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biteghost · 4 years

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How do you come up with so many cool characters?? All of your OCs seem so vibrant and fleshed out. Do you have a specific process for developing them, or do they just kinda come to you mostly formed? I find I struggle with building a compelling OCs for D&D games & would love to hear your thoughts on character development.

(This answer got long, sorry.) This is a super nice sentiment, I’m happy you think my characters are all cool and unique!!

As far as process goes, uh, it depends on the character? I’ve spent a long time (years) rewiring my brain when it comes to what I think about when creating OCs. They don’t usually come to me fully formed - I get an idea in my head about a concept, and then over like a week or even months of fiddling I end up with a character for that concept.

A lot of the time my characters are simply people I wanted to see more of in media as a kid! Mostly, female characters I actually relate to or are as nuanced and messy as their male cast members, haha... (It was a trip when I realized in high school that I didn’t hate female characters - it was actually that none of them were written as well as the cool boys in the anime series I liked, haha! Be the change you want to see in the world, basically.)

Inspiration for characters (and stories for them to be part of) come from a lot of places. An easy piece of advice is to make an effort to intake media you like! Read new comics, watch new movies and television shows, read books, play video games, listen to music and obsessively memorize the lyrics - hell, obsessively learn everything there is to know about black holes or public domain characters (that’s what I did, lol...)!

(Note: ’New’ meaning new to YOU - you don’t need to only be partaking of media that’s created in 2021 - you can find a lot to love in media that was created before your time, or for generations before you!)

I must reiterate: intake new media that you ENJOY! You don’t have to like all the same things as everyone else, you don’t have to be invested in the same shows and podcasts as your friends. Varied interests and taste is part of what makes us all unique! Increasing your pool of inspiration will help you come up with interesting ideas, and help you find YOUR voice. Your particular interests and the niche things that speak to you will help you figure out what kind of characters and what kind of stories you like to create! But the process doesn’t end at just intaking media... When you find the stuff that brings you joy, analyze what exactly it is about that thing that speaks to you... Put it into words. Explain it to a friend. Make it tangible, analyze the feelings and why the series made you feel that way... and then take it and shove it into your own stories, lol!

Engage critically and thoughtfully with work you like, with characters you like, and it will help you have the language and thought process to recreate it in your own work!

My creative process is like an exquisite corpse of all the characters and series I’ve liked over my lifetime. I mesh them all together in a grim blender and what comes out is a shake in the vague shape as an OC, lol

BUT... it seems like you’re asking more specifically about making characters for tabletop roleplaying games like D&D? And THAT is a different process for me than making OCs for my comics or original story ideas!

I don’t usually join a tabletop game with a fully fleshed out character, actually?? I don’t spend a long time on their backstory, and I usually figure it out like halfway through the story, or through collaboration with my game master!

My TTRPG characters are usually whatever I think would be most interesting in the given game setting or set-up and... usually they exist in opposition to whatever the core concept of the game is. So, the examples I have from games I’ve played are:

In Cardians: West (World of Darkness: Hunter the Vigil): we played in a modern-day urban fantasy setting, where players were recruited into a supernatural Hunter group that was also a criminal organization that Did Crimes and Broke The Law in the name of keeping peace and protecting humanity from the supernatural creatures that go bump in the night. I played Andrew, a Lawful Good Police Detective, because I thought playing a character who would need to grow past his original ideals of ‘Right and Wrong’ in the name of the greater good would be interesting! (And it was!)

In SINNING ADVENTURE (WoD: Geist: The Sin-Eaters) we payed in a modern-day urban fantasy setting with the premise that the players all Died and were brought back to life by forming a pact with a powerful spirit (and getting cool ghost powers in the process!) I played Cassius, a character who could not cope with his death, and thus refused to use his new powers because they were evidence that he was no longer strictly human. It caused conflict in the group and world, but I thought it would be interesting! (And it was! Cassius was a Bitch.)

In Rex Machina (Dungeons and Dragons 5E), I wanted to play an Aarakocra, but was having a hard time deciding on a class or backstory... until I found out that in the ‘canon’ of D&D Aarakocra only live to be like, mid 20s???? Their lifespans are insanely short compared to other playable races!! And I thought that was stupid, so I decided to make MY Aarakocra, Izzy, a warlock that’s looking for ways to extend his own stupidly short life. His pact essentially granted that to him, giving him extra time to find a way to achieve True Immortality. His conflict challenges what’s ‘true’ living in this world, and his extended life is in direct conflict with a lot of forces in the world we play in, and while it is very stressful I think it’s really interesting to play!

