Update from the Lich Queen 9/4/17

Art

D&D: Saturday Session

Things went well, except for drama and what not. We had a good ol' time at the siege, but people brought some inter-party conflict that really drug things through the mud. Anyways, next week should be better.

Next Week?

Yep! I have a large dungeon played, based on one of the player's goals. Delving into an ancient temple of a god that went from a goddess of protection to a goddess of shadows. They're looking to retrieve artifacts to kill the Naga.

Even more D&D?

Well, Pathfinder. I got invited to a little game of like, four whole people. Doing Gestalt classes, and I'm highly debating on Bard / Sorcerer combo right now.

Update from the Lich Queen 8/28/17

Life

I got my name and gender marker changed! It's official now, according to the state I'm a girl. Fantastic. It's both exciting, and a little scary. In general though, it's awesome. You should've seen me, I was shaking so much through the whole thing. I've been crazy busy.

Art

I actually have done a bit of artwork. Here you go!

https://hunter-64.deviantart.com/art/Ghost-Rowan-701162466

Starcraft

I got the remaster, and let me tell you, I'm addicted. Played through most of the campaign, and uh, played a few ladder games. I suck again! It's a good feeling though, the game is enjoyable. I'm playing Terran at the moment, I used to be a Protoss player but so far that is slowly changing, as I'm highly enjoying the slow push of Terran siege with mechs. I'm not a huge fan of bio in all honesty, but it's not because it's bad, it's because I have a giant bias towards robots. However I'm practicing both, and I can pretty confidently beat an AI, players are another story. I've beaten one or two, and lost all the rest.

I'm considering making some posts about Starcraft actually. I think it could be fun.

D&D

So this is actually going to be two sessions since I didn't make a thing about the last one.

Session 1

The party mutinied and was about to throw the captain overboard, our CG character stopped it and the CNs agreed that we'd keep him died up for the time being (spoiler alert, the CE finished him off later). They went to town inspected the goods they had and made a deal, which down in a shady part of town. After an obvious ambush and a showdown, they made off with their loot and were about to head back to the ship before we ended.

Session 2

This was rather fun, we were missing some people, they explored the missing people reports and were ambushed by a doppelganger and his Naga men, a plot to lure helpless victims to captivity. The players had brought a sizeable force to combat them, and were able to fend them off. However one of them escaped, and the Naga decided to launch their attack before the town could ready their full defenses.

This worked out in the Naga's favor, and it wasn't really about the players losing in this section, it was more about an epic cinematic set piece that I got to show off. I know, people aren't fond of cinematic style gameplay, but this was one of those cases where I thought it would work. This was all improv too so I didn't have time to debate the whole thing.

Either way, people seemed to enjoy it. The players went to the front lines and held the forces off while all the ships on the dock loaded every spot they could with civilians and guards. Eventually, they hopped on board the captain's ship, the rogue throwing a bomb to fend off some of the Naga as the remaining men hopped on board. As they sailed off back towards Dock Town, they heard this massive roar as a hulking Kraken jumped from the water, it's limbs flaying around as it began attacking to last few boats. The players all began firing at it wildly, the ranger rolling a fantastic crit and hitting the beast in it's eye. It recoiled in pain and dunked it's head back into the water, trying to get away from the accurate bow fire. It was only a delay, but it was just enough to ensure the rest of the boats could escape.

In the end, the town belonged to the Naga, but everyone seemed to have a good time.

Inspiration!

Why inspiration is important

Inspiration can help in so many aspects, whether it be a new monsters, a unique magic item, a character idea, or even a massive influencing factor of a campaign. Not only does working in a bubble keep you from learning about new concepts and ideas, but it also will make your games appear to be stale after your fellow players have played a few games with you. It's important to spice things up and add fresh elements from a variety of influences.

Don't wait for inspiration! Find it.

You might think that you can just 'wait' for inspiration, but as a writer, painter, 3D artist, and even game designer; the idea that you can wait for inspiration is laughable. You need to look for it, revisit old movies you've seen, read new books, check out mediums you've never explored. If you're about to run a tabletop game set in space, watch some science fiction tv shows or revisit some loved movies. What you draw on is also a very personal matter. However, don't be afraid to move outside the genre.

You can take plenty of inspiration from a fantasy series and bring it into science fiction game. Immortal alien race? Maybe they're similar to Elves in how they view humans. You want to spice up your next D&D adventure with something a little more creepy? Watch some horror movies, and see what sort of stuff you can bring into your game. Anything new that you can bring to your table, will likely help others enjoy the game a whole lot more. While this advice is mostly directed towards GMs, I think this can work for players too if applied correctly, which brings me to the next part ...

Soak, Analyze, Disassemble, Collect.

The thing about inspiration is it's an interesting process of 'soaking' information in. This refers to reading, watching, any kind of consumption of media. Pay attention through the whole thing, or binge through a large bulk of content that's similar, it will start making you think about the subject matter more and more.

