#could probably spend more time on this

[ostrichmonkey-games]

OC Incubators: TTRPG Design for Making Cool Little Guys

I've been thinking a lot about why some people like to play Certain Games and how that intersects with action figure style play and the desire to make your own little blorbos.

What is it about Certain Games (which will not be named so I don't go down a rabbit-hole of breaking apart that game's design lmao) that really gets people's sitting down and just making a whole bunch of cool OCs? You know, your zany wizards, sexy demony bards, and all of that.

So, I've talked a lot about this with some people (shoutout to @temporalhiccup), and I'm not the only person to be thinking on similar wavelengths (check out this fun read by @sprintingowl), and in those discussions and in that reading, I've put together a few what I think are Key Ingredients for making ttrpg that is also an OC incubator. At least, in the sense of how I would want to do it.

So first, what is an OC Incubator? My definition is basically any sort of semi-sandbox/open ended game where you make your own cool character and then go do cool things. Along the way of doing those cool things, you come up with cool stories and have your OC evolve in even more cool ways. Cool, yeah?

Here are the key ingredients I've identified for the incubator stew (store bought is fine);

Character Options

Character Potential

An Inviting Sandbox

So let's break these down a bit more below;

Character Options

Character options is the most straightforward of the points. You need interesting and fun options - building blocks - for the players to craft their little guys from. Options that are exciting and easily communicate their core identity quickly.

A lot of this is walking a fine balance of providing enough options that making a choice is exciting, but not too many so as to be overwhelming.

But ultimately, these options are there to hit the dollmaker, picrew, character customization screen, itch. It should be fun to make all those decisions.

Aside: I gotta do more stuff with lifepath systems.

Of all the main ingredients to our incubator, character options are probably the easiest to come up.

Character Potential

This is where things start to get a little more complicated. Potential is all about aspiration. It's less about being able to get to that point, but more about "oh wow, look at all these extra things my cool OC could do".

These options are something to look forward to, something to think about. Neat cool extra doodads for making your cool little oc even cooler and expand on your cool little oc's story like milestones and growth.

In a lot of ways, these sorts of options are just an iteration of the initial character options you use when making your character. These are probably going to expand on core elements of the character options (class or playbook abilities, etc).

Again, the key point is potential and aspiration. To make you think about the future of the character.

I think, ideally, a game is intrinsically rewarding to play. You play it because its fun, not to get some sort of external reward. Play to play. But it also can be fun to put some carrots on the stick.\

As a treat.

Inviting Sandbox

The setting and premise of the game needs to invite players in. It's the big fancy dollhouse for all your cool toys. There needs to be space to play in it, but also there needs to be something to still play in! Some games are operating at an advantage: with well established settings that have been around for years and/or using a setting that utilizes tropes and ideas that also have been established for years. You know. Elves and stuff.

But! You absolutely do not need a well established setting or play with well established tropes to make an inviting sandbox! The main criteria is that it is inviting. Whatever that means to you, go for it. For me, an inviting setting, one that would make me want to play around in, needs;

Enough foundation to guide the play. What are the major players and assumptions of the settings? Give me the overview and broad strokes first!

Enough space for the table to add to while they play in. If every thing is set in stone, then what are we playing in this sandbox for? You need some sand to sculpt! Put some sand in your sandbox!

I could spend a lot more time talking about settings, sandboxes, and how it all circles back to anti-canon, but that's a story for another post.

Mixing It All Together

So, with those ingredients identified, how do you go about layering them all together? How should they interact with each other? And the easy answer is "I don't know, figure it out."

But also, I don't entirely know. You gotta figure that out for yourself. That's part of the design process. I don't think there's one singular way to "design" around getting people to have fun whipping together some cool OCs and then playing around with them together. In many senses, you can do that in practically any game. But for some of my current projects, I want to try keeping the three ingredients in mind as I write the games (particularly Furry Crime Game), and see what happens. Maybe it'll end up hitting the notes I want it to - crafting a game that makes the players constantly rotate their cool little guys in their mind - maybe it'll end up being something else. I dunno, real Ms. Frizzle hours: Get messy, make mistakes.

