#avatarpg

[nilbogdraw]

Since I believe my art evolved quite a bit these past months, I decided to redraw the first OC Friday I did, which it was of my boy Aki and his best pal Bol.

vvv My vvv

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[lyinar]

For fairness, FFG's Genesys ruleset is a generified version of what they came up with for their Star Wars game. I've run both, and the weird dice system makes for some amazingly cinematic combats because you can fail but still get some benefit out of it and succeed while something still goes wrong. I've found that how it works clicks on about your third roll with it.

As an example of the cinematic combat, the Genesys game I ran was in a mashup setting that started as Shadowrun and had stuff like the Dresden Files and The Secret World and Assassin's Creed folded into it. In the fight that was the culmination of the PC Shadowrunners' op to take out a combination soy plantation and blood magic research station run by Aztechnology, a guard shot at the party's Street Samurai, and failed badly enough to give a free shot to his target. The Street Samurai managed to hit but also rolled a disadvantage that dropped them prone. So, the end result was that the Street Samurai, who was using rollerblades built into their cyberlegs to quickly cross the compound, hit a rock and fell as the guard fired, causing them to miss, and flawlessly head-shotted the guy with one of their pistols on the way down.

If your players are fans of The Witcher (and are okay with far more crunch than any version of D&D), one of the more interesting byproducts of R. Talsorian and CD Projekt Red working together on Cyberpunk 2077 was a Witcher RPG heavily based around The Witcher 3 and using modified Cyberpunk rules.

If they're fans of Avatar The Last Airbender and/or Legend of Korra, there's an EXTREMELY well-made AvataRPG that's very much built to be a cinematic collaborative-storytelling style game where your characters' big moments of awesome come from finding balance between their conflicting ideals.

Star Trek Adventures is mechanically built to support the fact that your characters are crew members of a ship who work together, and has fast-creation rules for Supporting Characters so the person who plays the ship's Counselor can control a Redshirt on an away mission that they know isn't going to need someone with their main character's skillset.

Age of Sigmar Soulbound is set in Warhammer Age of Sigmar and is all about playing excessively badass characters regularly doing the impossible in a grimdark setting, and the personal costs of being a beacon of hope in such a universe. Or you could play a group using the Champions of Death rulebook and effectively run black ops for the God of Necromancy (or against him, because he REALLY deserves it). Or for the Ultimate Murderhobo Experience, you could play using the Champions of Destruction rulebook and be a merry band of Orruks and Ogors and Troggoths and Grots wreaking mayhem wherever they go. No matter what you play, basically all the player Archetypes have actual extremely high-quality models from Games Workshop.

Speaking of Warhammer, there are now three different rulesets for Warhammer 40k RPGs. The old FFG system had entire games focusing on different game styles, Wrath and Glory is very much an action-focused game, and Imperium Maledictum is focused on lower-level operatives working for a patron within the Imperium of Man.

And, of course, there's also the upcoming Daggerheart, made by the people behind Critical Role, which very much leans into an improv-heavy collaborative storytelling style.

D&D has its place, and is actually a well-made game for what it does, but it's far from all that's out there.

Not an original observation but it's legitimately insane how common of a story "I don't want to run d&d 5e anymore but I'm stuck running it because it's the only thing my group will let me GM for them" is. It's fucking everywhere in any non-D&D focused ttrpg space.

Like. I think "the person who does like 90% of the work to make the game actually happen gets to pick what game we play" should be the bare minimum of courtesy towards a GM.

[loopy777]

RE: WIPs game: do I even want to know what Dicebenders is is it another scam how many times are the Gaang gonna get arrested for scamming

No, this time it's me scamming people. XD The dice in question are the RPG Dungeons & Dragons kind.

For a while I was doing a screencap webcomic in the style of "DM of the Rings" and "Darths & Droids" with another creative fan named Captain Boomerang. I was the scriptwriter and selected the screenshots for each panel, and Capt-BA would assemble the comics and improve my scripts (a process that did frustrate me a little, as I felt locked out of the revision process, but I did like the results. I just felt like I wasn't holding up my end of the partnership a bit). I wrote a story bible explaining the characters and storytelling rules, planned out the adaptation of the entire AtLA premiere, and had less detailed plans for the rest of the series, but we only got 6 comics in before Capt-BA went on a trip and never returned to the internet. I did manage to re-establish contact with her long enough to get permission to continue the comic, but the problem is that I have no image-editing skills whatsoever.

