted on the door, not on the floor and the B pillar, not even on the seat, every part of the seat belt is in the door panel. Now when you first get in the car its different but you assume it serves the same purpose as ever other seat belt on every other car, until you try and open the door while you’re still buckled in and realize you can’t. Although even in the worst crash scenarios I can think of, a rescuer could still break the window and cut the seat belt, so I suppose it is not as big of a safety issue as I had first thought. Moving on to the seats, well, most notably they have a good amount of bolstering which was surprising to me given the cars age. There is even a little bit of bucket styling to these seats, its very mild but its there making driving this car quiet comfortable. So how is the drive? Well, quite good to put it simply. I got to drive this car the way most people who would end up owning one would, around tight neighborhood and small town streets. I didn’t drive it on a track, and I didn’t to take it on the highway to test how well that wind deflector worked. I stayed in the neighborhood around Rick’s house and timidly ventured onto one of main roads to get it up to about 50mph. I say timidly because I don’t know my way around Highland, Rick didn’t come with me, and my phone had died. So unfortunately my time driving was just as must spent trying to navigate as it was spent trying to get a feel for the Prelude. For being Honda’s biggest engine at the time, don’t expect to be blown away. Power is adequate, it gets the job done and certainly allows for some spirited driving when you want it. Its exactly what you expect, a nice balance of being fun enough for spirited driving, but practical enough for some great fuel economy. Of course being as it wasn’t my car and Rick wasn’t with me I didn’t want to floor it and be hard on the Prelude without Rick’s consent, although I’m sure he wouldn’t have minded.

Where this car really excels is its steering, not its handling, its steering. The steering is extremely light, you could steer it with your little finger, better yet, you could steer it by blowing on the steering wheel if you tried. Stopped, at low speed, at cruising speed, its incredibly easy to maneuver, there is zero resistance in the steering wheel. My best guess as to why its so light, is that it has a very power power steering pump, as well as light weight steering components to compensate for the whopping 500lbs added by the optional four wheel steering.

The third generation Prelude is a great car, a fantastic car, its appealing, fun, simplistic, and practical. These cars are turning 30 years old, they’re slowly fading from the streets, normal buyers have no faith in a 3 decade old Honda sport coupe. If you find one, buy it, save it, enjoy this piece automotive history, and preserve it. In a few short years they’ll be 40, and the prices will rise as they appeal to enthusiast, collectors, and people who enjoy weird 80s tech. Rick is a lucky man to have found this car in such great shape, where we can admire it very close to as it looked new.

1988 Honda Prelude in Barbados Yellow - Simply good looking.

Sources:

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Prelude

Cargurus: https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/1988-Honda-Prelude-Overview-c3876

[starlight-academy]

starlight 2: survey results

"hey tess, are you here to answer these worldbuilding questions that have been in your inbox for Like A Year Now"

no, actually!! i recently put out a survey about a potential sequel roleplay, and i'm here to share my findings!! if you still want to express your interest you can do so here:

https://goo.gl/forms/erCNdF2n9e1AibKj2

but this will only cover the results at the time of writing. okay i'm just gonna get straight into it!!

who's interested? 

 all in all: sixteen people expressed interest for a sequel! twelve of you identified yourselves as returning players (out of the original fourteen) and good golly gosh that warms my heart. you guys are the whole reason i even considered doing this in the first place, so thank you!! i hope to deliver on your expectations!!

to the four newcomers considering joining: hey thanks to you too!! it's great to see some interest from new people (even though judging by your feedback, you all seem Pretty Unfamiliar with the starlightverse - that's okay though!!). hope you have fun with us!!

(for a bit of trivia: most of you remained un-anonymous! i sort of expected the few nameless responses i got to be from vaguely interested newcomers, but instead... they were returning players?? very unanticipated! very spooky.)

new or old characters? 

i plan to give the returning players the option to revise their old characters, as second-years! and it seems like out of those of you who are set in your decision right now (8 of you), most of you (5 in total) want to bring back the old students! i'm glad you had enough fun with your old characters to consider playing them again!! of course, a bunch of you (3) are planning to bring in new first-year students, which is also good! hopefully we end up with a decent mix of first-years and second-years.

returning npcs

i also asked the returning players if there were any npcs they'd like to see come back!! with the third-year students leaving the school and the staff likely being mostly absent (for plot reasons??) i was hoping to cut down my cast of npcs significantly. the 30-something i had originally... well, i hope to make it work in the vn, but for an active roleplay as gm it's kind of absurd. so i enlisted you guys to help me pick out the favourites to form the new cast of npcs!! here are all the characters who got mentions by you all:

...all in all, eight eligible characters scored votes!! that's a Pretty Significant decrease in number. most of them were second-going-on-third-years, which is fine since we'll have a fair few second-years in the player lineup. i might throw in an additional first-year or two of my own to help the newbies along, but aside from that this might just be the core npc cast!! very exciting!! hopefully now that my attention isn't split between Over Thirty Characters i can play these guys to their fullest potential!!

general feedback for starlight 1

you folks weren't afraid to speak your minds even with your names attached to the responses, and even though even the mildest of criticism can sting a lot i'm still very thankful for your responses!! i hope this will help to shape an even more fun experience for you all. here are the main points you all covered:

some of you felt like you weren't engaged enough in solving the big mystery surrounding the story. that's a pretty big bummer as far as i'm concerned!! in retrospect a lot of the story aspects were kind of obtuse (even if it all made sense in my head), and it was unreasonable to expect you to solve anything without doing some serious digging. that's my bad!! i'll try a lot harder to plant clues for you to find, as well as making the story itself engage you and your characters a bit more. writing a good mystery is hard at the best of times, but hopefully i'll do better this time!!

some of you are eager for more worldbuilding, and i totally get it!! i'm hoping to have a big jam session with the returning players before things kick off, since we have a pretty big time gap of events to cover!! if you guys have any curiosities regarding the starlightverse, hit me up so i can help better your understanding of the school you're in, and everything surrounding it! (i will... eventually get around to answering these questions in my inbox too, lol) i want the starlightverse to feel like a whole big thing instead of the school just being a weird anomaly.