Also, as I'm writing this out now, I think a potential fourth ingredient to try mixing into the stew is Player Investment. Time, creativity, emotional. It all feeds into the character and different games expect different levels of investment. Something to probably keep in mind while you hone your game.

I don't know how else to end this, except to say that I'm excited to experiment in this space. Maybe you are too?

[quadrantadvisor]

Alright new Jason Todd headcanons in a dpxdc setting:

Danny is a "liminal" ghost, rather than a "half" ghost. He's alive and dead at the same time. (He's like Jesus Christ (in the church denomination I grew up in), fully ghost and fully human.) Danny, in human form, can go through a ghost shield, because he IS a living human.

Jason, however, is a reanimated corpse. He isn't a ghost, wouldn't have a ghost core, etc, he has a normal human system that runs ON ectoplasm. Jason CANNOT go through a ghost shield, because he is always an ectoplasmic entity. Danny can go through the Fenton Ghost Catcher and be split into a ghost and a human; if Jason went through the ghost catcher, he would straight up die.

(For my purposes I'm gonna say that Jason became an ectoplasmic entity upon his resurrection, but wasn't very stable. Dunking in the Lazarus pit stabilized his system but also poisoned his ectoplasm.)

I do think that Jason could learn certain ghost abilities if he learned to harness his ectoplasm, especially if they detoxed him off the Lazarus waters. He's probably already enhancing his stealth and strength in ways he hasn't really noticed. I think he's held back by the amount of physical matter he's lugging around, so maybe he couldn't fly, but I'm imagining temporary invisibility, or intagibility of like, a limb at a time. Maybe he can't walk through walls, but in a fight he can dodge by instinctively making the targeted part of his body intangible.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

:-P

[arttsuka]

Augustus: *throwing a tantrum* "DAD WHY AM I LIKE THIS"

Octavius: "Well, I didn't sculpt you but it seems they ran out of marble."

Augustus: "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH IT STINKS HAVING NO HANDS"

Jed: "Or legs."

Octavius: "That's not helping."

Omg you can't just say that Jed!

[clambuoyance]

posting on three diff websites is actual hell and i dont even have a system. its not oh twitter is only for my doodles instagram is for polished stuff and tumblr is for long comics nope theres literally no logic to it besides whatever site im vibing with. which is fine but also its actual hell to remember what i have posted where, if i should even bother posting it, and ive long since given up keeping track oughhh i hate posting

[onaperduamedee]

"Was it hard?" "What?"

[miraculousbumbble]

Voltron but the Castle automatically connects to its visitors minds. But like room wise.

First night in the castle, none of the paladins noticed anything spectacular about their rooms. They were exhausted and had no reason to go looking around. But gradually, they noticed changes. Lance and Keith were probably the most drastic of said changes.

On the paladin's second day aboard the castle of lions, Lance woke up... feeling like everything was a dream. And for a moment, he almost thought the past year had been a dream. His bed felt soft and plush, his entire body was quite literally melting into the mattress, and the blanket he was using (which he swore was paper thin last night) was now heavy and soft and resembled the quilt his abuela had given him only three years prior.

His walls were the same walls he fell asleep surrounded by the night before except, one of them was no longer a wall but it wasn't a window either. It was a video of the Varadero beach from back home. The waves, God he could hear them, almost smell them. (Think the hotel Katniss was staying in from the first hunger games. It's literally that window but it's a wall.) When he sat up from the bed and his feet hit the floor it was weird how it was no longer the cold metal it had been last night, but was now the same wooden flooring that was used on his own bedroom from back home. And for a small moment, lance wanted to cry. Because he knew this wasn't real, his rug wasn't here and that wasn't a window to the beach (even if it was the beach was a 37 minute drive from his house.) His bed wasn't an uncomfortable twin XL bunk bed and even though there was a desk and closet, none of his things were in either of them. It was a fucked up illusion and lance almost wanted to be mad.

