#if you play dnd! PLEASE

[lokislytherin]

lookism dnd au?

if you see this and wanna art PLEASE i’m thinking of doing this for nanowrimo and actually making it novel-length and it would be cool to have concept art! of course with credit where credit is due i always give credit

[morrigan-sims]

And I forget sometimes I'm just flesh and bone.

As he stands in the ruined bathroom, all Rook can think is, At least now I can breathe.

[sky-scribbles]

There are a thousand different ways to interpret alignments, and I do not think there is any one Correct interpretation. But you know what, the characters of BG3 and Critical Role have finally helped me figure out what interpretation of Evil alignments I want to use for my games:

A lawful evil character (Astrid Becke, Lae'zel at the start of the game) says 'I justify hurting people with a larger cause or ideology that I subscribe to'

A neutral evil character (Astarion at the start of the game, pre-redemption Essek Thelyss) says 'I justify hurting people because it is necessary for my own personal gain'

A chaotic evil character (Orin, Trent Ikithon) says, 'I do not need to justify hurting people.'

[luck-of-the-drawings]

THE ORDER OF PALMS An order of holy folk that serve The Helm, working to create powerful Aasimar Paladins for the purpose of protecting any who hire their help. [BACKSTORY UNDER CUT]

One day, Gjör and her peers were lead by their mentor Opheria, to a mission far from their home. On the peak of that mountain village, they saw upon the horizon, the castle of their home go up in flames. Horrified and scared, the apprentices sought to follow their mentors guidance, and followed her lead into a small barn. It was there, that Opheria proceeded to slaughter each and everyone of the apprentices. It seemed she somehow had a hand in this sudden attack on the Order of Palms. Gjör D'annevual survived a sword through the 'heart', on account of a rare condition, that places her heart on the other side of her chest. When she finally managed to bring herself back home, the Order was insulted by her survival. She had so many better peers, why couldn't any of them have survived? This runt was seriously the only thing that survived Opherias wrath? It was better to just wash their hands clean of this. Thus the Order decided to banish Gjör from their ranks. She now travels the land in search of a purpose.

[theresattrpgforthat]

What's a game/some games you wish you could talk about more?

THEME: Mint’s Favourite Games. (Part 1/2)

Dear friend, I do not know if you know how much pain this causes me because…there are so many games! Games I’ve run, games I haven’t run, games I’ve purchased, games I want to buy… narrowing it down is so so hard. It’s like asking to choose which child is your favourite. So first things first I’m going to drop a link to the Games that Intrigue Me collection that I’ve been fostering on Itch, because that’s where you’re going to see games that I really really want to talk about and play in the future. (There are currently 148 games in there, and that’s just what’s available on Itch!!!) With that out of the way, let’s talk about some of my highlights.

There are 12 games in total that I managed to narrow it down to, so let's take a look at the first 6!

Changeling: the Lost 1e, by White Wolf / Onyx Path (Played)

The most trad game on this list, Changeling: The Lost was the reason I stepped into roleplaying games. It was advertised as a fantastical allegory for healing from trauma, which is exactly the kind of hard-hitting, emotional depth that got me interested when it came to roleplaying games. One of my favourite ways to sell it is to tell you this:

Imagine your favourite piece of media and pick a particular character from that media. Now imagine that the entire story that this character experienced was a lie: a story they were put in, in order to fulfill the whims and wiles of an inhuman, eldritch Fae. Now imagine them clawing their way back into the real world only to find out that nobody missed them, that their parents and girlfriend never realized that they left because the thing that took them left behind a shell of a copy. What’s more, they still feel the pull of the magical world - they can’t forget it, even if they want to. How do you heal from a magic that you can never leave behind?

Changeling: The Lost has a lot of drawbacks. It’s clunky. It requires an unhealthy amount of d10s. It’s got two editions, and most folks prefer the one edition over the other. It requires a lot of prep. The “beautiful madness” can definitely lead into some negative stereotypes about mental health (which is why I recommend re-working the Clarity mechanic into a mechanic about how trauma affects your emotions). White Wolf cannot write a fucking index. But the combination of personal horror with the glitter around the edges has got me in a choke-hold and I don’t know how to let it go.

