Cleric: Domain Of Black Powder

Writing Realistic Characters - part 2

- Journal from their perspective. It can be hard to write compelling, realistic motivation for characters if you don’t understand them yourself. By journalling from their perspective, even if the content of the journal isn’t included in your story, you’ll essentially be thinking as the character. This should help you understand who they are and how they make choices and react to things, like a real person would.

- Answer “character questions”, but be careful when using lists found online. The internet is full of lists of questions for writers to answer when building characters, but not all of them are actually that important or useful. The fact is, it really doesn’t matter what a character’s favourite colour, animal or day of the week is (unless it’s relevant to your story… but it usually isn’t). When looking for question lists online, or making your own, focus on questions that have to do with your character’s personality, such as how they’d react to a situation or which values matter more to them.

- Make character charts! I can’t stress this enough — character charts are incredibly useful tools for writers and I don’t know what I’d do without them. They’re a great way to keep track of important information about your characters in an organized way that’s easy to access when you need to quickly check a detail. I’d also strongly recommend making your own charts, not using templates online (I find it a lot easier to stay organized when I’m using my own organizational system). If you need a place to start, though, I normally create charts with 4 categories: role (protagonist, antagonist, etc.), name, identities (gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.), and description (just a brief few sentences about them). You can also make personality charts with things like their greatest flaw, greatest strength, story goals, etc.

- Come up with a few detailed memories/anecdotes from their past. Think of them as mini-stories you can drop into your main story to build a more realistic life around the character. These don’t have to be crucial to the plot, and should be brought up in a natural way, such as in conversation with another character or in the main character’s thoughts. For example, your MC’s best friend might compliment her necklace, and she tells them how her sister gave it to her as a birthday present before moving away. You can also use these anecdotes to drop in important information in a non-obvious way. Continuing the example above, the MC could mention that her sister has the same design necklace, but in green. Later, this becomes a clue, when she finds the green necklace outside the villain’s lair.

- Keep a record of their backstory. This one doesn’t really need much explaining… Just keep notes of your character’s backstory as you come up with it so you don’t risk inconsistencies, which tend to break down realism. 

- Remember that the reader can’t see what’s in your head. Your characters may be fully developed, realistic people in your head, but that makes it easy to forget that your readers don’t automatically understand them the way you do — they only know what’s on the page. Asking other people to read your work can help you understand how your characters come through to an audience, but if you don’t want to do that, just re-reading it yourself is also helpful. If you do the latter, though, go through an entire chapter at a time, the way a reader would, not small sections.

Pathfinder 2e New Player Resource Masterpost

Hey there! Looking to get into PF2e? You’re making a great decision, but you may not know where to start! I’ve put together a handy list of resources you can consult while getting into the game. As always, if you ever have questions about PF2e, please don’t hesitate to reach out! I love this system, and I love helping new players!

Official Resources

The Archives of Nethys are the official host for the PFSRD. You can find ALL of the rules of the game for free there. Literally everything that is not Golarian specific is on the Archives, and all of it is laid out incredibly well. It may not look quite as flashy as beyond, but its search functions and layout are superior. 

If you buy one product from Paizo as you get started, I HAVE to recommend to BEGINNER BOX. This thing is fantastic. It simplifies the rules, gives you GORGEOUS character sheets that highlight all of your abilities, and have a fun little adventure that dovetails nicely into either their Troubles in Otari or Abomination Vaults modules. (As someone who has run both of those now, they’re both fantastic as well and I highly recommend them.) 

Beyond the Beginner Box, I would also suggest picking up a Core Rulebook. It is true that all of the rules information is already laid out in the Archives, but having a CRB on handd is nice for the art, plus the book is laid out incredibly well. If you can’t afford a CRB at this time, though, you’ll still be good! You might also watch for Humble Bundles, as they often have great Pathfinder packs on there, and sometimes it includes Physical CRBs, in addition to a load of other great PDFs. 

