Travis, 10 months ago: *choosing the sailor background because it adds a nice flair and goes really well with this new character he wants to create, expecting to be landlocked for the majority of this new campaign*
Travis, now: *elected captain of a stolen ship that has to order and interact with other, experienced, sailors and crew with everyone looking up to him expectantly even though he doesn’t really know anything about sailing because why the fuck would you its dnd but of course here he is in this new pirate au arc*
Original character, NPC, I drew some time ago. Mushroom humanoid. A necromancer working
involuntarily for an organized criminality by alliance of merchants. They
revive important and useful members back to the books of living, uses
undead to do most fighting for them, and is handy with poisons.
Design was based on Clathrus ruber, “Red cage fungus”.
Make sure the system you use matches the kind of players you have, for an optimal experience
Admin Note: This is part of the ongoing series called “D&D isn’t the only TTRPG if you don’t want fantasy play another goddamn game!”
I already reblogged this once but this is important:
Like I run a D&D blog. I understand that D&D is the most well-known and popular RPG in the world. But a lot of the time I see people going like “Hey I want to run a D&D campaign and throw out all the D&Disms and here’s all the notes I have for running a campaign about courtly romance and chivalry in a historical setting” and I’m just like STOP YOU DON’T NEED TO RUN THIS USING D&D
There’s a sort of a mistaken assumption that because D&D is the biggest game on the market and that it’s fantasy that it should be the go-to fantasy game but look it’s not D&D isn’t a generic fantasy game it’s a very specific kind of fantasy all of its own, one that steals liberally from swords & sorcery and high fantasy and adds fucking extradimensional cube robots for good measure
So next time you’re thinking about a fantasy campaign in a decidedly non-D&Dish setting consider instead of jamming the square peg that is D&D into a round hole trying to find a system that actually supports what you’re trying to do
And this is not to say that you shouldn’t play D&D: D&D is hella fun. But there’s a lot of genres and styles that D&D does a piss-poor job of doing, and because of that it’s so good we’ve got other games
*cracks knuckles*
All right then. I’ve been meaning to dust off my own D&D sideblog for a while, so here we go with providing some examples. I’m limiting this specifically to other types of fantasy outside of the standard high fantasy and sword & sorcery millieu.
Courtly Romance and Chivalry
There are a number of options for this, and they range from standard secondary world fantasy to more historical and mythological settings. My list here shouldn’t be treated as fully extensive.
Blue Rose – based on the romantic fantasy subgenre, specifically as seen in the works of Tamora Pierce and Mercedes Lackey. A lot of courtly drama and intrigue and swashbuckling, based in a fictional world.
Pendragon – naturally based off of Arthurian mythology, and having a lot of stuff given over to the court of Camelot and the chivalric adventures of the various knights. The same company also has a kickstarter for a spin-off called Paladin: Warriors of Charlemagne that might be worth checking out.
Historical Fantasy
This one’s a bit more prominent as historical settings serve as an inspiration for a variety of fantasy worlds and games, and this of course invariably extends to settings that actually use historical settings with a degree of fantasy elements thrown in. Note that I’m going to emphasise Europe here simply due to greater familiarity with games in that millieu, and as a European myself I’m ill-equipped to judge how accurate or respectful games using other settings actually are.
Because of this, feel free to add other examples in reblogs
Chivalry & Sorcery – one of the early tabletop games inspired by D&D, taking a more pseudo-historical approach.
It’s based on 12th century France and strives for a degree of historical accuracy and medieval politics.
World of Darkness, Dark Ages (including Vampire and Mage) – while the World of Darkness has earned some negative attention lately (and for good reason), the dark ages RPGs are still an old favourite of mine. Also worth checking out is Mage: The Sorcerer’s Crusade, set during the Renaissance. The Mage stuff has a really cool open-ended magic system worth checking out.
Ars Magica – this exists along very similar lines to the dark age material above, based around mages and magic-users in a ‘Mythic Europe’ setting. It also has a really cool open-ended magic system, and one of my personal favourites.
