Incomprehensible Ramblings

and other such physical manifestations from my mind

[lythandraal]

DM tips #6

Catagorize your NPCs. My preferred set is (npc, monster, dmpc, quest point) but when making an NPC, only make enough relative to it's story presence.

Using my list, an npc is a character who exists for 1 story purpose. So this is Kasc. She's a lizardfolk who owns the town smithy. She has soot covered scales and a ragged apron. Her right arm has large burn scars on it.

That's it, no story, enough description to feel like a person, and a use (shopkeep). Does she have a surname? Only if someone asks. Why the burns? I'll make something up in the moment. Tall or short? Stocky or lithe? Hair? I won't think of these things until someone asks, and it allows an easy access to improv a character design. If you don't sweat the details, you can make quick desicions in the moment without "ruining" your original vision for the character.

If your players fall in love (figuratively) with the character, you'll naturally fill out and flesh out more and more as time goes by. And if your players rob them blind and skip town, then you didn't spend 40 minutes pouring heart and soul into a backstory that just got bypassed.

A monster is an npc with a reason to be where they are, a stat block, an action block, and 1 key interactive expectation (antagonist, sight to be seen, benevolent, exposition point etc).

dmpc are fully fleshed leveled characters, normally fufilling the role of a guest character, or a story arc protagonist (or villain)

Lastly, the quest point. These are deities, campaign villain, campaign benefactors, these are the concrete pillar characters in the world for your players, they do need to be fully ironed out with motives and quirks and flaws.

Find whatever system helps you best, but a good line of thought is "put in half as many minutes to make a character as you expect them to exist in the world". It will save you many hours as the sessions fly by.

One unwritten npc, the instant npc, the "anyone at the bar I can chat to?" The "I catch the arm of a passer by." For these, have a list of names behind your dm screen and have a quick reference list of personalities. Put one and two together and fly by the seat of your pants.

[lythandraal]

And so it begins: me vs executive dysfunction.

[lythandraal]

DM tips #5

Let cross table RP happen. Nothing feels quite as good as getting to rest the story and left your players interact with one another. When you don't need to worry about who's where, what machinations are happening, and you can just sit and listen, it's genuine bliss.

It also really gets the emotional investment going. Think about the awkwardness of going on a date. You calm down when the not blatantly obvious subjects come up. Not only will your players get invested in each others characters forming personal bonds and frenemies and such, but they will also feel more attached to their own character. When you have to small talk as a character, you will invent backstory you never thought of, just to give yourself something to talk about. And over not long at all, you will feel an attachment bond to your character.

[lythandraal]

DM tip #4

Don't plan too far ahead. The longer a track you make, the more chances your party may fall off the tracks.

If you want to avoid 'losing big story points' or 'having the party skip ahead past side content', don't let them know that they've skipped stuff. Keep it, reshuffle the characters or difficulty and place it in front of them again.

If it is something they are avidly avoiding, for story or party reasons, try to trick them into it. Traps, ambushes, or insurmountable powers, however you can get them into that dungeon with a pack of thought devourers.

If they are avoiding it for player reasons (from touchy subject to not preferred gameplay) then you should take the hint of what your players want out of the game.

Fun is first, story is second.

[lythandraal]

DM tip #3

Never say no.

Dissuade, advise, punish if you must, but never say that a course of action may not be taken.

There is no hand in the cloud to stop you from jumping off a cliff. But there are signposts, common sense, and locals to try and stop you.

[lythandraal]

DM tip #2

If you find a PC being silent for an extended time, put a spotlight on them. Give them a moment of limelight. It helps keep them engaged and present and makes them a part in the game.

This comes in lieu of a session 0 I just had, and I realized 3/4 through nearly 4 hours that one player hadn't said a word. I gave him a very specific interaction with an npc and now he has a self story arc to work on.

Dnd is much more fun when you have something to work on, even if the imidiate happenings don't involve you.

[lythandraal]

DM tip #1

Don't write a story for the party to partake in. Make a world for them to explore.

Give them a problem and let them divine a solution.

And let a working solution work, even if it isn't one you planned, it rarely is.

If you know your party well enough, you'll be surprised just how little of a bread crumb trail you need to cause progression, and your players will feel good for following such a 'difficult' trail.

