#hey wotc what the fuck
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hey wotc turn on your location
#dnd#dungeons & dragons#wizards of the coast#wotc#astral adventurer's guide#spelljammer#hey wotc what the fuck
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this is a funny as fuck dialogue option for when you're playing a dead-birth-parents-rogue who just so happens to be mixed. get gathened idiot.
#succ speaks#i just think it's funny that wotc constantly has NO idea how to handle half-elves from a mixed lens.#as much as i WOULD be happy that larian devs were there to say 'hey man people can be proud of their mixed heritage'#it's just funny as fuck to me that the first time i'm seeing this line is with mo fucking gathen.#the only funnier option is 3. this bitch is withering away there's nothing sexy about him unless u ask his actual party's paladin(s)#baldur's gate 3 kind of sucks especially early on but it's worth it to me to be funny while playing with friends who know this character#'hmm. i can't seem to recall what happened to elturel.' [finished the descent into avernus adventure path. was one of the adventurers.]#'the zhentarim? i think i've heard of them somewhere' [is a zhent ardragon with specialties in legal dealings and investigations]#the running joke is that he got mind flayer brain damage after a stat scramble and cannot find the right people for the life of him#this is so funny though. imagine i just became a small local hero and some nice girl i helped one time says she'll sing a song about me#and she's like 'what should i sing about' and i'm like. 'how about my mixed heritage.' LMFAOOOOO that's so out of pocket#like my friend is so curious and wants me to choose it because he wants to know what alfira's even going to DO with that like ????
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pissed at Larian o’clock
#I purposefully went into BG3 blind & I regret it because the writers rely on a significant amount of the shitty#Tropes prevalent in D&D & don’t bother really confronting it#Yes I got to Auntie Ethel why do you ask#Like you do not need Me of all people telling you this but like. How fucking hard is it to question “hey is this fucked”#I know some of it is like. It's WOTC what did I expect. Better. I expected better in 2023. But still. I should have known.#But I heard it being hyped up to the moon I just wish someone who was like “hey also some of the writing here is pretty fucked!”
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Having been into MTG for a while I still notice the occasional news when something big is happening.
But in light of the recent event all I can ask is: "THE FUCKING PINKERTON AGENCY?"
They, literally, sent a goon squad after a guy who - by virtue of WotC shipping error! - leaked some cards two weeks in advance. And not any goon squad, they used the one agency that was so absolutely horrible there's a law named after said company that forbids the US federal goverment from ever working with them. It's like hitting the bottom of the barrel and then whipping out the drill.
Has WotC/Hasbro finally lost their mind completly? This is essentially saying "hey we just hired the company who's name is in connection to some of the biggest civillian massacres in US history to kindly remind you to not piss us off :)"
What's next? Big youtuber makes a critical video about them and gets a hitman sent after them and their family? Absolute insanity.
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I find it totally ironic how you said the only way for WOTC to give a proper apology would be if they made 1.0a irrevocable. They did that + put everything in the creative commons and you're still bashing them. Reminds me how you literally can't forgive people even if they do the absolute maximum. You people are so fucking hard to please lol. When someone gives you exactly what you want you're still unhappy
"Hey guys, WOTC tried to do something horribly evil that would've put the living of thousands at stake (including me!), but people massively boycotted and expressed so much distaste for what they were trying to pull, their third parties joined the competitors and people cancelled their subs en masse, to the point they had to backtrack because of the economical impact that had on them! But hey please now forget they ever tried to pull that move, you should go back to buying their stuff as if they never did that 💖 also here's a vague random personal comment that has nothing to do with it"
There, worded that better for you! I'm sorry if I'm not trusting WOTC after this again, they wanted to fuck up thousands of creators for their own shitty greed. Anyways, please let me know how the boot tastes, since you love corporate bootlicking so much!
(Please be aware this idiot sent this because I shared a humble bundle pathfinder made. This is literally all it takes for these clowns)
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wait why are you against shadar-kai? (apologies if it's in the video, am not watching it now as it's approaching 3am)
Eh, it's far enough from them appearing that I guess I won't skew the polls. They are the most painfully fake-edgy thing I've seen. I open it looking for the distilled essence of the teens in a 2000's hot topic, but I just see executives painting the façade. They're corporate posers.
Here's a list of things that ARENT the reason.
Thier plot to help the dark dragon Despayr corrupt magic in the Shadow Swamp (the edgier version of the Mere of Dead Men).
Only feeling emotion when ending a life or contemplating death
Pretty unless you see them in thier plane, showing them as corpselike
ignoring pointless things like "comfort" and "morals" and "rules"
being the chosen of the Raven Queen, and on her behalf collecting dark tragedy, sorrow, and feelings of loss.
Pledging thier souls to said dark not-quite-god of mysteries and shadow because they felt she was the only one edgy enough to end the war between Corellon and Lolth. Pledging thier souls to dark mystery was curse only they were special enough to endure
Having shadows that lash out when they feel moody
being corpse pale with jet black hair, pure black eyes, and covered with tattoos/piercings/anything that would make a generic white suburban mom in the 50's scream in terror.
Their abilities being things like "souldrinker" and "weight of ages"
Here's what DOES annoy me
All of the above without feeling like it's the result of genuine passion or understanding. This feels like a bunch of businessmen thinking "hey didn't we have those shadow fey? We can add edge to that, it'll sell great! We can even make it an elf, everyone loves elves!" At BEST it feels like it was written by someone who rewrites warhammer stories to remove the satire and humor. Then screamed as the rest of thier team corrupted thier vision. Edgy shit is fun because people have so much passion pouring though, I fucking adore it. Good edge feels like someone in charge is letting out a vision they've been loving since they were 12. This doesn't feel like a passion project, but like a spreadsheet.
