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lawfulgoodness · 10 months

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Experimental campaign idea

I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain my next campaign setting/idea in a brief, sensible way. It’s really silly, but also really ambitious, and we’re about to have the second session, which means I really need to get a firmer grasp on all the moving parts. To that end, here are the 3 main things I’m doing with it:

Self-insert PCs - All Player Characters are self-insert, so everybody’s just literally themselves.

Reality is a simulation - The players are “pulled out” of our world, and “plugged into” another one. They are thrown back and forth with little explanation, hopefully motivating them to investigate why.

A Multiverse of RPGs - Initially the world they are thrown into will be Shadowrun, since it already has an understanding of “jacking into the matrix.” However, the goal is for them to try and find a way to escape from the world of Shadowrun, only to find themselves trapped in the world of Earthdawn instead. The levels of reality are nested, so escaping one simulation leads them to discover what they thought was “reality” is in fact another simulation.

It’s basically “Sliders” meets “eXistenZ”

If you’re interested in the currently planned nesting realities, click the “Read More”:

World 0x0800: Fake Shadowrun, but a very glitchy VR video game, simulating the world of Shadowrun. It is so glitchy, that the players are able to exploit it in a way that creates a rift in the underlying simulation of all worlds, allowing them to begin traveling between worlds.

World 0x0700: Real The world of Shadowrun. The players were hired to pull a series of jobs in a popular video game, but after the first few jobs, the world of Shadowrun started to demonstrate weird glitches just like the video game. Players try to escape to get back to their “real lives.”

World 0x0600: Spawn point. No system/setting. This is the world players initially find themselves in when the campaign starts. It is clear that 0x0800 isn’t real, it is also implied that 0x0700 may not be real. All but one player is currently assuming that 0x0600 is probably “real.”

World 0x0500: Earthdawn After finally realizing 0x0600 is not real, the players escape and find themselves in Earthdawn. In the world of Earthdawn, the players are welcomed as rescued heroes that had been trapped by the Horrors of Barsaive. They are finally awake, and all of their previous adventures are considered nightmares, but not real. Other nightmares and astral adventures will occur from here, throwing the adventurers into 0x0610 (d&d), 0x0620 (pathfinder), and 0x0630 (Golden Sky). Once the players find out 0x0500 isn’t real either, they escape to...

World 0x0400: Trail of Cthulhu Players find themselves to be mental patients in a late-30s mental asylum, locked up for their insane ramblings about the future, and for being suspects in the murder of a local business magnate. Lovecraftian Whodunit to follow, giving them the ability to travel to other worlds, such as 0x510 (Solomon Kane) and 0x520 (Castle Falkenstein), which forces them to collect powerful magical items in order to escape to...

World 0x0300: GURPS Cyberpunk - Players find themselves to be unwitting contestants on a reality game show, where their simulated adventures are a form of public entertainment. In addition to worlds 0x4000 - 0x8000, the players will now be throw into additional fictional settings for one-shot adventures to entertain the masses. These adventures include 0x410 (Star Wars), 0x420 (TMNT), 0x430 (BtVS), and other popular franchises. If they are able to escape this world, they find themselves in...

World 0x0200: Android RPG by Fantasy Flight Games. They are recently activated androids, designed to replace a series of violent malfunctioning androids. They have to hunt down their counterparts and stop them. If they succeed in escaping the world the enter....

World 0x0100: A Tron-like world, probably using d20 mechanics of Horizon:Virtual, unless I can find something better. Players find out they are each distinct AI/ML processes being groomed for placement in the “real world” to infiltrate & replace humanity. All of their adventures up to this point is to help them simulate being actual humans, but able to understand why humans must be replaced.

“Ascend” as AI/ML constructs in synthetic bodies and step out into the real world for the first time.

Destroy the Master Control Program that’s been pulling the strings behind the entire campaign, but trapping themselves in the simulated environment in the process

Return to what they originally thought was the real world (Planet Earth in the 2020s)

Something else that I haven’t thought of that the players do instead. Obviously, this is going to be the one that actually happens and I can’t wait to find out what it is.

Root 0x0000 // The game’s actual reality.

#RPGs #my campaigns #d&d #shadowrun #unreality campaign #metamodernism #this campaign brought to you by EEAAO #eXistenZ #and my inability to play any system for more than like two years max

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kassil · 1 year

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Planescape had a point

First, a little bit of explanation for those unaware: Planescape was a setting for 2nd edition AD&D. It is, arguably, one of the most uniquely creative settings ever devised for a D20 system, but that's probably just my love of it and how weird it could get coming through. The important part right now is that it had the Factions - philosophical groups that struggled to manipulate the nature of the multiverse, because belief can alter reality for the Outer Planes.

