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.

The Lich Queen's approach to Alignments

(Sorry this post was a day late, been a bit busy!)

I think of Alignments very differently than many people I think, and in a way it's based on a combination of viewpoints that I've heard over the years. To me, alignment is very important yet simultaneously useless. That's gonna sound weird, but it's how I feel. Alignment is useful as a mechanic and as a neat and quick run-down on the kind of character's personality, but it's way too vague to mean anything of substance from a storytelling perspective. If I say "The lawful good character wants to stop the chaotic neutral character because he was getting into trouble with the law," it doesn't really say much. It says about as much as if I said "the dwarven fighter" and "the halfling rogue" instead of calling them by their alignment. Your little imaginative brain can fill in the rest but it might not even be close to the actual story.

I look at alignments instead, as a necessary mechanical tag that is used for certain effects in a game. When I create a character I ask what their motivations are. Why are they in the game and what are they trying to do to get there? This doesn't get me to the alignment just yet but is the first step of my process, and to let you know, no I do not start with alignment on a character almost ever if I can help. However I do need it, so let's take a look at the steps I go through to produce alignments for characters, and then I'll give an example at the end. Let me give you a warning, alignments are highly subjective, but I use my system because I've spent way too much time debating the topic and finally found an approach to the topic that I feel is more useful.

The Process

Step 1: What is your character's goal?

You should not have any character in a story or game that does not have a goal. If you make a character in D&D, and he doesn't have a goal, you should make him one. Why? Because goals aren't hard. A farmer wants a bountiful yield this year so he can make a little extra cash. The dwarven fighter wants to come back home with a mountain of gold and an ever larger pile of stories to tell. It's easy. Feel free to let them get a little more complicated than that.

Step 2: Why do they want that?

This is somewhat optional but I'd recommend coming up with something. For example: The rogue wants that money badly, but why does he want it? Well, he has a daughter at home that will starve if he can't get it; which brings us to step #3.

Step 3: How far will they go to get what they want?

This determines the Good vs. Evil (GvE) axis, and is honestly not all that hard. I don't get why people try to get all philosophical about GvE in D&D, it's a tabletop game. The core of GvE is essentially about this concept of 'how far'. Good characters will try to achieve their goal without harming anyone, they will likely even try to spare bad guys (such as bandits) if they're given the choice. Evil characters will be willing to murder, lie and steal to get what they want; genocide is not even out of the question for some. Keep in mind, this step and the next step are on a 'scale' of sorts, so you can have a neutral leaning good character, but that's unnecessary in terms of alignment classifications.

On a scale of 1 to 9, how far will they go? 1 is as good as you get, 9 is as evil as you get.

Step 4: When they tackle their problem, how do they go about it?

This determines the Law vs. Chaos (LvC) axis. I could get into a whole spiel about why I think LvC is a terrible concept and how it should be Order vs. Chaos, but I won't as it's sorta pointless; and it's hard to frame this step without a description. The examples below might shed a little more light but here's my explanation. Lawful characters appreciate authority, obedience and order, they are organized and generally methodical. Chaotic characters are about impulse and freedom, they do not care much for authority and would prefer that authority stays out of their way. If we take the rogue from step 2 and clone him, then make him chaotic good, and his clone becomes lawful good you'll see the difference. The lawful good rogue will likely try to pick up some jobs from a bounty board, legal or not, he's going to go look for an opportunity to make money in an organized, controllable way. The chaotic good rogue is probably going to just break into a house on the fly and try to hawk it to a nearby merchant.

On a scale of 1 to 9, how organized are there methods? 9 is on the fly and completely chaotic, 1 is structured and cautious.

The Example

We're going to use an NPC from a game that I ran about a year ago. Albert Stark, the primary antagonist of our game, and an evil NPC in an evil campaign. You might be thinking "Wait ... the players are playing evil characters why are they fighting an evil character?" that's a good question! One that I do not have anymore space on this page for, but here's my two cents on the idea. Evil characters, don't think what they are doing is evil. For all intensive purposes, Albert Stark thought he was a good guy.

Step 1: What is your character's goal?

Albert Stark wishes to reclaim the imperial throne for his family.

Step 2: Why does he want that?

He wishes to gain power, and feels that his family was cheated of their rightful place.

Step 3: How far will he go to get what he wants?

Stark was never willing to commit genocide, but he wasn't afraid of murdering anyone who stood in his way. I'm gonna put him up at an 8.

Step 4: When they tackle their problem, how do they go about it?

He is incredibly organized, a methodical thinker with a propensity for manipulation. Stark was a fantastic schemer in a world of politics, created on a foundation of scheming. I'm going to put him all the way down at a 1 for this.

Which according to my scale puts him in the lawful evil quadrant. I have no qualms with this, it's a great description for him.

And here's a little table for you, with a somewhat transparent grid on top for you to use. I find that a more detailed grid helps a bit more to define just how far your character is on these alignments. You can be a chaotic evil character and be leaning more towards true neutral, but not actually true neutral. You'd be in the top left corner of chaotic evil and that can help you make decisions about "what would this character do?". He's not a psychopath, he's not even an 'agent of chaos'; he's an unorganized dude who's probably a bit of a dickbag. Yes, I said dickbag.