When looking to GM, I recommend the following pages in the CRB first. I’ve also linked the corresponding Archive pages: 

Introduction, Pages 7-31. This will give you the rundown on key terms, how characters are created, the base flow of the game, and the action system (the best part of pf2e!)

Playing the Game, Pages 443-481. This is the longest section of the rulebook to read, but there’s a lot of great stuff in here. This will give you the rules for checks, combat, conditions, resolving actions, and the differences between encounter, exploration, and downtime mode. The most important is encounter and exploration mode, so you can feel free to only skim the downtime mode section of this part. 

The Gamemastering section has a lot of great stuff, but for a GM, your two most important sections will be the following:

Encounter Building, pages 488 and 489. The rules for building encounters work in this system, and they work WELL. Obviously, environment, terrain, and how a specific groups strengths and weaknesses compare to a monster affect things, but if you budget a moderate encounter, it can be expected to be moderate. Just be sure you recognize that Moderate encounters are still meant to be challenging in this system, and Severe encounters are potentially deadly. Extreme encounters should be used incredibly sparingly. Maybe 1 or 2 times per campaign.

DC Charts and Adjusting DCs. Pages 503 and 504.  If you ever need a quick DC, these charts are your friend. You don’t need to memorize them, but you’ll want to have them in an easy-to-reference spot.

Youtubers

There are a lot of great youtubers for PF2e. I’ll only be highlighting a few of my favorites here!

How It’s Played  is probably the best resource for a new player, and helped me a ton with all of the rules when I started GMing. They do close looks at different subsystems, and clearly break down how the rules apply. You don’t need to watch all of their content before you jump in and play, but if you watch a few of their main series on PF2e between each session, you’ll be a rules master in no time! 

I also really enjoy The Rules Lawyer. He always has well-reasoned takes on things going on in the hobby, and and has an enjoyable calm/measured tone. I highly recommend his “Combat Tactics” videos, as he highlights some of the major differences with 5e and what things are now expected to survive. A lot of common 5e tactics are a way to a quick death in PF2e, but you do have the tools to survive!

The final Youtuber I’ll be highlighting is Nonat1s. He’s puts out quite a variety of videos, including skits and other fun things, but is also a wonderful ambassador for the game and gives great character advice as well. I want to highlight his “Welcome to Pathfinder Second Edition” video, which is just perfect!

Other Resources

I can’t create a list of resources without calling out Pathbuilder! It is hands down the best character builder, and its available on desktop and mobile. It’s mostly free, with a small donation being required to unlock premium features. At this time, there is no crossover between the web app and desktop besides being able to save and access characters from google drive.

The Pathfinder 2e Subreddit  is a wonderful community of people, and it’s a great place for discussion. There’s weekly question megathreads, discussions about releases, people highlighting great builds and fun things in the system, and it’s probably the quickest place to keep track of announcements. There’s also a lot of love for 3pp there!

Speaking of 3pps, I LOVE the Battlezoo line! One of my players is OBSESSED with dragons, and they have a whole book that was tailor-made for him, and it’s incredibly balanced and fun. They’ve also got a whole bunch of other cool stuff that’s been kickstarted and will be releasing soon. 

What VTT should you use if you’re playing online? My hat is thrown into the ring for Foundry VTT. It’s my VTT of choice. It’s wildly powerful with the Pathfinder 2e system, and a wonderful community of devs have gotten the system almost entirely automated so you can focus on RP! It’s a breeze as a GM as well, and the only difficulty is in self-hosting, but even that isn’t too bad. Their site has a great set of guides, starting HERE with the ways you can host. If you choose to self-host, you only need to make a 1-time payment of 50 dollars for the software, and only one person needs to actually do the hosting. Split between a group? That’s incredibly affordable, especially considering there is no subscription!