Awwww shit heck yes I might want to add to this list but this is a really good starting point
1. QUEST – the plot involves the Protagonist’s search for a
person, place or thing, tangible or intangible (but must be
quantifiable, so think of this as a noun; i.e., immortality).
2. ADVENTURE – this plot involves the Protagonist going in search
of their fortune, and since fortune is never found at home, the
Protagonist goes to search for it somewhere over the rainbow.
3. PURSUIT – this plot literally involves hide-and-seek, one person chasing another.
4. RESCUE – this plot involves the Protagonist searching for
someone or something, usually consisting of three main characters – the
Protagonist, the Victim & the Antagonist.
5. ESCAPE – plot involves a Protagonist confined against their
will who wants to escape (does not include some one trying to escape
their personal demons).
6. REVENGE – retaliation by Protagonist or Antagonist against the other for real or imagined injury.
7. THE RIDDLE – plot involves the Protagonist’s search for clues
to find the hidden meaning of something in question that is deliberately
enigmatic or ambiguous.
8. RIVALRY – plot involves Protagonist competing for same object or goal as another person (their rival).
9. UNDERDOG – plot involves a Protagonist competing for an object
or goal that is at a great disadvantage and is faced with overwhelming
odds.
10. TEMPTATION – plot involves a Protagonist that for one reason
or another is induced or persuaded to do something that is unwise, wrong
or immoral.
11. METAMORPHOSIS – this plot involves the physical
characteristics of the Protagonist actually changing from one form to
another (reflecting their inner psychological identity).
12. TRANSFORMATION – plot involves the process of change in the
Protagonist as they journey through a stage of life that moves them from
one significant character state to another.
13. MATURATION – plot involves the Protagonist facing a problem
that is part of growing up, and from dealing with it, emerging into a
state of adulthood (going from innocence to experience).
14. LOVE – plot involves the Protagonist overcoming the obstacles to love that keeps them from consummating (engaging in) true love.
15. FORBIDDEN LOVE – plot involves Protagonist(s) overcoming
obstacles created by social mores and taboos to consummate their
relationship (and sometimes finding it at too high a price to live
with).
16. SACRIFICE – plot involves the Protagonist taking action(s)
that is motivated by a higher purpose (concept) such as love, honor,
charity or for the sake of humanity.
17. DISCOVERY – plot that is the most character-centered of all,
involves the Protagonist having to overcome an upheavel(s) in their
life, and thereby discovering something important (and buried) within
them a better understanding of life (i.e., better appreciation of their
life, a clearer purpose in their life, etc.)
18. WRETCHED EXCESS – plot involves a Protagonist who, either by
choice or by accident, pushes the limits of acceptable behavior to the
extreme and is forced to deal with the consequences (generally deals
with the psychological decline of the character).
19. ASCENSION – rags-to-riches plot deals with the rise (success)
of Protagonist due to a dominating character trait that helps them to
succeed.
20. DECISION – riches-to-rags plot deals with the fall
(destruction) of Protagonist due to dominating character trait that
eventually destroys their success.
If you consume this potion as an action, you immediately fall unconscious for 1 minute. After that time you gain the benefits of a short rest.
One dose of this is a little pint of 1 ounce. The potion is deep black and smells like coffee and lavender.
Cost: Somewhere between 1 and 25 gold
I forgot to mention, this is not supposed to be a healthy thing to do. You literally drink a cocktail that knocks you out! Come up with some nasty side effects
When you drink the potion roll on the following table:
1- Expired Potion: You lose the potion and do not gain the benefit this time. Roll once more for an additional negative effect (rerolling 1’s)
2- Circadian Chaos: You may not take a long rest for 2d6 hours.
3- Nauseated: You are poisoned until either the poison condition is removed by a spell such as ‘Lesser Restoration’ or after d4 hours. Constitution saving throws to resist throwing up are disadvantage.
4- Wired: Your Perception rolls are advantage and ranged attack rolls and slight of hand checks are disadvantaged for 1 hour.
5- Cranky: Charisma checks are disadvantage for d4 hours.
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