Next you analyze it, while consuming, take mental notes (physical ones if you'd like), and try to keep your eye out for subtle hints. This could be foreshadowing, tone, acting, direction, or even just the highlights of the subject that really made the piece interesting.

Disassemble all of that. Now that you've spent some time looking at your chosen subject, try to tear it apart. Why was that scene so fascinating? What made that character so compelling? How did the lighting and atmosphere effect the scene? Think about every aspect you can, and feel free to just take some time reflecting on it periodically, this sort of thing isn't always something you sit down to do. Watch a movie on the weekend, think about it for a week and let it 'settle' in your mind. The really interesting parts will begin to show themselves, and what you didn't care about will probably fade into the backdrop of forgotten information.

Collect what's left. Take all of the stuff that you disassembled, and judge whether it can be used for your tabletop game. Lighting effects can help establish tone, consider how that could be used in descriptive text, or even as props (colored light bulbs anyone?). Interesting characters can be broken down into character aspects that can be used later on to enhance an NPC. It could be a strange mannerism or speech impediment. It could be a personality quirk, or an extreme version of one. Narcissists aren't exactly fun to be around but they can make for incredibly interesting NPCs. Store all of these ideas somewhere, to be picked up and used later. It will help immensely when you feel like you've run out of ideas.

Keep notes!

I like to think that everyone should carry around a pocket sized notebook and a pen, and this is another one of those reasons. You may at any point, need to take a quick note before it escapes that little noggin of yours. If you don't like carrying around extra physical objections, there are plenty of ways to take notes with your phone. Mindly, is an app I've been using for a while now, and has a really interesting system to take notes with; I'd highly recommend checking it out. The main reason I like to have some way of keeping notes however, is simply that ideas will always seemingly come at you when you least expect them.

Some might disagree with my sentiment, in fact I believe Stephen King even argued that the best ideas will always stick with you so there's no point in writing it down. However I think that writing notes has an interesting effect that is more about retention in memory. Writing notes down has been shown to improve the odds that you're going to actually remember the idea. So you don't even have to actually look through them ever again, but it's really up to preference.

Implementing your ideas

At the end of this whole process, you should hopefully have a repository of notes. I'm a messy organic person, so I like to keep things that way. It works for me, but it might not work for you. Consider what kind of organization system works best for you, as an individual, and apply it. You may make lists based on what category the item falls into, maybe you make a list of items based on what type of game you'd like to see them in, etc. It's all up to you.

I also have to stress that when you implement ideas, don't be afraid to ditch some aspects for the sake of the game. Horror movies and games often have terrible endings that leave everyone involved either dead or feeling like their world has completely collapsed, that might not be so fun for players. It'd be great to throw them through a dungeon filled with dangerous monsters, dark corridors, and a thick atmosphere that feels like they're about to swallowed whole by the dungeon itself. However at the end of the day, they're going to come out the otherside, stronger, and relieved to finally be out of that hell hole. Nobody has to die to make it feel creepy.

And remember, your content is only as strong as the inspiration that you steal from! I fully believe to be a GM, or any kind of artist, you've got to steal from as many sources as you can and mix it into a big melting pot.

Update from the Lich Queen 8/14/17

Legal Stuff

I had to go talk to someone about putting in paperwork to get my name legally changed. As tiresome as it was, it was also incredibly exciting and rewarding. Additionally, due to my shitty circumstances I'm actually going to be able to get the whole $116 fee payed for! Awesome.

Contradiction

Is a fun game, you should check it out. I watched somebody do a full play-through and I don't really regret it much.

Artwork

I did some artwork for a friend as a commission, and it's totally 100% NSFW unfortunately. I can't show that here, but I'm also working on a little secret project that I hope to unveil sometime later. The project involves a mixture of writing and artwork, and hopefully to prove to be a fantastic outlet for my creative energies.

Saturday Game

Was unfortunately postponed. Scheduling issues.

Using a one-shot to ADD to your storyline.

By now the Monday post will probably have clued in on the fact that I ran a one-shot adventure over the weekend to get my two vet players "up to speed" on the game's mechanics. Monday's post explains all of that and what happened in it, but I'd like to talk about what I was doing, and why I'm doing it. I'm gonna have to put a warning right here and right now, if any of you assholes from the party are reading this, you're awesome but you gotta stop reading. This post has some spoilers and I really would rather you guys not read this.

The Prologue

The gist was that Maggot and Dunmur were given two throw away characters, and were thrown into a prison. I start off the game with them being on a boat and having a short 'cutscene' where the boat is destroyed and they fall unconscious from hitting their head. They wake up in a cell and have to escape from a Naga infested dungeon. The dungeon was actually an underwater research lab where these Naga were doing tests and experiments on humans, following the orders of a superior that isn't present. The players have no idea who is giving these orders but through the game they get the hint that these kidnappings are not for money or food, but for research.