Let them jump to their conclusions, right or wrong, and let the world reward and punish appropriately. (If the world can't reward appropriately, but someone did an excellent slueth job, there's always inspiration die)

[lythandraal]

The first wing skelaton is prepped and ready to ship to jupiter for... skin...

[wormywormyarchive]

! click on the worm

[lythandraal]

I don't know if I want to become a splicer at the bottom of the ocean, or a class A person in a new world.

[lythandraal]

Andrew Ryan's opening speech: a call of hope

"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question."

Straight to the point. Down to earth. Realism. People like that. Also, 'I am' implies that you should know the name, you've heard of him before.

"Is a man not entitled to the sweat off his brow?"

Yes. No one disagrees with the sentiment that you get the fruits of your labour. No one ever thinks that they do not deserve something for any job they do.

"No says the man in washington, it belongs to the poor. No says the man in the vatican, it belongs to god. No says the man in moscow, it belongs to everyone."

Accounting for time period, it is distressing to think that the three moral centers of the earth, patriotism, communism, evangelicalism, none of them agree to the simple sentiment that a person may work for their own pupose or gain. There seems to be always someone you owe. Someone else deserves the fruit of your labour. And that isn't fair.

"I rejected those answers."

Good on you, stick it to the man. Again down to earth, realism. People like getting told what feels like truth.

"Instread, I chose something different."

Away with the old ways, the ways of the powerful people.

"I chose the impossible."

Okay, so, the idea of utopia is that it is unobtainable. The idea is that humans can only make distopias, places that are opressive, inhuman, pathetic. People believe that you cannot make an actually perfect society. Mr Ryan claims he has.

"I chose Rapture."

So Rapture is a utopia, that's probably why you got in the bathyshere. Andrew Ryan is essentially claiming that Rapture is where a man IS entitled with the sweat off his brow.

"A city: where the artist would not fear the censor."

True freedom of speech? Of expression? Where any culture may be? Where you can be yourself? Sign me up.

"Where the scientist will not be bound by petty morality."

This isn't all that scary. Andrew Ryan isn't calling all morals petty. After all, any standard of personal boundaries is a matter of morality. He specifically says "petty morality".

Well, petty being frivolous or poitnless or demeaning or insulting, petty morals are unnecessary morals, morals that don't mean anything, morals that only limit and have no real binding nature, morals that exist because some powerful guy said it should.

So Ryan is saying that scientists may work in ways they've never been allowed to because of man-made social constructs like animal cruelty or acceptable human genetic modification.

"Where the great would not be constrained by the small."

Only great people come to Rapture, and as you are here, you must be great.

"And with the sweat off your brow, Rapture can become your city aswell."

So, if you work you will se the fruit of your labour in Rapture. But not if. When you come to Rapture, you will work, and you will get the sweat off your brow.

Rapture is a gleaming star in the bottom of the ocean. It is where the great will go to be greater. It is a glimmer of hope in a dark world at the surface.

Would you not want to go?

[lythandraal]

Story time: the magicians compass: the djinn

The patron of wrath. Originally a sorcerer during the reign of Qin Shi Huangdi, the djinn was Qin's best kept secret. Not an honoured man, but his slave.

Qin gained his power and wielded his legalistic fist with might all because the djinn was on a leash. The last straw was pulled when Qin ordered the djinn buried with him in his tomb.

The djinn reached out for the devil (the OG deal maker) and wanted a deal. He offered the death of Qin, and all of Qin's tomb builders for his freedom from China. The devil shook on that, and after the djinn made sure every worker was dead, the devil put shackles on the djinn, stuffed him in an oil lamp, and gave him to a silk road travelling salesman.

To say the djinn is pissed is an understatement.

Every hear of some powerful man who might have been unbalanced and after a bit of a power trip, probably met an untimely demise? Probably had a lamp on his office desk.

The djinn, in his lamp, resides on the sales counter of a Chinese antiquities dealer in Newcastle, Australia as of 1843.

[lythandraal]

Story time: the magicians compass: the shadow

The patron of jest. By far the oldest, or at least longest existing, the shadow is... um... yeah...

The shadow just exists. It messes in affairs with everything. Just because. Every motion in the mirror, every moment of deja vous, everything out of the corner of your eye, that random name call in the grocery store. The shadow 'plays' with everyone. People who go insane? His pet projects. The urge to jump? What does getting shot feel like? How many marbles can fit up my nose? There's nothing out of the way enough for the shadow.

