Yeah, I'm not big on fudging rolls, but that's one thing I will do. In my last campaign, I had statted up the first real villain for my players to fight, and they knocked him out in one punch. I would have made him one level higher, but then his own attacks would have been strong enough to one-shot some of the players. Level 1 woes.
Yeah, I learned that too. I had come up with a villain later on who had a very defense/counterattack focused stationary fighting style combined with sundering armor, and I thought I could make him a big threat, but then he ended up completely flopping because there just wasn't support for building that style and making it strong. Now I'm playing looser, and stealing lair actions from D&D (minus the lair part most of the time) to make my loner villains work.
Debugging spells is just as much a dark art as spell crafting itself. When I was a young apprentice we didn't have as sophisticated tools as you do now; you had to make sure you noted down your intermediate runes correctly and use those symbols to divine some meaning from the ashes of your failed spell. One time I mixed up my notes with the symbols of a different spell and when I sprinkled the ashes on the stack I was stuck speaking in tounges for a week.
These days of course you can summon a lesser demon to freeze your spell and ask it about the state, but the demons can be tricky and it's easy for novices to make a mistake and allow the demon to run amok - makes a real mess of the lab.
Debugging spells isn't like the fancy debuggers in your modern IDE. You gotta compile the spell with debugging symbols and run it through the spell equivalent of gdb direct in the command line.
But most wizards just go with the ol' "add print statements everywhere" method of debugging.
"Glorfinx's Globular Glassblower" still shouts "HERE!" at max volume when it walks past a wet dog because he never removed the printf rune after he fixed a bug relating to dripping fur.
Oh but the fireworks of Ericas "broader detect magic" became so popular that she actually added back all the spark colors for all the moral edge cases!
We now have novice wizards playing around with exactly how angry they need to be and how gaudy their robes need to be to get the different signals triggered...
G'day, you mob of surfacers! Crikey, you lot look like you've been chucked in the deep end down here in the Underdark. What're ya doin' in our neck of the woods? You lot lost or just got kangaroos loose in the top paddock?
Fair dinkum, you better not be here to cause any strife. Us Drow don't take kindly to strangers pokin' 'round our turf. Ya reckon you can handle yourselves in a blue, or are ya just a bunch of drongos lookin' for trouble?
Anyway, if you're keen on stickin' around, you better pull ya heads in and show some respect, or you'll cark it quicker than a stubby on a hot day. Welcome to the Underdark, mates. Watch yer step, and keep yer eyes peeled. We ain't got time for any flamin' galahs muckin' about!
Bender had his gender bent twice! Once when he had a sex change operation and became Coilette to participate in the robot Olympics, and later when the Borax Kid and the Rock Alien changed the gender of everyone on the Planet Express.
Both episodes are imperfect through today's lens but I actually did enjoy the Coilette episode.
"You're making us look bad in front of the other genders!" And "Do you promise to get out of my gender and stay out?"
I mean, that might be true if you don't have any customer service skills. I did my time in food service, retail, and hospitality and I was good at my job because I broke pretty much every one of those rules.
I can see these rules being applied if you worked at a fast food min wage or a supermarket as a stocker in a bad store. I'm referring to places where Karens abuse fresh wide-eyed teenagers hoping to change the world. In my city right now, there's a bunch of places like that, like a Wendy's in the hood or a Supermarket that has to lock up mouthwash. Its depressing.
I'd think it would depend on the frequency of interactions. Leg and foot protection would add weight, so unless the dwarves were expected they might not want to bear the extra burden.
On that note, Lord of the Rings extended editions have been showing in theaters the last couple weekends. I kept thinking how prior to battles the fighters were all geared up and marched for days (or longer) and showed up throwing themselves straight into battle. Here I am not functioning as my soft ass finishes my coffee in bed, trying to negotiate when I need to actually start getting ready for work.
When I was in the Army we always trained in full combat gear. That gets you used to wearing it so the extra weight isn't noticeable, and it gets you so familiar with it that it becomes an extension of yourself. I imagine knights of Middle Earth used a similar philosophy. Plus, they were expecting worg attacks on the road and needed to be prepared. They did in-fact face worg attacks, so it's a good thing they were prepared.
Those 3 consist of an immortal elf, a dwarf who are known for their endurance yet complained the whole trip anyways, and an 85 year old Dúnedain, a race of men descended from the Númenóreans, who are known for their longevity and noble lineage. So they're not exactly common foot soldiers.
There's a whole scene where they mutiny against their leader because they're starving and dog tired. They want to eat the hobbits, and the only thing that stopped them was one of them getting beheaded for mutiny, and then getting decimated by a squadron of Rohan horsemen. I love that they took the time to include that, since it makes it more believable. The Uruk-hai were pushed to their absolute limits and then beyond, and they snapped, just like men would.
I was a drama kid and as such am usually the loud, boisterous one when playing DnD (as DM or player). I've come to terms that most of my friends are going to appreciate my roleplaying, but respond mostly out of character, and that's fine.
But when someone does respond in a character voice, it feels so great!
I try, the shell I need to crawl out of is large, and comfy though. It was easy being the big dumb fighter type, who would interject with things like "can I smash now?" Or asking the party "can we cook this?"
I've now got a face character and uh, it's hard being a face. At least they are overly dramatic, I can stall conversation with drama.
Yeah I feel you. I'm doing two campaigns right now, one is my first time as a player and the other is the first time as a DM haha, as a player I'm a bard so the face of the party and my old-school improv skills are getting tested for sure!
Personally I find fleshing out your character's backstory makes playing them a lot easier. If you know your character inside and out, you don't have to translate an event into their "language" and think about what they would do or say from their perspective, you just let the thing happen and the character will tell you how they respond.
When you laugh at our jokes, or respond (in or out of character) to our banter, or lean in with keen interest during an epic monologue, you feed our energy with yours. I can't get into a back-and-forth with a brick wall; even if you just laugh and describe what your character does instead of acting anything out, if I know you're having fun with it that gives me the mental fortitude needed to keep acting ridiculous.
Being the only one in character is one thing, it's a little awkward at first but once everyone knows it's your thing it's fine, but if you're the only one in character and everyone else just kinda deadpan responds it's an instant vibe kill. If there's someone in your party that is always in character, even if nobody else is, that means you make them feel comfortable enough to express their character, and that isn't nothing! I know they appreciate you letting them channel their character.
"Gods, I swear you fix one thing in a ritual, two more take it's place - my teleportation no longer puts me in the ground, but now my clothes arrive backwards and occasionally I'm upside down - didn't even touch those bits of the spell!"
"Gods, I swear you fix one thing in a ritual, two more take its place - my teleportation no longor puts me in the ground, but now my clothes arrive backwards and occasionally I'm puside down - didn't even touch those bits of the spell!"
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