When it was a new-ish setting and I was deep into it, of course I thought the louder and wilder ones were cool. You know how it is, right? But there was one faction that, these days, absolutely 100% speaks to my very heart - the ominously named Bleak Cabal. You'd expect them to be nihilists with that name, and to a degree they were, but what made them different is that, where everyone else is looking to enforce their philosophy on the multiverse and prove that it's the real truth, the Bleakers looked at everything and went, "Well, doesn't seem to be much of a point to any of this, does there? Hey, buddy, you look hungry, want some soup? And you, gentlefolk, I saw you sleeping in that alley, I've got a spare room you could set up kip in for a bit so you can stay dry."

The Bleakers looked at the multiverse, decided there's no grand meaning or ultimate purposes, and concluded that you should be kind. Everyone's going to be going through the worst of it sooner or later, and it's better to hold out a bowl of hot soup and a warm blanket when they do than it is to mock or belittle them. The world's on fire and in the trash bin, why make it any worse when you don't absolutely have to?

As an elder Millennial, I really like that. The world's on fire and filled with awful things, so why not be kind if you can?

#ad&d #ad&d 2e #planescape #bleak cabal #bleaker #D20 #nihilism but not #just be kind

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thefringespod · 10 months

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Okay I know I already reblogged @the-sassy-composer 's post about story inspiration but I would like to expand upon things because I went back to some of my earlier notes and I left off a major player in the original inspiration of this show

Starting with the more average inspirations, we've got The Adventure Zone and Dimension 20. I'm looping them together because a lot of my inspirations for this show are d&d based and my love of d&d comes from these shows. This show was originally set in a planar system like in d&d (specifically the one that features heavily in TAZ Balance). It also was originally going to have ttrpg elements to the creation and execution of the show (side note: if you wanna see a show that's actually *doing* that, check out @souloperatorpod) There's something about the way that TAZ and D20 weave magic and sci-fi (see TAZ: Balance and D20: A Starstruck Odyssey for the best examples, though most of my D20 inspo was actually The Unsleeping City) that has always really spoken to me and greatly influenced the magic systems I used on the Fringes

Like every depressed 15 year old on Tumblr, I watched a LOT of Doctor Who. It's a huge part of my sci-fi-ish inspirations (the multiple realities and ways to travel between them mostly. Yes in DW they travel through time but the feeling I'm trying to evoke is similar). Sci-fi that deals with traveling between worlds or time or realities has always been something I've loved and a lot of that fascination stems back to Doctor Who (and also Marvel comics but they're less of an actual inspiration and more of a fix for my multiverse needs)

And then there's Between the Lions

If you were not a USAmerican child watching PBS between 2000-2010, Between the Lions was a children's educational puppet show (more like Muppets than hand puppets but not official Muppets) that followed a family of lions who worked/lived in a library. It was like an anthology series for kids, each episode featuring a different children's story being read

The original drafts of the Fringes very heavily followed the idea "what if Between the Lions had a psychological horror element"

Before it was on the Fringes, this story took place in the Library. The Library (she/her) was a sentient and infinite library where our Storyteller (any) lived. The Storyteller would read stories from the lives of those living in the realities outside of the Library to the Wanderer. If you've listened to the Fringes, you can probably see that the Library became Minerva, the Storyteller became the Keeper, and the Wanderer has always been wandering. And if you've listened to the Fringes you can probably figure out what the Library had done in my original drafts. In addition to kidnapping, however, the Library also fully consumed anyone who came into the library by absorbing all of their stories and leaving them nothing but bones. Between the Lions! With kidnapping and horror implications!

I left the Library because I kept getting stuck there, eventually finding the room to breathe and create on the Fringes. That said, my first introduction to anthology was Between the Lions and it did still influence a lot my creative process and what ended up becoming the Fringes

I'm going to close this out by returning to The Adventure Zone and one of my favorite quotes of all time "See, there’s magic in a bard’s song. They call it inspiration, and it tells the listener what they need to hear right when they need to hear it. And right now, you hear it too." Inspiration is a form of magic. In d&d it helps you add to your roll. In real life, it helps you create things that you never thought possible until it *happened*. Seeing a bunch of other creators talking about their inspirations for their shows has been so much fun, especially when you know the stuff well enough to see it reflected in their work

#pines notes #long post

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artcanary · 6 years

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1-50

oh my god dude

im gonna put this under a cut bc this is a lot. this is a ride, have fun i guess

1. Your first OC ever?god. its got to be Super Kitty. when i was like … an incredibly small child I used to draw comic strips about this feline caped crusader, who was friends with everyone in the city, and the comics always involved him stopping an evil banana man from stealing money from the local bank. He was paid with donuts for his service to the city. i still remember how to draw him.