I’m gonna shout MYSELF out here. I put together a List of Actions you can take in combat that isn’t just moving or attacking. Coming from 5e, it can be easy to get stuck in the loop of move and attack, but there are so many more options, and those options are very crucial. This isn’t comprehensive, but covers the basics characters can have access to with only minor skill investment.

Dare: The Glittering Reef: 

“While the dragon may long be dead, there’s more than one predator in these waters. You best be quick if you wish to claim your prize.“

Setup: Generations ago the crystal clear waters of the Ildathan coast ran red with blood, as a terrible archdrake terrorized the trade routes and savaged any merchant ship it caught eyes on. Known to locals as Hullraker, this beast would use its powerful claws to crack open the body of ships to gorge itself on sailors and treasure alike. 

While its a myth that dragons eat gold, they do sometimes devour valuable objects to spit up into their hordes later. This habbit would eventually lead to the drake’s defeat, as a group of clever pirates tired of the drake’s meddling caste a series of golden cannonballs, then hollowed them out and filled them with black powder, and an alchemical compound that would ignite after being exposed to the drake’s insides for some length of time.  Loading up a dummy ship with their deadly decoys and piles of coin as bait, they watched in glee as the drake’s belly exploded mid air, showering the sea with golden shrapnel and sending Hullraker plunging into the reef below. 

The Challenge: Since the time of its death, treasure hunters have paddled out to the glimmering reef in the hopes of  reclaiming a portion of the dragons last, fatal meal. Having stripped most of the upper reef clear of coins. Now after years of plundering only the strongest of divers can make it down to the dark, shark infested shelf of the reef where the dragon’s bones and the bulk of its treasure remains. Tradition is that each diver only takes a single coin, and while one gold piece isn’t much to an adventure, a “drowned queen” (one of the particular printing of coins the pirates used for the bulk of their bait) is a mighty prize among sailors and other folk of the sea, said to confer the luck and cunning of the pirates that took Hullraker down. 

Hiya!

Im prepping a ball for my players to go to (its hosted by the mob, half of the PCs are the children of the leaders), and I'm wondering if you had any suggestions on stuff that could happen there! I have a couple of events and bits of gossip and stuff, but I'm running out of ideas (most of the ones i have are expanded on thanks to forums and friends). Thanks!

Drafting the Adventure: Throwing a Party

There comes a time in every adventuring party’s career where they must attend some kind of celebration, whether it be in their own honor or as part of a larger adventure. Ranging from peasant festivals to the indulgent fetes of the upper class, celebrations are to regular social encounters what dungeons are to a random skirmish. Just like dungeons, celebrations are at their best when the group is attempting to explore and navigate a larger structure, looking to discover a way to their goal while fighting a time pressure while fighting against the clock, all the while attempting to dodge various hazards that will slow them down or eject them from the premises. While not every bash the party attends has to be run like this, having an idea how to run a celebration-as-encounter gives you access to a framework that can support important dramatic beats for your campaign, or launch unexpected new ones. 

The Timeline

Think of your celebration as being divided up into acts or phases, depending on the general temperament/activity of the guests and the major events you’d like to see take place. When building your acts it’s important to have a goal in mind, something the celebration is building towards regardless of whether the guests or the heroes know about it. This goal often intersects or contrasts in some way with the party’s own objective, forcing them to jam themselves into the sharped toothed gears of polite society in order to get what they want. Here’s a brief example below, where the group’s goal is to ingratiate themselves with the influential duchess. 

1 The guests arrive: general meet and greet, folk are a bit tentative

Party meets their intermediary and gets introduced to a few people before getting to split off. Their quarry is nowhere in sight

2 Full Swing: guests loosened up by good drinks and good company

the Influential Duchess finishes up with social niceties and begins talking with friends, the party might have an in, but they need to figure out who the duchess will open her conversational circle for. 

