The Art of the One Shot

The one shot game is a beautiful thing. When properly executed it can effectively introduce people to the hobby without asking for a time commitment from them and simultaneously scratch the itch of weekly players who want to shake things up. I like that cocktail and I'm going to try and build a system with it in mind.

So here are some loosely structured ideas for what I think a system like this would need if I wanted to use it with all of my favorite old school style modules. If this game exists already, please let me know so I can move on my life and just play that.

Character Creation
This is probably the biggest deal for a system that needs to be able to run fast, and at a moments notice. I've run games where I just go ahead and make a bunch of characters that people can inject their own flavor into but sometimes I don't have the time/want people to come up with things on their own. Plenty of old school systems have quick/randomly generate-able characters but most of them also have super weak first level characters and depend on multiple sessions to get real weird and acquire all the good for plot wild magic items.

So what I'm thinking is that character creation should not only be quick and fairly easy for newbies to jump in on, but should also be a little meatier in the cool character stuff department. I want to generate characters that have a little more experience under their belt without the headache of generating higher level characters off the bat. In order to do this I'm thinking the "class" system will be focused more on the kind of adventuring the character was doing up until now. So instead of picking "fighter" the player could roll up stats and then pick a couple of things from a list like this:

-Cool Fighting Style
-Interesting Magic Item
-Specialized Skill
-Helpful Companion
-Magic

And then maybe you end up with characters like this.

Wealth & Treasure
A one shot game doesn't give us a lot of time to acquire great deals of wealth and then figure out what to spend it on. Instead it gives us an idea of what the characters were up before the adventure started. You know, the first few paragraphs of every Fafhrd & The Gray Mouser story that gives you an idea of whether or not their rich. I'm thinking it gives you a shorthand idea of what your characters have access to, if they have patrons or if they're sort of dirt poor in a gutter. I figure the more things like this that get built into the characters the less work you do as the DM.

Experience & Leveling
We've already established that there isn't really time for a systems that rely on traditional wealth/treasure acquisition curves so Leveling XP have to either be scrapped or changed dramatically. I think there could be a system for opening a character up more as they progress through the plot, without having to consult a chart to level up. Maybe each of those special powers has like a little special power inside of it that comes into play in the 3rd act. Also I'm going to start using acts to describe the flow of the adventures for this thing because it's fairly movie like already and I'm going to pretentiously lean into it.

Death & Dismemberment & Dying
I want to avoid super low survivability, but I do want characters to be affected by the environment and conflict, so I'm thinking that dismemberment, curses, hexes and things like vampirism will definitely have prominent play here. I also want something that keeps a players attention if they DO die early on. Like, maybe they start controlling an aspect of the environment/plot/NPC or whatever.

This is a sketch. I'll break each of these down into more fleshed out posts in the coming weeks.

Free Form Magic System

So a while back I wrote up a system for magic that didn't use a predetermined spellbook, but was instead specifically designed for improvisation and creative problem solving. I'm revisiting it now because I think it would be specifically useful for one-shot games and I'm thinking about trying to build a system around that idea.

A lot of the joy I get in play is seeing people figure out a creative solution to an open ended puzzle and I wanted to make a system that allowed for that kind of game play without having to read the description of a lot of spells.

I also want avoid one of my least favorite things- seeing someones face light up at the description of a spell and then watching it fall when they find out that the spell doesn't do what they thought it did.

The system itself emphasizes things like casting time, avoiding interruption while casting and spell components that definitely read as "fairy tale". Things like objects of sentimental value make for great spell components and tend to add some serious fuckin' whimsy to your table.

This is obviously a work in progress, but I think it could be really fun with the right type of people (fun people).

Spells - Instead of a list of specific spells. Spells are broken into families and after that, you get to make up your own awesome spells (with some give and take with the DM of course). I’m thinking you start with the ability to cast from 1 or 2 of the schools, and learn more along the way.

1. Evocation - Channeling magic to cause harm or damage.
2. Abjuration - Channeling magic as a shield
3. Enchantment - Imbuing an object with magic
4. Transmutation - Changing something into something else
5. Conjuration - Creating something from thin air
6. Illusion - Creating something that isn’t real
7. Divination - Magically sensing things, that may or may not have happened already.