Bones Deep, by Technical Grimoire. (Played)

I cannot emphasize how well-formatted Bones Deep is. The bookmarking on the PDF for this game is the best I’ve ever seen, and I’m an avid player of Numenera. This is a Troika game about freshly-hatched skeletons travelling the ocean floor, tussling with a cephalopod invasion, cursed wizards, a crab cabal, and the Skeleton War. Each location in this book can naturally lead to others, and there’s roll tables that allow for you to generate a number of story prompts before you run a session. It’s heavily improv friendly, and allows combat but so much more than that.

You need the Troika handbook to run this game, but honestly, Troika is such a great, gonzo system that I don’t even consider that a drawback, especially because the Skeleton characters from Bones Deep are 100% compatible with the larger game as a whole. I’m not going to say that this is a combat-free game, because it certainly isn’t, but I was surprised at how many problems the players could solve without having to resort to combat

External Containment Bureau, by Mythic Gazetteer. (Played)

This game introduced me to the concept of an open-ended mystery that the players kind of put together as they play. The idea of leaving a few possibilities for a whodunit is not exactly new, and ECB is definitely not the first game to embrace a generative style of play, but it implements it very very well. This is an adaptation of Forged-in-the-Dark that speeds up character creation and makes one-shot play more viable than some of the traditional hacks of Blades. The setting also fucking slaps. Its X-Files meets SCP meets the Office. It has the ability to alter how serious or goofy you want the tone to be. It has mechanics for supernatural powers and drawn-out conspiracies.

It also has a cult-flavoured hack called Congregation, which is just as good and you should also check out.

Subway Runners, by Gem Room Games. (Played)

A hella-fast game with a character generator that lets you pick up and play in minutes, Subway Runners is extremely online friendly, extremely reasonably priced, and extremely funny. You’re subway maintenance crews dealing with magical problems in the underground of a fantastical metropolis. It’s a gig economy. It’s got stations built out of buried giants. It’s got traumas like “nervous”, “romantic” and “brave to a fault”. It’s one-shot Forged-In-The-Dark.

Your online-generated character sheet reads like a Contractor File, complete with side hustles, custom inventories, your Lunch Order and your Demerits. Fix train lines, find missing passengers, and send eldritch monstrosities back into the inter dimensional portals from whence they came. All so you can pay rent. This game is off-the-wall and it’s only three fucking dollars. Please, I’m begging you to check out this game.

Slugblaster, by Mikey Hamm. (Bought, not yet played).

I was so excited for this game that I managed to get on the proofreading team! And gosh I am stoked about that. This is another Forged-in-the-Dark game (I think I’m sensing a theme here), this time about teenagers hoverboarding through the multiverse. This game is so kooky and has such a unique take on FitD, with mechanics that really emulate the idea of cobbling together gear and tech to make your kit personalized. It’s a game wholly about teenage self-expression and self-discovery, in a world that's doing its best to limit your independence.

The layout for this game is also wonderfully fun and evocative. It’s brightly-coloured, with contributions from around the world, and suggestions for playing in towns other than Hillview, Canada (although as a Canadian I am also deeply fond of the built-in setting). I wrote an add-on for this game, called Charlock, and you can get it, as well as a whole bundle of goodies in the Slugblasting for Teen Mental Health Bundle here, until the end of July!!!!

i’m sorry did you say street magic, by Caro Ascersion. (Played)

This is a city-building game that I adore playing as a set-up to a one-shot or a campaign. I’ve used it to create a superhero city, as well as a Ghibli-inspired city, and there are resources for making gothic cities, cyberpunk cities, and so so much more. There’s a supplement that I adore called there are names here more powerful than our own, which is pay-what-you-want but makes play more accessible for folks who have trouble coming up with ideas on the spot.

The art for these games is by Shannon Kao, and it’s whimsically mundane. It perfectly communicates the vibe of play. The city generation helps you create neighbourhoods, as well as landmarks and characters located in those neighbourhoods, but it doesn’t stop there. It also helps you generate story hooks that you could pick up for an upcoming game. Finally, the mutual element of creation gives players ownership and investment in the city they create, so when it comes to character creation, you should find that the players will easily be able to anchor themselves in the world.