The Long Awaited Viscount arrives fashionably late making a spectacular entrance, all but announcing his attempt to woo the Duchess’s daughter

3 First Dance:  The party, their new acquaintances, and the duchess are all swept up into the dance, with only the most stubborn of wallflowers being spared from participation. 

Atleast one of the party members has a chance to talk to the Duchess, but she is distracted worrying about the Viscount's intentions for her daughter. 

Briefly introduce the party to the Viscount and the Daughter, let the party know they’re on some kind of collision course. 

4 Refreshments: guests are in very good spirits but the Duchess is on war footing, walling her and her daughter off behind a circle of close acquaintances and trusted social allies. Any forays the party makes is likely to be seen as a ploy of the Viscount's to gain access to her daughter.

Cut out of the loop, the party must contend with all those who don’t pass the Duchess’s muster, but if they made friends with the shy handmaiden earlier, they have an in.  

5 Second Dance: The duchess’s wall temporarily breaks for social propriety, letting the party begin to close in once again. 

During this dance, the Viscount covertly releases a monster he had polymorphed and secreted onto his person. In the rampage, he and the daughter run off. 

The party is forced to decide between battling the monster with improvised weapons, or pursue the Viscount, trusting that the guards will take care of it. 

6 Here’s where the story turns: Do they duel the viscount and the daughter preventing them from leaving, or let them slip away? Do they battle the unleashed monster, proving their bravery before the assembled guests, or are their casualties among the attendants? 

This example celebration obviously has an unexpected and violent twist at the end, but it’s possible to run one completely straight and have just as meaningful story affecting consequences. 

Below the cut, I’m going to give a few different archetypes of the sort of encounters one can have during a celebration, and how to run them in a way that will save you time both during your planning and at the table. 

The Opportunities

Less than an encounter, an opportunity represents a narrative thread available to the party during a particular phase of the celebration’s timeline. Ideally there should be more opportunities than the party can capitalize on at once, through some may be hidden unless the party is adventurous or perceptive. Don’t feel a need to be too rigid on how an opportunity “triggers”, as you want to give the heroes an excuse to enjoy all the delightful content you’ve made for them.  Lastly, some phases are going to have less opportunities, so once these are exhausted, feel free to move ahead. 

Here’s some examples to consider: 

Fleeting: Directly related to events that are going to occur in later pheses of the celebration, these opportunities represent a way for the heroes to get ahead of the challenges to come. Think of them as keys to doors that the party have not yet encountered, with the challenge of a celebration-as-encounter being figuring out which opportunities are going to pay off in future phases. 

Reoccurring: These stick around for most of the celebration, filling out your list of available opportunities. If a party member doesn't’ know what to do in a particular phase, have one of your Reoccurring opportunities seek them out. Gossips are likely to want new people to chat to, and someone seeking aid will likely grow more bold as the situation gets worse.  

Stray threads: Unrelated to the celebration itself, a stray thread is a bit of worldbuilding, rumor, or quest hook that draws the player’s attention away from the mission at hand. These can be great ways to foreshadow upcoming events, or present options for the party for after their current adventure resolves. 

Wallflowers: If one of your players feels like they’re not the party type, don’t worry, there’s likely some NPCs that don’t want to be there either. Staying as far away from the social battlefield as decorum will allow them, they’re likely to have wound ways to amuse themselves and be glad of some company. Wallflowers might need to be generated on the fly, but try to match them to the introverted character’s interest. A groundskeeper shares a flask with the uncivil barbarian, the awkward wizard stumbles across a great aunt playing chess against herself on two different boards. The troublemaker stumbles into a couple of bastard cousins playing cards in the smoking room. 

Art

Variant Classes Pt. 1

With the continued expansion of 5e through new subclasses and races, the ability to create new unique characters continues to grow. Though, in my mind, one of the faults to this is that, every time you make a new subclass or such, it's just 1 more character archetype, which can sometimes feel a little lacking in terms of new possibilities.