Casting a Spell - To cast a spell a Magic User states the intention of their spell, the DM gives it a challenge rating based on that intent and the caster states how many rounds they will take to cast the spell, and which Spell Components they will use. Each component that you use to cast a spell adds to your dice pool (d6′s)

To successfully cast a spell the total of all the dice must match the challenge level of the spell (determined by the DM) The challenge level also corresponds to the damage, size, duration or overall quality of a spell, measured loosely and colloquially for the benefit of all involved.

Cantrip - A spell with no measurable benefit. These spells are used mainly for looking cool or showing off. No rolls are necessary.

Apprentice Spell - DC 6. d4+mods. Smaller than a breadbox. 1/5 senses. Less than an hour. Less than a hundred feet.

Journeyman Spell - DC 9. d6+mods. Smaller than a Golden Retriever. 2/5 Senses. A few hours. A few hundred feet.

Adept Spell - DC 12. 2d6+mods. Smaller than a refrigerator. 3/5 Senses. A day. A Mile.

Master Spell - DC 15. 3d6+mods. Smaller than an elephant. 4/5 Senses. A week. 6 Miles.

Failure: Spells are fickle and dangerous. Failing to cast a spell correctly, or failing to finish the spell casting lead to unfortunate consequences.

If a spell is completed but fails the check it is unsuccessful (duh). After you unsuccessfully cast a spell you roll to see if something bad happens. Roll a d6, on a 1 or 2 something bad happens (DMs choice).

If a spell is interrupted, a d6 is rolled and on a 1 or 2 and the spell deals damage to the caster equivalent to the spells strength.

Spell Components: Spells require at least one of the following to succeed. Using more than one of the components increases the chance the spell will succeed.

Verbal - Words or phrases used to create magical effect. 1d6 per round spent chanting. Any interruption in the chanting causes the spell to fail.

Somatic - Gestures or motions that create magical effect. 1d6 per round spent gesturing. Any interruption to gesturing causes the spell to fail.

Material - Reagents used to amplify the strength of a spell. Materials are rated by how many d6 they can add to spell casting. Materials can range from things like herbs or bones to objects of sentimental value. Material components must be used in conjunction with Verbal or Somatic components to achieve any results. 

There's A Dragon at the End of This Post

Lots of ideas this week so I'm going to try and sort them out.

-Mute wrote a good piece about who gets to hear what info around the table, which is something I've often weighed the options on.

-You can now get a really nice set of pixel hex tiles for Hex Kit. This is literally everything I've ever wanted.  doesn't that just make you want to throw it all away and upload your consciousness into an SNES?

I'm still trucking away at my 5e game and there should be a play report from my 3rd session soon (I know you're on the edge of your seat). I'm getting increasingly frustrated with 5e in regard to information design and unnecessary complexity. I'm thinking of taking another crack at system design, because it's 2018 and what would we need if not another fucking TTRPG system. Don't worry I have no plans to kickstart it or anything like that. If it ever happens I'll just release it for fun, since I'm making it for my own sick machinations.

With that in mind I'm going to start collecting some of the old posts from my tumblr that might be relevant to this and start posting them here. I've been meaning to move them over anyway.

Time to get back to work. Here's the latest from a super secret project.

The Giants

Few predate the giants, for they are older than than the sun, and know how to exist in any form free of warming fire or prisons of flesh. They are form and they are memory and they're knowledge of us is terrifying in its unerring accuracy.

-Some lunatic at the end of the bar 

The giants might be gods. But if they are then they don't exhibit the cloying and parental tendencies that many a narcissistic deity unloads on their worshippers like so much Thanksgiving family drama- it's like we get that you're older than all things, stop making it our problem. They have acquired many worshippers over the years, all whom they have ignored. In the eyes of a giant, the act of subjugation is unpleasant.

Why would you kneel when you could walk away? Why would you walk away when you could sit?

It's these kind of sayings that bring people to their knees in the first place, confounded by the size of the creatures and the seemingly profound natures of the aphorisms they are unable to help themselves and want to follow these monolithic beings to the ends of the earth.

Tianhua Xu

The truth of it is, giants are so old and have seen so many things, that all they can do is spout pithy universal truths. They can also usually tell you where things are, how long they have been there, or why they aren't there anymore.

Some believe that giants come from the mountains because they come and go from heaven as they please. Others believe that they simply have no home and wander the world in search of someone who isn't impressed by them.