If you want to hear an example of this game, I recommend @partyofonepod ’s episode, which was recorded with the creator of the game.

You can find Part 2 of this post here!

[t1r3dr3pt1l3z]

Okay,, I usually don’t post my art on this account (shameless art acct plug: @l1z4rdm34t ), but I have more followers here who enjoy some of the same things as me. I’m tagging this stuff with all the fandoms I’m apart of to attract my people.

I’m making this an advertisement because I don’t know how to do this

I’m also really high right now, please forgive all spelling mistakes and shit

Hey you!

Can you read? Do you like dnd and other TTRPGs? Do you like fictional men? Are you a partaker of toxic men when they are in fact a sopping wet kitten and your little baby girl?

WELL I HAVE GREAT NEWS FOR YOU!

I have a man for you that has so much trauma, so much g0re, so much high school su1c1d3 lore, he’s 21, he’s 35, fuck it, he’s staying alive.

/ref /lyr

He’s a man… in the eighties. Living in a town in the middle-of-nowhere Nevada. And he knows there’s something wrong with the town. So obviously he uses his 14-year-old son (who is more of a tool than a son, anyway) to get information about it. And when he doesn’t do it well, he gets mad at him. Like you do at an underdeveloped teenage boy.

*holds him up proudly like a middle schooler’s scenmo fursona*

Um.. so.. yeah. He’s my baby. He’s my baby and I love him.

[paging-possum]

Grits my teeth because I am NOT going to share a dungeons and daddies opinion right before I have to go work for 7 hours I won’t I won’t

[lhazaar]

man wotc really hates money huh! why would you not print more than like 10% of your pre-orders for the giant new release you're hyping up!!

[fish3gg]

I Need to Play DND Right Now You Guys

The urge to play DND but not knowing how to play and having no one to play with anyways is a curse that haunts me every day

[sadmages]

God's specialest little weirdo, World's most okayest cleric

[sesamenom]

alright you’ve been extremely extremely kind and indulgent to me about my oc and i cannot possibly thank you enough <333333 so MY turn now to ask YOU about YOURS. please tell me about maglor’s distant granddaughter who is also your bbeg?? .w. or about the chatty hobbits i would very VERY much love to hear about both!!!

~ @nelyoslegalteam, reporting from main <3

(long post, sorry for the random people stumbling upon this lol)

so I'm the dm for the chatty hobbits campaign and essentially it's set in a beleriand-adjacent continent, but with a few extra races and stuff. of the founders of the original settlements, the king of elende (the elf kingdom) is Gil-galad's (invented for the campaign) twin brother Finellach/Finwain. originally he was inspired by the fact that gil galad has a ton of names but only uses ereinion/gil, so I just invented a new character and gave him half the names. I headcanon gil galad as maglor's son, so finwain is in universe maglor's son (left at the havens with gil bc his wife divorced him for kinslaying and his kingdom, being next door neighbors with morgoth, is far too dangerous for small children).

Anyways, his descendant Elinyel (also known as aramire or elinnor) is the current queen of Elende! she's an evil fire-themed bard who is extremely feanorian in all the worst ways - her actual kingdom prospered under her reign, but she just does not care about everyone else as long as she's protecting her people. There were some tensions with one of the major kingdoms to the north (conflict over unclaimed territory between the kingdoms and some tariff stuff), so instead of risking the other kingdom starting a war and hurting her people, she just preemptively invaded it and started burned all the border territories to the ground.

her actual coronation was pretty weird- so she's the second child, but her older sister was born in wartime and there's a general belief in elende that children of peacetime make better rulers, so Elinyel was chosen as her family's heir. her grandfather (the crown prince of his generation) died defending Elende in one of the major wars, but his younger brother and two young kids survived. there's a whole feud between their houses because the brother chose to retain the kingship even after the kids were old enough to take the throne. anyways, two generations later Elinyel killed her cousin Arendil (the previous king of Elende) over a dispute about the legitimacy of his house (and what she believed to be a dishonoring of her grandparents' sacrifice) and took the throne.