If I could find comic-making software that I know would do what I want and be easy to use, I wouldn't mind dropping some money on it, but everything I've looked at is trying to do lots of things I don't need. I only want a way to import existing pictures into comic grids, and then easily add dialogue bubbles. That's it. But the stuff I've found is more about image-editing than comic assembly, and it takes me an hour to put together a dialogue bubble that looks good. So I have 3 scripts that were never produced, which along with the planning docs are what's in that WIP folder, and I don't ever see myself going beyond that.

Besides, someone else already managed to complete something like this, and while I'm not a fan, I don't need to be. At this point, Dicebenders is dead. I'm glad I tried it, and it's a shame it didn't work out, but I'm happy with the other projects I've done instead.

I am squatting on an empty Tumblr for it, though.

Anyway, to share something new, here's the first section of the Story Bible I wrote to make sure Capt-BA and I were on the same page in terms of characterization. The rest of the bible details the plotlines for full series.

AVATAR: THE LAST DICEBENDER

BIBLE

Premise- A small group of players attempt to run a fantasy martial arts RPG that winds up essentially becoming the Avatar saga, or something very close. The main point of the series is comedy, based mostly on ridiculous links between Avatar and RPG's. Sometimes the humor will be in the vast difference between what happens in the comic, and what happens in the cartoon with the same screenshots. Other times, the funny will come from the unexpected ways they converge.

SPIRITUAL PREDECESSORS

DM of the Rings- The original, and my personal favorite. It's a good showcase of how to run a single quest together, while using narrative jumps to skip to the good bits.

Darths & Droids- A similar project, this stands out from its predecessor in two main ways. The players and GM are more friendly with each other, and are more or less having fun with each other. There is also a running, coherent storyline in both the game and in the lives of the players.

Benders & Brawlers- This is actually an existing attempt to do Darths & Droids with Avatar. This is helpful as an example of what we DON'T want to do, retell the Avatar story in a completely straightforward manner, with RPG players behind the characters.

CHARACTERS

None of the characters will be given real names. The players shall always be referred to by their character names, although this can be done in a teasing, ironic manner. When the characters are speaking, their dialogue bubble must always be attached to an image of the character.

The Gamemaster- The GM is a female in her early teens. She is a geek, and a bit of a social outcast for it. Nevertheless, she's trying to make that work for her, although she's not quite mature enough to make it happen yet. She has just discovered RPG's, and in her enthusiasm has gone all out in starting her own campaign. The only problem is that she doesn't know how to recruit players, so she ropes her best friend and little brother into playing with her. This is the GM's first campaign, so she'll a little in over her head. She knows the mechanics of play, and what she's supposed to be doing as GM, but doesn't have the fine skill in crafting an engaging RPG experience. Still, she wants to do her best, is willing to learn, and has a positive attitude about the whole thing. The GM has a strong crush on the Sokka player, but the only way she can express it is by having all the female NPC's flirt with the Sokka character.

Katara- Female in early teens, and the GM's best friend. Katara's player was friends with the GM from when they were both in grammar school, so while they have grown up into wildly different personality types, they are fully loyal to each other. Katara is popular, and outgoing, and doesn't care or know about geek stuff at all. She's only playing the game because the GM begged her to. At first, Katara is clueless about RPG's, and frequently questions or ridicules the mechanics of the game. She never quite gets into the idea of role-playing, but quickly takes to the idea of meta-gaming. She'll have her character act like a righteous do-gooder, because completing missions and fighting bad guys earns XP. She hoards items that will boost her stats. She'll advocate abandoning a mission/plot if it doesn't pay out enough rewards. Katara's player also can tend towards trying to Mary Sue her character, but this is inconsistent and usually shot down by everyone else.