more variety in magic?? also a fair point!! we deliberately kept things relatively simple in starlight 1, having only three main elements to work with plus extra bits like healing and buffs. realistically it doesn't make a huge amount of sense for wizards to all be split neatly into three "elements" (is storm really an element, though, really) and the way the magic system has been specifically set up for rpg purposes has bothered me for a while now. i don't entirely know what i'm going to do with it yet? personally i feel like the whole system needs reworking from the ground up but i don't wanna alienate you guys by completely changing how the magic works. it's gonna depend a lot on how the rp mechanics will work, so... i don't really know what to say about this right now. whoopsies

on a related note, you also asked for more classes and uhhhhhhhh i don't know how that's gonna work with most of the staff out of action but i'll see what i can do!!!!! honestly, though, the actual classes themselves are the least appealing part of running starlight for me because it means i have to try and fuckin explain how magic works in a setting where magic is influenced more by feeling than by strict rules. maybe i can find a way to deliver on the general purpose without actually holding formal classes? we'll see!!!

you also asked for more things to do outside of missions. like potentially heading out into town? it's uh... gonna be hard for you all to actually Leave the weird magic island that the school is situated on, but... maybe i can figure something out? or at least, give you folks more hangout spots so you're not just roaming the hallways all the time.

i will never divulge the rules of wizard cricket. sorry.

the rp format 

 regarding the rp medium, it seems like people are pretty eager to use discord!! i've been enjoying the discord rp experience myself and hopefully it'll be a bit easier on people than the Giant Collab Posts of olde. i'm even happy to compile the logs for later browsing if there's demand for that. in this case i would probably have a side blog to hold important events and missions and stuff.

old-school forum style is also a pretty viable option still, though, so i'll wait and see what i think will be most suitable before i make a firm decision on this

rp mechanics

i won't post the pie chart because there's a couple of "other" answers here, but i'll give you the gist of what the response was. upwards of half of you opted for either less combat focus or no combat whatsoever. this response was primarily coming from the returning players too, so it's pretty easy to see what you're all after. with that in mind i hope to turn down the focus on combat pretty significantly... though i'm not entirely sure yet how i'm going to do that. hopefully i can come up with some fun new quests for you guys!!

regarding the actual mechanics, i got a surprising variety of feedback! as in, i wasn't expecting a whole lot of suggestions at all. though, i'm not sure all of you were listening when i said how keen i was to simplify the system. ideally, i want something that's quick and easy and won't stress you guys out as much as the command system did, and also doesn't take a million years for me the gm to put into action. regardless, here's some of the ideas you guys had:

making use of a sort of lite dnd system, making use of dice rolls and coin flips, and/or a set of general stats that cover stuff outside of combat. basically, something that's quick and light on maths but works for a wide array of shit. this is the route that's most tempting to me right now, honestly. do you know how much time i spent crafting phantom encounters for starlight 1? it was too long. please go easy on me

expanding the array of magic elements is extremely tempting from a worldbuilding perspective, but i don't think it's going to do much to simplify combat. if we're going to steer away from command system style combat, though, it might not be too much of an issue, but then again it also might not actually play into the combat at all in that case. kind of a tricky scenario.

a couple of people mentioned bonuses for forging bonds between player characters rather than just with npcs, and also combo spells powered by teamwork??? while i think this has the potential to be Very Fun, i don't entirely know how it's going to work in practice. maybe i can come up with something though!!

in short...

i have a lot of fuckin work to do!!! but, your collective feedback has been super helpful so far. i hope i can put it all to good use!! let me know if you have any additional feedback or suggestions based on what you see here. anything that helps me flesh out a new system of mechanics especially would be very much appreciated!! thanks for taking the time to fill out my survey, and i hope you'll look forward to starlight 2!!!

[cyberkevvideo]

Rolling Stats for TTRPG. My Grief and My Found Solution

I’m going to be controversial for a moment here. And I’m going to release a little bit of pent of frustration and trauma here as well. Cleanse the spirit, I suppose.

This link may not be anything new to certain readers, but when I saw Justisaur’s 27-25-23 ability score generation, I knew I finally had an answer to all my issues. https://sites.google.com/site/justisaursdd/tar-pit-dugout/justisaurs27-25-23abilityscoregeneration

You roll three times using whatever stat generation method you prefer (3d6, 4d6, 4d6 drop the lowest, etc). Then in order, you subtract the first number from 27, the second from 25, and the third from 23. If any of the numbers are higher than 18, you re-scale them 1 to 1 so that one is 18.

For example, say you rolled a 5 on the first roll using 3d6. Subtracting that from 27 gives you 22. That’s higher than 18 by four points. Re-scale 1 to 1 and the 5 becomes a 9 and the 22 is now 18. You continue this for the second roll with 25 and the third roll with 23. You then add +2 to one number that is 16 or less. So if your numbers ended up being 9, 18, 15, 10, 17, 6 you could put the +2 to four of the numbers. Maybe that 6 could be a 8 instead. No matter what, your total is never less than 77 points. Considering standard array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is 72 points that’s pretty good. There are a couple of variants in the link too. Lower points for different systems and editions (eg. 3d6 systems suggest 25-23-21 instead), and that’s fine. It’s tailored that way for a reason.

I’ll hide some of this for those that don’t care about my gaming past and my issues with rolling stats over point buy, not that I don’t understand people’s gripes about that. I’ve been there too.