Session 2: Season of the Witch

The party stands in the bright burning shadow of a scorched vegetable golem and spies something glittering in the ashes. They approach and see that it's a golden talisman. After some discussing they take it (avoiding contact with the skin) and decide to head back to the farm. They see Granny on the porch again all mostly a plant and decide to try putting the talisman on her. This goes badly and her eyes pop open and she starts staggering towards them all drag me to hell style. They manage to get the necklace off of her before it turns into anything particularly dangerous and decide to load up a cart with all the food they can find that was more than a week old.

On the way back they encounter the dead bodies of the knight and one of the people he was fighting and loot the corpses, finding a bunch of gold on the knight and an old map and an extra pair of socks on the other guy (thank you Vornheim loot the body table). Ovaria decides to take the already mutilated corpses of the dead and arrange them like the worst tableau vivant you could imagine. Then she sketched it so she could show it to her buddies underground later. It's like a dark elf book club or something.

Upon returning to town they delivered the food to Connie, who had mixed emotions upon hearing (most of) their story. She would need a new farm to supply the inn, but was happy the party came back with something. They all hit the tavern and eat dinner/grab some drinks and unwind. The bar begins to fill up and the party hears a few rumors about things like the underground sales of Gryphon eggs, the recent imperial troop occupation of the town and that it's open mic night. The bard performing is doing some beatbox looping with his wand and free styling over it. Clubion decides that he doesn't understand these hip new bards and decides to call it a night and grows himself a little grove out behind the inn to sleep in.

With the night winding down, the others decide to go to sleep and head up to their rooms. Ovaria gets a knock on her door from Connie, who totally wants a piece, but Ovaria shoots her down and the party proceeds to slip into dreamland.

I'm a chump DM that loves to use dreams for things. Especially talking to your god and stuff like that so I used this as an excuse to level them all up.

Fern dreams about new potion recipes!

Kenje dreams in puzzles and learns how to better solve them and pick locks and stuff.

Clubion has cocooned himself like a weird moth, and dreams of all the animals he can turn into now.

Ovaria dreams she was partying with Lilith, who gave her some new spells and then they made out a bunch.

Ham Sung-Cho

It was around that time that Ovaria awoke to the sound of someone rummaging through her stuff. It was a witchy looking woman, frantically tearing apart the contents of her dresser in search of the necklace.

Ovaria jumps out of bed and pounces on her, pinning her to the ground. The Witch attempts to spray a bunch of poison out of her mouth at Ovaria, but misses.

The commotion awakens the others and they barge in the room to Ovaria and the witch cursing each other out and tussling on the floor.

The witch breaks free and summons a bunch of daggers to fly around the room at them and they all spend some time trying to dodge a bunch of knives. It's around now that Clubion awakes in the middle of a dream about turning into a horse and canters his weird, half horse self up the stairs into the room to further add to the confusing melee of daggers and bodies.
Fern takes matters into his own hands and hurls a potion of charm person at the witch like a grenade. She gets doused with it and instantly becomes docile and friendly and asks the party nicely if she can have the necklace back (it was hers and she dropped it while drunkenly dueling another witch somewhere in the skies above the fields of amber). She says that if she doesn't get it back, her patron, The Manticore of the Holy Mountain will be super pissed at her. Ovaria gets it, patrons are weird in like a dating your boss kind of way. She offers to tell the party a BIG secret if they let her have the talisman back and they agree on the condition that she also breaks the weird plant curse on (most) them. She does, and then relates to them this tale.

You know how like the world is all boned up by wizards? How they control all the trade and puppeteer all the rulers and generally treat the land as their personal chessboard? Well I used to date one of them. He goes by the name The Saintly Skull (ugh wizards are so lame what was I thinking) and the secret is that he's been dead for years. His tower has been running on autopilot, keeping all the charms and spells he's worked on the land going. Without him alive to guard it, the tower is not only approachable, but might even be possible to deactivate. It's far from safe, and The Gaptooth Mountains are a challenge to traverse in their own right, but if someone were to make it there and break his seals or charms or whatever, all of the rotten shit he's worked over the last couple hundred years could come crashing down and usher in a new era of freedom from all these gross wizards. 

I know, I know, why haven't I gone and done anything about it? Well truth be told I could give a shit about all of that. I'm not risking my ass for anybody but me, and if I get this necklace back I'll be made in the shade.