obviously she has many Issues. arendil also has two surviving kids who are now essentially trying to stop her from murdering all their neighbors in proactive defense of her people.

however, when she first ascended she recruited her friend group as her elite guard/vassals of the kingdom. (aka the other bosses in the storyline). so it escalated to a war between her forces and the children of arendil, which ultimately culminated in her beloved sister being killed by one of arendil's children. this in turn led to her having basically a massive mental breakdown and feeling like she failed to protect her loved ones (exacerbated by some of her other friends being killed in battles she led). a normal person might decide this is was kind of her fault for starting a war and putting her friends in charge of the army. instead she decided she needed to destroy everyone who could ever potentially pose a threat. which is, in her eyes, literally everyone on the continent (except for her kingdom, of course).

so now she is at war with absolutely everyone of all factions! She is also somehow winning by virtue of Song almost on the level of maglor himself, and ten (now six) also incredibly powerful friends. Anyways, she has decided that the best way to wipe out the continent (except her kingdom) and start fresh is to literally find an ancient lost stone that can break the Doors of Night, summon Morgoth himself, and start the Dagorath. obviously this will Not go well for anyone at all if she succeeds, but she is on a full-on rampage and genuinely believes she (plus friends) can protect her kingdom from Morgoth's army while he wipes out everyone else.

Here's some old art of her btw!

And some slightly more recent unfinished art of her and the Evil Friend Group from when they were younger:

and here's (L-R) her cousin who is the 3rd boss, Elinyel, and her sister from before the war!

[morrigan-sims]

who says adventurers can't dress cute?

aka: "I spent almost three hours giving Zen new outfits and took 140 screenshots of them."

[teatimecort]

unrelated comic pages from a oneshot i played with friends (thank you frosty)

[corrodedcoughin]

Hello!!! How're you?? Hope you're well!! I'm currently having Munson family feelings lmao

Please imagine lil pre teen Eddie settling in with Wayne, finding his footing, becoming more open in a way that he wasn't with his father. And he's really getting into his dnd. Has the manuals Wayne got him for his birthday one year. A mini or two. And he wants to get better at DMing, but he can't practice with his group because that would ruin the surprise of it all. So one day, he shyly asks Wayne if he'll practice with him. Fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and shuffling his feet. Isn't 100% sure what Wayne will think just yet

And to his surprise, Wayne says yes. And Eddie just... lights up. Smiles a big megawatt grin and starts talking about how it'll be super fun uncle Wayne you won't regret it!!!

They spend an evening making Wayne a character - a human called Wayne, they're keeping it simple - while they eat Mac n cheese for dinner. Wayne loves how happy it makes Eddie. How carefree.

And on Wayne's next day off, when Eddie doesn't have school, they play together. A mini campaign, just for the two of them. Eddie practices his skills, gets to play dnd, and hang out with his uncle all in one go. It's kind of everything to them. It's a lighthearted adventure where Wayne goes on a quest to get the perfect bait so he can go fishing and catch his dream fish. Eddie tells him what dice to roll, helps him fight a goblin and a bear, and puts on all sorts of voices for the characters Wayne meets. Eddie gets so wrapped up in it all, so excited. But when it ends he's all nerves - bitten lips and wringing his hands.

Did Wayne like it?? Did he have fun?? Was Eddie good??

And Wayne honestly says it wasn't quite his thing but he had a lot of fun. Eddie is a damn fine storyteller, has a real knack for the dramatics. He'll impress his friends, for sure.

And idk!!! I love Eddie and Wayne exploring their dynamic and figuring out where they stand with each other those first few years. It would have been a bumpy ride but they love each other!!!

Wayne getting in from grocery shopping on a Saturday, he likes to go really early so he can avoid Sally Knowles town gossip extraordinaire who Kees letting Wayne know ‘people are gonna talk if you don’t give that nephew of yours a Mothering presence in his life’ Wayne’s heard enough of it. So while it means he has to get up early, he’ll do it to escape the song and dance of busy bodies.

