#it makes even less sense with a dm who struggles to play npcs

[rainia]

i don’t know why dnd podcasters seem to often have this anxiety over playing a character with a different gender to them. Like just play the character as you would any other. but you use a new set of pronouns. It’s like that simple. No you don’t need to put on an exaggerated feminine/masculine voice. no, you don’t need an in depth understanding of psychology. funnily enough, people with different genders to you are still, in fact, just people. go figure I guess

[ladytabletop]

Okay, So little shy. I kind of want to know like is dnd like a talent? I don't know if that makes sense, like me and my friends play. but like the roleplaying and story telling doesn't come naturally. I've tried to DM myself before and I had ideas and stuff but then draw blanks when the actually session begins, I seem to suck being in characters and what not. But even our other DM you can tell they struggle with story telling. Sometimes I just feel we aren't made for DND.

The thing about DnD, or storytelling, or any creative endeavor, is that it’s a muscle you have to exercise.

Are there people out there who might have a bit more natural inclination for a particular creative endeavor, or DnD? Sure. But I guarantee you, even the best GM you’ve ever seen has practiced a LOT. It doesn’t have to come naturally to you! There’s tons of resources out there that can help you with a lot of the aspects of DnD, roleplay, and storytelling.

It might be as simple as more prep work. Do character questionnaires! Flesh out the world and lore! Read about plot beats (I like Elmore Leonard’s thoughts on story-telling and also the three act structure). Making even some short bullet points, pre-made NPCs/encounters, and some random lists of treasure or events can help you feel a little less adrift in a session. If you have the time, I highly recommend looking into the resources that are out there for GMs and players alike.

The bottom line is, if you’re having fun, that’s the important thing! You don’t have to have a seamless, perfectly polished game. I love the publicity DnD has gotten, but we aren’t all gonna have a game that looks like Matt Mercer’s on Critical Role. And we shouldn’t. Make the game your own. You don’t have to have set pieces, a map, minis, perfect character voices, art, an intricate world/plot, etc. None of that is necessary to enjoy playing/DMing.

The only necessity is you and your friends, enough info to make characters, and the desire to play.

[curseofstrahdxeli]

Inverting Stereotypes in Curse of Strahd

Originally from this reddit thread by JimCasy

Modules

While looking for some art to post in my Curse of Strahd group, I ran into this interesting article on racial stereotypes in this long-time classic D&D adventure. For the sake of this post, I won't be debating the observations or stereotypes the article covers. Instead, I'll be taking these at face value, and seeing how one could work the story in a way that inverts these stereotypes in ways that actually enhance the overall story and experience of Curse of Strahd.

A Note on Stereotypes and Storytelling

It's been my experience thus far as a DM that stereotypes need not always be avoided. Indeed, many players come to the table to live out some of the common tropes of D&D. At the same time, I've also found that bending these tropes, working in more variable gender roles, and generally subverting players' expectations has made for much better storytelling.

The Vistani

Though the campaign begins likely with the party trusting the Vistani, if you play it by the book, they're likely to hate these wandering Romani-counterparts nearly as much as they hate Strahd himself. While the twist is good, I think we're served better by dishing out a more intricate picture of these people.

This one is very easily addressed! Some of my plans:

Rather than mostly thieves, bandits and thugs, we can throw in a bunch of different stat blocks for Vistani, which also have corresponding personal traits we might expect.

Bards. Vistani are all about music and entertainment! Every Vistani camp should have a musician or two, and perhaps every other camp has a particularly magical one (aka Bard). This character can use Song of Rest to help characters recover, and perhaps even be recruited to help the party out on their many missions. This character would be mostly interested in uplifting spirits, gaining renown, and is a perfect source for humor in this very dark setting.

Druids. Vistani have to eat, care for animals, hunt, and obtain fresh water on their many travels. It only makes sense that a Vistani Druid or two wander around Barovia helping the various camps make ends' meet. These would be more of a neutral bent, more interested in the state of the land and its creatures than the politics of the Vistani and Barovians. They would likely be willing to grant insight to the characters on the creatures of the land, and serve as temporary guides.

Guards. While the book states Vistani aren't allowed in Vallaki, I think throwing a few Vistani guards into the mix shows that this prejudice is pushed back upon and not always tolerated. Rather than assuming that this kind of segregation has won out in Barovia, it creates more tension to have character which break the mold. Vistani guards would be more willing to turn a blind eye to characters trying to do good - such as feed or even release prisoners. They may also cause distractions for the players or assist them in town in other ways, provided it doesn't get them into too much danger. These guards would be respected and appreciated by some Barovians who can't provide much entertainment or soul-ful light on their own.