2. Do you have a personal favourite among your OCs?i’d get arrested if I didn’t answer this with Bronze, probably… but really, they’re very important to me

3. Have you ever adopted a character or gotten a character from someone else?man, i cant remember! i really dont think i have… P:

4. A character you rarely talk about?there’s loads of characters ive never even posted a single picture of on tumblr, i wouldnt even know where to start asdf

5. If you could make only one of your OCs popular/known, who would it be? bronze is the easy answer, but… i guess that could also go to Servant or Westrin. Servant has a comic project in the works that basically stars him, sort of a series of one-shots about the things he’s experienced, i feel like that would be a good thing to take off and run with. Westrin’s just fun as hell, i love the guy.

6. Two OCs of yours that look alike despite not being related?real talk now… there’s at least five different characters that i refer to as a whole as “bronze-tangential”, who started out as, “what would bronze be like if they were in this world?” and then becoming their own thing within said world because i just get stupid attached

its an epidemic

7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?nearly all of them, actually. that’s the main reason i make characters, after all! too many to really go into specifics here, again P:

8. Do you RP as any of your OCs? If you do, introduce one of your RP OCs here!not often, but i think Bronze and Westrin are the most common ones. unless playing a character in dnd, or running an npc in dnd counts… then a whole lot more hahaha

9. Would you ever be willing to give any of your OCs to someone else?it depends on the circumstances. i don’t really like the idea, though.

10. Introduce an OC with a complicated design? Westrin’s old getup is a pain to draw, and there was one other design i did that I cant find anywhere… whichever way, i dont often tend to draw super complicated things often

a couple fakemon ive designed though… heheh those can get pretty finicky

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”? hmmmmmmmm my immediate thought was Eric Silverdale from a comic i was working on a few years ago. hes a darling, i want him to be my friend irl

12. Name an OC that isn’t yours but who you like a lothow could you do this to me i love each and every one of all my friends ocs GOD the first one who comes to mind is @d20-official‘s Smith, whos Bronze’s friend… everyone in that DND party actually

13. Do you have any troublemaker OCs? Rated on a scale from “harmless” to “honestly somewhat frightening”: -Baromet (charming and quite friendly but definitely a kleptomaniac),-Westrin (demigod of bards and travelers), -XEN09 (a nonsense hacker), -Conny (needlessly contrarian and dumb as HELL), -Enza Colie (long fucking story but hes a good-for-nothing), -Hemlocke (mad scientist, chaotic evil), -Iris (AI and hacker, VERY bad), -The Terminus (glitch-in-the-matrix demon, chaotic evil), -and Sydd (the Queen of the Faeries, hopefully the danger there needs no explaining :’D)

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory Mmm… there’s a few of them, most obviously Lent (whose background I did a short comic about). Basically his entire town got eaten by ghosts and turned into zombies, he only barely survived with a sliver of his soul left.

15. Do you like to talk about your OCs with other people?yes, i often discuss storylines and such with friends

16. Which one of your OCs would be the best at biology (school subject)? Probably Bronze’s dad! I don’t talk about him much, but his name’s Devon Reed, and he was a biotech developer specialising in android design.

I often describe him as being something of a reverse Arthur Weasley - a very fatherly scientist fascinated to the moon and back with the concept of magic.

17. Any OC OTPs? having trouble thinking of a lot of them right now, but there’s Eric + Lent & Naiadine + Tailias from Emerald Sigil, Avken + Baromet from my space campaign world, Sydd + Wyvv from my unnamed campaign world, and I’ve been considering Westrin + Servant as an interesting dynamic in Servant’s story

18. Any OC crackships? My character Bismuth and @autistictimeknight‘s oc Eros. Theyre so fucking in love, I love it. Its been awhile but I do still think about them sometimes.

As I recall, Eros is an empath, she can read other people’s emotions. But Bismuth is a robot, and Eros can’t read her. Because of this Eros can let go of her fear of unintentionally manipulating the emotions of her date, which would hold her back from most other relationships.

19. Introduce an OC that means a lot to you (and explain why)Hey, meet Bronze! I definitely do not talk about them every five minutes, why would you say that.