But ... Why? This is exactly the kind of reaction I was looking for, and more importantly just these two players. The other players aren't around at the time but they also don't really need to see all of this because they're trying to learn rules let alone all of this foreshadowing with the story. But more importantly, the other players don't really need a lot of time to learn the rules, so to entertain them a bit more, I hope to drag them in with the story; because, after the first few games of D&D you stop having that "WOW HOLY SHIT I CAN DO ANYTHING" feeling and you need more to enjoy the game nearly as much.

The point of this hook was to let their brains ask questions, and as they play through the main campaign they will start to see the same Naga that they ran into. They will start to see Doppelganger's and other strange creatures that these Naga have been working on, and they'll start asking questions. Very likely they will direct these questions to me, like, no subtlety, just asking. And I don't mind this, in fact, I love it.

These Naga are working for a higher being hiding in the ocean, that's working for another being ... But for the first few sessions, the players will not really be doing much except muddling about and murdering things. They'll be fighting kobolds, goblins, and more until they're strong enough to take on stronger questions. I'm significantly undermining what goes on in my game, but it's the general gist of their tasks. I'll be bleeding in hints that these lower levels monsters are serving something greater until they find out that these are all under the control of the same Naga, they ran into in this session. There characters don't know it, but the players do, and they will get excited.

And so far, I think this has worked, fast forward about a week or so and I actually was able to run the game, it's going perfectly.

The Point

Really, it comes down to this: You can use one-shots to tell stories without endangering, or giving a direct hook for the characters. It can be as subtle as an attempt at foreshadowing, or a direct out-of-character reveal about what's going on while they're characters are busy. It also can be a fantastic source of contrast; two characters stuck in a cell, barely surviving, and then you have a whimsical adventure about saving some sailors so they can go on their merry way to adventure.

You have to be careful about how much information you'd like to give, and to who. If your players can't be trusted with out-of-character knowledge then you should try to hide some stuff. However if they're more manageable and tame, then you can essentially go all out and just have fun with it!

Cheers!

Update from the Lich Queen (8/7/17)

Hey! Sorry there wasn't a friday post, I've been extraordinarily busy. Between artwork, last minute D&D prep, and even some bot coding; I haven't had a lot of time. I'll definitely get to work on something for this week.

Artwork

Worked on this little halfing asshole, and some other stuff I haven't quite finished. I have more

 

D&D Prep

I've had to do a lot of prep, getting characters ready and preparing extra maps, as well as designing a larger goblin cave for a bigger party. I had to tone down some of it as well, expecting players to be a little clumsier since we have even more beginners in the party now. The premise is simple, they need to cross the ocean, to do that they need a boat, and the only captain who wants to take them right now was missing his crew. He offered free rides if they could bring them back, and so he accepted.

The Game

This was just a blast. Mostly everyone showed up and was ready. I sent them off towards the goblin problem, and watched them unfold the whole thing slowly. They tried the frontal approach, and quickly got the hint that people can get seriously hurt, and that you shouldn't screw with large numbers of hobgoblins. The party played pretty tactically, and I think the experience was pretty fun overall.

They spent some time interrogating goblins and hobgoblins, and quickly learned that the Kiru tribe really disliked the stronger more aggressive, Gorach tribe. They formed a temporary alliance and helped run out the Gorach's and their master.

The chaotic evil ranger got a hold of some goblin-made explosives, and started throwing them around. Which left us with some fantastic moments, a lot of it being banter about what was going to happen on the roll of a 1; which surprisingly didn't happen. He also blew up all the henchmen that were hired on "accident", just part of their job description, and all.

Overall the game was a huge blast, and the party leveled up!

I think one of my favorite aspects, however, is that the strange half reptile, half goblin is now their friend. And the traitorous yellow goblin that talked is also their friend. I guess they're more of pets, but they're being treated pretty nicely. Oh also, they named the reptile thingy George!

Update from the Lich Queen (7/31/17)

Well, I had to make characters for a huge party, of around 6 or 7 players, I really only expected 3 or 4. So, let's just say it was hectic, and pretty messy. But people had fun, even the newer players who weren't interested in the game too much, were starting to get into the character generation.

We have a crazy group of chaotic characters, ranging from good to evil, with a lot of guys sitting atop the fence. Some of them are a part of the band that is on their way to Almore to compete in a competition, and the others are just travelling with, likely as bodyguards, and some of them for their own reasons. Most of the characters, just want to party and have fun, so this will be interesting.

I'm actually really needing to redirect parts of my quest and will be having to rework content to accommodate more players, and if some aren't there, I can scale it down. I'm not entirely sure what the entire quest is going to entail, and the entire scenario may need a rework. I'm debating on that, a lot right now.

We have a:

• CN Halfling Rogue
• CN Halfling Bard (Yes, they're twins)
• CN Dwarf Barbarian
• CN Dwarf Fighter
• CG Dwarf Druid
• CG Half-Elf Warlock
• CE Elf Ranger

So yes, this party is going to cause some mayhem.

But basically, I've been busy with D&D, and am highly excited.