They're just like, the most imbalanced statblocks in the book? Like by thier own metric they're supposed to be listed as at least 3 CR higher than they are, these things can easily kill half a party in one round and be out of reach by the end of thier turn. Why does that CR 7 creature have damage output on par with a demon lord, with bonus action teleport, extra speed, and reach? Why does the CR 11 have a 45 damage AoE with EXHAUSTION LEVELS. These are the epitome of WotC's kink for thier special little elves and I hate it. Like when I need to give a negative example of game design, I point to the Shadar-kai Shadow Dancer
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hey
you're cool
what's your favourite [insert topic here]?
Playing favorites is always hard for me cuz I have ADHD and go "is it this thing or this thing, or did I forget to consider any options I just can't quite think of?"
However, one easy favorite I can think of is company to hate on. Wizards of the coast. Thanks for ruining two of my favorite games with over monetization and greedy choices that hurt your consumerbase. Then to top it all off you fired tons of employees multiple times and then lied about using ai art after you got rid of half your artists. Fuck you wotc. And Hasbro while I'm at it.
On a slightly happier note, my favorite icecream flavor is chocolate.
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Grailfinders Viewers' Choice #16D: Richard the Lionheart
hey, what’s up, it’s ya boy, Richard the Lionheart again. somebody wanted the Richard build but in D&D, and I thought it would be cool. not sure if/when I’ll get to the other Viewers’ Choice builds since a) I’m still catching up to NA again and b) summer is just around the corner, but it’ll probably happen eventually. if WotC doesn’t fuck up again.
anyways, Richie 2.0 is a Glory Paladin to smite at maximum speed, as well as a Swords Bard to be good at literally anything he wants to do.
check out his build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!
Race and Background
as you likely remember from the pathfinder build, King Richard I is a Human, as well as a Noble. that being said there’s something funky going on in the state of France, so he’s got a Mark of Passage, giving him the standard +2 +1 stats of other races. (we’re also messing with the specifics here thanks to Tasha’s Cauldron, so that’s a +2 to Charisma and a +1 to Strength.) that means you have Courier’s Speed, a permanent +5 boost to walking, and Intuitive Motion, letting you add a d4 to any acrobatics or land vehicle check. riding skill, baby! you can also find Magical Passage once a day with a free use of Misty Step, and you gain some Spells of the Mark which you can add to your spell lists. we don’t pick any up as a bard, but feel free to prepare some using your paladin spells later! the ones you can do that with are expeditious retreat, jump, misty step, pass without trace, blink, and phantom steed.
and again, as a noble you have proficiency in History and Persuasion.
Ability Scores
Richie’s so dang persuasive his soldiers follow his orders in the afterlife, so Charisma has to be high on his priorities. after that is Strength. it’s hard to cut rocks in half without it. unless you’re playing a monk, which we’re not. though that does mean Dexterity is next. I know it’s not “really” needed for speed, but it’ll keep you from tripping, which is pretty dang important when you’re moving twice as fast as everyone else. Constitution comes next. from what I’ve heard Richard’s not unusually tough, but he is a melee fighter, so keeping this stat positive will help immensely. that means your Wisdom isn’t great. that and we’re dumping Intelligence. sorry, we needed everything else more.
Class Levels
1. Paladin 1: starting as a paladin gives you plenty of cool toys to play with, like your new proficiencies in Wisdom and Charisma saves, plus Athletics and Religion.
you can also use a divine sense to detect celestials, fiends, and undead nearby! it’ll tell you the type but not their identity, so i guess its kindof a servant senser? you can also lay on hands as an action, patching up your allies with but a touch! this recharages on a long rest, and it’ll only give you five times your level in hp per day. you can even spend 5 points to heal a poison or disease! we’ll get you some magic resistance later, but this is pretty good for a start.
2. paladin 2: second level paladins can get a fighting style of their choosing, and we’re pickin up interception! now if, say, a big chunk of ceiling is about to hit somebody you can react and use your sword to reduce the damage they take by 1d10 plus your proficiency bonus! you can’t use this on yourself, but you’re a cool dude, right?
you can also cast spells now! you can use your charisma to cast ‘em, and you can swap ‘em out each long rest when you’re bored! that also means we don’t have to go too in-depth about which ones to pick, but I’d definitely grab Compelled Duel or Searing Smite if you have a chance. the former essentially codifies a duel between you and another servant, while the latter is a damage over time kind of smite.
speaking of, you can use Divine Smites now. they’re not spells, but using one will eat up a spell slot, and deal radiant damage based on the level of slot spent. just stick one onto one of your weapon attacks and you’re good! you can use this with just about any melee weapon, so… yeah, noble phantasm 1 achieved.
3. Paladin 3: but that’s just one phantasm, we still have another one to get, plus your other skills! to help with that lightning speed, we need to dive into the Glory oath. this grants you Divine Health, giving you immunity to disease, as well as two ways to Channel Divinity once a short rest. you can either become a Peerless Athlete for advantage on your athletics and acrobatics checks, your carrying capacity is doubled, and you can jump ten feet further! alternatively, you can turn a divine smite into an Inspiring Smite, spending your bonus action after smiting to give temporary HP to nearby creatures.
you also gain access to Oath Spells, a special subset of spells that you can always have prepared without counting towards your limit, even if paladins couldn’t get these spells normally- sort of like your mark spells. right now, you have Guiding Bolt, which deals damage and gives the next attack on your target advantage, and Heroism, which emboldens creatures while giving them temporary HP each turn.
