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I have mixed feelings about romance in TTRPGs.  I mean, in theory I love it.  Romance mechanics are often one of my favorite parts of any video game that has them.  But the introduction of other actual people makes me reluctant to ship.

Like, I won’t have my characters do anything more than flirt with a DM controlled NPC, because I don’t want to put the DM on the spot and potentially pressure them to playact a relationship they aren’t interested in.

And even when another player expresses interest in having their character in a romantic relationship with mine, it makes me kind of nervous.  I’ll sometimes go for it, but other times not having complete control over how it will play out scares me off.  Which I guess makes me question what I like about these fictional relationships.  I’ve got no problem shipping two characters I both control.

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Howdy! Here's the goodest blade to have ever been forged! I had the idea for this item the other day and wanted to make it!

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Lore Delivery Devices

So. You've gone through the effort of making this massive sprawling world for your players with tons of settlements from booming metropolises to hodunk little backwater villages. With dark crypts hidden for eons and mountains, none have yet been brave enough to climb. With verdant forests, lush jungles, scorching deserts, and frigid tundra, all just begging to be explored. And gods know how many years of history all just waiting for your players to drink up.

Maybe you can add a museum to your world so your players have a way to experience this lore you've spent the last two months of your life chronicling like the next Tolkien. You decide to put a... what are those old guys that run museums called again? A curator! That's right! You give him a backstop, a likable personality, his own accent - aaaaand they killed him. They killed him because they thought the accent you agonized over was "too evil," or he wouldn't let them steal historical accents "all British like." Whatever the reason, your best laid plans are laid to waste, and it seems like you'll never be able to share all this cool history you cooked up, right? Wrong. Let's rewind.

How do we exposit world history without it seeming either preachy, boring, or worst of all unnecessary? The answer is simple enough on its own, but put into practice, it can seem daunting. The lore must either:

A: Be relevant to the task the adventurers are trying to complete

Or

B: Be something the players actively want to seek out.

Now, you may ask yourself "Well how can I cause either of those scenarios to come to pass?" You may ask. The answer is that your party, or even just a single member of your party, needs a "Lore Delivery Device" or LDD.

What is an LDD? Anything you want it to be really. Let me take you all the way back to the museum example from 1000 paragraphs ago to give you an example.

The party finds themselves at a museum of ancient history in a bustling metropolitan city. What would bring a party of hardened mercenaries to a dusty museum, anyway? Let's say it's relevant to the quest at hand. The party needs to... locate an ancient tomb! That's a good one. They know it's somewhere on the continent, and they know it belonged to... some kind of ancient wizard guy? Zantil? Xanax? Zhanix! That was it. The tomb of Zhanix the Archmage. They couldn't find anything in the local library other than his name being mentioned in a newspaper clipping about the museums grand opening, so here they are.

The party wanders inside, stumble around because the place seems deserted, the barbarian knocks something of the pedestal,everyone gasps and... the very fragile artifact is caught by the curator, introducing him to the party. Some questioning goes on, the curator has a tendency to get carried away talking about the history of things bit eventually the party gets SOME information out of him but truly all je knows on the subject seems to bot be enough to help. That's when the party get bored and start making demands for artifacts from the museum collection, only this time he gives the party something. An LDD. It could be a journal with several pages missing, a ring with 2 of 5 gems inlaid into it, a crystalline hand missing some fingers, the form the LDD takes matters very little, and can be modified based on the tone and setting of the game.

The curator explains that the LDD is sentient and very knowledgeable about history, but whatever form it takes is incomplete. He explains that should the need arise, the party might ask the LDD questions about the lore of this land should it help them along their journey. The party leaves and asks the device where they may find the tomb of Zhanix the archmage.