Now of course, there's the option to just make a lot of content, which was the style of older editions, but that eventually lead to the issue of content bloat, with there just being too much content for a single person to reasonably deal with.

Though recently in my own homebrewing, I've found what I feel is a pretty good solution for such a thing: Multiplicative, rather than additive content.

This was the idea behind my Prestige Classes document, with each single prestige class being designed to be applicable to a wide number of classes at any time, meaning that with each PrC, each would add a new potential character option for each class it could interact with (or even 1 for each subclass).

So, long rambling on thought processes, Variant Classes. The idea for this is to, by adding one new class, add new character options equal to the number of subclasses a class already had, essentially being a x2.

Variant Classes are new classes that modify an existing class to varying degrees, replacing some or many of their features with new ones, creating a whole new character option. It's sorta like a Tasha optional feature, but the optional feature messes with your entire class.

So above, there are the two Variant Classes of this post: The Archivist and the Eldritch Sage

The Archivist takes inspiration from a 3rd edition class of the same game. They are scholarly mages, though they focus on divine magic rather than arcane. As such, mechanically they are very similar to the wizard (Even having a spellbook equivalent in their 'Prayerbook'), but differing from them is their spell list: rather than the wizard list, they use the Cleric list.

In comparison to the Cleric, the way they interact with spells is a bit different. The Cleric has access to their entire spell list for free, alongside their domain spells. The Archivist however, needs to learn spells, only gaining 3 per level and needing to pay for more. To make up for this is their Domain Studies, in which they initially learn a set of Cleric domain spells of their choice. At later levels however, they can learn additional diving domains, and choose which set of domain spells to prepare from each day. Yet later they even gain the ability to prepare two domains at once.

As such, while a Cleric will often have to focus on a single theme when it comes to their spells, an Archivist is more a multi-tool, able to have a wide number of domains and prepare whichever they might need for a given day.

The Eldritch Sage is a researcher into the otherworldly. They like Wizards use their intellect to fuel their magic, but rather than from direct study of the arcane, their application of magic comes from the study of the extraplanar.

Mechanically, the eldritch Sage is a warlock, with their patron instead representing ehat type of otherworldly entity they focus their research upon. Unlike the regular warlock, they use Int instead of Cha. Most differently is that they use regular Spellcasting rather than the warlocks Pact Magic, making them more of a traditional long rest based caster.

The Eldritch Sage also interacts with Invocations differently. Rather than having a number of invocations at will they instead learn a number of invocations, and can prepare a few of them at the end of a long rest. This means that they will often have more total invocations, but less active invocations.

Woops yeah, lots of text today.

Ah, you may have noticed the Pt.1 at the top of the post! That's because I actually made 4 variant classes, it's just that the other 2 will be posted seperately (very much my own choice, totally not because tumblr didn't like me dropping 20 pages into here). So yeah, I guess look forward to seeing in maybe a few days time the Mentalist and the Mountebank.

Honestly imo they're more my favourite out of the bunch, being the more radical in their changes to their classes. (Or maybe it's bias, since I am in the process of playtesting both of them in campaigns I'm in x) )

Edit: oh hell I forgot to put in the art credits, since they were all part of the images originally, but they'd be on the last page of the second set. My bad

Art credits:

Archivist.

- Clever Distraction from Innistrad: Crimson Vow by Andrew Mar

- Conspiracy Theorist from Strixhaven by Svetlin Velinov

Eldritch Sage.

- Contact Other Plane from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms by Alix Branwyn

- Magus of the Moon MtG from Time Spiral Remastered by Milivoj Ceran

Edit: Part 2 is up, and can be found here

I wish more people used Magic the Gathering's Color Pie instead of D&D's alignment all of the time.