4. Paladin 4: fourth level paladins get an Ability Score Improvement like any other class, so now you can even out your Strength and Charisma scores. only even numbers really count in D&D, so that’s two half-price +1 bonuses to the relevant stuff strength and charisma do. which is a lot on a paladin.
5. Paladin 5: for example, your strength can be used even more now that you have an Extra Attack each attack action, and your charisma helps out a ton with your new second level spells! you get enhance ability for free, giving you advantage on one kind of ability check for a minute, or you can use Magic Weapon to give your stick a little boost. I’d also recommend you pick up Protection from Poison for more magic resistance. everybody knows poisons are magic. or is that friendship?
6. Bard 1: speaking of magic, let’s swap over to bard real quick for more spell slots! you get another list of spells you can cast. you have to mash your classes together to figure out how many slots you have at any given time, so check out your PHB for that. bards get their spells hard-coded in and can only swap them when they level up, so we’ll go into more detail here.
for cantrips, grab Blade Ward for a chance to go on the defensive and take half damage from physical attacks for a round. it’s not usually the smartest move to make, but at least it’s better than True Strike! yeah, we’re not here for much magic, we’re just using bard for extra physicality, a sentence I am sure has never been said before.
that being said, some spells are pretty nice. Animal Friendship will further improve your riding skill, and Feather Fall can keep you from taking fall damage after your Jump and Peerless Athlete-boosted jump launches you 50 feet straight up in the air. Command will help you keep ahead of your knights, which I swear are coming eventually, and Disguise Self will help you blend in with the human populace. I assume this is the kind of thing that happens in other fate works, right?
you also get proficiency in Animal Handling for multiclassing, and you can give allies Bardic Inspiration as a bonus action Charisma Modifier times per day, letting them add a d6 to a check, save, or attack roll of their choice in the next minute.
7. Bard 2: a second level bard is a Jack of All Trades, adding half your proficiency bonus to any check you make that doesn’t already add it, like your initiative. see, you’re faster already! this and Enhance Ability also covers your “good at literally everything” skill. you’re not the best in the party, but you’ll always be ready to give it the old college try.
you also get the song of rest, giving your party more HP when they heal up on short rests! yay, unexplained healing!
you’re also even faster with your new spell this level, Longstrider. speed, you are speed.
8. Bard 3: at third level you can give everything the ol’ college try thanks to attending the college of Swords. with it, you can now cast bard spells through your sword, and you get the Dueling fighting style for an extra 2 damage with one-handed weapons.
more importantly, you can now spend inspiration to make Blade Flourishes in one of three flavors once per turn. a Defensive Flourish deals the inspiration in extra damage and adds it to your AC for a round, a Slashing Flourish deals the inspiration in extra damage to your target and any other creature you choose next to you, and the Mobile Flourish deals extra damage and pushes the target away, giving you a chance to react and get back into range. also, even if you don’t use a flourish your speed will still go up by 10’ when you take the attack action.
you also gain Expertise in two skills, doubling your proficiency bonus with Religion and Athletics checks. and you gain second level bard spells now, like Borrowed Knowledge, allowing you to have full proficiency in any skill you wish for an hour.
9. Bard 4: fourth level bards get an Ability Score Improvement like any other class, but we’re going to cash this one in for a feat. the Crusher feat can add a point to your Constitution, as well as greatly improve your unarmed attacks and any other bludgeoning weapons you choose. once a turn you can push a creature you hit with a bludgeoning attack five fee, and when you score a critical hit, attacks targeting that creature get advantage for a round. it’s not quite the unarmed fighting style, but it’ll definitely make your boxing skills more noteworthy.
you can also make a Light with the cantrip of the same name for a shiny sword, and you can make a Kinetic Jaunt with a spell slot, adding to your speed, preventing anyone from attacking you opportunistically, and letting you pass through people as long as you don’t end your turn inside of them.
10. Bard 5: the fifth level of bard is the best level of bard, because you’re now a Font of Inspiration, so your inspiration dice recharge on short rests instead of just long ones. on top of that, your inspiration dice are now d8s instead of d6s, and you learn third level spells!
spells like Intellect Fortress, which will give you advantage on all intelligence, wisdom, and charisma saves to supercharge your magic resistance! just ignore that next level it’s fine just focus on the cool spell.
11. Paladin 6: six level paladins get an Aura of Protection, adding your charisma modifier to all your saves, supercharging your magic resistance! just ignore that last level it’s fine just focus on the cool feature of your class.
12. Paladin 7: that’s not the only aura of coolness you’ve got though! as a seventh level glory paladin, your Aura of Alacrity gives you another 10’ boost in speed to you and anyone standing within five feet of you.
13. Paladin 8: use this ASI to bump up your Strength. I don’t have anything witty for this level, you just hit better now.
14. Paladin 9: ninth level paladins get the vaunted “third level spells”! the most important one here is your oath spell Haste, which can double your speed and give you an extra action each turn for dashing or attacking once. whichever you pick you’ll speed up at least a little bit thanks to your flourishes! you also get Protection from Energy for damage resistance, or Crusader’s Mantle to turn all your knights into paladins. I swear they’re on their way just hold on a sec.
15. Paladin 10: our final level of paladin comes with a final aura, the Aura of Courage, which prevents you or nearby allies from being frightened. it’s not that flashy, but it’s wayyyy better than bard’s next level.