Bronze was with me through two of the hardest years of my life so far, and being a DND character they grew with me, both as a fighter and as a person. They were non-binary before I started using those pronouns, they were the first character or person or anything who I fought someone about using the right pronouns for, they make a great icebreaker for if I want to see how someone reacts to non-binary pronouns …

One funny anecdote about Bronze is that when I first made them, their “gimmick” was that they would sometimes glitch out and mess up their speech, mostly because I wanted an excuse not to engage in the roleplaying (which I was very bad at). The interesting thing is that as I got better at interacting with the group, we both grew out of needing it very quickly.

I’m very proud of Bronze.

20. Do any of your OCs sing? If they sing, care to share more details (headcanon voice, what kind of songs they like etc)?Westrin is a bard! His singing voice sounds like Bill Wurtz and these are his theme songs.

21. Your most artistic OCProbably Westrin again, he writes a lot of songs… and Hallux is a game designer?

22. Is there any OC of yours people tend to mischaracterize? If yes, how? I honestly dont know… no-one talks to me about them, haha!

people use all manner of pronouns for bronze, though.

23. Introduce OC that has changed from your first idea concerning what the character would be like?I’m gonna go with Enza for this one. Enza Colie was originally written entirely because I wanted an antagonist for a short starring his sister, Jane Colie. But the more I fleshed out his reasonings for acting how he did and explored his character, the more I realised he’d make an even more interesting character if allowed to have a redemption arc, too.

I just want to state for the record that I was very reluctant to the idea, and he basically dragged his way out of the villain pit entirely of his own accord. I am dubiously proud of him, and also a bit scared.

24. If you could meet one OC of yours, who would it be and why?Probably either Eric (Big Man, Best Friend), Crocus (Mother figure), Reed (Father Figure), Westrin (hed just make a good friend u kno??), or Bismuth (she makes good conversation!)

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)probably the homestuck fan-troll Hallux, but that’s mostly because they were based on a troll-sona I made awhile ago. They’re a hope/prospit game designer who is small and full of rage and love

oh, and there’s dave! dave’s a superhero speedster, existing in a modern-day superhero version of seattle. theyre idiot, just like me,

26. Have you ever had to change your OC’s design or something else about them against your will? this is an interesting one… i don’t think ive ever had something Bad in a design ive done called to my attention by someone, but I did create my character Servant at around the same time I was first really expanding the diversity of my casts. (since i don’t talk about him often, a little context: he’s a magic spirit creature bound to human form to serve the royal family of the land and follow their orders.)

somehow, younger-and-more-stupid me managed to have the revelation that making this “eternal slave” character literally anything other than a white man, especially as a white author, would be Pretty Not Good. im … thats really, really not something i should pat myself on the back for, but i do consider it one of the biggest bullets dodged in my artistic career so far that i realised that not all representation is good representation so quickly, before i could make that incredibly, incurably stupid mistake.

after that, trying to make sure my characters and their presentations don’t harm anyone pretty much has become a paranoia. i don’t seem to have stepped on any toes yet, but when it inevitably happens, please let me know - i didnt know, and i want to fix it!

27. Any OCs that were inspired by a certain song? None that I can think of, actually! I don’t really do that often.

28. Your most dangerous OC? god damn it i have no idea!!! is it the terminus? glitch in the matrix god of chaos motherfucker?is it sarle? terrifying calculating scientist with the power of the soul at her fingertips ??? is it ares??? is it athena????? is it petra?????? the gatekeeper????

… actually, the gatekeeper might be it, if “dangerous” just refers to “the amount of raw power it can wield”. the Gatekeeper is a titanic entity that exists in interdimensional multiverse space, and its implied to have the ability to create and destroy entire universe bubbles at will. for what cosmic purpose, no-one knows.

at a more personal scale, though, literally all of the aforementioned characters are pretty bad to run into too.

29. Which one of your OCs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they’re going?god. Mina or Tawn. Tawn is the Indiana Jonesy type and probably dumb enough, but also competent enough not to get into too much trouble there. Mina would probably drag her friends along.

30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection? XEN09. No-one knows, because no-one knows xir personal identity. Xe absolutely does, though. It’s less of a secret if you know xir in person, but good luck finding out about it otherwise.

31. Pick one OC of yours and explain what their tumblr blog would be like (what they reblog, layout, anything really)dave just reblogs memes all the time tbh. they like to keep tabs on the ridiculous superhero news going on, and they show human jokes and cat videos to their alien gf. they dont really post or add to posts, but they talk in tags a lot.

32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why? i want to say tawn because i literally just realised ive been imagining their voice as sounding like luigi this entire fucking time and i never realised until this exact instant

33. Your shyest OC?probably baromet. they prefer to keep to themself in their hideout, with their collection of shiny things. they don’t really enjoy trying to communicate much, mostly because they expect to get yelled at.