Aang- Male in junior high, and the GM's little brother. He plays simply because his sister has cajoled him into it, and there are hints that he's getting some kind of reward or payment for it. He abuses his position by forcing the GM to give him what he wants in the game, even if it breaks the rules- access to the restricted Airbender class, the ability to bend all four elements, overloaded stats, an Avatar State that protects him from dying, a magic super flying cow ride, etc. However, it's important to note that Aang's player isn't a jerk. He's just immature, and like all kids, just always goes for what he wants via the easiest path, and doesn't realize that he may be causing trouble or hurting feelings. He's enthusiastic about trying out this RPG thing, but he has trouble coming up with any action beyond attacking or retreating. He's also hyper aware that the GM and Katara are girls. He is too old for cootie concerns, but thinks that girls are fundamentally different creatures with their own incomprehensible concerns. Having a big sister, he doesn't find this a big deal, just part of life. Aang's player is too young to be a geek. He likes cartoons and sports and fantasy and school-dramas. He also tends to follow whatever his sister likes.

Sokka- Male in late teens. This guy is your quintessential RPG player. He has is own top-quality dice, he's played campaigns and systems of all kinds, and knows the tropes of the hobby cold. He's a huge geek for all things geeky, but roleplay is easily his favorite. He's a social outcast, but he's made friends among his fellow geeks, and thinks life is just fine. Sokka's player joins when he meets the GM at the comic/games shop they both frequent. The GM was buying some sourcebooks and material to support the fantasy martial arts game she's running, and Sokka noticed, asked about it, liked what he heard, and got permission to join the game. What Sokka doesn't realize, because he is a geek and neither has experience with it or realizes it's even possible, is that the GM is sweet on him. This manifests in the character Sokka's canon luck with the ladies, only kicked up a notch. *Every single* female NPC flirts with him, whether it's appropriate or not. Sometimes player Sokka notices and tries to roleplay it, and sometimes he's just plain confused. Sokka has a few quirks. His best set of dice are his Lucky Red Dice, which always roll high when he needs it, but have been tested and proven to be fair dice. He also mandates that every character he plays use a boomerang; he was turned into a geek by the first video game he ever played, a Legend of Zelda title, and his favorite weapon from those games are the boomerang. Each of his characters has a unique, named boomerang.

Zuko- The GM's favorite NPC. She created him to be a compelling, dramatic character, with a complicated back story, moral struggles, badass loner personality, angst about his existence, a darkly noble quality, and a cool scar. The GM intended Katara to get to know Zuko, for her to try to woo him away from the side of evil, and perhaps to even have a romance with him. The PC's, however, couldn't care less about him. To them, he's just another mini-boss, and the fact that most of his character development is happening "off screen" means they don't realize that he's recruitable. A frequent gag is Zuko delivering a stirring monologue while no one pays attention.

Iroh- Background NPC. The GM tries to use him to give (ignored) hints to the players.

Toph- (tentative) A male munchkin gamer who picked a long list of weaknesses in order to get superbending. Toph's player is a friend of Sokka's player, brought in after an "incident" with his old group, and causes some initial resentment in the group when tries to show the n00bs how its done. Cowing Toph's player is a major victory for the GM.

Momo- NPC, but maybe make him a talking sidekick who gives the players hints when the GM is really exasperated?

Azula- the GM's best favorite villain. Azula is the GM unleashed, letting her take out frustrations on the players in both combat and harsh taunting. Eventually the GM comes to like the character so much, she retcons mental health issues into the character's backstory, and has her pet NPC, Zuko, spare her.

[visagesalancienne]

Eddie Redmayne - Les Misérables (2012)

[lyinar]

As to non-D&D RPGs, they have a wide range on at least two different axes:

Complexity - On one end of this spectrum, you have stuff like FATE Core, where the rules are extremely simple and freeform, and on the other, you have Shadowrun (where the previous edition took me, someone who has run games in multiple different systems, six hours and two Excel spreadsheets to create a character).  Most stuff is somewhere in between.  The ruleset Wil mentioned using for Titansgrave is a good example of a midpoint.