16. Bard 6: speak of the devil, it’s bard’s next level! Countercharm takes an action to use and is pretty much a worse Aura of Courage, and Extra Attack doesn’t stack.
at least you can speak in Tongues now?
17. Bard 7: at seventh level you can use fourth level spells, finally giving you your first knight, the Phantasmal Killer! …which isn’t a creature, so it can’t have the crusader’s mantle on it. darn. still, it’s kind of a summon. we’ll work on getting something more corporeal.
18. Bard 8: at level eight you get one last ASI, so grab the Resilient feat to round out your Constitution and give you proficiency in constitution saves. it sucks to drop concentration on summons, and a +12 will go a long way towards helping with that.
you also have a Freedom of Movement now, which will help you speed your way out of any difficult terrain or getting chained up.
19. Bard 9: at ninth level you get a better song of rest, yes, but you also get fifth level spells! with Planar Binding you can keep your summons on this plane of existence for a full day rather than just an hour or so with concentration. it’s really expensive, but you’re a) a 19th level adventurer, and b) you can upcast it up to seventh level right now for a month-long knighthood. now we just need to get the summons…
20. Bard 10: at tenth level bards can get those summons thanks to knowing Magical Secrets, giving you two spells from any spell list. Conjure Woodland Beings will allow you to summon a mob of fae creatures at a time, while Summon Celestial gives you one glowy paladin to pal around with.
while we’re on the topic of spells, you get one last cantrip like Message to speak with your Master in silence.
your Bardic Inspiration dice increase one last time to d10s, and you get another round of Expertise in Animal Handling and History.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
given enough time you can just. have a private army of celestials and fey now. they probably won’t be thrilled to work for you, but that’s when the charisma comes into play. go forth, abuse the action economy as you see fit!
you’re also just. stupidly fast. your base speed is 55’, and with haste you can get up to 110 feet normally, or 130’ if you attack someone with two actions. monks wish they were you. and you can mobile flourish to add another 130’ onto your movement speed for no goddamn reason.
your saves are ridiculous, with a +4 bonus to everything and possibly advantage on your one weak save by using Intellect Fortress, magic just kind of doesn’t work on you that well.
Cons:
your friends are expensive, needing 1,000 gp per binding. plus you don’t actually get them until level 20, by which point they’re not useful for much more than guard duty in your private castle.
no matter how fast you go, you’re still a saber, so you can’t do much at range. the second an enemy learns how to fly it’s over for you.
you don’t need that much speed. it’s a nice flex, but I doubt your DM’s going to include that many situations where being able to go across the map and back in a single turn is super useful.
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Hey by the way if you ever said even one bitchy fucking word about Griffin “railroading” in the Balance arc where he could see it I want to feed you a thesaurus
It is your fucking fault we have not had an arc as good as Balance since, that so many of the new ones feel like they end out of nowhere with only the vaguest interconnecting threads, because you couldn’t tell the fucking difference between a home game and an actual play
They’ve still done good arcs since! They’ve had some great moments! But THEY HAVE NOT HAD A FUCKING THROUGH LINE, because you chucklefucks couldn’t stop whinging when Griffin gave them a structured adventure with a set number of beats, and an overarching story
Storytelling in a home game, in an open world, is reactive; the DM doesn’t know which quests the players will pick, or stumble across, or in what order, so they have to have contingencies or plan on the fly to fit things together
THIS IS FUCKING HARD. It is not easy, or basic, and if you have not DMed but say this I’m also feeding you the entire WOTC book list from all of the editions
Storytelling in an actual play show, that you expect an audience to watch for the story, NEEDS a degree of railroading
There NEEDS to be a flow of cause and effect between the quests, and the players NEED to work cooperatively, plan ahead, and follow the path that they think makes a good story, even if the DM has strung the path with fairy lights
Balance was as magical as it was because even when he didn’t know what he was doing, Griffin knew exactly where the end was, and approximately when they’d get there, and how long he had to work shit out
It was reactive, it changed based on what they players did, and yeah, they followed where Griffin led them without protest; it was their first damn game
And because Griffin knew basically what each of the six quests would be like, he could include meaningful foreshadowing! Even if he didn’t know what it’d become yet! The red robes! The umbrella! He set this shit up in the first adventure!
And the boys ALSO knew the basic outline, and how far they were! And when to start fucking around with rising action, and Travis “teasing” Magnus joining the red robes in the second or third quest!
Having tracks makes a good fucking story, it means you all know where you’re going without the players needing to know the plot and can trust the DM to get them to the next beat
The McElroys have done a fucking heroic job of telling good stories for all the other seasons when people flipped shit over the story having a fucking outline
We EXPLICITLY missed half the fucking story of Ethersea because each of the quests the boys didn’t choose went on to actively affect the world and the story, which is exactly how home games should go! And is fucking frustrating as an audience because actually no I would have loved to see and see the characters have some fucking impact on that weird swarm of metallic scrap that instead had massive consequences offscreen and went to the rando B-team
And people STILL hounded and bitched at Travis for Graduation like you learned fucking NOTHING about the art of storytelling
I hope y’all realize you, personally, are the reason we haven’t had an arc like Balance since
All of the arcs have been good, and fun, and the metamals gave me life, but Balance was absolute magic and some fucking asshats who can’t tell the difference between a home game and a show harassed the people who made it out of capturing that magic again
I hope everyone who harasses actual players never has a coffee that doesn’t taste of nail polish remover or a sunrise without a bird shitting on their head again
May your only internet connection for the rest of your life be dial up
#rant#cranky posting#also i will kick the shit out of anyone i find who did this shit#get behind the goddamn denny’s you fucking parasites
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coats hello!! you said you played ttrpgs, but do you have any favorite systems or rulebooks?? also do you have any recommendations for how to start a campaign / one shot and bring everyone into the game? that's kind of. the most difficult thing for me personally to do so I'm looking for advice skdjskns
Hi nonny!