"Zhanix the archmage. Born (year). Died (many, many years later). Zhanix was an encredibly powerful enchanter who Studied his arcane arts at the wogwarts school for young witches and wizards, a magic college shut down only a few short years after his graduation for numerous human rights violations and several OSHA complaints. As such, he would likely build his resting place upon great wells of arcane energy, such as at the intersection of ley lines or near a naturally occurring planar gate to another plane of existence. But this is only an estimate. At the moment, I can only give estimates."

"Stupid ring. (I'm going with the ring example here) can't you give us anything more specific?"

"At the moment I am incomplete. I can serve you better were I complete."

"How can we complete you?"

"My power comes from the 5 gems inlaod within me. At the moment, i have 2. I was built by (name), an artificer of great renown. His journal lies somewhere west of here. This journal will likely have the other 3 gems locations notated in it."

You get the idea. So far you've made the lore relevant to your players quest, given them an artifact that can exposit lore at thier request, and because it's incomplete if they ask the artifact a question you don't want them to know the answer too, or you don't even have the answer to it, you can fall back on "I am incomplete. I can serve you better if I were complete." Now, as long as your lore is interesting, at least one player should ask the magic ring "What is this?" Any time they encounter something that obviously has lore.

I hope all this made sense. I write these posts as a stream of consciousness type of thing more than anything and I do it all in one shot. I don't really plan these things out.

Also I want to admit that this idea, almost entirely, In fact entirely, was stolen from a YouTuber by the name of Matt Colville. He's an amazing ttrpgtuber and an amazing resource for anything related to both GMing and playing. Give him a look if you liked this concept. I just wanted to kinda get it out there in a form other than a video on a single platform.

#pathfinder 2e #ttrpg #vampire the masquerade #dungeons and dragons

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'Ello, Please, post more often. I really like your blog :3

Thank you. I don't really think you understand how good that makes me feel. Don't worry. I'm back with plenty of ideas.

#ttrpg

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announcing RABBIT IN RED, a comic I’ve been working on for a little while now!

it’s a little red riding hood retelling about red, a girl on a mission to kill grandma, a corrupt billionaire, and wolf, who decides to help her.

i’m not sure when it’s going to be released because I want a biiig backlog before i start posting it, but rest assured, I already have it all planned out and have started working on the pages!

when it is released, i currently plan for it to be on webtoon, tapas, and tumblr!

and yes, this was posted during lesbian visibility week for a reason ^w^

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High res versions of the art, a Foundry VTT module, and other formats, as well as a full compendium of our 90+ items can be found on our Patreon

Sightseer

There are some tenacious navigators in this world. The types that are driven to find everything and map the uncharted. Those that will throw themselves to the edges of the world trying to see what hasn’t been seen. Some of them are apparently also decent with a bow and have a vendetta with things that are quite a distance away. I’m not sure where all of that anger comes from, but what I do know is that I would be careful what I say to a cartographer. You never know if they’ve decided to engineer a longbow to take aim at you from a distance you can’t see them from.

If you want to see more of our items you can check us out on our Website, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, or Instagram where we post them regularly. You can also find us at our Discord server where you can hang out and chat with the community.

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Firebrand: *shoots a traitorous noble for an intense amount of damage*

Saturn: I believe the popular axiom is "play stupid games, win stupid prizes."

Me: I've always preferred "fuck around, find out."

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D10 list: puzzles/trap hooks?

A caesar cipher on the walls of the corridor in text only visible when sufficient heat is applied. It indicates which door is safe to go through. The others are all warded by jets of flame for those who step across the threshold.

A chasm full of toothy beasts ready to strike; crossing its invisible footpath requires a strong memory of the safe route which was drawn on the floor at the entrance of the dungeon.

A musical pattern that must be perfectly repeated, else the walls begin to collapse around you.

A sundial that must be turned to the time matching a certain historic event. More than three incorrect attempts releases poisonous gas.

A sliding picture puzzle that must be solved in order to show a map of the dungeon.

A series of footplates that change the elevation of other footplates. They must be stepped on in order before water engulfs the room.

Poison darts strike as soon as you enter the room. Decoding the numeric cipher will point you to the antidote.