He’s making his way up the trailer steps, bags of groceries in hand (he’s a one trip kind of man and won’t be changed) when he hears a voice behind the door. The muffled and rushed but excited voice of his nephew barely audible through the rustling of groceries and the clattering of god knows what in the trailer - ‘okay. Okay he’s here. Go time. Show time. Time to shine. Story telling powers on.’

Wayne can see Eddie in his minds eye, turning an invisible switch at his temple. A ritual he started for their very first session. The boy had been nervous then and now, four - games? Chapters? Wayne wasn’t sure - in the nerves were still there but the excitement far outweighed them.

Opening the door, Wayne flicked his eyes over to the couch were Eddie was propped up, books spread out on the coffee table and rudimentary map laid across the table top.

Eddie’s head shot up, ‘I’ll help!’, scrambling to his feet to take some of Wayne’s provisions off of him.

‘You in a rush, son? Normally I’m shouting you through to give me a hand with these?’ Wayne was teasing. Could see that Eddie was conflicted, had Wayne forgotten that he promised to finish the story today? That it was going to find the Pond Of Dreams? Wayne loved the kid but he wanted to have a little fun too.

Setting the bags down and putting the freezer items away, everything else could wait. Not even glancing down at Eddie, Wayne stretched tall and exaggerated ‘think I need a nap after that. Don’t mind me Ed, gonna get some shut eye.’ And the thing is he couldn’t look at Eddie, if he did he’d crumble and it would all be for naught. One glance of Eddie in his home sewn cape and it’s be over.

So he hot footed it to the bathroom, hoping Eddie wouldn’t question the pre-nap detour or the backpack he was taking with him.

He could hear Eddie mumbling, frustration and disappointment evident in his tone. Then the tv going on, cartoons on high volume as he tried to distract himself. Which is when Wayne decided to re-appear, clad in his full fishing gear and rod. Along side a toy lizard he velcroed to his shoulder.

‘Well boy, you ready to go fantasy fishing? Heard there’s a dream pond waiting to be found’ Wayne tipped his fishing hat like a cowboy as Eddie’s eyes grew wide, scanning the outfit. It wasn’t much but Wayne tried to add the little details as he could; the potion belt of healing (an ammo belt he borrowed from somebody at work), the spear character wayne earned in his first battle (a pvc tube Scott Clarke was happy to provide after their last dinner where Wayne recounted Eddie’s tales) and of course -

‘Is that Creedence?!’ Eddie finally speaking up and pointing at the lizard, the decided companion and helper to Wayne in his journey.

‘Sure is kid, think he’s ready to roll. The question is, are you?’ It’s not the easiest thing for Wayne to do, sometimes he feels silly with all the fantasy and character voices that Eddie insists upon but when it makes the boy this happy? This unguarded and free? Who is Wayne to say no? Maybe the sillyness is good for him, good for both of them.

[heybiji]

What are some ttrpg's on your game wish list? Ones that you'd want to play or plan to play (or maybe don't have time to). also as a side note your love for ttrpg's fills me with a lot of joy and reminds me why they're so special! : )

Inevitable: COWBOY KNIGHTS TRAGEDY this is number one i wanna play this so bad with a crew who will watch a few anti-westerns and arthurian films beforehand and fully commit to the tragedy aspect (big bold decisions if you know it ends in tragedy!) oh my god this specific flavor of game appeals to me a little too specifically

some kind of horror game. VTM, Curse of Strahd, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Call of Cthulhu, whatever lends itself to horror well. the horror genre is one of my favorites and i would so be down to play some good horror!!

MASKS as a PC!

and always more dnd.

uhhh I'm sure there would be other things but I don't know many ttrpgs off the top of my head. quite like ttrpgs. would very much like to play more. especially with a group of artists who will post dodoles and songs that remind them of characters and talk about them throughout the week and do psychological deep dives and theorize about the story and themes and and and

[nofacednerd]

I'm still watching Starstruck Odyssey but ACOFAF is next and. What do you mean the roleplay-heavy romance campaign uses fucking Dungeons and Dragons