Crunchiness - This one is a bit weirder to quantify, but it’s basically whether it focuses more on story aspects or more on hard simulationist rules.  In short, if you declare what your character’s doing for any given situation and there’s already a specific rule for it, it’s high-crunch.  If the GM decides what relevant set of stats you need to roll on the fly, it’s low-crunch.  D&D is actually pretty high-crunch with a lot of discrete rules for specific actions and defined difficulty levels for rolls even though it’s not as mechanically complex as Shadowrun, while Avatar Legends (an RPG for the Avatar franchise with magic elemental kung fu instead of the one with big blue cat people) is very heavily story-focused and the players and GM are encouraged to all work together toward making interesting episodes instead of having an adversarial relationship.  To keep Wil relevant to the midpoint example here, too, Star Trek Adventures has a fair amount of crunch, but also gives bonuses for either following or challenging your character’s ideals, weights your chances of success VERY heavily toward making good use of teamwork to play into the fact that your characters are Starfleet Officers, and is heavily dependent on ongoing conditions that can be set by the GM (like a space station having a Powered Off condition) or arranged by the players (like the players installing a defense grid after they’ve powered the station back on).  Like the AvataRPG, it also recommends treating game sessions like episodes of a show that everyone’s working together to build, and also features the ability to quickly create Supporting Characters so people whose characters aren’t relevant to a given scene still get to do stuff (and yes, that means that in a TOS-era game, you may get to play a Red Shirt if the situation calls for it).

You seem like a pretty good dude, Wil. Thanks for taking time to chat with your fans, and thanks for standing up for what is right. I love following you on social media. You've talked about D&D before, and I've been kind of curious about trying it out. I would be nervous though as I have no idea what to do. Any tips for 40-year-old beginners???

Thank you for your kind comments.

D&D! I love it. I love all RPG games (even the ones I don't like to play. I'm just glad they exist).

I've been playing since the early 80s, and I can confidently direct you to the 5e Starter Set. It is the best introduction to the hobby, to the system, to the experience of collaborative storytelling that makes RPGs so much fun and so special. It's a small investment, and a really easy way to find out if D&D is for you.

If you want to make an even smaller investment, this page has TONS of information and resources. You could start here and spend hours without noticing the time pass. Or, at least, I can. YMMV.

I want to share a few warnings with you.

Everyone has their definition of the "right" way to play D&D. You will find yours as you play. Don't let someone else's definition of "right" limit what yours may eventually be. We've worked real hard to kick out the gatekeepers, but they just keep spawning.

The D&D rules system is not the only RPG, or even the only popular one. Pathfinder is beloved by millions of people. FATE Core and GURPS have enormous player bases. Monte Cook's Cypher System is filled with gorgeous lore and character inspirations (but I've never played it, full disclosure). I chose the AGE system for our series Titansgrave, and used a lot of what I learned from running D&D for decades to customize the experience for me and the players. What I'm saying is, RPGs do not begin and end with D&D. It's as good a place as any to start, but it is only one of many systems.

You are going to hear hardcores make impassioned arguments that continue long after you have lost interest about all sort of rules and setting and system crap. Trust me: tune them out. Eventually, you'll know what you care to listen to.

All those non-D&D systems support and encourage playing in different settings, from Science Fiction to Horror to modern warfare combat. The thing that I believe makes D&D VERY special is its singular focus on high fantasy and everything that means in our culture. All those other systems do fantasy very well, but D&D is kind of the canonical "storm the dungeon, kill the monsters, take their stuff" experience.

That's a lot more information than I intended to deliver. I just get excited about this stuff because I love it so much. Whatever you choose, I hope you have fun!

And when it counts, may you roll high.

[hthemc]

Mechanism

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The sound had grown soothing over the last couple of hours, a note of calm and order amidst the chaos that usually found its way into the daily lives of those at The Den. Zheng still felt unsure about the actual utility of clockwork as a key mechanism, but some artisans from the Earth Kingdom had raved about its precision and reliability, and it seemed foolish to at least not check the veracity of the claims.