My fave systems/rulebooks are a bit of a grab bag; I started playing tabletops with the classic DnD (4e is what I learnt on; the group I played with played some of the beta rules of 5e for a bit and then swapped wholly over to 5e eventually, once it, y'know, was published.), and I also played a bit of pathfinder, which, like, y'know, not a huge jump there. So I've got, y'know, nostalgic affection for both of those.
(for not table top nerds - pathfinder is literally DnD edition 3.75 - it's built off the rules of 3.5, with the names scrubbed off for not-getting-sued-out-of-existance-by-WotC reasons)
That said, I've had a lot of fun with the Cortex system - the Leverage RPG runs on it, which is a fuck of a lot of fun to play with the right group, though you do need people who are at least somewhat genre savvy and willing to lean into it-- and the FATE system, which, special shout out to 'under the table', which is a prohibition-esque take on authurian legend that is just. so sexy as a world building idea. so much fun to fuck about and do organised crime in. Some of it's a bit janky but what is ttrpg play if not jettisoning that which does not vibe with you.
(I also taught a class using a stripped back version of the fate system, so, y'know, bonus points there; we picked FATE cause it is literally so easy to pick up for newbies and doesn't need Weird Dice)
Annnd then we get into the weeds of sort of obscure/only kind of ttrpgs as classically thought of. My favourite fucking thing in this space is a game called 'the quiet year'; it's half a card based rpg, half a map making game, about a community after the collapse of civilisation. You get 52 turns -- a year -- and at the end the winter kills you all. Which is a bit grim, but it's a lovely, thoughtful game to play.
Similarly, 'dialect' is just...such a fascinating game to play. (possibly, this surprises no one who's shown up here via my ao3; I do love weird language shit). You play as part of an isolated community, and...well, create a dialect for that community, based on events they (you) experience.
And then my final one in this space is a game called microscope, which is...well it's really only kind of a game at all. It's more of a worldbuilding tool, honestly, but it's fun, and it's a great way to come up with some weird ass shit you can then use for a homebrew world.
Ok, so, that's a grab bag of weird ass shit that probably says a lot about me; lets talk about starting games and getting people into them. I'm sort of assuming you mean, like, narratively, not like, the mechanics of finding a group to play with or like, how to organise a session.
(if yes, that's what you mean: sorry bud, on your own there, I haven't had a group to play with since pre-plauge, and most the people I'd play with these days are approximately 10-14hrs behind me in time, which makes scheduling.....hard.)
Anyway.
Starting off a oneshot or a campaign is...honestly it's pretty similar, in my experience; a oneshot does compress the time frame somewhat bc you don't wanna spend an hour being like 'worldbuilding lore drop time' and/or 'plot hook baiting' when you're only playing for like. four hours total, y'know?
If what you're looking for is an inciting incident; some sort of 'hey here's a MEATY PLOT HOOK GO FETCH' sign for your players: the classic is, ofc, 'you meet in a bar'; there's nothing wrong with that, it gives a nice bit of space for players to introduce themselves either explicitly - 'I'm Longfang, a hunter from clan blackthorn' sort of thing - or implicitly, in the 'lurking around in a corner ala strider' school of character intros. Also a fairly easy way to set the tone - is the bar Notably Sketchy, what else is going on in the bar, are the patrons gregarious or all suspicious, etc.
(obviously, you can theme as appropriate for your world; maybe it's a cafe, or a market, or the guild halls, or a freighter bay.)
Other great inciting incidents that are endlessly adaptable:
You all wake up In A Place (where you were not before) - classic mystery hook. A group of strangers are brought together by Mysterious Forces, and need to a)get out of where they are b)investigate what happened and why they are all here. Bonus points if you have a mole; one player who knows — or thinks they know — why they've been chosen(they're secretly part of a gang, they're secretly royalty, they recognize the markings as The Cult That Killed Their [insert relation here], etc.) Extremely fucking funny to make every player think they know, and set up the spiderman meme when all your players stumble over revealing whatever secret they have.
You all have A Job. Another classic hook - you've been hired to [take macguffin/person] to [place]; you've been hired to [steal thing] from [fancy bitch party]; you've been hired to clear [local basement/dungeon] of [rats/monsters]; etc. Nice easy set up, very basic 'this is Why You Strangers Are Together'. Does require you to have players who will like, take the hook, even if they take it and then immediately wander off to do something else halfway through. The person who hired your players may or may not be a person in specific - it may be A Guild Job, and your players all just got assigned together, or they're having their Normal Bitch Lives travelling coincidentally together and then oh no a monster attacks your trade caravan roll initiative!
Fucked Up Shit Happens, What The Hell. This is the one where you wave the plot hook at your players and are like 'damn that was crazy!' and then let them be like 'shit that was crazy, can I investigate that?'. Obvious ones here are: oh god a body where there should not be one, oh god no body where there should be one, someone rich is doing something sketchy (and your players saw some of it), weird magic/tech shit happened and yr players are the only witnesses. Worldbuilding for this is a lot of contrast - being like 'x is a Weird Thing' helps show, like, what isn't weird, if that makes sense? so like, in star wars, no one is surprised when jedi pull out their lazer swords, so the viewer knows this isn't 'holy fuck you have lazer swords???' situation; on the other hand, when the demogorgon comes clawing out of the wall in stranger things, all the characters shit bricks and the viewer is aware that like, This IS Fucked Up Shit Happening. (obviously, it's a bit more complex than that in context; what I'm getting at is showing NPC reactions to [plot events] helps tell your players about the world.)