I’m tired of blogs who go on and on about “the right way” to build RPG characters. This has gotten even worse since 5e has become a main staple of the gaming community. Even Stephen Colbert has called out the new rules of “4d6 drop the lowest” vs “3d6 in a row” as (paraphrased) ‘rules for babies’. People go on about how rolling stats is what “real gamers do”. That it worked back in the day, and it works now, because you’re not too good to roll stats, and then use slurs of all kinds to put down today’s players who like point buy or prefer not to play games with unoptimized stats. There’s nothing wrong with that. Granted, I’ve done my share of games where I too am tired of seeing the variant human fighter or barbarian Str 20, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 7, Wis 7, Cha 7, and that’s if you allow 20 point buy in Pathfinder. At least in D&D numbers start at 8 and you can’t go any lower. I know. It sucks to see a group built with similar numbers. But that’s easy to get rid of. Just make a house rule that stops people from dumping stats. “Oh, but having low stats is the very primordial fabric of D&D. You don’t want a perfect character. Flaws are fun.” Then what’s the difference between rolling those numbers and getting them organically? Because they purposely min-maxed? Oh, no. Call the Feds. No matter what, people are going to optimize. I have personally seen people train themselves to roll 3d6 and 4d6 so that they almost always roll 18′s. Yet that’s perfectly fine. Nothing’s really said about that at all. But min-maxing stats is where people draw the line. Okay, a few DMs/GMs will go “No, no, you actually roll those dice.” One way or another people will optimize for their own benefit. That will never stop. But what’s worse is the outcome. I personally hate stat rolling because of bombastic trauma I received for having such poor numbers. When you’re in a group that constantly ridicules you because you once again rolled the stats of “Bob the Slow” and when everyone else is Hercules and Thor, the game isn’t fun to play. But don’t you dare voice your opinion because you’re called weak, made fun of more for being a child, etc, etc, etc. That you should thank your lucky stars because you were “blessed” with so many RP stats. Just look at those 7′s. Those are lucky 7′s. So much RP potential compared to those five 18′s everyone else has. Meanwhile everyone, including the DM/GM is mocking you. And yes, I understand that not all groups are like that, but I’ve talked with other people who’ve been there. Maybe not to the same degree, but it was still bad. Also, a lot of groups won’t force you to play characters that don’t have an average modifier of >1, but there are others that make you play it as rolled and you just have to hope for a quick death.

But why don’t you just leave the group then? In my case, I did. More than one group too. Then I came to my current group and it does point buy. It was great. But as other people have mentioned when I talk about that group, it’s apparently equivalent to an abusive relationship that I need to leave. So there’s that, I guess.

I’ve seen posts from professional players, publishers, and writers who all hate point buy, and will say right off the hop that they will not allow anyone to do point buy and then go on a rant about how much they hate it, and why. Usually for the reasons I said above which are easily counteracted. Then when I bring up my arguments I get the same counter argument of “just leave” or “play online”. Yeah, no. It’s not that easy. I’ve done the online thing. It usually peters out after a couple of months, at the most. My computer’s too old to properly run Roll20, and I live in a small city with a very limited number of gamers. I had actually given up gaming for years because it was that hard to find groups, or to care about gaming.

But, this post is not all about being a Debby Downer and putting down rolling stats and saying point buy is better, because sometimes point buy isn’t. It’s what most pre-written modules accommodate for, and that’s fantastic. No, I’ve come to learn of a wonderful new way of rolling stats, and the only people I’ve come to find who hate it are those who want to min-max as heavy as possible with point buy, or have learned to “fake roll” their solid 17-18 stat scores. This makes it even better in my mind.

This was shown to me by another person who was tired of people hating on point buy unnecessarily and even called out older gamers for trying to gatekeep the younger generation. No surprise that person was attacked relentlessly, but some people accepted the find and would consider using it for those who would prefer point buy because they have a major fear of rolling terribly and being their own “Bob the Slow” who might be openly ridiculed by their group.

But Justisaur’s way of doing things? That’s huge to someone like me who’s rolled poorly in the past, and still terrible with numerous d6. Considering I had rolled three 7′s with my one character, I’d have two 18s and a 16, and one of those 7s would have become a 9. And that’s not even including the +2 that I can add. That would have made all the difference in the world back then.

I don’t usually agree with most GMs out there. I don’t even agree with how Matt Mercer does his characters (70 points for stats minimum instead of 72). But more often than not it’s because they’re old school and despite the change of editions they won’t adjust to the changes and feel their way still works. Which, for rolling, if you ALSO add in that your character has the minimum point buy that the system is made for (3.5e 28 pts starting at 8; PF 15 pts starting at 10; 5e 27 pts starting at 8) then fine. Monsters straight out of their monster manual/bestiary, especially in Pathfinder and 5e, are designed for 4 players with that point buy equivalent.

Side Rant: This brings me to another issue. Rolling stats and having 3-4 players with god stats compared to other players, means that you have to adjust combat encounters for the god tier characters, making it way more difficult for the average or low tier players. But that’s basically it. /rant

So, I feel a little better writing all of this, and I very much endorse Justisaur’s way to roll up stats. No one’s god tier, everyone has 77 points, and you still have the “role play” stats that you’re supposed to be proud of.

One final thing to say about this. The fact that you get 77 points is something a little nostalgic for me, and it’s kind of why I’d consider adding an additional +2 to one of the stats (probably to any number less than 10). In the early 2000′s, our local convention used to do 3.5e D&D tournaments with home made characters. They were called Monte Halls. Any class and race from the Player’s Handbook, and you were a specific level based on the scenario, but you always had 80 points to put in your stats with no number being higher than 18. I found this kind of reminiscent of that.

[duckandrollblog]

Continual engagement

 There are a lot of really amazing hobbies in the world. Games, skills, practices, toys, and sports that really captivate and take root in the hearts of those who love them. There are a great many factors to the success of these otherwise very diverse hobbies, but I think one of the biggest factors is “continual engagement”. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had a player message me between sessions with a character idea or a plot point, or rules question, or a head-canon, or theory, or even just to gush about game. I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that my players spend idle hours daydreaming about my campaigns, thinking about their characters, or otherwise thinking about game. I’ve had players tell me that they’ve only made it through their shifts at work because they focused on session, or that their rough times seemed more hopeful knowing another session was coming. And I want to help you all to build this continual engagement and recognize the different types of it.

 1.) Narrative engagement: This is one of the most likely types of engagement to occur naturally. Simply by having a story and narrative, you foster a desire in your players to explore it. Every masked vigilante, every mysterious evil puppet-master, every prophecy or locked vault is a mystery for your players to ponder over. Wondering about the secrets and history of your game or setting is a wonderful type of engagement that helps the player explore your setting in their mind, and encourages them to do so through their character.

 2.) Interpersonal engagement: This type of engagement comes about primarily as a result of having interesting and exciting recurring characters and organizations. This is your classic “Daydreaming” engagement. “Do you think the red Baron could take the lightning princess in a fight?”, “Who do should I court? Percival the pleasant or Lady space-razor?”. “How is the seneschal going to react when they find out that Redstone the harpy is an alien?”  These situations and scenarios focus on the interactions between characters, and the more you build exciting characters with motives and interests the more naturally these thoughts will form.

