guess who's back

Maxime - he/him - about TTRPG and whatever I'm into right now - third time's a charm

[chekhovs-guns]

okay but we should talk more about edward miller's artwork for the locked tomb series. like. these are so beautiful. the only style in which i would like to see tlt adaptation.

illustrations by edward miller for subterranean press edition of gideon the ninth by tamsyn muir

illustrations by edward miller for subterranean press edition of harrow the ninth by tamsyn muir

illustrations by edward miller for subterranean press edition of nona the ninth by tamsyn muir

[maxime-cpt]

We finished the final session of the first arc in our Masks campaign and it went great! The evil tech billionaire's been dealt with, but they made his so-called "war on crime" seem justified in doing so. The Transformed burned all bridges with the one person who could understand him and confessed to his crush, the Protégé had to realize that her objectives aligned with her mentor's nemesis and cooperate with them and the Nova burned out and got sent to hell where he met the literal devil™, his father.

We did the worldbuilding session on November 1st and character creation the following week, with our first actual session on the November 17.

11 sessions of actual game, 13 sessions total. I've always been a believer in playing in person (and I still prefer it) but I gotta say switching to playing online was a blessing, I've never played so regularly. And we still managed to do worldbuilding and character prep in person, + a Halloween episode at my place. I also had a power outage in the middle of a session which was honestly pretty funny.

One of the player has a schedules that makes it hard for him to be available on the same evening week after week but we systematically started each session by scheduling the next and it worked well so far, we're all really committed.

My players all want the story to continue, and I have foundations for the next arc, I'm looking forward to finding out how it plays out.

[maxime-cpt]

Masks end of act 2 update !

So we just finished the second act of our masks campaign. We played a little less frequently, and finished on session 19 (21 total), so a much more reasonable 8 session arc at a slower pace than I'd like (average of only 2 sessions a month)

It went a lot better than arc 1 imo. The experience of arc 1 allowed me to do much better overall arc prep at the start, which made individual session prep a lot smoother. The story had momentum from the very start and it was all about seeing where it went.

We're in the middle of July but this was the winter arc, in fact the whole story arc took place over the course of 5 very intense december days, where the first arc took place over months.

I'm very happy with this family themed holiday story. I thought we would end on a somewhat positive note with a Christmas party after all the conflict but uhh our ending was *bleak*, with the aftermath of the Transformed and the Nova triggering their Moments of truth.

I have a final arc in me and my players are on board but I decided to take a break. I'm not sick or burnt out *yet* but I don't want to get there, and I don't want to do a third act just for the sake of having a conclusion, I want us all to be more excited and I think picking the campaign back up in September would help.

I'm excited to see where the story goes and where the characters end up. While I don't think this game is especially great for such long campaigns, it really delivers on the coming of age aspect. The PCs will be able to unlock adult moves starting next arc and I'm looking forward to that.

I am however disappointed at the lack of support in the rulebook for what happens after locking a PC's Label. Does that mean nothing happens mechanically at all when someone who has influence over them would have shifted said Label ? Does it grant the PC an automatic success at rejecting influence ? If you have experience with masks and found this post through tags please let me know what you think.

[jdragsky]

seven part pact, possum creek's newest fantastical ttrpg about seven wizards crushing each other under the pressures of masculinity, is now live on kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/seven-part-pact

this game is for you if you're a sucker for asymmetrical board games, meditations on the way power shapes masculinity, or incredible wizard magic. check it out!

[greatcheshire]

Did some playtesting for this and it’s truly fun, one of a kind, made for the real magic and mechanics sickos out there

[txttletale]

it's an absolute fucking banger

[pimientosdulces]

the gavins

[sanacibo]

oxidized copper is such a beautiful color palette. The rich reds with the cool teals. Such a vibrant combo. No one is doing it like her.

[sanacibo]

[ID: Photos of an oxidized copper plate, an oxidized copper pipe, and oxidized pennies. End ID]

hello gorgeous do you come here often

[evilmageclub]

(another old bit of art im reposting from twitter) abridged from one of my favourite scenes in counter/weight. u ever think about divines

[romanceyourdemons]

guy currently hurtling toward a migraine at a rate that would impress most astrophysicists: i wonder wgat is happening in my beautiful telephone

[a-dime-a-day]

Marius: going to this place and hearing these people talk is making me rethink everything I thought I knew

Marius: I am no longer going to this place

[deadly-neutrino-radiation]

i think we are sleeping on the wonders of the humble bicycle, just because it's been around so long. imagine if it didn't exist yet and then someone was like, "here's a contraption that lets you move at a running pace without breaking a sweat"

you want to move 40ish kilometers in a few hours entirely of you own power? well you can either train a bunch and perform a notable athletic feat or just get one of these and have like a nice little afternoon out

[forestgreenlesbian]

Water For The People, Paul D’Amato

[dreadwedge]

before embarking on a sexual encounter it is important to decide on a safeword, catchphrase, and callsign

[batmanshole]

crisp glass of water moodboard

[kiisaes]

everyone eat more vegetables NOW!!! and mention the last vegetable you ate in the tags so we're all on the buddy system. I'll start: bok choy

[maxime-cpt]

Yesterday, my friend and I saw a flyer for a longboarding contest this weekend that included beginner classes and decided on a whim to go this morning. It was a blast and I haven't been this excited about exercising in forever, this is the beginning of my sk8er boi summer I'm afraid.

[maxime-cpt]

Update : sprained ankle

[lo-sulci]

[chainofclovers]

Put in the tags the completely finished (whether cancelled or wrapped up on its own terms) TV series that has YOUR perfect ending, however you define that

Please don’t include huge spoilers for the specifics of the endings, and it would also make me happy if people don’t use this to talk about the shows whose endings they hated

[maxime-cpt]

I made a pretty big gamble in my Masks game tonight and I'm pleased to say my players loved it.

So one of my players plays Cypher, the Protégée to a mentor who is a detective superhero whose archnemesis is the Spider, a faceless villain behind a crime syndicate (her mentor is essentially a cop but that only makes her more fun to rebel against)

As a GM, the Spider was one of the first NPCs I created. The players only ever interacted with them through their underlings (a coterie of bug themed villains I'm pretty proud of). I've had plans to introduce the Spider under their civilian identity for a couple sessions now, but the opportunity never came up. To be clear, the investigation into who the Spider is isn't core to the campaign, they're mostly a background villain I use as an excuse to make the mentor have demands of Cypher.

Toight, while interacting with one of these underlings (or former underlying, it's complicated) Cypher's player decided to trigger her moment of truth, which are essentially trump cards that can be used once or twice per campaign, give the players a ton narrative control and make a playbook's core conflict shine. The Protégée is as follows:

The moment that you show who you really are: your mentor, or something different. You can do whatever your mentor could do and more. You can do the incredible, even the things they always failed to accomplish. Of course, they’re not going to see you the same way, no matter which path you choose…

As a result, by rejecting the cold distance and superiority of her mentor and chosing to show understanding, Cypher uncovered a crucial clue that leads her to discovering who the Spider is, a perfect interpretation of "the things they always failed to accomplish". But this left me in an awkward position since I hadn't yet introduced the Spider's civilian identity, it would've been underwhelming to say "he's this guy you've only heard of couple times and never met" so I just turned it back on my player and asked her to tell me who it was.

What followed was a great moment where everyone pitched cool ideas about which NPC could've been the Spider all along, everyone bouncing ideas to justify their motives etc, while giving Cypher's player final say. We finished the session without a clear answer but several ideas I'm really excited about, Cypher's player will give her final answer next session and no one was bummed by not getting a "true" answer (which I still offered btw)