Ttrpg Players, Reblog With An Out Of Context Quote From Your Current Campaign

ttrpg players, reblog with an out of context quote from your current campaign

sixty-nine more questions for your ttrpg characters!

(i originally made one of these on a defunct sideblog; i thought it was about time i made a new one! send an oc’s name and a number, go wild!)

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1. what drives them? what’s their ultimate goal?

2. what was your original concept for this character? how did playing them change that concept?

3. can they accept failure?

4. what one person, place, or thing do they love more than anything else?

5. is there something they want to be known for?

6. how have they changed in the last year? how about the last five years?

7. there’s a magic item (or technological innovation, or special resource) made just for them—what is it?

8. what songs remind you of them? if there are specific lyrics or movements, list ‘em!

9. when in their life were they most scared?

10. what inspired this character’s creation?

11. if they have a pet or animal companion, how do they spend time with them? if they don’t have one, what sort of animal would they be interested in raising, if any?

12. how have they altered their body? piercings, tattoos, biohacks, or other modifications—anything. why (or why not) did they (or someone else) make those changes?

13. what are some motifs you associate with them? did you intentionally bring in those motifs, or did it happen over time?

14. what keeps them up at night?

15. is there something that never fails to make them laugh?

16. do they value their appearance?

17. they’re crying—what did it take to make them cry?

18. what dish brings back the best memories for them?

19. what sparks genuine, unadulterated rage in them?

20. what attracts them to someone—platonically and/or romantically, anything counts.

21. do they have an idea about how they’ll die? do you?

22. how would they decorate their living space, if they had a chance?

23. in what moment did they consider themselves to be “grown up”?

24. are they close to any family members?

25. who is their best friend?

26. what type of person pisses them off?

27. how do they usually dress? why do they dress the way they do?

28. do they collect anything?

29. what feelings do they internalize?

30. how do they handle confrontation?

31. do they respond well to praise? how about criticism?

32. which of your decisions led to their voice being the way it is?

33. what artistic medium are they most drawn to?

34. what languages do they speak? how did they learn them?

35. when did they feel loneliest?

36. how do they fidget?

37. if they’ve had one, what was their first kiss like?

38. do they see themselves as an important part of their party?

39. are they insecure about their appearance? how about their personality? what aspects specifically worry them?

40. if you had to remake this character right now, how would you change them?’

41. how do you keep notes for this character, if at all?

42. can they dance?

43. how much do they know about the world they live in?

44. what lies do they tell others?

45. what lies do they tell themselves?

46. have they taught themselves any skills just for fun?

47. what could they talk about for hours on end?

48. do they relate to anyone in their group? conversely, which person do they relate to the least?

49. how often do they cut their hair, if at all?

50. do they have a go-to beverage, alcoholic or nonalcoholic?

51. what element of their backstory are you proudest of?

52. how would they dress themselves up for a formal event?

53. do they keep their plans close to their chest?

54. how important is money in their life? do they save up for ages, or spend quickly?

55. they’re seeing their greatest wish come true—what’s happening?

56. who would they trust with their life, unequivocally?

57. do they see value in the laws of where they live?

58. how often do they swear? do they mind when others swear?

59. what’s an element of their philosophy that you disagree with?

60. what do they have faith in? what keeps them believing?

61. is there an in-game moment of theirs you think about and just laugh?

62. do they believe in good and evil?

63. what’s a meme or tiktok or vine (or whatever) that you associate with them?

64. how would a party member describe them?

65. what would their go-to karaoke song be?

66. which fruit do they like most?

67. do they consider themselves to be special?

68. where’s their home?

69. what’s one secret they don’t want getting out?

how to build a world so you all have fun

The cardinal rule for building an entire game world from scratch is very, very simple:

Don’t waste your time.

Now, what that advice means in practice varies dramatically between gaming groups and even between PCs. To help address some of that, I’ve broken my advice into two categories: Friends Playing Together and Meeting Strangers. 

Friends Playing Together

The most important thing about this type of worldbuilding is that as the DM, it is not only within your power, but it is your responsibility to take into account the characters your players are inventing. But that’s not the first step, so we’re breaking it down.

Keep reading

A lot of people talk about Actual Play podcasts giving unrealistic expectations for TTRPGs (Surprise! Trained Actors improv differently from your average player, and even for indie APs, playing for an audience is completely different from playing among friends)

But I absolutely think that watching other people play CAN inspire new ways to play, in a way you can’t really get elsewhere.

It wasn’t until I listened to Friends at the Table and listened to how Austin Walker narrates the games they play that I considered the potential of treating a TTRPG less like the kind of collaborative improv we normally treat it as, and more like storyboarding.

The major difference being: Austin regularly talks about ‘the camera’. It is practically its own character with how much attention it gets.

“So I’m imagining this like one of those shots where everything kinda freezes in place, and the character is still moving to show the out of body experience they are having right now, and when the scene cuts back, these are the parts that are different.”

“Oh yeah, you open the box, and it’s like that scene in Pulp Fiction. Where we just see this golden glow from what’s coming inside. Your characters know what’s in there now, but I have no idea, we haven’t gotten to that point yet. We will come back to it.”

“Okay you see this symbol, and your character wasn’t there for it so they don’t know what it was, but we the audience can immediately connect it back to this one cult we were dealing with.”

At one point just blatantly goes “Oh man, actually should we change it to this, for a better thematic parallel to what happened in that other session? That might be a really good resolution for your character.”

It’s such an INCREDIBLE example of what you can do by treating the fiction so casually, and like the work in progress it actually is. Genuinely one of the best GM practices I have ever seen, and something that very quickly became a tool I make heavy use of in my campaigns.

The story isn’t a finished product, and it turns out treating it like a draft instead of a finished product makes the game able to do SO MUCH more cool shit.

What is up gamerz, We are NoDDsoc, (Not Only Dungeons and Dragons), the University of Sheffield’s TTRPG society. We run both campaigns and one-shots, both online and person, and also run a social discord sever and other social events, all of which are available to both students and not students, including those outside of Sheffield. Link to our social server: (which includes links to most of our other sites) https://noddsoc.co.uk/SocialDiscord

One thing I’ve learned about writing is ”give everything a face”. It’s no good to write passively that the nobility fled the city or that the toxic marshes were poisoning the animals beyond any ability to function. Make a protagonist see how a desperate woman in torn silks climbs onto a carriage and speeds off, or a two-headed deer wanders right into the camp and into the fire. Don’t just have an ambiguous flock of all-controlling oligarchy, name one or two representatives of it, and illustrate just how vile and greedy they are as people.

it’s bad to have characters who serve no purpose in the story, but giving something a face is a perfectly valid purpose.