 3.) Objective engagement: One of my personal favourites, objective engagement is when players spend their time thinking about how to solve a particular problem in-game. The easiest way to create this sense is to give players problems they want or need to solve but can’t or don’t have to solve right away. This can either be done by giving them passive problems they can worry about later, or by presenting a problem at the end of session. In the first case, for example, the players may know that when they reach the heart of the dungeon they’ll have to empty the chalice of eternal tears. They may have already been given a riddle about the chalice, and have all the tools and information at their disposal but not yet pieced together how to do it. In the second example, you may have the session close out with a view of the imperial fleet jumping out of hyperspace practically right on top of the player’s ship. Personally, I end every session by telling players, without spoiling anything, what the next few in-game days have in store, concisely recapping events. “Alright we’ll call it there, but you can tell you have another day or two of riding, but then you’ll be at the ancient petroleum slime refinery, though the mysterious man with a flamethrower hand may well have beaten you there.”. Let them know what’s in store so they can focus on what’s important.

4.) Mechanical engagement: This takes two forms, one is in the actual mechanics of your system. Some players love to read through thousands of abilities and powers and decide what they want next. Some players like learning obscure rules or planning unusual tactics.  This is usually going to happen without you needing to do anything, but a great way to help build on it is to give your players access to new content. “Hey I just bought the Flavour Handbook, check it out, anything in there is suitable for my game”. But it’s also important for your player to feel like the mechanics they’re reading will matter. If they spend an hour learning about the various degrees of difficult terrain and then you decide it’s all just one kind they’ll feel discouraged. This is not to say you need to use the rules as written but make it clear to players that you intend to handle the rules your own way. The other way to build mechanical engagement using the campaign setting. “We know the soul-smiths attack anything with a soul, but would they go after a golem made using an elemental spirit?” “What happens if something with a metal arm punches the flesh-eater ooze?” “Would I die if I ate the gem of eternal night?” letting players wonder about how things work mechanically in your world is every bit as exciting as the rules themselves.

  Of course, with all of this said, it should be clear that building a campaign with depth, characters, intricacies and mysteries is something many GM’s may naturally do. But to really consider their role as a tool for investing players even outside of game is valuable. Of course, GM’s who follow all this advice may find themselves being messaged by players at all hours of the night with obscure or strange campaign questions, but that is in truth just the 5th secret method for building engagement that applies specifically to GMs! It’s also important to keep in mind that players do have their own lives, and sometimes they can’t afford to be musing over campaigns all the time, don’t let this be discouraging though when they have the luxury of it, they’ll always go back to a good campaign in their minds. 

For more articles like this check out: http://www.duckandrollgames.com/

[coruscantholonet]

Survey Results Part 3 : The Negatives

Been dreading this section! The question was “ Would like to hear what you feel could use improvement? Please be constructive! “

My comments will be in bold.  Identifying comments may have those portions redacted.

Combat System Related

“The combat system is tremendously complicated to configure and use. You have to make templates to guide the new players or they will not attract you. In my case I have decided not to use it, it requires too much time and there are faster options that favor roleplay “

The template suggestion is a good idea.  This is one of the easier to learn systems we’ve used over the years though, if anyone has any trouble configuring it feel free to poke any online staff board or ask in the Discord, we’re here to help! 

“ LRS needs to be balanced, going all points offense is just too much of an advantage “

We’re constantly testing and considering options,will look into this further!

“ Everything. Meter being #1 on at the moment. “

Sorry you feel that way! We do have meter as a “needs improvement”, and high priority in that category.

“ Less complicated systems not everyone is waaaaayy into the Dungeons and Dragons Aspect. i myself am from a era in SWRP where everything was Combat Meter. People will debate that combat meter is not rp and they are right from a certain point of view. However before we attacked someone or another group we extensively rped out the scenario these days its all DICE MATH DICE MATH i am horrible at math i come to SL to relax and just play out my character with the occasional battle here and there. Now i am aware thats all the current generation of SWRP but the freedom is very limited i'd prefer old school honor FFC above meter and dice but i realize there is a huge trust issue in the community which i gotta admit is somewhat logical considering the amounts of people that god-modded in the past especially the Sith and Jedi who all were SUPAH powerfull. Hell i'm a sith too but i hide it and play like Palpatine nobody knows i'm sith unless they are sufficiently alligned with the force to sense the intense dark energy hidden. 

 Eh long story short. Focus more on ROLEPLAY and less on DICE or any other system.

 In the end we all come to SL to escape the hectics of life adding complicated systems like CLOCKS [Large Events only as far as i heard ] does make me want to just walk away. Turfs work pretty neat but requires more consistent rules like Take 1 turf a week to prevent Big groups such as my [REDACTED] to Streamwall it all I can go on for hours but wont bother you guys ;) I love the casual rp on the sim that's what drew me in “

“ feel like things like clocks and turf are bloat “

We’re looking at things like Clocks & Turf for revision or termination.  Those behind it are no longer with us, and we do feel it’s current version is too heavy.  The add ons such as that are not mandatory for players to know, they’re more for group leads and often something they can opt out of as well under certain circumstances.

“ Make LRS more like d20 “

I wish this one elaborated a bit more.

“ Only thing I can really think of, is maybe more instructive ways to teach the LRS system, notecards can be helpful. Explain such things like weapons, armor, items, in general to be obtained, where to get them etc. Host events to maybe entice people to get them. And maybe, have more items with different stats, mind you I realize some share different stats, but from what I can see in the starter items, very few have different stats. Not saying, starter items should be powerful, just saying the things I've noticed. I could be mistaken with the items itself, and may need more experience in it. Anyway, thank you for your time :) “

Some good suggestions here.

“ Leveling/Rank system is kinda meh'. While I do like a system that has leveling/rank to it keeps people honest and cuts down on meta/god emoting and shit. I feel like the gaps between some of the higher ranks and lower ranks seem like kinda insane. Which might be intended if so then I suppose it's fine but I feel like Emi basically can't interact with certain people in a hostile manner once she learns their abilities cause you she would have be insane to try it again lol. “

The gaps are actually much less significant than they have been in the prior systems we’ve used such as SWT & Chimera but will look further into that.  I’ve personally lost to a 1 on a 5, so it’s not invincible mode by any means.

