#But wait it can be!
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So one of the hardest things about being a Game Master or Dungeon Master, for me, is that I would put hours and hours into worldbuilding and storycrafting only to have most of my work not come up at the table. Since I also believe in not railroading my players, it felt like a constant battle to make the stuff I prepared enticing enough that the players would choose to engage with it willingly. Frequently, this set me up for disappointment, and I was finding that I was dreading game night.
But I also noticed something else. When my players would engage with the story or worldbuilding, it still didn’t quite satisfy. Sure, it was nice to show off my hard work and when the players genuinely had fun with it, it would make for an epic game session. But something still felt missing.
What worked for me is asking myself “what do I enjoy about this game as a player? What keeps me coming back? Why do I spend so much time worldbuilding and character-building?” Now, this answer will probably be different for each person but if you’re anything like me, it would be some variation of “I enjoy the element of discovery, of going on an adventure and finding out what’s around the corner.” When I control the world and flesh it out in detail, that feeling of discovery can be pretty fleeting. By the time my players encounter any given detail, I’d already “discovered” it for myself.
So once I’d realized this about myself, what did I do? To be honest, I wallowed for a bit. I even handed off my games to another DM, because I was afraid that the core thing I enjoyed about the game was incompatible with leading game sessions. But then this current season of The Adventure Zone dropped and introduced me to a new tool: The Quiet Year.
The Quiet Year is a standalone game from Buried Without Ceremony that facilitates cooperative worldbuilding between its players. The McElroy family used it to flesh out the details of a broad concept that their DM had. In this manner, they all had a hand in building the world that they would explore in their upcoming game of DnD.
The next time I had a chance to DM a campaign, I utilized this same technique. I have to tell you, it not only did wonders for my sense of discovery, but also offloaded a lot of worldbuilding and provided bounds for my creativity to flow between sessions. I also discovered that when you give your players more of a role in the worldbuilding of a setting, it makes them feel more invested in the world and its story.
So, if your DM struggles are anything like mine, I highly recommend giving The Quiet Year (or other worldbuilding games if you know of any) a try before starting your next DnD campaign. You never know what you might find!
#dnd#dungeon master#game master#the adventure zone#the quiet year#dungeon master advice#game master advice#tabletop#tabletop advice#dnd 5e#DMing isn't fun#But wait it can be!
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tbh i think the funniest phenomena that's been happening in the last couple years is "youtuber, having gone too deep into the research hole, has been made an investigative journalist against their will"
#like im not gonna name names but i can think of at least 3 channels#where they stopped posting short form content and went#wait the patreon is paying my rent im no longer a slave to the algorithm gods#HELL YEAH TIME TO SPEND 5+ MONTHS PUTTING TOGETHER A 3+ HOUR VIDEO#and i eat that shit up every time
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the pretend plot of bg3: you've gotta get these tadpoles out and stop a giant floating brain with delusions of grandeur
the real plot of bg3: in order to date us (the party) you must defeat our seven evil exes: a half-demon warlock patron, the literal goddess of magic, a vampiric lord, an insane cult leader , an archdemon, the goddess of darkness, and finally, the Trauma
#honestly the brain can wait i have lovers to collect#and avenge#bg3#baldur's gate 3#shadowheart#wyll ravengard#astarion ancunin#astarion#gale of waterdeep#gale dekarios#karlach#karlach cliffgate#lae'zel
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The Doctor!
#casting ncuti gatwa as the doctor gotta be one of the greatest casting decisions ever#can't wait to deeply fall in love with him#also yes I did add my cat to yet another doctor who fanart#minka deserves to be the doctor's companion#I think we can all agree on that#this is a different kind of self insert#doctor who#15th doctor#doctor who fanart#15th doctor fanart#doctor who christmas special#ncuti gatwa#my art
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the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"
just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible
#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order#at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers#90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies”#serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent#like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries#but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate#and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited...#i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something#cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare#and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest.#it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!'#'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members...#..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)'#anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language?#maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity#and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media#and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons#and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators#instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period#anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value”#and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives#so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs)#happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world#(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills)#and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on...#...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin#oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works?#beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value#and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the#important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)
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Fun fact: We know the size of the Pokémon world because Scarlet and Violet has framerate issues
I'm not answering any more questions
#i watched boundary break and have Feelings and Questions#pokemon sv#*sigh* very close to deleting this. sick of the outdated ver popping up in my notes#wait. i can turn off reblogs can't i
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Don't go calling after ghosts.