The party gives her the necklace and breaks the spell. She tells them all to get bent and flies off. They decide that they're exactly the kind of rag tag group of heroes that could pull off a crazy stunt like this and decide that they'll set off in a few days.

Session 1: Hangovers & Hard Times

Quick you better stop reading if you don't like actual play recaps.

Prologue

No one is sure how it started. Everyone wishes it would end. The world is in shambles. The countryside is lousy with monsters, the cities are rife with corruption. The wizards pull all the strings. They control every port and every army, warping them to meet their strange and incalculable needs. The play at war like chess, each piece as valuable or disposable as the game dictates. It is tiresome and it is costly to all involved.

Never the less people attempt to live their lives in this madness, withstanding the corruption and oppression. The people have taken their protection and well being into their own hands. Companies of brave (or possibly stupid) able-bodied youth do their best to stave off the darkness. You are a part of one such company, located in a small town a few days ride from the city. The area is dangerous and it's your job to make it safe- or everyone dies, in which case they probably get brought back as some sort of terrible skeleton foot soldier by a wizard looking for cheap soldiers that don't need to eat.
So try not to fuck up.

Session 1: Hangovers & Hard Times

The story begins with a bunch of sad and hungover adventurers who had met the night before and partied far too hard at The Lonely Goat, a tavern owned by a young woman named Connie Hatchets.

Say hi Connie. Art by Guillaume Singelin

They all stare at Connie as she relates to them the bad news, the food order didn't come so there's nothing to eat for breakfast. She tells them that if they go to the farm nearby to check it out and make sure that the delivery wasn't waylaid by bandits or anything she'll let them off the hook about the astronomical bar tab they racked up the night before. So in order to keep from spending the day hungover and washing dishes-

Kenje Sandersong - Dwarf Rogue
Ovaria Blüdcunt - Dark Elf Warlock
Clubion Stieve - Tiefling Druid
and Fern - Human Alchemist

Set out on the road to see what's amiss at the farm. They decide to take the main road to save time and notice a fight happening between a Knight of the Realm and three scrappy looking characters, but decide to keep their heads down and move along, too hungover and hungry to think about anyone else's problems. They see no signs of a cart the whole way,

Oh no.

They arrive at the farm and find it strangely quiet. They make their way into the barnyard and find the cart, completely unladen. They open the barn door to find some strange creatures feasting on the remains of a dead pig. The creatures hear them and charge. When they finally get into the sunlight they are revealed to be five child sized, mutant turnips with terrible circular mouths and rows of sharp teeth.

They fling themselves onto the party, who defend themselves admirably, I'll save you most of the details of combat but we did learn that Ovaria's breasts were literal spiders*, not just tattooed to look like spiders like we had all assumed when she said "I've got spider tits" so we decided that in the Underdark, it's fashionable to use real, lets say schnauzer sized spiders as a form of breast augmentation and that just sort of chill on your chest. We figured out Victoria's Secret and it's very unsettling.

After the fight Kenje, Ovaria and Fern succumb to their hunger and eat some of the dead mutant turnips. They all agree that it's pretty fucked up but they taste delicious and their too hungover to care.

After taking a short rest and feasting on their vanquished foes, they set off towards the farmhouse to see if anyone living their is still, like, living. They find an old woman on the porch, partially transformed into a rutabaga. Clubion uses speak to plants to communicate with her and finds out that something strange fell from the sky about a week ago and now all the vegetables have come to life and are building something out in the north field and that anyone who at the vegetables in the last week has been mutated into one. This of course worries the party because they just had like a crazy smorgasbord with a bunch of dead mutant vegetables. They roll saves to see if their effected by it and both Ovaria and Fern realize that their hair and in Fern's case, his beard have become green and leafy.

The party decides to check out the north field and sees that the vegetables are all assembling some kind of crazy golem out of their own sacrificed bodies, and the party agrees that they need to burn it all down. They make their way back to the farm to get some barrels of accelerant and run into a couple of mutant onions riding goats flanking what can only be described as "Like Dolf Lundgren but it's a carrot"

This fight was a tough one, mostly because of how 5e handles weapon types and damage resistances. But thank god Kenje had an axe so they came out on top. They went back to the farmhouse, grabbed some barrels of oil out of the root cellar and managed to sneak back out to the golem, douse it in oil and set it on fire. It burned up real good and we called it quits for the night.