Craftspeople. The Vistani have tons of trinkets, instruments, weapons, leather armor, and other supplies that all need to be made and cared for. This is an important stat-block or character type to subvert the typical criminal stereotype, as it shows these are a people who work and create for themselves (though some still resort to thievery and deception!).

Some others would be Scouts, Priests, Archers/Hunters, Knights, and Veterans.

Alignment changes: have more Good Vistani in the mix.

We have a couple of options here. We can maintain the overall structure of the story and the alignment of the main Vistani characters (who are mostly in line with Strahd one way or another), OR we can flip these on their heads and change up the core story to account for that.

If we do the former, we can simply throw in more Vistani NPC's (per above examples) that break the mold and are actually Chaotic Good like Esmerelda. While she is most likely to join the party on their adventures, the other Good Vistani will serve as temporary helpers and guides along the way. They may even hint at the underhanded plots of other Neutral and Evil Vistani.

Madam Eva is a central figure to the story, and she's said to be chaotic neutral. However, I'm likely to play her more as Neutral-Good, as her ultimate aim to free Strahd from his curse is definitely good. The means by which she attempts to do this may stray into grey areas, but particularly in the story with our players we can highlight her inner tension (once they learn more of her history), and not simply cave to allow her to be a more neutral and sometimes evil character.

With Madam Eva as a central leader of the Vistani, this inner-tension she has would be shared among her people. While some can be played as a bit more opportunistic and villainous, the story gains a great deal more depth if most Vistani are chaotic-neutral or neutral-good. They're primarily a very creative, poetic, passionate, musical, talented and charismatic bunch, with some bad apples who use their talents for their own gains.

Drunkenness

This one is easy - not all Vistani need to turn to the drink. It's a cop-out and overplayed stereotype! However, to play up the Vistani's love of the party we can throw in other types of recreation and creativity. Depending on your group, this could include more herbal remedies, druidic magic, competitive hunting games, card games, duels (physical or poetical), and lots of romance.

Prime example: rather than the party stumbling upon a wagon filled with 4 drunken, unconscious Vistani, I think it'd be far more interesting that they stumble into a wagon filled with 4 sleeping Vistani lovers.

Lying

Break this trope by having some Vistani actively abiding by a code of honor to never tell a lie. This would include telling things straight even if it means harm to them at times!

Theft (of children and otherwise)

Vistani can be providers not only to themselves but also to lonely Barovians struggling under the oppression of Strahd. Many Vistani don't see Strahd in a more tragic light - so too would they see the listless souls wandering about his realm. They may even see it as an important spiritual exercise to soothe the suffering of these empty vessels whenever they can. Perhaps some even believe that the souls of Barovians can be rekindled, and it's their life challenge to try to do so.

"The Evil Eye"

I'm likely nixing this entirely from my game, as I don't believe it adds much at all and plays into a very negative stereotype. This is D&D! Loads of characters have magic, including the Bestow Curse spell. Play up other types of spells that some Vistani can have, as well as Divination magics.

The Mongrelfolk

I'll be referring to them instead as the Fael-Iasg ("Fail-y-as-ick") which means "wolf-ish" in Gaelic. This avoids bad stereotypes, and also adds some culture and flavor to them.

In our game, I'm not going to play them as idiotic or unable to speak. Instead, they'll be susceptible to going into "wolf-mode", at which times they'll become more animal than human. However, when they're in their humanoid mood, they'll be able to communicate. Just not super well, since they're not the most sociable of folk.

In my view these are not a whole lot different than Kenku, and so I'll be playing them in a similar way. They're the result of a curse laid down centuries prior, and while there is some tragedy to their story, they do their best with what they've got. They can be incredibly strong, fast, and sneaky.

Ultimately I'll be playing them a bit as a different genus of Werewolves, though less powerful.

To maintain the horror elements of some of the encounters with these folk, it's fairly simple - some of them have been possessed by a spirit of the land that has corrupted Barovia. This would be Baba Lysaga - not Strahd himself. These Fael-Iasg are known to get out and attack villagers at times, and is a big reason why they've become more isolated.

That's all for now! Thanks for reading.