I am here - flesh, blood, bone
and devotion.
#good omens#good omens 2#aziraphale#crowley#aziraphale x crowley#crowley x aziraphale#ineffable husbands#myart#i will draw the final 15 once and only once: this is my interpretation#ive been waiting to use this iconic image (if you know you know) for literal years#slaps this piece: this bad boy can fit sm symbolism
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i have such a love for characters who descend into madness or villainy out of deep, deep empathy. characters who fundamentally cannot cope with the cruel realities they find themselves in and blow up about it in spectacular fashion. fallen angel type characters with tears of outrage in their eyes. characters who break before they bend, and break so badly they splatter blood all over their noble ideals. every variation on it gets me so good
#getou suguru#kaneki ken#abyss twin#i know there are others who im not thinking of rn#feel free to reblog with more examples#aphelion.txt#tropes#WAIT I REMEMBERED MORE#jaina proudmoore#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd#phosphophyllite#i just spent like half an hour trying to find this on tv tropes but it must be. Too specific of a thing i have in mind bc#I just kept finding similar and related but too broad categories#despair event horizon. fallen hero. well intentioned extremist. etc etc etc#like specifically i'm talking about when the character's EMPATHY is the CRUX of the problem. sosooo crunchyjuicytasty#edit:#also just know that i am reading every tag on this post#and enthusiastically scribbling down the names i dont recognizr#so i can check out their series later#edit 2 wow this post blew up 🫡 godspeed fellow villain likers#the amount of people tagging this as 'me lmao' is concerning to me#wwx#how did i fucking forget this was also yllz era wwx
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Talking with death yay
#cotl fanart#cotl lamb#cotl narinder#cotl the one who waits#cotl aym#cotl baal#narilamb#lamb brought a heretic so the kids can have fun
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I’d give anything to see Mangle in the FNAF 2 movie
#myart#chloesimagination#comic#mike schmidt#fnaf mangle#fnaf#fnaf 2#fnaf movie#fnaf fanart#five nights at freddy's#I just know their animatronic puppet is gonna look so sick#LIKE it’s gonna be crazy to just see them moving#I don’t want Mike or any of the main cast to get bit… but-#ITLL look so cool#I love you mango you can bite whoever you want#honestly all the toys I know are just gonna slay#I can’t wait to see them
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dream wip
#wip#artists on tumblr#flotsam diaries#arrhghhgg happy I got the textures I was aiming for#I was gonna go sleep but eve's song kororon really got me :'D#cough you can see the full image on uh instagram story if you don't wanna wait haha#technically this one's not a wip but wanna draw some others/make it a set#might tweak the octo though#anyways nOW I will sleep#muffled laugh#edit: oh!! thank for you radar tumblr staff :0#but also radar putting my post tag ramblings on bLAST LMAO
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You keep telling yourself that Namari.
#dungeon meshi#Namari#Kiki Tansu#kikimari#lets fill that tag!#Originally I wanted to just draw the twins in their gnome outfits.#But then I spent 2 hours listening to Mika's Big Girl and I was like “You're so right singer-songwriter Mika. I have to draw Namari”#Anyways I've been practicing with diversifying body shapes as part of my art studies and I really enjoy it!!!#I can't wait until Tade shows up so I can draw more big girls.#By the way - since a lot of people have recently gotten into Dungeon Meshi and finished the manga#Please let me bring your attention to the Adventurers Bible! It's filled with so many extra character focused comics and lore!#We love canon bisexual Namari and the situationship she has with Kiki.#The manga itself doesn't really touch on romance in general but behind the scenes there is yearning. And leg pouches.