In Lamplighting (Monster of the Week), my character Aicen is an assassin who made a deal with a demon and gained supernatural perks out of it... except I decided that she doesn’t WANT to be in this deal. She is actively trying to undo it because it wasn’t her deal - she inherited it from a CEO that she killed during an unrelated job. (Aicen is probably my character I’ve put the most backstory into, and that’s just because at character creation in MOTW you are given a lot of questions about who your character is and why they’re where they are!)

In Hand of Adam (WoD: HtV), the concept was that all players were going to join a post-apocalyptic supernatural-hating cult. I played Shouter, who was a self-preserving pacifist coward who also turned out to be a fae (which the cult would have killed him over). It was stressful but very fun. I love Shouter. He ran away from fights and didn’t actually kill anyone until the last episode where they fought God (whom he killed, lol).

NOW. THESE ARE ALL JUST EXAMPLES OF HOW *I* LIKE TO PLAY CHARACTERS!! For me personally, I enjoy playing a character who has built-in conflict either with the world, the story, or the other players. I’m only able to play characters like this because my friend group are all really cool and we all know that conflict is not bad - it’s fiction and we’re just roleplaying! If I didn’t trust my GMs and fellow players as much as I do, I probably wouldn’t have felt comfortable enough playing some of these concepts.

I don’t think you need to know every little thing about a tabletop character, and in fact, not knowing some things and leaving it up to the GM and story to flesh out is an easy way to help you get more invested in both your character AND the story your GM is telling! Tabletops are a collaborative storytelling experience, so if you’ve already plotted out your character’s whole story, there won’t be much participation from other players or your GM. Figure out what your character wants, and let your roleplaying and GM slowly put all the other pieces in place over the course of your campaign!

But the TL:DR about how I make tabletop OCs is that I just... try to give them a goal, an ideal, or a personality that is in direct conflict with some aspect of the game we’re playing. I don’t want the character to be undermining the whole game, because that’s really crappy to do to your GM, but I have to have something for my character to grow through or change. I like giving them built-in character arc starters, lol. I haven’t played a game where my character has gotten along with every other player character and NPC over the entire campaign since my very FIRST game, lol!

Also, if you’re having trouble, why not ask your GM what they think? Again, tabletops are collaborative! Don’t be afraid to talk ideas out with your GM for your character.

A final note about playing in specifically oneshot games (i.e. games that are not long campaigns but are meant to be played in one or two sittings). Personally, I always just retrofit an OC I already have to play in oneshots! When I make a new character for a long campaign, it usually takes me two or three sessions to find their voice and figure out how to roleplay them. If the game you’re playing is only one session, I find it easier to jump right in and get the most out of your character and the game when you’re playing a character you already know pretty well! I’ve played characters from my webcomic quite a few times, and it’s always a lot more fun for me than figuring out a new character on the fly!

SO UH, IN CONCLUSION... sorry if this is mad unhelpfu!! My personal processes are unique to me! but that's the point - no one person will have the exact answer that works for you! You have to keep trying until you figure it out for yourself! Good luck! Keep creating! <3

#long post #asktime #not art #art talk #writing talk #tabletop talk #gif #iwishihadhorns

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bixbiboom · 4 years

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Sorry if you get tired of having random asks (especially on anon because it makes 1 less email for me) about the CR funko pops but I was just wondering what direction you would want to see for future sets? Variants of Vox Machina, NPCs (both villains and allies), guest characters, Mighty Nein? and which do you think are most likely?

ALL OF THE ABOVE!

I def think we’ll be getting M9 pops for sure (and I’m hoping for both Nott and Veth, and Yasha variants featuring her redemption aesthetic, and maybe a Lucien variant of Molly too). I think a few key NPCs are probably pretty likely too (Gilmore, Kima, Allura...). Guest characters might be a little stickier for copyright reasons (I know Arkhan is now an official WOTC property and they’re pretty strict over who can use his likeness or even reference him for profit), but I would love a Reani pop (and also I wanna hear Mica’s shriek when she learns Reani will be a pop XD). And villains!! Yes!! The Briarwoods! The Cerberus Assembly! The Chroma Conclave! AVANTIKA!!!

Oh god my heart rate just kicked up thinking about an Avantika pop... @_@

((This has nothing to do with CR but the Sailor Moon line of pops had each of the senshi, Tuxedo Mask, and variants of Usagi, Mamoru, Chibiusa and Minako, but the ONLY villain was Queen Beryl?? How the fuck am I supposed to set up visually interesting arrangements with that??? No shittenou, no Dead Circus, no Cardians... My Beryl had to team up with Bebop and Rocksteady just to make my shelf look semi balanced!!))