Run before the Plot gets you. This is basically a variation on living normal bitch lives -> surprise roll initiative, where your players have Witnessed Something, and now need to Get Fucking Gone before [whoever] Makes Them Gone. Maybe they want to investigate, maybe they don't and the plot is coming for them anyway, but either way, Someone (or something) is trying to find them, and silence them. Sets up a very nice cat and mouse, if you're into that sort of thing - maybe your players saw local prince eating a person, and now they're trying to reveal that the monarchy are all fucking vampires without becoming vampire chow themselves, maybe they're just trying to avoid the government making them sign a bunch of magical NDAs. Very nice way to drop a bit of worldbuilding, because power structures tell you a lot about the world - are the cops corrupt, is this unusual, who's in charge and what's the social contract look like, if you fuck up and get caught are you looking at state sanctioned execution or imprisonment or a quiet knife in an alley, etc.
Nine plot pile up. This one probably has an official name; I always called it this in class, because, well, I think I'm funny. This is the one where your player('s characters) all have their Own Goals going on, and whoopsy, they all overlap! Either they overlap like they're the same goal, 'we might as well work together to Do X', or they overlap like 'I'm trying to steal the orb of magic from the same guy you're trying to kill and wow this is awkward, they need him alive to answer for His Crimes.' This one is a bit more work; you do have to talk a bunch with your players about what sort of character/plot they want to run for their specific character, and keep track of that as well as like, your overarching plot.
For an example: I once played a warlock who had a creature companion that got stronger as I fed it the corpses of defeated enemies, but those had to scale with us; my warlock pact required me to keep feeding it, which ended up with me having to choose between giving up my powers or slaughtering my party-mates after we'd levelled high enough. The main plot of the game was your standard war between kingdoms/gods sort of dnd plot; my character's plot was just… one of the background plots goin on. Another party member was secretly using the party to cover their hostile takeover of their family company; a third was basically a catch me if you can sort of conman who got in way the fuck too deep. The inciting incident for us was being hired by the local king to go Do War Shit (aka You Have A Job); my character had signed up bc war is great for corpses, hostile takeover had signed up bc their family company supplied War Stuff, and conman "signed" "up" and accidentally ended up assigned to do work instead of being left to fuck about with (and steal) supplies.
Also, just generally — fucking steal that shit. Steal like it's your job. Steal like you're in the british museum and all the security just flipped off. Got a movie you like? how's it start, what can you lift from that. Got a book you like? the first ten pages are yours now. If there's an scene or two in a show you like, think about why you like it, and then…copy it. 'My city now' your way through it; for all there's different considerations when it comes to writing the whole of a game, the opening is basically the same as any other story - hook the reader/viewer/player, make them want to find out what happens next. Starting in media res is a time honoured tradition for a reason; work out what your plot is, and then start your players about five minutes after it starts going off the rails, narratively speaking.
If you're looking for worldbuilding advice, though— or, rather, introducing people to your world — well, that's a lot shorter. Throw it at them! drop them right the fuck in. Let them pick it up as you go along - if you're starting in a city, describe the city. Is it cobblestone? are the skyscrapers so tall they vanish into the smog? are the crowds bustling, or are they harried, darting from place to place in fear. When all else fails, go off the five senses - what can your players see, what would they notice? what would they find unusual - their characters, that is. If you're playing in star wars, you wouldn't be like 'HOLY FUCK LAZER SWORDS EXIST???' but you might be like 'oh wow a jedi, I didn't think I'd ever see one in real life!', and 'oh there's a droid' is like, 'oh, a chair'. You might call out that it's a weird chair, maybe, but otherwise it';s like, 'you enter a room, there's wooden chairs around the outside'/'you enter a room, there's a couple of cleaning droinds doing their job'. lets your players know there's droids, but it's not like 'holy fuck robots?'.
Some of this worldbuilding is stuff you should cover in your session zero, if you're running a campaign - that's the one where you set up player characters, etc - and just…y'know, give your players an overview of your world. If you're running a oneshot, cover it when you pitch it to your players - 'I've come up with this cool as shit idea about a world where there's a group of monks with lazer swords in space, also theres robots', for instance, or 'ok, like, a teen coming of age movie set in the eighties, but also there's evil monsters'. Don't be afriad to use a reference point that your players know - emphasis there, no good being like 'imagine the ethical nightmare of animorphs but set in like, a round the twist sort of world', if your players haven't read animorphs and don't know what the fuck round the twist is.
Zero idea how to end this, so. uh hope that helps even a little bit, anon? if you've got more questions, or are like 'dude what theee actual fuck are you on about here', feel free to hit me up again. (also, anyone else reading this).
#dnd#ttrpg design#coats chats#coats originals#coats makes games#long post#also like. soz for any spelling issues here it's now midnight. and the dsylexia. also that.#good fucking god this is like close to 2k sorry anon.