Keith on the other hand, it took his room time and effort to change around him. It was as if the longer it took for him to connect with Red and the other paladins, the longer his room took to understand what he wanted and needed. The Galra genes were easy, the Castle detected it when he first walked in and got scanned. Changing the shape of his bed and the general atmosphere of the room was easy, it was genetics. But when it came to wants, the castle had to learn alongside everyone else what Keith wanted.

The first really major thing was the blankets and pillows that seemingly came out of nowhere. Sometimes pillows would even change overnight if the castle felt that his sleep patterns were irregular. The next thing that changed was the flooring that resembled Shiro's apartment. It was weird, a miniscule thing Keith didn't think would ever bring up emotions, but that stupid flooring from Adam and Shiro's apartment nearly brought Keith to his knees. But Keith's favorite addition to the room? The ceiling. Somehow the castle was able to detect day night cycles of Texas and perfectly replicate it. During the day he could see clouds and sometimes if it rained the floor would create these fake puddles, a hologram almost, and at night he could see the constellations. (The other Paladins secretly loved Keith's room. His bed was large and nest-like, taking up the majority of the room, and you could move the ceiling around to look and point out the different constellations)

[dafry-shenanigans]

The secret trio ready for some action!

[inkskinned]

i turn 29 on july 1st. i feel like i make a lot of these notes to myself, to check in. hi, me, here's what's happening.

hi, me. hi, you, too, if you keep reading. here's some rules i have been following:

when a book is bad, i put the book down. i choose something i like instead. when i don't like a movie, i don't make myself watch until the end. i care less and less what people think about me and focus more on being a good friend.

for the 6 months or so, i've been asking people what they think should be my next book or tv show. i ask them where i should go on a walk next week. i ask them what food i should try next, what hobby. and then i write it down in front of them.

the truth is some stuff slips through the cracks. but most of the time? within two weeks, i get to send my favorite kind of text - so i tried the thing you were talking about and !

i have a new policy for split-second choices - it's better to try it. i have social anxiety. i have to talk myself into doing many things. i am constantly battling the desire to run away as far as my feet will take me. and then i stand up and i do the thing anyway. i make myself act and dance and sing. sometimes, yes, i know-immediately never again, i hate this. but most of the time - i just have fun with it.

i have a new mantra - nobody is scorekeeping. at the end of my life, there will be no grand reading of how many calories i'd been eating. no reviews on how many boring documentaries i forced myself through, no calculation on how many hours i endured an extremely dull educational podcast. and so what if i try karaoke and i don't actually nail it? so what if i stumble over my words while trying to make a public announcement? so what if i wear something too-showy to go to the grocery store? nobody there knows me, and: nobody's keeping score.

life doesn't resolve with a grade (i know, i was as shocked as everyone else when i realized it). i am not falling behind, because there's no curriculum to life that i should be following. there are no checkpoints; nobody is making sure i have a fully-furnished life resume. i am just here for as long as the earth will have me, and i get to decide what makes me happy.

i don't have a partner or a house or anything that is supposed to belong to people-my-age. i spend most of my time focusing on being kind, compassionate, ready to listen without restraint.

and honestly? i feel good. like actually. i kind of like it this way.

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i feel like im obligated to remind everyone that the time we see the characters spend with saiki on screen isnt the ONLY time they spend together,,, i just see a lot of people take their screen time very literally and assume that this is the case despite it being heavily implied that it isnt, and im not entirely sure why but i can guess that it may be because of the assumption that saiki genuinely hates his friends (i do also see people doing this with specific characters they dont like or that they have a specific agenda for, which i think is them being like "i feel a certain way about them, therefore saiki the narrator who gave me all the information that made me feel this way about them must not like them" which i dont really have a problem with (its just an hc) until they start arguing with people that their hc is the only right answer and saiki canonically hates that person or is only around them when forced to be LOL)

yumehara and teruhashi immediately recognize "kurikos" eating manner as saikis despite us never seeing him eat in front of them, kaido + nendo + kuboyasu bribe saiki for his homework with coffee jelly because they know hes obsessed with it despite us seeing no on-screen reason for them to know that (we do see a bit later that he walks home with them every day and he stares at coffee jelly every single time though LOL), and mera talks about saiki spending a lot of money at her workplace despite us only seeing her and him there at the same time once before..