*Kavi, who plays Ovaria, has never played D&D before and may I say, is FUCKING NAILING IT.

6 hexes

Kiel Chenier tagged me in a DM appreciation month thing so here's my self indulgent contribution. 6 hexes you'll find in my home game.

1. The Tomb of Dust, home of the Banishing Rod. Frequented by Clerics as a right of passage. Overrun by animated skeletons of various clerics.

2. An Abbey whose basement is full of captured and tortured werewolves. The Abbot is a secret vampire.

3. Bullfrog-men obsessed with dueling. They wield Ironwood Rapiers. They duel for the right of sacrifice to their god, a giant blue heron.

4. The headhunter, a feared local legend. Collects butts.

5. Forest dwelling dwarves mine the deepest roots of ancient trees for a rare sap. The sap is processed to make a viagra-like potion.

6. A house out of sync with this dimension, you must eat the phase-lemons off the trees in the yard to interact with those inside.

Thirsty Thursday is What Some People Call Thursdays

I'm still getting a hang of regular blogging. I tried it 5 or 6 years ago when I felt like I had lurked around G+ long enough to get a feel for what was going on, but it didn't really work out and I wasn't running games at the time so I wasn't really inspired to do it a lot. I'll probably repost some of those pieces when I'm having an off week here, but I'll reconcile with how I feel about that when it's coming across the plate.

I think Thursdays are going to be my day to organize my thoughts in what will certainly be an incoherent manner. So let's start with that.

-Mute Banshee started a blog. I'm excited to see what she writes about, because she has a lot of good ideas. I always do my best work when I have friends that are working around me and I don't think I'm alone in that.

-I just finished drawings for a project that I'm pretty excited about. I'm not going to name drop anything because I don't know how they feel about me blabbing about their stuff before it's ready but I'll at least post a few images from it because I'm really excited about them.

This first one in particular might be my favorite thing I've ever drawn for a game. I've been experimenting with paintbrushes in photoshop and trying to extract myself from the style I had grown really comfortable in. It's not that I feel like I was making bad work I was just making work that didn't feel very true to what I wanted to be making, dig?

I found that if I treated photoshop less like photoshop and more like a piece of paper I got a much better result. This piece was made in a single layer and the only* brush I used was "creamy" from Kyle's Brush Pack. I highly recommend his brushes for anyone because they rule and theres something there for everyone.

I definitely based the creature off of a combination of Displacer Beasts and The Andalites from Animorphs. God I loved those books.

androgynous blue centaur with bug features
wonderland.

This image has been burned into my head for 20 years and I still think it's totally awesome. Unfortunately I couldn't find a decent version of the whole thing that would link correctly so just go and find yourself a copy of "The Hork Bajir Chronicles" and flip it over, I promise it's worth it.

I spent a lot of time thinking about digital painting while I was making these. I was being rubbed the wrong way because every time I made something all I could think is "Why didn't I just do this on paper?" The answer to that is of course that this is a lot faster, I'm better at it and it's infinitely cheaper since I have all the necessary supplies and they are never depleted. What it comes down to is that making art for games is at this point about half of my income and anything that makes me able to do that faster and better is fair game. It's not my fault that first world millennials have a boner for authenticity, it's because everything is made of plastic and we aren't being chased by anything hungry anymore.

So this is the Wolf Queen, I based her on Cher from the movie Moonstruck. I would also be a filthy liar if I didn't say my well has been poisoned (in a good way) by staring at Maze of the Blue Medusa everyday, I can't deny my influences and you can't make art in a vacuum (or with one if you ask me) Okay maybe that's a low blow the vacuum solo is kind of cool.

SNAP OUT OF IT!

Design Is Like A Bad Kid

So the character sheet I designed was put up on reddit and is currently sitting near the top of r/rpg. I'm really pleased with this specifically because I know that people will be honest on Reddit. This give me both the opportunity to see what could use some work with it and what asinine opinions a large subset of nerds has.

Design is weird because it's like art in that I spend a lot of time on it when I'm making it and it puts me in a similar trance but it's also unlike art because it serves a more specific functional purpose. Illustration should be evocative and help contribute to the tone of the project but within that theres a lot of creative freedom. Design can just be wrong, it can point you in the wrong direction and cause you to fall off a cliff and it doesn't really matter the font of the writing on the sign in that scenario- although I suppose you could argue that you shouldn't be following signs that are written in papyrus in the first place.