Build/Setting Related

“i feel it might be nice to see more places for people to sit and hang out around coronet, maybe replace some of the derelict vehicles or make it so you can sit on them like benches. id like to see more items handed out as mission rewards even if rarely. “

“ I'd like for there to be more places to sit in Vreni and Corenet. benches or just something as simple like being able to sit on clutter such as crates, vehicles, or even ledges. “

Been working on this, adding in more benches, small parks, etc.  As well as getting more staff the ability to generate items that can be given as rewards. If anyone is running a storyline that they want to request items for ask in the Discord or ask me directly, if I’m busy I can at least point you to someone who can help

“ more fun, less stress ... but I have no clue how to make that happen other than just focusing on RP and letting everything else go entirely “

I agree! I assume this one is more about staff than the playerbase as we’ve been pretty happy with the low number of OOC player vs player incidents.

“ Rentals availability notifier “

“ It's hard to find personal rentals. I wish there was a map or something that showed where there were rentals available. “

“ more rental homes i feels like there's not enough rental homes especially on the lower section there's like 4 i beleave maybe bump this up a little if possible as i would belave it would make it better for more people to have homes there. “

Since the survey have added enough rentals to catch up on the waiting list.  While the waiting list is now empty they are all full last I checked so will add more.  The waiting list is why the boxes often auto-lock and do not notify.  When we do have freed up rentals and no list I let people know in Discord announcements. If you want to get on said list let Zenless know, specify which of the rental types/location.  Generally go down the list when one becomes free but if I don’t hear back from someone in 48 hours move on to the next person.

“ The island build kinda tbh “

Would have liked elaboration as to why, I personally enjoy the contrasts in setting.

“ Add a area we can rez items we buy “

We do have a build box, but yeah need to be in the landgroup to rez, this is to protect the sim from griefers.

“ I feel like the furries need to be toned down, a lot of them seem to be pushing the limit on what is okay for a character. Otherwise I don't have a whole lot that comes to mind. “

If you have concerns about an avatar, contact a GM or an Admin.  No one else should be confronting people about avatar appearance.  Mentors will help those wondering if their avatars conform as well.

“ More open areas, like forests, deserts and snowy mountains, depicting the different Corellian environments and bringing more RP scenario options. “

Worked on it with the addition of the RP scenes, currently there are 4, we may switch them up now and then, any player can use these for their adventures. As of writing this we have a snowy one, a shadowy planet, a jungle and a minimalist desert.  It often depends how many prims we have free how details these are.  Things are also added to them specifically for a story, etc.

Story Related

“ Perhaps get more people involved IN the Holonet so we have a wider scope of story coverage from other factions/sources. “

“ StoryLine for the sim. News Reports. “

Would love to! Contact Zenless anytime you have something you would like printed on the news, we’ll take anything from briefs to full length articles. It’s generally me (Zen) who ends up writing most, but would love to have more contributors.

“ Easier access to groups. More storys that involve the "lesser" people that arnt part of a huge faction. Less hiding the roleplayers in faction bases. “

“ More events and gatherings for other time zones. It sucks that all of them are always at 9PM at night US EST. Some of us have jobs... “

“ Perhaps slightly more conflict between the groups. “

“ Most improvements are at the group level. All group leads should be working to give their players some daily content. Whether it be a small quest, large mission, or just something to progress their IC storylines. Right now it seems group leads are more there for policing than GM (game master) “

“ I feel that the Storytellers should put out more events, as well as come to defining the terms of the Clock System in a Simple way. There is too much confusion even among Admins about it. The Sim Build should also be improved to reflect 4D Coruscant. While an Island is nice it is only ever used for beach parties or the Jedi. Whilst every other RP is taking place in Coronet City or the Event Boxes. I am sorry if this was not very constructive but typing it out is a lot harder than explaining on voice. Come hangout with myself or talk to [REDACTED]. “

“ leadership in groups focusing on small scale rp to advance players char's ICly “

“ Could use more roleplay opportunities such as organized events. “

Lot of similar themes in these 6 so I’ll touch on them at once. Our group leads have been great and have been the primary ones responsible for the high levels of activity.  On the other hand since the start we had a story team that did not put much time and effort in other than those who were also group leads.  There was a main story arch yet few if any segments were ever run, and when these people left they asked for their stories not to be used so we had to go back to the drawing board. We’re working very hard to get more people involved in stories/running stories, do let me know if you are interested as we’re always looking for more aid.  Typically we bring on people as mentors first, find out what they do well and help with stories if desired.

“ Not having jedi trying to confiscate lightsabers as if they are the cops... “

You could go to CorSec ICly.  This one really seems like an IC issue as it is technically a violation of Corellian policy/law.

Staff/Management/Leadership Related

“ I feel there is a bias that favors the Jedi with staff “

“ the admins other than Eva do not seem like they care about the players “

“ Some of staff can at times be out of touch with the playerbase and comes off as elitist “

“ One owner has to go as per the jedi discussion on the jedi discord. The rest of the sim is fine. “

“ Admins “

“ Easiest suggestion. Unity. This admin team, just like the old 4D, is being trapped in drama. Things need to be unified and aligned to help the admin team mesh, instead of argue. “

“ some of the staff come off as condescending and rude mostly jedi who are also staff “

“ Consensual basis of decisions by the staff. Seems like things are constantly at odds. “

“ tessa and perry should not be admins “

“ Really wish the admins could be more approachable and stuff :l Except for Ootarian, he cool :D “

“ stop taking on owners who are terrible admins but just have money. wil,perry,lone,keely and so on “

“ I feel the LRS could be slightly more balanced rank-wise. I'd also like to see more LRS items but not too many. Less staff drama would be nice as to not fracture the community and kill RP. More sim-wide events such as Pazaak tournaments, races and even combat-oriented ones would be welcome “ 

“ Not a big fan of LRS but it’s better than most dice systems. Would like to see consensual agreements on staff rather than seemingly duking it out “