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what happens when you change your web standards to be only english-speaker inclusive
#twitter#elon musk#twitter x#whatever shit name it has now lmao#english#as a note#twitter aint the only page doing this#there are games even that aint letting words that have -nig- inside of them be written as part of an algorithm that checks them out#-nga- and -ngr- also#and spanish and indonesian use those words a lot inside of words and/or can mean sth different in their languages (in indonesian case)#etc etc#wait i forgot if it was thai or indo#oh fuck#oh well
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IT WAS ERIC AFTER ALL!!!! I'm so glad we got to meet him (before Vil snaps him away with those Infinity Gauntlets) (can't wait to see what happens when we get the matching Infinity Tiara to go with them, there will be no survivors)
(sorry to be so slow/rough lately, just got a lot of stuff on the ol' brain at the moment! alas, if only I could spend all my time drawing incredibly stupid characters I mean I do but)
#art#twisted wonderland#twisted wonderland spoilers#tapis rouge#i know these are not my best but by god i needed to draw ~daddo venue~#he is a treat! can't wait for him to yell at us for screwing up a shoot or whatever the last-minute disaster will be#i am SO HAPPY it turned out to be about movies after all! ...i mean sort of anyway#i'll take what i can get (and i do enjoy twst trying to be all cute about snow whAHEM i mean beautiful queen) (i see you there twst)#(also to be fair it actually wasn't poisoned in historial-revisionism-twstland so i think we can trust this apple. a+ acting eric)#anyway we are still. very solidly in the 'stand around and talk about the wallpaper for three hours' part of the event.#but HEY we got to meet eric! i was not really expecting it to be him so i am VERY pleased#also god help me i did think the shopping montage as portrayed by a rhythmic where they literally SKIP down the street was hilarious#there's a lot of Choices that were made in this event and that was a good one
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Choice 💚💛❤️ - Life Series
Happy third life anniversary, everyone! 🎉
The song used is Choice by Jack Stauber ^^
Here are some of the still images I used for the vid 🕺
#trafficblr#third life#3lsmp#last life#llsmp#double life#dlsmp#limited life#limited life fanart#secret life#secret life smp#slsmp#slsmp fanart#doodlegroves#i can finally post this \o/#its a miracle i managed to wait to post this for the anniversary
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getting older can be so amazing? you get more familiar with yourself. learn tips & tricks for troubleshooting your own brain. trial & error helps you build routines that minimize discomfort, maximize reward. your preferences/interests don't get set in stone, but you do find out which ones are going to stay with you in the long-term, and which ones are fun but transient joys to appreciate in the moment.
you learn that the world is so much more complex than you were taught, and that that's okay, and that there's an endless supply of things you can learn or watch or experience or think about if you want to. if you're lucky, you loosen up, stop putting so much pressure on yourself. if you're lucky, you learn to recognize that negative inner voice, and whack it with a baseball bat until it hushes up. if you're lucky, you learn to treat yourself gently, not because you are fragile but because you are worthy of gentleness. (i hope you are lucky.)
and some things will change. some things will get better. some things will get good. and maybe you start to recover from the dehumanizing stress of childhood/education. maybe you learn the power of your own autonomy. maybe you learn how to walk away from bad situations (which is a superpower even if you don't realize it yet). and you get to choose your own clothes. and your own food. and which relationships to pursue! and what you do with your free time. and with your life (but don't worry you get to choose that gradually). and that's crazy! and sometimes scary. and extraordinarily, indescribably precious.
#not a shitpost#and as long as you are alive there will be another good moment waiting for you in the future#the profound joy of your favorite foods#the incalculable luxury of waking up and lounging in bed and falling back asleep#a cold glass of water after a walk in the hot sun#petting an excited dog. a cat rubbing up against your ankle. the sight of a confused chicken#glorious these beads we string together to form our own existence#getting older means time is passing. and i hope you are passing that time in ways that make you happy#i hope you have so many moments of joy that they can be as easily counted as drops of water in the ocean
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