Nothing is known. Except that the shadow is.

[lythandraal]

Story time: the magicians compass: the colossus

The patron of sorrow. While it's original name is lost, the colossus was an atlantian. It buried the city under a mountain and sunk it into the ocean for unknown reasons, leaving it to be an endling.

Commonly associated to be a prime elemental, even a father of such, it disguises as mountains, under oceans, even in the middle of deserts. The colossus hides from humans, even going so far as to cause natural disasters to escape. Pompeii is believed to be one such incident.

It's current whereabouts is, unsurprisingly, unknown.

[lythandraal]

Story time: the magicians compass: the 5 schools of magic

All magic, real magic, not trick or stunts, actual magic falls in five categories: abjuration, necromancy, transmutation, evocation, and illusion.

Firstly, we have abjuration. The magic of the stubborn. The refusal to wither. The pursuit of protection and of life. An attempt to over come mortality.

And it's counterpart, necromancy. The magic of greed. The lust for decay and to banish others. To take everything from all without bound.

We have the school of transmutation. The magic of sorrow. Water to wine, air to ice, skin to stone. To change any material.

Then is evocation. The magic of wrath. Raw energy ripped out of the walls of reality to serve some immediate purpose. To light a blaze or douse it. To build a wall or blow it down.

Finally, illusion. The magic of jest. The impossible magic. The not magic but is. Nothing changes, but something is different.

And while we are here, the types of magic and the casters.

You have alchemy, enchantment, sigil, and spell.

Alchemy, the most accessible, is the direct usage of material components to achieve an outcome. Mixing the right things to make a potion that, when poured on an open wound, heals the broken skin together.

Enchantment is to embue raw energy into an object. Putting healing magic into a bandage that any wound it is wrapped around heals rapidly.

Now the sigil categorey is expansive. But at it's core, the sigil is an engraving, or written word that, when activated by a key phase or motion or attunment, channels raw energy into the object that can be utilized by the wielder. A wouned man may read off a scoll and when he finishes the verse, the scoll disintegrates into healing energy that then seeps into his wounds and closes them. Or it might be a doctor with an attuned wand that he can simply channel the thought of health through the wand and the healing energy jumps out of the wand and onto the wound, sealing it.

Lastly is the spell. No dodads, no thingies or bells and whistles, no material componants. The ability to pull upon reality itself, to draw raw energy to oneself and expend it without any limitation. To think of healing a wound and it does.

And the casters now.

Wizards and witchs are first. They generally stick to alchemy as it is the most scientific study of magic, and they do consider themselves quite the student. Maybe through study, they may learn how to use a sigil, or worse, make one. Beyond that, they cannot enchant or cast spells.

The next group is the opposite. The socerers and warlocks. Sorcerers are inately magical whereas warlocks are given the power, or take it. While both could potentially use any form of magic, the warlock generally dabbles around in sigils and enchantments to get more power, but scorerers just enjoy flexing their spell abled muscles.

Side note, animals can be sorcerers too. They're generally called cryptids.

The last lot are a peculier lot. Elementals. Either by birth, right of passage, from a powerful spell, or a sigil gone wrong, maybe a blessing or a curse from a patron themselves, elementals are consumed by a specific school of magic. While they are technically immortal, their corporeal form withers and fades over time, and when nothing of what they were exists, they will generally be drawn to the patron and will become a part of the patrons power. Elementals, animal or otherwise, only cast spells.

[lythandraal]

Story time: the magicians compass

The five schools of magic: Abjuration, Necromancy, Transmutation, Evocation, and Illusion.

The patrons: the Phoenix, Death, The Colossus, the Djinn, the Shadow.

The five pieces of regret: stubborn, greed, sorrow, wrath, jest.

Their stories will come soon.

[lythandraal]

When in water

That thing that keeps touching your foot, the tip of your toes or the back of your ankle. Thats not seaweed. Seaweed doesn't run away. It's not a jellyfish, they sting. No fish would just touch you, no mermaid that small. So what touched your foot? Did you dream it? Was it a nightmare? Did it happen at all?

Here's a truth, there's a fine line between imagination and reality. There are a few places that cross between the two. The ocean is certainly one.