Runnok had wished him to help lead the raid today, but leadership had to have his privileges, and he had declined in favor of continued experimentation. He was vaguely aware Runnok disapproved of his decision, but as long as he continued to supply the crew with new toys and gadgets he felt secure knowing Runnok would never act on her irritation.

Without looking, he reached to his left and found by touch the screwdriver he needed. Eyes pressed so close as to almost touch the device, he ever so carefully steered the point in and twisted the barest fraction of a degree.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Zheng smiled, and slowly exhaled for the first time in a minute. That was when the door slammed open.

Zheng was careful, sure, but even as a chief lieutenant of the Tiger-Sharks his quarters at The Den were minimal at best. He always had several dozen iterations of whatever project he had working at the time scattered about the room, along with the spare parts, tools, and other bric-a-brac such projects required. He always treaded his room with delicacy and forethought, but it seems not all of his compatriots had truly grasped this yet.

The sudden force tipped over a canister, which wobbled before falling with a load clang against a nearby board, which in turn launched a bolt high into the air. Zheng watched with horror as the heavy metal piece tumbled, almost gracefully, and after ascending to its apex quickly fell…directly towards Iteration #16. Almost automatically, Zheng dove over to the reinforced scrap-metal bunker he kept in a corner as a matter of course.

Several rushed breaths later, and he was finally greeted with a somewhat anticlimactic “puff”, followed by silence. Cautiously, he peered out from his tiny shelter.

His intruder, despite her carelessness, was at least quick on the uptake. Pebble herself was peering from the side of the doorframe, having clearly dove for cover upon realization of what she had wrought. At the movement, her attention shifted from Iteration #16 and locked eyes with Zheng.

“Well, that coulda gone worse, eh?”

Then Iteration #16 fulfilled its purpose, and exploded.

Minutes later, Zheng finished what had become an all-too familiar and habitual check of his body, but fortunately aside from some (more) singed hair it seems his combat reflexes had allowed him to duck back into cover in the nick of time. Pebble likewise had retreated safely, and stood now in the doorway with an uncharacteristic expression of chagrin. Zheng hoped the young lady had learned her lesson, but he sincerely doubted that was the case.

“So…err…sorry?” Pebble seemed to be waiting for Zheng to respond, but he simply met her gaze mutely. Silence reigned for far longer than was comfortable, for Pebble at least.

“So yeah, well, the cap’n’s back, and she has some crazy ideas for the next project, and wants somethin’ special from ya because of the target. I’m supposed ta fetch ya if you weren’t busy…and I guess you’re not busy now?”

Zheng sighed, and briefly surveyed the damage to his workshop. Not that bad, all things considered, but it would delay resuming his current project more than he’d like. Not to mention reconstructing #16 to determine the cause of the delayed reaction. Fortunately the blast hadn’t caused a chain reaction, and the other iterations lay still intact, although some were scorched. Plus if Runnok had a special project for him, that meant dropping everything else until he had produced a product that met her expectations. Zheng felt himself deflate a little, but after refusing the earlier raid he could hardly ignore this not-request. Grabbing some paper and quills, he made his way calmly towards Pebble.

“Let’s go, then.” Newcomers were often surprised at the low tone Zheng commonly used to communicate, but Pebble had long ago gotten over this, and indeed preferred to provide most of the conversation anyway. Indeed, she filled him in excitedly about the details of the day’s raid, though Zheng could hardly care less.

Instead, his mind was already whirring, contemplating new ideas he had and trying to piece together what special thing Runnok desired this time. Almost certainly none of them would be correct, but it wouldn’t stop him from having a half-dozen new ideas by the time they reached the captain’s quarters—not that it was a long walk. So he let Pebble guide him, taking in practically nothing of what she said, as diagrams and measures and angles flashed through his mind. He would never understand how others could not see the beauty that lay within these things, but it didn’t matter: he had his endless ideas to keep him company, always dancing at the edges of his thought. 

[visagesalancienne]

Dominic Cooper - Raisons et sentiments (2008)

[visagesalancienne]

Diane Kruger - Les adieux à la reine (2012)

[fae-it]