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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 21st, 2023

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  • Another Himedere checking in. I love setting up situations where the players and/or the characters squirm in anguish about what to do.

    My favorite so far was an estranged princess living as a man and hostel owner. He had turned his back on the throne and wanted little to do with it. As a bonus he was the only child of the king’s only remaining child. Fast forward a bit and he needed a (legal) favor from the king. Went to court and met with his grandfather. The king would do it, no strings attached if a) he returned to court and resumed his duties as prince and b) sired an heir.

    There were a good thirty minutes of the players anguishing if he should accept while going deep into character motivations and the setting. During that game I don’t think I did as much concrete worldbuildning as during those thirty minutes. I loved it, the players loved it. Great time.






  • This brings us back to zones, a good middle ground. Draw rough map, or great map, and on it mark intresting combat zones. Some are separated with emptiness, others by obstacles.

    For example a tavern brawl. Zones could be the Bar, Kitchen, Common Room, Balconies, Private Rooms, Out Front and Out Back.

    Fighting on the Balconies could be tight, only one in width and with the risk of being thrown off it into the Commonroom. In the Kitchen there would be fire hazards, improvized weapons, knifes and the Stew. Not to forget other ways to spice things up in there. Around the Bar there would be some cover fighting someone on the other side, bottles to be broken and combatants to glide alond the bar for maximum mental damage.

    And so on. Make each zone memorable and with special features. Did I mention drawing it out really helps?






  • If the DM asks you you really want to do something look at their expression and do it anyway.

    If you want to do something really stupid, crazy or narrativly disruptive look towards your fellow players to get their consent. Then do it.

    The time to argue technicalities is outside of sessions to not waste precious gametime. Do it during sessions only if you are into that weird shit.

    The best way to get to use new character options is through DM bribes. In this case a sourcebook is recommended.

    If you help clean up afterwards you may get inspiration.


  • Got some tips for you

    0 - Don’t expect to get an awesome group on the first try, may take a while as you gather up people you want to play with.

    1 - Look for communities, especially if they run shorter or west marches style games. Not necessarily join with the intent to run games, but play. Get to know folks and then extend invites to them for game.

    2 - Run a few shorter games of limited length. 3-5 session long I find to be awesome to get something done. Some may be awful but you only have to stand them for a few games.

    3 - Questionnaire where you discreetly bring up your red flags and feel the waters around them. For example I always mention that safety tools will be used and if they want a specific tool used I’ll happily do that for them. If I get replies they don’t need safety tools or disparage them in some way that would for me be a red flag.

    4 - Don’t be afraid to disband groups or kick out folks. It is not a failure.




  • Considering it’s the norm when you aren’t doing something genre typical to take two ir more genres and just smoish the names together. This way you get things like blackened death metal (black plus death) or epic gothic power metal (take a guess). Now smoosh those teo examples together and you get something like blackened gothic melodic death metal. See that there, now we get into the transformative properties of metal subgenres. Death metal with a bit more melody and structure, which power metal has in spades, becomes melodic death metal.

    Fun isn’t it? Also I may have bullshitted together half of the above. But it is a real thing

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j6WYhOHRmDs