An important lesson I learned in art school is that critiques are better if people have been drinking. It opens people up. On the internet you don't need alcohol because everyone's an asshole already. Which is good, especially when you need feedback like "does this work at all" (I think the sheet mostly works, it could use some tweaks).

As long as you remember that people are looking at everything through their own shitty glasses. I try to think about what people say about a piece of design from the perspective of "how are they going to try and use this" and "what did they think I was trying to make it for." If their critique doesn't survive that blockade then it probably wasn't worthwhile to your design.

Oh yeah the title. Design is like a bad kid because you may love it but it also might kind of suck and it's up to you whether or not you fix that.

Like Sunscreen but Indoors and Different

Putting the finishing touches on my multi system GM screen. It's a mix of rules from LoTFP, B/X, 5e and lots of old Heavy Metal magazines. I considered making separate ones for different systems but I don't think that's really in keeping with how much work I'm willing to put in here.

The things I always find myself needing are really just Conditions and Death & Dismemberment tables. 

I guess I really just like the idea of having a literal 4th wall in play. I get to crawl over the edge of it all Gollum style when I'm roleplaying as a goblin and that brings me joy.

player side 

my side

Redesigning The 5th Edition Character Sheet

My recent forays into character creation in 5th edition have inspired me to do some information rearranging. I'm particularly inspired by the way that the LoTFP players handbook lays out the character sheet with what everything means. It's a helpful addition for new players and I don't know why it hasn't been more widely adapted.

It inspired me at first to do something similar with the 5e sheet. Which takes it a bit farther and just says what everything is. Which I know is something I frequently take for granted. It's amazing how many people don't know or care what hit dice are.

At first I was like, PERFECT. I'll just pass this around the table when people are making characters and everything will be good. But the more I thought about it the more I realized that it's still pretty confusing. I think this stems from the fact that the way that the PHB and the character sheet weren't really designed as a set, or at least it doesn't feel that way.

click to make it bigger

I decided to take it upon myself to do something that I know has been talked about a lot. A character sheet for 5e that teaches you how to make a character RIGHT ON THE SHEET.

This is a tall order- there's a lot of shit on this sheet and it's organized in such a way that it all fits all nice and neat on (mostly) 1 piece of copy paper (Why the fuck is there no spell save/spell attack portion on this sheet it's like the only thing missing).

So I decided to at least take a swing at sheet that has everything (mostly) that you need to make a level 1 character. It's definitely still going to take a more experienced person to run you through it but I think at least it all goes in the right order and has labels for where to find everything in the PHB.

Here's the link to download for yourself. Enjoy!
And if you can make it better, please do.

Building A Setting Without Trying Too Hard

The main reason I chose to run 5th Edition for my most recent game is laziness. The depth and crunch of a 5e character is enough that by the time you've made 4 of them, you have a world emerging through the blank spaces of a character sheet and all you had to do is say yes.

I don't care what the elves should be like, I'm going to have fun no matter what because I'm playing Dungeons & Dragons and not doing my taxes. Do you know who does care what the elves are like? The person that thumbed through the book and saw a cool drawing of an elf and said "I wanna be THEM". They have a very clear idea of what the elves should be like and I guarantee you that if you let them decide they will not only be better at playing that elf but they will do work for you. They will populate cities and create nemesis' and fill your world with all sorts of great crap that you won't have to think about because THEY will know it, and they will feel like they exist in it.

Those of us that run games and spend our free time talking about and making games are smoking way harder stuff than those that just come around and throw dice a couple times a month. Don't let the fact that you spend your time reimagining the finer points of dwarves take away the joy of someone who just wants to do a Scottish accent and talk about binge drinking and beards. They had a long week and this is their day off.

When you think about what makes an enjoyable evening of gaming what comes to mind? Is it the specifics of what happened in the campaign? Or was it the fact that everyone was paying attention and cracking jokes and getting in character, and that for a few hours no one was looking at their phone or talking about how shitty everything outside their front door is. The stories people remember are not the most original but the best told. The games people remember fondly are the ones with good jokes and good snacks and no arguments about attacks of opportunity. 

Considering all of this the world building I did before I started this game was one sentence: 

"The wizards have been at war for over 500 years, and everything about it sucks." 