A logic puzzle of riddles will lead you to the correct key to get you into the next room. Every key will work, mind you, but the door will not open to the room you want without the correct choice.

Using materials in the room, you must perfect weight the four-point scale at its center. The room itself tilts the same way the scale does if it is improperly weighted. Better keep your footing!

Interpret the flower language associated with the plants in the room in order to uncover the location of the treasure. Beware; some plants are poison.

all d10 lists

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Tarot card Dnd Commissions 🗡🗡

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I must prepare...

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My Number One Tip on Writing a Convincing Villain

the following is MY personal number one tip on writing villains and BBEGs for whatever use you may need them for. It are in no way the DEFINITIVE way to write a villain. I for instance like writing more morally complex villains that let the players think about the villains motivations because when the players can question if the villain is fully wrong it can lead to more interesting interactions. This is just a process I use. If you want your villain to be a true and horrific villain, then by all means do so. All that being said lets get into it! Everyone is the hero in their own story: Put simply its exactly what it says on the tin. If your villain is doing something villainous its usually because they think its the right thing to do. If you want your villains final goal to be to plunge the world into darkness, ask yourself WHY your villain wants to do that. Maybe its as simple as theres a much larger threat coming that feeds off of light or can weaponize the light in some destructive way, so there can be no light on the surface and millions will die. Or maybe its more complex than that. Maybe the villains clearly tragic backstory has a part where a group of paladins of the sun god committed some great atrocity against him and he vowed to blot out the sun so people will lose faith in the sun god, rendering him powerless. Both of these different reasonings give way to interesting interactions between the party and the BBEG. They also allow your VILLAIN to act VILLAINOUS without being absolutely reprehensible. As an example well use the first idea from above here. The BBEG is actually trying to protect the world from a much greater danger. The party could come across an absolutely DESTROYED caravan. Charred guards skeletons still in their soot blackened armor, a horse and buggy absolutely blasted to splinters, the ground charred and burnt 100 feet around never to grow plants again. the party comes across this with no context and its an inarguably horrific scene of brutality only a short time past. Its destructive. Its horrific. Its villainous from the parties perspective. But on the other hand... we have our BBEGs perspective. the caravan had some kind of super rare or even one of a kind super powerful magical reagent the BBEG needed to cast his ritual to plunge the world into darkness. He tried to settle things peacefully. He tried to explain the situation to the guards. But they drew weapons, discarding his stories of a light wielding monstrosity as a bandits distraction. Your BBEG doesnt have time for this. Time is running out. One spell. One blast. They died instantly. Painlessly. a few quick deaths to prevent the slow painful deaths of millions. A regrettable sacrifice that needed to be made. The Interaction of these two wholly different perspectives on the same horrible event allow for some of the most interesting role play possibilities in TTRPG or even just simply written history. At least in my opinion. this one interaction of the players coming across this scene after the fact also opens up many possibilities for the narrative. Do they side with him or oppose him? Do they talk or fight? Do they oppose him, only to talk to him halfway through the game, then side with him? HOPFULLY. Examples of this idea in fiction include Magneto from the X-men, Black Adam from Marvel comics (Not the movie. ew.), and oddly enough Principal Ed Rooney from ferris Beullers day off. (Think about it. Hes just doing his job.)

#ttrpg #dm #writing #writing tips #pathfinder 2e #dnd stuff #d&d

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Paizo I am kissing you on the mouth

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The Wendigo is a supernatural creature who acted on pure malice and eating humans. It origins from the First Nation of Canada as a myth for cannibalism. It is said that people who resorted to cannibalism during a shortage of food during winter could turn into a Wendigo. According to those myths, it is also possible to become a Wendigo by being possessed by the spirit of one when it visits your dreams or when you meet it walking at night through a forest.

#pathfinder #ttrpg #pathfinder 2e #pathfinder second edition #stat block

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trying a new approach towards reporting news