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i really don't like how much first strike / death touch creatures are being printed nowadays, it feels like such an unintended interaction. like imagine you're a brand new player and you have a decent aggressive deck with light removal. your opponent plays their 4 mana 4/4 first strike deathtoucher. you can't kill it, so you swing in with your biggest creature. they block and kill your 6/7 and survive combat. hey what gives? now they're swinging at you. you block with your 4/5. your creature dies and they survive combat. what the fuck? does combat mean anything in this game?
like wotc designers will say "well it teaches a lesson to new players" and i don't think that's fair. the lesson isn't "oh you should probably just play more removal" it's more like "you have to put removal spells in your deck or you will hard lose to the guy who has a mythic"
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Best way to download and store dndbeyond content?
Hey y’all,
I got dndbeyond versions of sourcebooks a bit ago cos those things are fucking expensive physically and I didn’t have space and also the linked versions are convenient. Obviously, we all know hasbro/wotc suck.
Does anyone know of a good way to download these sourcebooks in obviously totally legal ways. I’m atm downloading as PDF each individual chapter but I’m wondering if some criminal has worked out a way to get them downloaded in the linked format so that I can know what never to do?
Edit: I did try finding this myself with searches but they are, uh, all on the dndbeyond site or official reddit so I figured....I’ll check with the criminals
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Ten Characters, Ten Fandoms, Ten Tags
I was tagged by @littlegalerion ! Tysm! I love tag games :D
What fandoms am I even in anymore lmao
1- Vicente Valtieri (Elder Scrolls)
He doesn't even do that much in the game I just love him so much. He's so silly :3
2- Magolor (Kirby)
Class traitor.
3- Dr. Robotnik (Sonic the Hedgehog)
His theme song fucking RIPS
4- Karl Heisenberg (Resident Evil)
I just think he's neat.
5- The Son (Hotline Miami)
I don't even know why I like him so much he's so fucked up but like. In a fun way? Idk?? It's probably the brass knuckles tbh
6- Tezzeret (Magic: The Gathering)
I read Test of Metal once and decided to adopt him. I want to swing him around by his ankles. I really really hope he doesn't just beef it at the end of the Phyrexian arc he's only ever done like one thing consistently in the narrative and tbh he deserves to like. Do Literally Anything But become the evil lackey to whatever Big Bad wotc decides to throw us at.
7- HABIT (EverymanHYBRID)
Listen-
8- Luigi (Mario)
Hehehe mansion time :>
9- Leshy (Inscryption)
I want what this man has. Fucked up spooky murder cabin? Dubiously magical camera that imprisons people in cardboard? Creepy mask collection? Sign me up.
10- Retired Hunter Djura (Bloodborne)
He's cool and I like Old Yharnam as an area. I too aspire to sit on top of a big fuckoff tower and shoot people at long range with a machine gun. Ideal existence tbh.
I feel bad tagging people directly in these so hey! If you see this, I’m tagging you. You’re welcome to join the chain :3
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Heroes of Krynn 2 & Knuckles
(I get to use more Legends of Runeterra artwork let’s gooooo. Artwork by SixMoreVodka)
https://dnd.wizards.com/unearthed-arcana/heroes-krynn-revisited
So this dropped yesterday (I’m writing this on the 25th but it’s gonna be posted sometime on the 26th because lol I sleep in) and I figure I may as well comment on it, seeing as I wrote a very long post about my thoughts on the original Krynn UA. They changed quite a bit now that Dragonlance has been announced, and I’m sorta just writing this immediately as I read the UA so let’s see what they did.
Kender
They ditched the magic bag thank fuck. It was a cool idea but way too finnicky. I hope they go with The Wintery Wyvern’s idea and turn that ability into a magic item. (btw go check out the Wintery Wyvern on YouTube)
The new ability they got is Kender Curiosity and... one free skill proficiency yaaaay. 🙄 Honestly now Kender just feel like a Halfling subrace and that’s boring as hell. I’m not a Dragonlance fan so I don’t know what Kender did before but I doubt anyone wants them to be just Halflings with weird kleptomaniac lore.
Backgrounds
I actually like the changes they made to the backgrounds from the last UA. “But Tiger you hated the backgrounds last time!” Yes but three very important things were changed:
Squire of Solamnia was flushed down the fucking toilet as an option for these backgrounds.
More options were provided, allowing you to customize your character with your background (heaven’s forbid!)
The feats being listed as “bonuses” makes it far easier to assume as a DM that allowing these backgrounds without their associated feats is fine, meaning that if you don’t want these feats to be objectively stronger than others you can just turn them into regular feats.
Still don’t like the lack of ideals / bonds / flaws but hey it’s a step in the right direction, even if I still dislike this system as a whole. There are admittedly some really strong feats available from these backgrounds, like Tough, Warcaster, and Mobile.
Feats
So they didn’t actually flush Squire of Solamnia down the toilet I guess. Seeing as they still have the feat tree system to some extent I’ll talk about them in the same order I did in my last post:
Divinely Favored - The two main things that changed from my understanding are that you can get any Cleric cantrip (not just Thaumaturgy) and they removed Wizard as an option for the 1st level spell you get. This is good both for cantrip versatility (you can now get some divine damage to your martial character) and powergaming (no free Find Familiar.) Overall a very good change to an already good feat!
Divine Communications - So they launched this feat into the sun, seemingly giving Divinely Favored the Augury spell once for free. I’m fine with this since this feat was kinda bad before. It was legit just a half feat for 3 languages and 2 spells.
Initiate of High Sorcery - Wow holy shit they gutted this feat lmao. No more Guidance and the 1st level spells you get are all pretty bad. There’s some good spells in each moon (Hex from Nuitari, Feather Fall from Lunitari w/ Disguise Self being okay too, Shield from Solinari) but nothing I’d ride home about. If my choices are either Sacred Flame and Healing Word or Firebolt and Hex I’m going to praise the divine every time.