Like, saying a character embodies the selfishness and impulsivenes of Red Black offers more depth than Chaotic Evil

What are some ttrpg's on your game wish list? Ones that you'd want to play or plan to play (or maybe don't have time to). also as a side note your love for ttrpg's fills me with a lot of joy and reminds me why they're so special! : )

Inevitable: COWBOY KNIGHTS TRAGEDY this is number one i wanna play this so bad with a crew who will watch a few anti-westerns and arthurian films beforehand and fully commit to the tragedy aspect (big bold decisions if you know it ends in tragedy!) oh my god this specific flavor of game appeals to me a little too specifically

some kind of horror game. VTM, Curse of Strahd, Shadow of the Demon Lord, Call of Cthulhu, whatever lends itself to horror well. the horror genre is one of my favorites and i would so be down to play some good horror!!

MASKS as a PC!

and always more dnd.

uhhh I'm sure there would be other things but I don't know many ttrpgs off the top of my head. quite like ttrpgs. would very much like to play more. especially with a group of artists who will post dodoles and songs that remind them of characters and talk about them throughout the week and do psychological deep dives and theorize about the story and themes and and and

It's all just

head turn

dialogue

leans forward

dialogue

eyes narrow

dialogue

✒ Solo RPGs

About a month ago I went down a rabbit hole and came out the other side absolutely obsessed.

A singular post on r/fountainpens notified me to the existence of Solo Journaling RPGs- literally, tabletop experiences that you play by yourself. Some of these games have physical components, but many are played entirely with a pen and a piece of paper.

Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled at the concept of being able to scratch that TTRPG itch without the social drain, impossible scheduling, AND with the bonus of using up my enormous stores of fountain pen inks. Since the middle of November I have tried three separate Solo RPGs, with one being a longer experience with a physical book with rules and tables...with the other two finished experiences being short, one-to-two page PDF's that can be played out in several hours.

✒ Experiences so far...

During my first attempt I tackled a larger-than-anticipated RPG called Apothecaria. In this game, you are sent a letter by a witch who wishes for you to take her place making potions in the town of High Rannock. You gather reagents, explore, make potions, and develop your reputation and relationships with characters in town. Very Stardew Valley inspired, but with a fun, witchy twist. There is also a cute animal version called Apawthecaria, as well as a few expansions for the main game, which I have yet to look at.

I was excited to start but otherwise clueless about the typical pacing and play of journaling RPGs, and soon found that I was writing way too much information!! My hand got tired, and I put it aside for the time being. I will have to revisit it soon, as it is DISGUSTINGLY cute and fun, but for now I have focused my sights on smaller experiences.

During my second, I played a cute little experience called Last Tea Shop. The game has since released a "full" version with more mechanics, but I found the classic version to be exactly what I was looking for on a lazy saturday night. It took me about 4.5 hours to complete thanks to several distractions, but the playtime was probably closer to 3.

I found this to be a strangely emotional little experience, which probably should have been expected since you are playing as a shopkeep at the edge between life and death. I will admit to shedding a few tears by the end of my journey- but they were happy ones. I will be returning for the full version sometime after I have let the experience settle.

My most recent experience-- as of maybe 30 minutes ago, to be precise-- is a lesser-known RPG called Axe Wielding Priest. This was a wonderful switch up from the cozy games I have tried so far, and as a person who adores a good (but understandably controversial) "sanity" mechanic in a game, it scratched my itch for madness.

There are some warnings in the description for blood, self-harm (flagellation), violence, and paranoia, but I thoroughly enjoyed the 2 hours I spent exploring the mind and history of my character.

✒ Conclusion

I am absolutely obsessed. I'm always itching to come up with stories, but have burned many a role-playing partner by being flaky or losing interest. These offer a few overarching mechanics and rules and otherwise let your mind run free. That sense of loose structure is exactly what I need as someone who struggles with ADHD, but also enjoys coming up with solutions within a set boundary.

There are "old-school" solo RPGs out there, as well as others that aren't just acting as a tool for creative writing. I will be trying some of those out as well as the time comes, as well as the games that use physical maps and movement around a grid.