As some may have noticed there has been an overhaul of staff, much of this will seek to address any of the comments here. Everyone knows I say what I think to a fault.  So I’ll be transparent in my POV (take as you will) though I’m sure some are going to be unhappy I even touched on this.   The SWL Community was in bad shape after what happened on 4D for those who were here for that, I made a bad judgement call in some of the people I partnered with as our views were incompatible. I was very depressed after 4D (our prior region), and didn’t input as much as I should have when it came to staffing the sim, so they filled the staff with those who I’d consider their “friends”. Staff often became a battlefield of ideology between myself and what I saw as a circle of friends.  In no way am I ever a perfect angel, and there are patches that I could have navigated better so I am responsible for the conflicts within staff as much as the departed are.  Sometimes people just don’t work well together.  What’s done is done though and moving forward I feel we’ve been making a lot of progress in having a more cohesive team.  Still some rough patches as any sim with a decent sized playerbase is going to have it’s share of arguments, but I can say for certainty that everyone involved in leadership now genuinely cares about the community and that we’ll do our best to listen to the players and strive for consistent improvement. 

“ Telling myself that "You seem to be breaking the system, the sith might need their own story system" isnt encouraging. We are here to help the story move along but because we are the only ones really using the Clock system. Our use of it in my opinion should be rewarded not, not discouraged so that way other groups are encouraged to use it also. And this isn't me complaining, this is how what is being said is being perceived. “

The staff member who said this is among those who departed (who have been mentioned often here). We’ll strive for a fair environment for everyone/all groups where goal posts aren’t moved on a whim.

“ More freedom and less bureaucracy “

You and me both :D

“ My friend who had been rping here for a few days before me and participated in two events got told she couldn't rank up because she "only earned 1 exp" meanwhile I got enough to level up and that isn't cool because we both pretty much did everything together so it feels like there might've been some bias there. “

I know it’s repetitive but the person who did this is among those who departed.  Fixed this personally as being consistent is of extreme importance to us.

“ Maybe a little more staff so no one feels overburdened. Would love to see currency added to LRS (kind of like Chimera), most inventory items/upgrades/mods/etc. Otherwise, I love this place. Great people and great fun! “

We are currently interested in taking on another mentor or two as there is a lot of work to be done, but we’re being careful in that we want a staff that can get a long to avoid a lot of the feedback that was brought up here on staff environment being internally hostile.  

MISC

“ Clear advertisement of those willing to mesh-build or animate on commission for players would be nice! Even if we don't take them up on it, knowing it is available helps. “

I like this suggestion, will think of ways to try to advertise for them.

“ - More sim events for common people 

- More story events at current scale before we try and move large scale. We really haven't even tested the waters here and yet we're trying to move larger? It's like an amusement park with one slide saying we need to buy more land rather than build more attractions in the available space to entertain people. Lets try and utilize the current setting to its fullest before we decide it needs to go larger - The main social hub moved to a neutral ownership.

 - More balanced meter 

- Less outrageous things being brought onto sim. The more outrageous things get, the harder it is to bring content because that content gets dismissed by one person with the snap of a finger rather than being a tension and toil to overcome It also puts newer players at a huge social disadvantage. “

This one touched on a lot of things so put it in misc.  Pretty much touched on everything but “outrageous” in other sections.  What people consider outrageous is very subjective but we do try to avoid anything too crazy.

“ A lot of people are a bit bossy and obligating others what to do with their character, especially how they look. That makes people, certainly those who put a lot of effort in them, really pissed. Maybe a send out that we all should respect each other in how we look and how we roleplay. Not everyone is a rich ass who can buy what they want or so experienced in roleplay as the other. So the basic thing is respect. “

True.  If any issues with an avatar or anything else, a GM or Admin should be contacted.  Players hostilely confronting other players is often something that will be considered a minor offense which can lead to disciplinary scenarios.  If you need any help do let one of us know, it makes me very sad when I hear about someone being given a hard time over something like that.

In conclusion, thank you to everyone who filled out the survey.  This was the hardest section to give feedback on as it does touch on a lot of “drama” elements.  I’m not the smartest admin, def not the most PR or PC, I speak from the heart.  It means a lot to me that after six years and all the obstacles that people are still here. I’ll do my best to try to improve everyone's experience.  Please keep in mind we are a VERY diverse role-play community and it’s literally impossible to fully please everyone, sometimes the good of the many will outweigh the good of the few but the tyranny of the majority is also something you always try to keep at bay.   

SWRP as a whole has now lasted about fifteen years as you can trace it’s origins back to 2003 while the first groups and sims really got going in 2004 with groups like the Mandalorians under Dazzo Street,  Jedi under Marcus Moreau and others,the first Galactic Empire.  Then in 2005 sims exploded with Korriban, Sirius, New Holstice, Tatooine, the founding of GAR & DLOTS.   We may have had to do a lot of adapting and changing with the times to still be an active community, but fifteen years is an amazing accomplishment for any roleplay community.   We’ll have our ups and downs but I think we’ve proven ourselves to be as resilient as they come.  :)

[swipestream]

Whose Game Is It Anyway?

It’s the tug of war between whose fun is most important.

Where’s the line between the game the players want to play and the game the GM wants to run? Is the GM bad if they’re getting upset that the players are completely ignoring their setting and plot? Are the players bad if they’re bored and uninterested in what the GM is presenting and they’re trying to pursue things that would be interesting to their character? Who does the game belong to — the GM or the players?

Think back on the favorite games that you’ve ever played or run. I know mine have always been a beautiful mix of the best of a GM’s prep and skill combined with players elevating the game in exciting and unexpected ways. 

Of course, the answer is ‘both’. If everyone at the table isn’t having fun, then something is wrong with the game. Now, the specifics of what’s wrong could be any number of things. Yes, it is possible the GM is being inflexible and railroading their players through a game that isn’t nearly as engaging or interesting as they thought it would be. And yes, it’s equally possible the players are being deliberately obtuse and disregarding the time and effort the GM put into prepping the game they’re playing. Over the years, I’ve seen both of these extremes happen but usually most examples fall somewhere in the middle.