Adept of the Black Robes - Still trash because you’re wasting your hit die for negligible damage. Like WoTC bruh just make this not use hit die please.
Adept of the Red Robes - Still a solid meh / 10.
Adept of the White Robes - Hey wait a minute they removed Conjuration! I mean I’m not surprised (this not only removes Find Steed but also options like Misty Step) but it’s still kinda lame overall. Anyways still the best of the adept feats which really isn’t saying much because the other two are kinda godawful and this one also isn’t great.
Squire of Solamnia - Precision Attack is the only good one here... but being able to add a d6 to an attack roll proficiency bonus times per long rest? 👀👀👀
Knight of the Crown - Distracting Strike and Goading Attack are good. That’s kinda it really. Solid 7/10 feat nothing I’d go out of my way to get ngl but it’s cool to have if the party has a Rogue or I need to be the tank.
Knight of the Sword - Welp Knight of the Crown is objectively trash now. This is mostly just a problem of Menacing Attack kinda being overpowered. That being said Fears do fall off late game, and Maneuvering Attack is garbage.
Knight of the Rose - Oof. I mean this feat was objectively overpowered before but the choice between either Rally or Commander’s Strike is kinda terrible.
Knight feats as a whole - I like the direction that these feats now use Battle Master abilities instead of being their own separate mechanic. It does kinda reek of “all martials should just have Battle Master maneuvers” though lol. I think having a few set maneuvers that can be used more than once (looking at you, Martial Adept feat!) gives some personality to characters without making them too overpowered, especially since some of the stronger options (Trip Attack) are not available. I think the wording on these feats are a bit confusing but overall they’re well-designed and fun which is what feats should be.
Where is Sorcerer?
According to the blog post the Lunar Magic Sorcerer scored really highly, which I find surprising because it felt rather messy. Chances are they felt that the core ideas were good but they’ll probably tweak the specifics, which is how I felt. All the other content in this UA by comparison received a major overhaul so it’s not surprising that they considered the Sorcerer to be “good enough” as it was mostly functional.
(More LoR artwork pog. Made by SixMoreVodka Studios.)
Final Thoughts
The biggest change was to the feats, which for the most part were fixed for the better. I like these new feats with the exception of the new Sorcery / Robes feats. I also like that the backgrounds were tweaked to allow more customization, although their power level wasn’t changed which is questionable. As far as the Kender goes I’m rather disappointed, and I do hope that the Moon Sorcerer wasn’t completely ditched.
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Hey, Wizards of the Coast. Know what's SUPER annoying? My eyes are fucked and I can't read the story articles for MtG. Or if I tried, it would take me like two hours to read a given chapter that should only take like ten minutes. Screen reader could solve this, but I don't like automated voice sound and there's gonna be a whole bunch of weird words the screen reader won't have in its dictionary.
Oh, you have them as audio versions both on Apple podcasts and YouTube? That's great!
Oh, the audio versions only go live like two weeks AFTER the text versions go up even though you're a multi-billion dollar company who famously works years in advance of their release schedule for products like these? Meaning you DEFINITELY have these some way close to done when the story articles get posted? Which means one of two things is true: either that last assumption is incorrect and the audio versions are a *literal* afterthought, or you're just dicking over people who need this accessibility feature to engage with the story for literally no reason? So anyone who needs this feature or just prefers it has to deal with two WEEKS of spoiler landmines if that's a big thing for them? (To be clear, for me it's not but I know a LOT of people care deeply about spoilers for media they like.)
And now you'd like to know what this knife is for? Well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do with it two weeks after I already did the thing, since that's apparently an appropriate timeline.
Exiting the bit here: I'd much rather have the accessibility feature than not. Sincere thanks that you at least DID start making audio versions of these stories recently. This is good. But I'm begging WotC to post them alongside the text version. I don't think you have the story written and finished years in advance when set design has just barely started, but you presumably have the finalized version of the story articles at least a couple weeks ahead of time. That's a perfectly good window of time to start recording for the audio track. As is, it really feels like an article goes live and you only start the recording process the day the text version becomes available, and I just don't understand why.
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Thinking about trying to resuscitate my Legend of Zelda TTRPG, but instead of using D&D as a template (bc fuck WotC), creating an original, rules-lite d4 based system to correlate with the four units of health per heart in TLoZ games. Skill checks would still have DCs and players with specific features would roll more d4s on skill checks they're good at (and vice versa). Deaths in game would be expected, but instead of rolling new characters, players would simply "respawn" and there would be an overall death count for the party that would impact the ending of the campaign. This would also allow for character traits related to dying, such as the ability to potentially not add to the death counter for certain species or classes.
There are two things stopping me from this undertaking:
I am bad at maths and numbers, and my knowledge base on TTRPG systems is 95% from listening to podcasts bc I can't freaking find enough people to play even just my D&D campaign! Ah!
I am but one person; I have a number of other huge projects going already, including: the aforementioned D&D campaign which is currently getting a massive overhaul, an original 8 novel fantasy series, a PoetryProsePhotography book, decorating my dice box, multiple unfinished (and unstarted) paintings, an animated music video, and sewing ties for my handmade bed curtains. This doesn't even factor in the days of the week that I'm unavailable because I have a 50 minute commute to and from work and my various work-related projects. -.-'
But hey! If anyone would wanna collab on this with me, pls hmu. I'd ask no one to steal my idea, but like, idk if I'll ever have the time or skill to make it, and I KNOW there are people out there that would put together something far better than what I'm capable of lol. Go wild.
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