[selfinsertbartender]

D&D Pride

I’ve seen a bunch of people celebrating their LGBT+ tabletop RPG characters this month both on here and on twitter, and I wanted to get involved! Seeing as I don’t have much in the way of artistic talent, I figured the least I could do is list the LGBT+ characters I’ve played in the past and some of their exploits, from earliest to most recent! 

It was while I was making this list that I realized I’ve accidentally made almost every single character that I’ve played for more than just a couple of sessions queer. Oops? Anyways, full character info under the cut!

* Ramiel Uroven - Asexual      Ramiel was my second character of my first serious D&D group (I changed characters several times for various plot reasons)! Growing up on his family’s farm outside of the Human capitol city, Ramiel always admired the Paladin Corps and was eager to become a knight when he grew up. Upon reaching the age when he could be certified, he was barred from joining the Corps after it was discovered that he was technically a Tiefling (in 3rd edition, Tieflings were humans with demonic ancestry; in Ramiel’s case, his great-great-great-great-grandfather married a succubus, making him just 1/64th demonic). Ever the upbeat young man, having been denied his dream of becoming a Paladin, he decided to do the next best thing: turn around and join the anti-Humanist Theroubrian Empire as an Antipaladin in service of Hextor, the god of war and chaos (keep in mind, at the point where Ramiel joined the party calling them “morally gray” would have been generous). He didn’t join out of any sense of solidarity with the Cult of Hextor’s dogma, he just wanted to be a knight. He eventually went on to become the Avatar of Hextor (after a series of like, four nat twenties in a row?? it’s a long story) and was promoted to a General position in the Empire’s army. He eventually parted ways with the party after some... personal differences (he was ordered to kill the two leaders of the party for betraying the Empire, and he’s nothing if not loyal).      A more recently rebooted version of Ramiel had him have distant Fae ancestry instead, He was actually successful in becoming a page for a local lord and starting his own knighthood training, but he was kicked out after it became clear he just stopped aging. In this version he was still asexual but more homoromantic, as he’d had a sort of illicit relationship going on with his lord.    

*Ariel Ophanim - Pansexual/Nonbinary      After fleeing from the Theroubrian Empire, the party joined up with a group devoted to keeping the world’s forces of good and evil locked in a stalemate known as the Defenders of Balance (note: this campaign was a good year before The Adventure Zone even started!). Assigned to watch over the new recruits upon their induction was Ariel, an Aasimar rogue and long-suffering right hand of the leader of the DoB. Ariel was the image of a covert field agent: sneaky, no-nonsense, and very, very pretty, and they knew it! So imagine their disdain when they were instead assigned to babysit a wild bunch of ragtag asshole newbies for their first real mission. The leader of the DoB had taken Ariel in when their home had been ravaged in the war between the Humans and the Theroubrian Empire, however, so they felt that they owed it to the leader and reluctantly accepted the assignment. Ariel filled a much-needed leadership role in the party and even managed to herd the group into completing some respectable work for the DoB investigating claims that their former employers were attempting to open a portal to the Demonic Plane. Ariel ended up sabotaging the ritual to summon the hell portal when they threw themself in front of Dimitry, an NPC ally with whom Ariel had a burgeoning romantic relationship, and became the ritual’s sacrifice in Dimitry’s place. Ariel’s sacrifice still opened a portal, but instead of dragging everyone present to the Demonic Plane, it instead dumped the party, Dimitry, and Cree (the succubus wife of the leader of the Theroubrian Empire, responsible for opening the portal and killing Ariel) into a pub that existed between planes.

*Saoirse (aka “Yew Mann”) - Gay         Within the extraplanar pub the party met a knight in antique armor and a horned helmet claiming to be a human paladin of a long-dead god. This knight, who claimed to be called ‘Yew Mann’, joined the party as they went hopping between planes (which actually consisted of our group playing a bunch of oneshots of other tabletop games using our characters) looking for a way back home. When the party got suspicious about Yew’s refusal to remove her armor with anyone else around, it was eventually revealed that she was not, in fact, a human paladin. She was actually a young Rakshasa sorcerer from the Demonic Plane named Saoirse who fled to the inter-planar pub after her lover, a female Tiefling, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. She took on the form of her lover to appear less obviously demonic, and at the pub she made friends with an old paladin who came from the Material Plane at a time hundreds of years before the present. After hearing his tales about humanity and the paladins and their heroism, she desired to live as a hero in the Material Plane herself. She received the old paladin’s armor and spear with the intention of disguising herself as a human once she figured out a way to get to the Material Plane (which, of course, is when the party arrived....)      She told all of this to Cree, the Theroubrian Empress, in confidence, and in return Cree started to convince her to accept herself. Their friendship would eventually save the human Paladin Corps from a Theroubrian attack, as Yew pleaded with Cree to call off their mind-dominated Terrasque (again, a long story). After the Theroubrians retreated, Yew decided to leave the party so that she could serve on the Theroubrian council and act as a sort of moral compass for Cree and the Emperor.