saiki does not succeed at avoiding them, and in fact is probably not even trying to most of the time LMAO he loves those idiots. dearly.

the people i see the least true implications of him spending off-screen time with are actually, weirdly enough, the other two psychics. this doesnt necessarily mean to take that at face value and assume he DOESNT spend as much time with them, but its interesting i feel... please correct me if im wrong though cuz i would love to see more examples of these kinds of implications, for any characters actually!

[mildmayfoxe]

for further repostober (🎃) here’s the first lino i ever listed in my shop! i did this way back in december 2020 because to be honest i needed a christmas gift for my mom. lol. this is a newer picture of a reprint but the first set was definitely a learning experience!! i’ve still got lots of misprints of this lying around hahahaha

[eloquentsisyphianturmoil]

Oromë’s hunt is Tolkien’s version of Artemis’. A passel of feral bachelors; the homoeroticism is skyrocketing.

[icewindandboringhorror]

... why he sit like this

[marinecorvid]

2.5.24 - some weird bird sketches I did instead of sleeping

[ronnierosest]

Astarion & Angel Dust fusion ❤️🩷🤍

[cerise-on-top]

Rudy with a jealous s/o? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I NEED THISS

Hello! Here you go!

Rodolfo with a Jealous!S/O

The moment he sees you’re jealous he’ll chuckle a bit but also be a bit worried. It’s nice to see that you like his attention enough to want it most of the time, but would he really be able to calm you down from your frenzy? He most likely could, but the worry is still there. At first he’d be a bit apprehensive about approaching you, especially if you’re being snappish and keep hinting at you being mad at him for spending time with someone that wasn’t you. If this doesn’t happen very often he wouldn’t know what to do, but if you’re a very jealous person and it keeps happening then he’ll have a talk with you. It’s not particularly fair to him that you always snap at him whenever he spends time with his teammates or friends, so he’ll sit you down and discuss your behavior and how you can both improve yourselves. Communication is very important to him.

If you don’t get jealous as often, then he’ll approach you after a bit and ask you what’s wrong. It’s up to you whether or not you honestly respond to him, but he’d much prefer you being upfront and honest with him. He won’t really know too well what to do if you just keep lying to him, pretending that you’re alright. Rodolfo will, however, take you to a secluded place if you’re out somewhere together and just talk to you. While he may not be the biggest fan of PDA, he would give you a small kiss, either on your lips or your cheeks, maybe even a hug if you’re especially mad, and apologize to you. He knows it likely isn’t his fault, but maybe an apology could calm you down. If it’s late and he’s been with his friends for a while now anyway then he could make time to just leave, especially if nothing important is going on anymore and the main events and conversation topics are over. However, if he has to stay for a bit longer, then he’ll apologize again, but promises you that you’ll be going back home soon enough.

Once you’re back home all of his attention is on you, if you want that. If you prefer to be left alone then he will let you be, but will check up on you once every hour and ask if you’re doing alright. But if you don’t want that then he’s more than happy to talk with you, or spend time with you in general. You wanna cuddle? Play a video game? Bake some cookies? He’s not opposed to any of those things. Because, truth be told, you being mad but quiet sort of scares him. He has to deal with loud, angry soldiers almost on a daily basis, so he knows how to put someone in their place if they’re being openly aggressive. Therefore you being so quiet is very worrisome and he’ll be on edge this entire time. As soon as you laugh again he knows he did something right, though. That’s the goal: To get you to calm down and smile, maybe laugh even. But he knows that, at the very least, it will likely be over by the time you both wake up again in the morning. If he can, then he’ll spend the next day with you. Or at least as much of it as he can.