As with most things, it’s not a black and white situation and the middle ground is super broad and very fuzzy. Think back on the favorite games that you’ve ever played or run. I know mine have always been a beautiful mix of the best of a GM’s prep and skill combined with players elevating the game in exciting and unexpected ways. Unless you’re one of those GM’s that craves absolute control or one of those players that craves pure chaos, your favorite games are probably also a similar mix of what both sides bring to the table.

On the GM’s Side…

A friend complained not too long ago that he was seeing a lot of advice in various RPG communities that was essentially telling GMs they should always just roll with whatever the players want to do, even if that completely disregards the setting or plot the GM had prepped for the game. Having talked to a fair number of GMs, I know how absolutely frustrating that advice is when you’re no longer having fun running games. While we are there to bring an entertaining game to the table, our fun shouldn’t be completely disregarded in favor of the players.

At the same time, if we’re not cognizant of the players’ expectations and running a game without their engagement in mind, we’re setting ourselves up for failure. No matter how awesome our ideas as GMs are, if they’re not offering the players an opportunity to add their own flavor and change the game world, we’re essentially asking them to just sit there and be an audience to our greatness. In addition, no matter how excited you are about a game or campaign idea, if the players you’re presenting it to are lukewarm on the idea you’re unlikely to get a very good game out of it. Not every game is meant for every group of players. If you want a high intrigue game of politics and mystery and your players just want to blow off some steam by cracking jokes and punching evil in the face, you’re both going to end up frustrated.

On the Player’s Side…

Tug-of-war might be fun, but fighting between the players and GM isn’t.

Players aren’t completely innocent in this equation. I’ve seen plenty of players who think messing around with the GM’s plan is the height of entertainment, so they go out of their way to screw up any perceived plot. This is always a little sad but funny when I run a Powered by the Apocalypse style game and mostly run improv style. There are also players who get wrapped up in their own ideas to the point that they’re trying to slam the square peg of their character into the round hole of the GM’s planned game. Players absolutely can make or break a game by their willingness to engage with what the GM is presenting.

Now, this isn’t to say players should just lay down and take it when a GM is running a bad game, and no one should feel forced to play a game they’re not interested in. There are times when a game is just bad and any fun you get out of it as a player is going to be what you make of it for yourself with the other players. Or, sometimes a GM’s logic behind their scenario fails and the players make the game go sideways through no ill intent on their part. If I am completely honest with myself, I’m a horrible player to have at the table when I’m not enjoying a game. My impatience is obvious and I don’t hesitate to call out things that are making the game less fun for everyone at the table. Diplomacy isn’t always my best skill.

It’s OUR Table…

What can we do to avoid this tug-of-war between GM’s and players? Neither the players nor the GM have a game if the other half of the equation isn’t there, so it’s in everyone’s best interest to figure this balance out.

GM’s:

Be clear with your players about what your expectations for the game are. Explaining the tone and principles of the game up front, regardless of whether you’re starting a campaign or running a one-shot, is going to help get everyone on the same page right at the beginning.

Give your players very explicit character creation guidelines and stick by them. Allow them the flexibility to create someone they’re going to enjoy playing, but don’t feel pressured to let a player build a character that won’t fit the game. You’ll regret it from the moment play starts.

Be flexible and learn how to think on your feet when your players aren’t engaging with things the way you expected. You can lead your players to a plot hook, but you can’t make them bite. Every GM makes an occasional misjudgment on what is interesting for the players, so we all learn to adjust when needed.

Players:

Don’t agree to play games you know aren’t your cup of tea. While I encourage everyone to stretch their horizons with new games, you know yourself best and will know when you’re not going to have fun with a game.

When you do agree to play a game, play the game the GM is bringing to the table. Find a way to balance a character you’ll enjoy with the setting and tone of the game. Talk with the GM and work out what you’re hoping to get out of the game with what they’re bringing to the table.

Remember that your fun at the table is dependent on the fun of everyone else at the table, including the GM. Figure out how to facilitate your own fun while drawing in the other players and even with the plot the GM is dangling in front of you. Do that and it will make you a player any GM wants at their table.

Ultimately, roleplaying games are a collaborative hobby.  Bring out the best in both the players and the GM and your game will be an amazing thing you and everyone else at the table will be talking about for a very long time.

What are your experiences with finding the balance between the GM’s fun and the player’s fun? I’d love to hear your stories.

Whose Game Is It Anyway? published first on https://medium.com/@ReloadedPCGames

[doycetopia]

Dungeon World Character Creation Thread

img[src<em>='#left']{ float: left; } img[src='#right']{ float: right; }

We’re starting up a mini-campaign of Dungeon World, with most of the conversation taking place in a single private Google+ conversation thread.

But it was too good, so I’m saving most of it here for posterity.

Okay, I think the plan I’m going to go with is running a Dungeon World thing, followed by a Masks thing. (I’m especially jazzed about Masks since I just got a new packet of playbooks from the Kickstarter yesterday, but patience…)

SO, here’s the particulars.

The Roll20 page is [link redacted] – you can jump in there and open a character sheet and put in stats and moves as you like, if you’re super motivated. (Mike, your Artificer is in there already.)

Dungeon World is baaaasically a PBTA take on classic DnD, so the standard DnD classes are there: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, et cetera, and you can dig into alternate playbooks if you want to go the Basic DnD route of “Dwarf is a character class” or whatever. The System Resource document has all the basic classes, but seriously if you have some kind of fantasy trope you want to play, ask, because it probably exists out there somewhere.

Once I know what people are playing, I will hit you with personality and background questions.

The tone of the game will be fantasy closer to White Dwarf and Heavy Metal magazine covers than The Hobbit. Magic is powerful, weird, and dangerous.

We’ll be using Flags instead of Bonds, so ignore Bonds in the rules.

That’s about everything I can think of right now.

Yay! Glad to finally be back to Dungeon World and interested in how Flags play out. Might I also suggest this document.

Oh I like those! Good stuff!

Basically, unless you’re a bard or some other highly social character (some priests might qualify), pick or design two flags for people to hit. If you’re super-social, three.

BTW Doyce, are we still going to be doing the thing with the timeloop where my artificer remembers what happened that you’d mentioned in the previous thread, or are we doing something else? Will probably help me determine my Flags.