*Ewan Saxton - Gay      Real name Ewan Uroven, he was Ramiel’s younger brother and was forced to hide his familial ties (and his heritage, as a Tiefling) in order to be accepted into the Paladin Corps’s college of magic. At first Ewan struggled to adapt to his new environment and at learning how to harness his magic, but a boy his age named Tomar began to help him. While Ewan struggled with most schools of magic, with the help of Tomar he found that he excelled at Abjuration and made it his goal to become a great antimagic wizard. Ewan only got so far as to share a kiss with Tomar before his relationship with Ramiel (younger sibling of an enemy general) was discovered and he was forced to flee the Paladin Corps capitol with the party. During his time with the party there was an attack on the Paladin Corps in which the mage college destroyed, leaving Ewan uncertain about the status of his boyfriend (our campain went unfinished shortly after this). *F.E.I. - Bisexual/Trans*      Born under a different name, FEI was the youngest of six children of a Kenku adventurer-hero and a former petty criminal. She wasn’t the most well-behaved kid, and she took her affluent childhood for granted up until the day that her mother took ill and died soon after. FEI’s father, who could never quite leave his criminal behavior in the past, stole all of her mother’s fortune and abandoned his children, forcing the six of them into becoming criminals themselves in order to fend for themselves. This tragedy drove FEI down a dark path, until she fell in love with a girl who taught her that she had to live her life to the fullest. This, along with her mother’s dying encouragement to be truer to herself, drove FEI to leave her home behind and start anew, living as a woman for the first time in her life in a new city and with a new name.      Initially she intended to leave her criminal past behind her, and despite predjudices against Kenku she managed to join the local city guard. However, her shame and self-loathing still remained in the back of her head, a lack of self-worth which, like most Kenku, she felt could only be medicated by the accumulation of wealth. Thus, despite her desire to leave that life behind, she fell into a gang of Kenku criminals called the Blackbirds. FEI currently works as a corrupt mole within the city guard, though perhaps the appearance of a group of dangerous assholes within her city might push her into abandoning her criminal activity for good and finally follow in her mother’s footsteps. And that’s it for the LGBT+ characters! The canonical ones, at least. I have a handful of others, all of whom (aside from one) I really only played for a couple of sessions and didn’t get much of a chance to delve into their stories. But in the spirit of D&D Pride, fuck it, let’s queer them up too. *Ernbrecht Stonefist - Asexual       A Dwarven druid of the stone and the middle son of a noble family. He adhered to a strict set of rules and guidelines while essentially serving as his family’s “eyes” to the world outside of the Dwarves’s island. My very first character of my first serious D&D group, he didn’t remain with the group for very long (because he wasn’t very interesting/fun to play with a brand new party). Glad not to have the burden of the expectation to produce heirs, since he won’t be gettin it on with anyone anytime soon.

*Sirocco - Aromantic/Agender       A half-Giant cleric of Varuna, god of the celestial seas. Varuna whispered to Sirocco and told them to baptize the world, that all may join Varuna in the celestial seas beyond the planes. In reality, Sirocco was a cleric of the water and madness domains, and Varuna was actually just some demi-fiend fuckin with them and making them drown people in their Bag of Holding, which was filled with water (the DM let me get away with this because he thought it was hilarious). Didn’t get a chance to play them long (campaign got interrupted by summer break), but they were a lot of fun. Their crowning achievement was single-handedly digging out and creating a river, building a village alongside it, and starting a cult (all of which was constructed above another player’s lich dungeon. Long story). Doesn’t care for romance, too busy being a vessel for their god.

*Weone Harksted - Gay      Literally only played as her once, so I don’t even really remember what I was going for. She was a Dwarf cleric of light and I’d interpreted that as being a “sun mage” or something. She was an avid scholar and had some horrible ancient secret book and was more than prepared to destroy a civilization to get to the bottom of that mystery. Also, she likes girls now. 

*Musca - Bisexual      Ah, Musca. My big, beautiful Gnollish bard. Such a kind heart. Such an indomitable spirit. Also, he swings both ways. I’ll find a group that will let me play as you one day.