34. Do you have any twin characters?Yes! At least two sets;

- Crocus and Sarle. (x) (x) They don’t exactly have a very well-developed relationship, but they are both quite important to the plot of my campaign world, and they are both very interesting. Crocus is a motherly figure who just exudes friendliness, while Sarle is .. very much not that, a researcher studying very gruesome things and pushing the boundaries of reality.

- Jane and Enza Colie. I haven’t talked a whole lot about either of them here, but I’d rather leave their story to do the talking whenever I get around to it. Essentially, the both of them were intended to do the dirty work for their crime boss family, but Jane ditched to study medicine. Most of the conflict between the two of them comes out of Enza not understanding why she made the choice she did, and coming to understand how he’s been manipulated.

35. Any sibling characters? I can’t really think of any off the top of my head, I should … I should really work on that.

I can talk about Westrin, though. Westrin (a demigod of many things, but namely bards, travel, travelers, and people who are lost) often becomes close friends with mortals, sometimes practically adopting them. These people who consider him family, and people who have received his blessing, are able to use his surname, Brilanta, as their own if they choose. So I guess all of the Brilantas are siblings, at least in spirit.

Oh, and XEN09 has like, seven siblings. Xe is the second-oldest, and least remarkable.

36. Do you have OC pairs where the other part belongs to someone else (siblings, lovers, friends etc)? I already talked about Eros and Bismuth up there a ways in question 18, but I’ll talk about another relationship here. @autistictimeknight‘s character, Nova the Alchemist, is mentor and adopted parental figure to my character Munna. Munna … Munna isn’t a very good apprentice. She tries very hard.

37. Introduce an OC who is not quite human That’s most of them, I’m not quite sure what to say here. Bronze is an android? Bronze again? Westrin? All the aliens ??

38. Which one of your OCs would be the best dancer? man. uh. westrin or jean. or perhaps valencia.

39. Introduce any character you want ??? uhhhHHHhhHHH Lord Brillium is the reigning deity of the Cloud Kingdoms in the other campaign setting I’m working on. They represent light and the quest for knowledge, and spend most of their days in the Cathedral Observatory watching the stars.

40. Any fond memories linked to your characters? Feel free to share!one time bronze flew a hover-bike through the stained glass window in a cathedral blaring all star by smash mouth on their iguana

also one time bronze rickrolled a rakshasa demon and then pulled updog on it like, two minutes later

another time bronze scared off an entire army by pretending to be an automated security system

41. Has anyone drawn fanart of your OCs? If yes, maybe show a picture or two here (remember sources & permissions!)ive got a whole little folder on here from all you blessed people !!!! right now ive got a drawing quinn did of one o fmy characters as my lockscreen

but i think the one i’ll really never ever get over is this piece of Jane, by @rabendraws / @owoltron:

(i bet you thought i forgot about this, dude. dude. think again.)

42. Which one of your OCs would be the most interested in Greek gods? this is kind of a weird question, m, I feel like Bismuth would find learning about the mythos utterly fascinating, as would Tawn.

43. Do you have any certain type when you create your OCs? Do you tend to favour some certain traits or looks? It’s time to confesshaha. uh. i might.

aside from the entire “bronze-tangential characters” thing i mentioned awhile back, I tend to really like designing characters with hair color lighter than their skin color. it just looks so cool man. i love drawing freckles but dont put them on enough characters. i like really curly hair, but also really long and flowy hair. i like drawing triangular body types, and pointy/prominent noses.

44. Something you like about your OCs in generaluhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this is a really vague question. m. m.

45. A character you no longer use?there’s old versions of characters, but a lot of my older ones have been somehow repurposed. I guess there’s Turien, my first-ever DND character, who’s just kind of sitting dead now. Haven’t really done anything with him other than a pretty recent tangential character.

46. Has anyone ever told you that you treat your OCs badly?Not that I can think of.

47. Has anyone ever (friendly) claimed any of your OCs as their child? Im certain it’s happened, but I can’t remember any specific instances.

48. OC who is a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world, too pureSpring. spring knows nothing of th dangers of the world who is letting them into fights someon eneeds to stop this

(spring roll, hehe.)

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memesim not sure what this question is asking since many of my ocs actively enjoy memes including but not limited to westrin, dave, bronze, xen09, iris, and doctor archersen

50. Give me the good ol’ OC talk here. Talk about anything you wanti think. i think im going to pass on this one. i gave you the good old oc talk. your damn turn, yall:

if you have any questions about any of these guys feel free to shoot one at me!

thats all from me im tired and its one am. techskylander you absolute madman

#yetanotherOCmeme #WHY #personal

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