5e Character Creation And Cellular Telephones.

Okay so I started a new 5e game.

Why did I do this? I usually run LoTFP, which is cool because I'm usually running a dungeon crawl. I find this is my preferred setting when I have a specific set piece in mind, like a megadungeon or something similarly big and set-piecey. But between listening to the Adventure Zone and re-reading I Roved Out (NSFW)  I was really in the mood for that new school, player character based adventure vibe. Sometimes it's nice to let the players be in charge of what the world turns out like.

So I gathered my gaming group together and had a character creation session. I like doing a session 0 type night. It lets me gauge a few things, like who actually shows up, regardless of facebook invitations, and it gives me a solid idea of where everyone is at experience wise. We spent about 3 hours making characters for 4 people, which sounds like a long time but it actually went pretty smoothly and we were all drinking and chilling so it wasn't a HARD 3 hours.

I only have 1 copy of the PHB so I instructed everyone to use the D&D Beyond character builder. Which was kind of a mixed bag in terms of usefulness. WoTC proves to again and again create things that are supposed to be for "new" folks but are complicated enough that I have to take your phone and click through a screen of sliders that say things like "use standard encumbrance rules" before you feel comfortable making choices. I don't know the last time you played with new people but that's exactly the kind of shit that sends folks running to the hills.

On the positive side the site does all the math for you, on the negative side it's composed of approximately 999 dropdown menus. Why so many dropdown menus? Why does it let you skip over making a background? Shouldn't it at least say "Do you want a background?" I feel like it should be hard to skip past that. I'm honestly not sure how she managed to skip past that.

So after double checking everything that people were making I had them copy all of that information on to a paper sheet because I'll be damned if everyone is going to be staring at their phones while I DM. I may be a millennial but that shit is rude.

All in all it worked out, and the party of

Kenje Sandersong, Dwarf Rogue (based on a real life local handyman that some of us knew RIP)
Clubion Stieve, Tiefling Druid (Who's demonic bloodline is evil tree)
Ovaria Blüdcunt, Drow Warlock (the name really says it all) and
Vorodor Twitchel, Human Fighter (who I'm pretty sure chose that name because you have to make a Twitch account to use DndBeyond)

Was born. Can we talk about how new people make the best fucking names? I want 100 pages of Ovaria Blüdcunt OC fanfictions stat. She's a Warlock of Lilith and my least experienced player. The minute she found out about R.A Salvatore's take on Drow women she had like a whole bit locked and loaded.

I hold fast by the rule of "never play D&D with someone you wouldn't go on a 3 hour car trip with" and It's steered me right so far.

As far as D&D Beyond goes I'll use it for looking up spells and monster stats (never bothered to by a $50 fucking monster manual and between the basic set monster and homebrew tools why would I now), but I think I need to find a more organized way to do the character creation.

Terrible First Post, Complete With Goals & Expectations

I've tried blogging before with varying degrees of success.

I think the key is that it needs to be out of the necessity of compiling information for myself and not based in the enjoyment of others, so I'm starting this one in hopes that I can make something useful for myself and if that becomes useful for you then all the better.

I tried using Tumblr the longest, and garnered some small success therein but the problem with Tumblr is that even when you have over 2000 followers, it feels like half of them are always porn bots and from the other half at least 40% are literal children- not a great split.

I'm not trying to complain. I feel very grateful that folks wanted to look at my art. The real problem was that I felt like I was making art FOR Tumblr, and in doing so I wasn't being true to what I wanted to be making, I got really wrapped up in analyzing what got me the most reblogs, and I don't like the idea that there was a large faceless group of people that were influencing me with taciturn praise.

Also, Tumblr doesn't pay you to worry about these things.

So here I am. Trying something new in the hope that I can find a little more enjoyment from the act of writing words and sharing images.

This blog will focus on fantasy tabletop gaming. I just started running a new 5th edition campaign so I imagine much of my writing will focus on the setting I'm making and the ways in which I plan to bend the rules of that game to fit my ever changing mood.

I also run a fair amount of LoTFP and other retroclone type games.

I'll probably consolidate some of writing I tried to do on Tumblr here as well, in case I decide to delete my old blog in a misguided drunken attempt of self immolation.

I make about half of my money drawing for games so expect a fair amount of artwork as well.

More to come. Keep your pants on.