What do you think? I was thinking something like you suddenly find yourself riding a horse on the way to Frostberry at the base of the mountain, with these people you know, but also with that other set of very vivid (but fading?) “memories”… it would tie into your experiments in the cabin pretty well.

Or you could play someone else and your other guy can be a backup character following someone’s gruesome death.

Actually, Mike, I was looking over my notes from that other session, and guess what? During the lead-in questions, we found out that group was actually the SECOND group you were heading to the mountain with – the first group was wiped out before you ever got to the mountain.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BE TRYING TO REACH THE PEAK?

(~Ash tries to play it cool as he relives a hellish groundhog day scenario for the 113th time…~)

I’d forgotten all about that. Man, Ash really shouldn’t have played with that clock… every single time.

I kind of like the idea of Ash just flashing back to town, with a brand new group of adventurers ready to head up to the Mountain. “Gods below, why is it always a new group of people? Why do the memories always end when we get to the door? Why is it always the same day but everything is different? Maybe things will turn out differently this time…”

I love this, so much.

Also of use: the dungeonworldsrd.com site has a section just on Character Creation – nice, since the actual character class pages don’t cover things like “what stat numbers you get.”

I’ve been re-reading the Flags article Doyce originally linked to at http://walkingmind.evilhat.com – From Bonds to Flags.

(Saying this aloud to be sure I get the idea): a Flag is a Significant Personality Trait, with how others can tap it to demonstrate it (both trait and tap being something that makes the game interesting) and so earn them an XP.

I would say the label of a flag is usually expressed as a personality trait, although the actual flag itself is the action that somebody takes to point at that personality trait

To go down a little bit further, it’s not just a personality trait that your character has, it’s an aspect of your character that you think will be FUN to see called out fairly regularly in play. People are going to be getting Xp rewards for hitting this thing, so they’re going to want to hit it. if you don’t want to see it… actually I’m going to say that if you don’t think you’ll enjoy seeing it repeatedly, pick something else.

(As a side note, and not to discourage anyone, but bearing in mind that this is meant to be a short campaign, it may not be necessary to boil the ocean to create our characters. Though I’ll confess I have several paragraphs of backstory already written …)

He’s going to feel so silly when he dies in the first room.

No worries, I can run an immediate sequel campaign using Wraith: the Oblivion.

Is there a mechanical reason to put the Flags in the Roll20 Bio page, vs. putting them in on the main character sheet as if they were Bonds?

(We’ll probably want to gather all of those into a convenient document, since we need to know each other’s Flags more than our own.)

The bio page is the only page that other people can see, other than the people who can actually edit the character sheet. So you can see the part of the sheet with all the stats and numbers and moves, but somebody else looking at your sheet can only see that bio page. So if I wanted to see what flags to hit on your character, I can click on your character sheet and see those flags on the front page, but I won’t be able to see them if they’re inside your character sheet, and even if I could see them in the character sheet they’re a lot harder to find in there.

Basically I would put them in both places, but I’m weird like that.

Put another way: The bio page is basically for everything you want other people to see and know about your character

Poifect, thanks.

Did anyone else figure out what they are playing?

Dave’s got a bard, Mike is doing his Artificer, Kay is I think gravitating toward a Ranger or Fighter. I don’t know about Margie yet, and my personal experience with her character choices, while extensive, isn’t deep enough to let me guess.

I do know that she’s usually as willing as you are to fill a needed gap, so you need not wait.

Right now, the ‘gaps’ are primarily thief- and fighter- or cleric-shaped, I think?

That said, it’s three sort of hybrid classes so far, so more dual-mode stuff (an unclassed ‘elf’ or ‘dwarf’ or something, for example) also works.

Knowledge/lore stuff can be covered by both the Artificer and Bard, but don’t let that rule out a Cleric or proper spell-caster.

I mean, really, I’d say go for whatever type of play most appeals to you – if you guys don’t end up with a bend-bars/lift gates or lockpick person, you’ll have to work the problems another way.

I shall sing to the iron bars and they shall part to let me pass!

Or … most likely not.

My favorite part about the alternate Bard playbook is that it’s specifically designed to remove the ‘singing with a lute in the middle of a fight’ stuff.

Okay, stock Thief is statted in Roll20.

I will noodge the kinfolk.

Bill, you say “stock thief” but the image makes me think of a very specific thief who wants my HP or my GP. 😉

I’m not picky.

“Cowardly: Put us in situations I can justly complain about.”

Well, there’s everyone XP fountain for the game.

PERFECT.

Hey, Ash and Basler can complain about everything together! 😀

Actually just noticed that they both have the same flag, just named slightly different; I found mine under the Lawful header, but I figured I’d rename it for something more character appropriate.

Hmm. Yeah, that duplicate flag might be troublesome. Something to ponder. Hmm…

Oh I don’t know Doyce, that just means that Ash and Basler will want different things to complain about. Can’t speak for Bill, but from the Cowardly tag it sounds like he wants Basler to complain about being put into dangerous situations that he doesn’t want that he can complain about. “Hey Basler, this hallway looks suspicious. Mind taking a look?” “Oh, I don’t know…”

I see Ash’s more of seeing other people in danger and after helping them, complaining about being put upon to help. (just making some assumptions here…) Eduard: “Oh no, I’m being beset on all sides! Someone help me!” Ash: disgusted noise “I swear, if I wasn’t around to pull your butts out of the fire.”

Sure it’s a slight distinction, but I can see it being quiet different in play. Sort of an internal vs. external dynamic, if that makes sense.

I am 100% on board if you guys are.

Kay has given you all a marvelous gift for this campaign.

“Go fight that demon! This talisman will protect you.”

By the time that PC dies, the rest of us will have leveled up enough to beat it.

Actual conversation I had with kay on Roll20 tonight:

“Seriously, can I trust the thief?”

GM looks at your ‘Gullible’ flag.

“Absolutely.”

This whole thread is a national treasure.

Just checked out all the characters on the Roll20 page and I must say I’m very excited for tonight’s game.

Yeah, thank goodness this is just a one-off adventure, otherwise folk might have put real effort into devising interesting characters …

If you guys don’t end up destroying the world, I will keep them around for additional Adventures.

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