#critical role #critical role funko pops #ask bix

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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 5 years

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Sailor Moon R episode 9 was fun! As predicted, it was the episode where Jupiter gets a new power, and this time, it’s Supreme Thunder Dragon, which was really hecking big and seemed super powerful! So that’s pretty cool. The actual Mako focus in this episode was also pretty nice, Ami hypothesises that Ali might be the Moonlight Knight since they started appearing at the same time, and so Mako investigates, kind of falling for him in the first place? Falling for him in the Mako way at least, of being reminded of a senpai who rejected her and being romantic and nostalgic and stuff. The two actually have some interesting conversations about love, a conversation that actually characterises Ali a bit more than he has been before, which is neat since tbh I’m not that big a fan of these two so it’s cool that I’m being given reasons to be interested at all. We also have the most direct confrontation with the pair in battle yet, En getting pretty pissed off at Mako for being around Ali so much and directly attacking her, while she’s not even transformed at that! So that was cool. Also to get my daily Ami fawning out of the way, she actually uses that big old brain of hers to work out the likelihood of Ali being the Moonlight Knight, and finds a 0.2% chance of that being the case. While he’s obviously not the Moonlight Knight so that 0.2% chance is interesting, the real appeal is in the fact that while she’s working this all out, she’s typing super quickly with one hand, and just using the other to be eat her lunch, but like she ends up looking a lot more gluttonous than usual with how quickly she just munches it down. Idk the show gives us this image of her as super smart and elegant but it’s cute to see her be more casual like this. And to get my occasional Ami sadness out of the way, now that this little arc of all 4 of the other Sailor Soldiers getting new powers is done, I’m quite sad that Ami’s episode wasn’t really about her in the same way everyone else’s episodes were. Obviously I praised that episode for Ami having a lot of presence in it and it not relating to her genius-status for once, but I still feel like she got the short end of the stick compared to everyone else. Oh well.

I did miss an episode yesterday, so I watched episode 10 today as well, and it was great fun! The Sailor Soldiers + Umino, Naru, Mamoru and En are all putting on a play, namely Snow White, but Ali ends up ruining it with a Cardian that’s after energy as usual. But the Sailor Soldiers have to save the day of course, and since we’re on stage anyway in front of a massive crowd, they like, act? Like they all give themselves crazy over the top introductions and stuff as though they really are performing a play, and even the Moonlight Knight joins in, exiting stage on a suspended moon prop and stuff. Obviously everyone in the crowd assumed it was a play, and they loved it, and yeah it was just a ton of fun. Also Ami uses Bubble Spray Freezing and I like when she does things, so yeah. Great episode, hella enjoyable.

#sailor moon #22.8.19

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bronnitsy · 3 years

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kit-swan · 7 years

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XD They’re so used to all the direction changes during their one week rehearsal, that they see a Cardian and think it’s some new part of the play XD

#sailor moon #makoto kino #ami mizuno #sailor moon r #sm 056 #hamster and dragon rewatch sailor moon

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krainsworld · 4 years

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heres the next duel team Team ICARLY

member 1: Carly Shay

bio: team captain and founder of ICARLY who hosts an awesome web show called ICARLY along with her best friend Sam Puckett even though she and her friends end up in bad situations she and her friends always find a way out after ICARLY ended Carly ended up in Italy to live with her father Colonel Shay her deck is identical of the Fusion Dimension duelist Celina her ace is Lunalight Leo Dancer.

member 2: Freddie Benson

bio: cameraman of ICARLY who has an overprotective mom and is pretty good at fencing he has knowledge of tech and computers and he is always a target for teasing by Sam Puckett his deck consults of machine,warriors and zombies his ace is Vampire Genesis.

member: Spencer Shay

bio: Carly's big brother and is an excellent art sculpter and has a habit of unintentionally setting things on fire so much that the Seattle fire department won't help him anymore he often gets good deals from his buddy Socko and is very protective of Carly his deck is identical of the Synchro Dimension duelist Chajiro Tokumatsu with a few statues and fire attribute monsters his ace is Flower Cardian Lightshower.

member 4: Gibby Gibson

bio: Carly,Sam,Freddie and Spencer's friend who always help Carly,Sam,Freddie and Spencer in jams he succeeds in opening his own restaurant called Gibby's and is a big fan of One Direction when he takes of his shirt he unleashes his inner Gibbyness and full power which he used to save Carly,Sam and Freddie from Nora Dershlit his deck consults of fighters and defense his ace is Zushin The Sleeping Giant.

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elvia-mccune3y8l358-blog · 7 years

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